Cision vs Featured in 2026: Enterprise media intelligence vs self-serve AI PR co-pilot
One is a 190-country platform built on PR Newswire and a million-contact journalist database. The other is a $29-a-month AI chat tool that hands you inbound opportunities instead of a list to cold-pitch.
Cision
Featured- Cision's journalist database covers 1M+ contacts with media monitoring in 190 countries and 75 languages. Featured has no outbound contact database at all; it only surfaces inbound requests.
- Featured includes GEO Visibility tracking, which shows how a brand appears in AI-generated search responses, on every plan including the free tier. Cision has no equivalent AI-answer monitoring in its feature set.
- Cision requires a sales demo and annual contract with pricing disclosed only after that process. Featured publishes its pricing outright: Free, $29/month Lite, and $79/month Pro.
- Cision owns PR Newswire, so press release distribution to a global wire network is built into the platform. Featured has no press release distribution feature.
- Featured caps usage with daily AI credits that reset each day, and it has no API. Cision offers API access on both tiers, limited on CisionOne and full on Enterprise.
- Cision is sized for Fortune 500 communications teams and large agencies; Featured is built for solo founders, consultants, and small teams doing their own earned media outreach.
Cision and Featured get grouped together as "PR software" but they solve opposite problems. Cision is the outbound heavyweight: a journalist database of more than a million contacts, media monitoring across 190 countries, and PR Newswire distribution, all sold through an enterprise sales process with no public pricing. Featured is the inbound alternative: an AI chat interface that surfaces journalist requests, podcast bookings, and speaking opportunities as they appear, with transparent pricing that starts free. If you already know which reporters you need to reach and want a system to manage that relationship at scale, Cision is built for you. If you would rather respond to journalists who are actively looking for a source right now, Featured gets you there for a fraction of the cost.
The tools at a glance
Cision
Enterprise PR intelligence platform covering 190 countries with PR Newswire distribution
Cision built CisionOne through a series of acquisitions, and the result is one of the broadest PR platforms available: media monitoring across print, broadcast, radio, podcasts, and social in 190 countries and 75 languages, a journalist and influencer database of more than one million contacts, social listening with sentiment scoring, and PR Newswire distribution owned outright. For a communications team that needs to know what is being said about a brand anywhere in the world and reach the right reporter about it, this is about as complete as PR software gets.
The database is the part that matters most for outreach. Contacts come with beat history, recent articles, and social following, and pitch tracking shows whether a journalist opened or responded. Combine that with owning PR Newswire and Cision can take a release from draft to global distribution without leaving the platform, something Featured has no equivalent for since it does not build or send releases at all.
None of this comes cheap or fast. There is no public pricing page and no self-serve signup; every buyer goes through a demo and an annual contract negotiation. The interface also shows its acquisition history, with legacy screens sitting next to newer ones. A two-person team or a boutique agency will find both the cost and the operational overhead out of proportion to what they need.
| Feature | CisionOne Contact for pricing | Enterprise Contact for pricing |
|---|---|---|
| Media monitoring | Yes | Yes |
| Countries covered | 190 | 190 |
| Journalist database | 1M+ contacts | 1M+ contacts |
| PR Newswire distribution | Add-on | Included |
| Social listening | Yes | Yes |
| API access | Limited | Full |
| Dedicated account manager | No | Yes |
Featured
AI-powered PR co-pilot for journalist requests, podcast pitching, and media opportunity discovery
Featured takes the opposite approach from Cision: instead of a database to search and pitch cold, it aggregates journalist requests from HARO-style feeds, podcast booking calls, bylined article slots, and speaking opportunities into one AI chat interface. You describe your expertise, and Featured Chat surfaces the requests that match, then helps you draft a response. There is no cold outreach step because the journalists are already asking for a source.
GEO Visibility is the feature that separates Featured from a typical opportunity-matching tool. It tracks where a brand shows up in AI-generated search answers and where competitors are getting cited instead, and it is included on every plan rather than gated behind an enterprise tier the way it is at most PR platforms that offer anything comparable at all. Automated workflows then run this and the opportunity matching continuously in the background, alerting by email, Slack, or SMS.
The catch is usage. Featured runs on daily AI credits, and the free tier's allowance is thin enough to cover a couple of opportunities a week before it resets. There is also no journalist database for proactive outreach and no API, so Featured only works as long as you are content responding to inbound demand rather than building your own contact list or piping data into other tools.
| Feature | Free $0/mo | Lite $29/mo (annual) | Pro $79/mo (annual) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Featured Chat | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Journalist request matching | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| GEO visibility tracking | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Automated workflows | Limited | Yes | Yes |
| Daily AI usage | Low | 5x Free | 5x Lite |
| Multi-channel alerts (Slack, SMS) | No | Yes | Yes |
Head-to-head feature comparison
| Feature | Cision | Featured |
|---|---|---|
| Media monitoring coverage | 190 countries, 75 languages | No (opportunity feeds, not broad monitoring) |
| Journalist/contact database | 1M+ contacts | No |
| Press release distribution | Yes (owns PR Newswire) | No |
| Social listening & sentiment | Yes | No |
| AI-generated search (GEO) visibility tracking | No | Yes (included on every plan) |
| Inbound opportunity matching | No | Yes (journalist requests, podcasts, speaking, bylines) |
| Automated pitch/response tracking | Yes (pitch opens/responses) | Yes (automated workflows with alerts) |
| Competitor coverage tracking | Yes (social share of voice) | Yes (competitor visibility watch) |
| Analytics & ROI reporting | Yes | No |
| API access | Limited on CisionOne, full on Enterprise | No |
| BI tool integration | Yes (Tableau, Power BI) | No |
| Self-serve signup | No | Yes |
| Free tier | No | Yes |
| Starting price | Contact for pricing | Free ($29/mo Lite, $79/mo Pro) |
Considering AI Peekaboo alongside Cision and Featured?
Cision has no AI-generated-search monitoring anywhere in its feature set, and Featured's GEO Visibility, while included on every plan, is a side feature of a journalist-opportunity tool with no API and daily credit caps that reset before serious tracking can accumulate. AI Peekaboo is built for the AI-visibility job specifically: a read and write API on every plan from $50/month, a Looker Studio connector, and white-label client delivery, tracking ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, and Google AI Mode. For a team that needs AI-search monitoring as the primary deliverable rather than a bonus feature bundled into press outreach, it is the more purpose-built option.
Read the AI Peekaboo review →Which should you choose?
CisionFeaturedCisionFeaturedCisionFeaturedCisionThe real dividing line is outbound versus inbound. Cision assumes you know which journalists you want to reach and gives you the database, monitoring, and wire distribution to do it at global scale, but only after a sales process and an annual contract. Featured assumes you would rather wait for journalists who are already looking for a source like you, and it gets you there for free or for $29 a month, with AI-search visibility thrown in. Neither tool does the other's job: Cision has no inbound opportunity matching, and Featured has no outbound database or wire distribution.
Bottom line
Book the Cision demo if press release distribution and a global outbound contact database matter more than budget, and you have the procurement process to support an annual contract. Sign up for Featured's free tier if you are a founder or small team that wants to test inbound opportunity matching before paying anything, and upgrade to Lite at $29/month once the daily credit cap starts getting in the way. Agencies running both proactive outreach and inbound response for different clients will likely end up needing both, since they are not substitutes for each other.
Frequently asked questions
Is Cision or Featured better for a small PR team with a limited budget?
Featured is the better fit for a limited budget: it has a real free tier and paid plans starting at $29 a month with no contract. Cision requires an annual contract negotiated through a sales demo, which puts it out of reach for most small teams regardless of feature quality.
Does Featured have a journalist database like Cision for cold pitching?
No, Featured does not have an outbound journalist database for cold pitching. It surfaces inbound journalist requests, podcast opportunities, and speaking slots that are already open, so you respond rather than prospect. Cision's 1M+ contact database is built specifically for outbound, proactive pitching.
Can Featured replace Cision for press release distribution?
No, Featured cannot replace Cision for press release distribution because Featured has no release-building or wire-distribution feature at all. Cision owns PR Newswire and integrates release drafting and distribution directly into CisionOne, which remains its clearest structural advantage over Featured.
Which tool tracks AI Overviews or AI-generated search visibility, Cision or Featured?
Featured tracks AI-generated search visibility through its GEO Visibility feature, included on every plan including the free tier. Cision does not currently include any AI-answer or AI Overviews monitoring in its published feature set.
Is Cision worth it for a mid-market company that only needs press coverage in one country?
Probably not. Cision's 190-country monitoring and PR Newswire reach are built for genuinely global communications teams, and paying enterprise pricing for that breadth when you only need single-market coverage is poor value. A leaner tool or Featured's inbound model is a better starting point for single-market needs.
How does Featured's daily credit limit compare to Cision's pricing model?
They are not comparable structures: Featured limits usage by daily AI credits that reset each day and scale with your plan tier, while Cision charges an annual contract fee with no usage cap disclosed publicly. Featured's limit mainly affects how many opportunities you can review per day; Cision's cost mainly affects who can afford to buy in at all.