Roxhill vs SourceBottle in 2026: UK enterprise database vs Australia's affordable human-pitching directory
Roxhill sells deep UK journalist data, monitoring, and spokesperson analytics with pricing locked behind a demo call. SourceBottle is free to join and adds human-driven pitching for as little as $25, built around Australian media.
Roxhill
SourceBottle- Roxhill has no published pricing and no free tier. SourceBottle publishes exact prices for all four of its tiers, including a free entry tier.
- Roxhill's journalist database is UK-focused. SourceBottle's call-out volume and relationships are predominantly Australian, so neither is a strong default for a global program.
- Roxhill bundles media monitoring, spokespeople share-of-voice analytics, and press release distribution into one platform. SourceBottle's feature set centers on the Expert Directory and human-driven pitching, with none of Roxhill's monitoring, analytics, or distribution tools.
- SourceBottle's paid plans use a real person to manually pitch your Expert Profile to matching call-outs. Roxhill has no equivalent human-pitching layer; its model is you searching the database and pitching journalists yourself.
- Neither tool offers an API or white-label delivery.
- SourceBottle's Agency plan at $130/month supports up to 5 Expert Profiles. Roxhill does not price per client profile; it is contact-for-pricing at the account level.
- Roxhill offers a managed bespoke reporting service for board-ready deliverables. SourceBottle has no comparable reporting layer.
Roxhill and SourceBottle rarely show up on the same shortlist, and looking at what each one actually does explains why. Roxhill is a UK-built media intelligence platform that bundles a journalist database, monitoring, spokesperson share-of-voice analytics, and press release distribution into one sales-led product with no published pricing. SourceBottle is a much narrower Australian tool: a free Expert Directory plus call-out alerts, with an optional human team that pitches your profile once you pay, starting at $25 a pitch. One is priced for agency and enterprise communications budgets and built around UK press depth. The other is priced for individual experts and small businesses, with its strongest coverage in Australia. The comparison is less about which tool is better and more about whether your program even needs what Roxhill offers, or whether SourceBottle's lighter, cheaper model already covers what you are trying to do.
The tools at a glance
Roxhill
Media intelligence platform for UK and global PR with journalist database, media monitoring, and spokespeople analytics
Roxhill is a UK-built media intelligence platform for professional PR and communications teams. The journalist database is the foundation, with profiles across UK national, regional, and trade press that get updated as journalists change outlets or shift beats, editorial upkeep that generic global databases rarely match at the same depth for the UK market.
On top of the database, Roxhill adds media monitoring with configurable smart folders, a spokespeople analytics module comparing how your named experts are covered against competitor spokespeople, and press release distribution built directly into the platform. A team that would otherwise be paying for a database, a monitoring tool, and a distribution service separately gets all three bundled together.
None of that comes cheap or fast to evaluate. Both Professional and Enterprise tiers are contact-for-pricing only, with no free trial, so sizing the cost requires a demo call. There is also no API and no white-label option on either tier, and the database, while strong for UK press, thins out for programs weighted toward North America or APAC.
| Feature | Professional Contact for pricing | Enterprise Contact for pricing |
|---|---|---|
| Journalist database access | Yes | Yes |
| Media monitoring with smart folders | Yes | Yes |
| Spokespeople share-of-voice analytics | Yes | Yes |
| Press release distribution | Yes | Yes |
| Bespoke board-ready reports | Add-on | Included |
| API access | No | No |
SourceBottle
Free journalist-to-source matching platform with optional human-driven pitching service
SourceBottle started in 2009 as Australia's version of HARO and has since built out a searchable Expert Directory and a paid, human-run pitching service. The free tier still works like a classic call-out list, journalists post what they need and subscribers respond, but the Expert Directory also lets journalists search for sources directly without a call-out being posted first.
What separates SourceBottle from a database like Roxhill's is who does the matching on paid plans. Rather than software or your own manual search, a real person on SourceBottle's team reads call-outs and pitches Expert Profiles that fit. The No Pitch No Pay option at $25 per pitch suits experts who only expect occasional media interest, since you only pay when a pitch actually goes out, with no monitoring or database subscription required.
The scope is narrower than Roxhill by design. There is no media monitoring, no spokesperson analytics, and no press release distribution, only expert-to-journalist matching. And the media relationships behind it skew heavily Australian, so US or UK experts will see meaningfully less relevant activity than a database built around their home market.
| Feature | Free $0 | No Pitch No Pay $25/pitch | Unlimited Pitches $65/month | Agency $130/month |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Expert Directory listing | Basic | Basic | Priority | Priority |
| Expert profile keywords | 10 | 20 | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Human-driven pitching | No | Up to 3/mo | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Expert Profiles supported | 1 | 1 | 1 | Up to 5 |
| Helpdesk support | No | No | Yes | Yes |
| API access | No | No | No | No |
Head-to-head feature comparison
| Feature | Roxhill | SourceBottle |
|---|---|---|
| Core model | Searchable database, you find and pitch journalists yourself | Free directory and call-out alerts, paid human pitching |
| Primary media market | UK-strong, international coverage thinner | Predominantly Australian |
| Cost to join | No free tier, contact for pricing | Free to join, paid tiers for pitching |
| Journalist database depth | Strong UK depth with editorial intelligence on beat and outlet moves | None, no proactive journalist database, only inbound call-outs |
| Media monitoring | Yes, with smart folders | No |
| Spokespeople / share-of-voice analytics | Yes | No |
| Press release distribution | Yes, built in | No |
| Human-driven pitching | No, self-serve database model | Yes, on paid tiers |
| Agency / multi-client plan | Not structured per profile, account-level contact pricing | Yes, Agency ($130/mo, up to 5 profiles) |
| API access | No | No |
| Starting price | Contact for pricing (sales-led) | $25/pitch (No Pitch No Pay) |
Which should you choose?
RoxhillSourceBottleRoxhillSourceBottleRoxhillSourceBottleRoxhillThese two are solving for different budgets and different geographies at the same time, which is why they rarely compete directly. Roxhill is a UK-built, sales-priced platform for communications teams that need database depth, monitoring, and spokesperson measurement bundled together, exactly the kind of program SourceBottle was never built to run. SourceBottle's strength is being cheap, human-assisted, and honest about where its coverage is strongest, which is Australia. A UK comms team evaluating Roxhill has little reason to consider SourceBottle as an alternative, and an Australian small business weighing a $25 pitch against a Roxhill demo call has effectively already answered its own question.
Bottom line
Book the Roxhill demo if you are running a UK-focused communications program that needs a serious journalist database, monitoring, and spokesperson analytics under one roof, and go in ready to discuss team size since pricing depends on that conversation. If your media targets are mostly Australian, or you want a human to handle pitching without a large monthly commitment, create a free SourceBottle Expert Profile and try the $25 No Pitch No Pay tier before considering Unlimited Pitches at $65 a month.
Frequently asked questions
Should a UK PR agency consider SourceBottle instead of Roxhill?
SourceBottle makes more sense as a supplementary channel than a primary tool for a UK PR agency, since its call-out volume and media relationships are predominantly Australian and a UK agency would see far less relevant activity than on Roxhill, which is built specifically around UK national, regional, and trade press. SourceBottle could still work as a low-cost add-on if the agency also has Australian clients, but it is not a substitute for Roxhill's UK database depth.
Does SourceBottle offer anything like Roxhill's spokesperson share-of-voice tracking?
SourceBottle has no analytics dashboard or coverage tracking of any kind; its feature set is limited to an Expert Directory, call-out alerts, and human-driven pitching. Roxhill's spokespeople analytics module, which compares how your experts are covered against named competitors, has no equivalent anywhere in SourceBottle's platform.
Why is SourceBottle so much cheaper than Roxhill?
SourceBottle publishes transparent, low pay-as-you-go pricing starting at $25 per pitch because it is a narrower product: a directory listing plus a human team that manually pitches your profile to Australian call-outs. Roxhill bundles a full journalist database, monitoring, spokesperson analytics, and press release distribution into one enterprise platform sold through a sales process, which is a different scale of product entirely, not just a pricing gap.
Can I use Roxhill for press release distribution instead of a separate service?
Yes, Roxhill includes press release distribution built into the platform, targeted using its own journalist database so you can filter by outlet type, beat, or location rather than sending to an undifferentiated list. SourceBottle has no press release distribution feature; its scope is limited to expert-to-journalist matching through call-outs and directory listings.
Is SourceBottle's human-driven pitching more effective than doing outreach through Roxhill's database myself?
The two solve different problems rather than compete directly. SourceBottle's paid plans hand the actual pitching to a team member who reviews call-outs and matches your profile, which removes the work of monitoring and responding yourself. Roxhill gives you the database and editorial intelligence to identify and pitch UK journalists on your own initiative, with no human-matching service included at any tier, so the outreach itself stays on you.