Cision vs Hey Press in 2026: Enterprise PR platform vs a founder tool that no longer exists on its own
Cision is a global, million-contact media intelligence platform sold through an enterprise sales process. Hey Press was a lean journalist-search tool for startup founders, and it has since been absorbed into JournoFinder.
Cision
Hey Press- Hey Press is no longer an independent product. It merged into JournoFinder, and hey.press now functions mainly as a PR content and resource hub rather than an active tool.
- Cision's journalist database covers 1M+ contacts across 190 countries. Hey Press was built as a narrow, topic-based journalist search tool aimed at startup founders, with a much smaller scope even before the merger.
- Cision has no public pricing and requires a sales demo and annual contract. Hey Press has no pricing page on its own domain either; active pricing now lives on JournoFinder.
- Cision includes PR Newswire distribution, social listening, sentiment analysis, and an API. Hey Press, even at its peak, never had press release distribution or a newsroom feature.
- Hey Press was explicitly positioned for startup founders doing DIY PR, a segment Cision does not serve at all given its enterprise pricing and sales-led model.
- Neither tool currently documents any AI-generated-search or AI Overviews monitoring capability.
This comparison is lopsided in a specific way: Cision is a fully operational, if expensive, enterprise PR platform, while Hey Press as an independent product no longer exists. The hey.press domain now describes itself as "part of JournoFinder," redirecting active users to that platform while keeping its PR guides and comparison content live as a resource hub. If you are evaluating Hey Press today, you are really deciding between Cision's enterprise database and whatever JournoFinder offers, not between two live competing tools. We cover what each brought to the table so you know what you are actually choosing between.
The tools at a glance
Cision
Enterprise PR intelligence platform covering 190 countries with PR Newswire distribution
Cision is what a startup founder using Hey Press would eventually outgrow into, if the company ever reached the scale where a global communications team and a legal or investor relations function needed press coverage in dozens of markets simultaneously. CisionOne combines media monitoring in 190 countries and 75 languages, a database of more than a million journalist and influencer contacts, social listening with sentiment scoring, and PR Newswire distribution under one platform.
The database is continuously updated with beat history and recent articles per contact, and pitch tracking shows opens and responses, which gives PR teams a feedback loop Hey Press never had in its original topic-search form. Cision also owns PR Newswire outright, so releases go from draft to global wire distribution without leaving the platform, something no version of Hey Press or JournoFinder currently replicates.
The trade-off is the same regardless of who you are comparing Cision against: no public pricing, a mandatory sales demo, and annual contracts. A solo founder evaluating Hey Press because they wanted something lean and self-serve will find Cision the opposite of that on every axis except raw data depth.
| 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 |
Hey Press
Journalist discovery tool for startups, now part of JournoFinder
Hey Press launched with a simple pitch aimed at startup founders: search for journalists by the topic or beat they cover, skip the enterprise database subscription, and start pitching. It was built as the accessible middle ground between spreadsheet-and-Google research and a full platform like Cision, and it built up more than 1,000 PR professionals as users before its next step.
That next step was a merger into JournoFinder. The hey.press homepage now announces itself as "now part of JournoFinder," and anyone who wants the active journalist-search product is routed there. What remains on hey.press independently is a set of PR guides and comparison articles covering Muck Rack alternatives, Prowly, and how to pitch journalists as a founder, which are genuinely useful reading regardless of which tool you end up choosing.
The practical effect is that evaluating "Hey Press" today means evaluating JournoFinder's pricing and database under a different name. If the original founder-focused positioning is what appealed to you, that intent carried over into JournoFinder, but the standalone product with its own pricing and roadmap no longer operates.
| Feature | See JournoFinder Via JournoFinder |
|---|---|
| Journalist search | Via JournoFinder |
| Contact database | Via JournoFinder |
| PR guides and resources | Free on hey.press |
Head-to-head feature comparison
| Feature | Cision | Hey Press |
|---|---|---|
| Media monitoring coverage | 190 countries, 75 languages | No |
| Journalist/contact database | 1M+ contacts | Via JournoFinder (topic/beat search originally) |
| Press release distribution | Yes (owns PR Newswire) | No |
| Social listening & sentiment | Yes | No |
| Pitch/response tracking | Yes | No |
| Analytics & ROI reporting | Yes | No |
| API access | Limited on CisionOne, full on Enterprise | No |
| Self-serve signup | No | No |
| Free tier / free content | No | Yes (PR guides free on hey.press) |
| Active as an independent product | Yes | No (merged into JournoFinder) |
| Starting price | Contact for pricing | Via JournoFinder |
Which should you choose?
CisionCisionThis is not really a head-to-head between two active competitors. Cision is a fully built enterprise platform; Hey Press is a brand that now points to JournoFinder for its product and keeps its original domain alive mainly as PR education content. If you came here comparing the two as live alternatives, the more useful comparison is Cision versus JournoFinder, using Hey Press's guides as background reading along the way.
Bottom line
If you need enterprise-scale monitoring, a large proactive contact database, and press release distribution in one contract, book the Cision demo and budget for an annual agreement. If you were drawn to Hey Press because you wanted something lean and founder-friendly, skip hey.press as a product decision and go straight to JournoFinder to see its current pricing and database, then read the Hey Press guides on the way for context on how the PR tool landscape breaks down.
Frequently asked questions
Is Hey Press still a real alternative to Cision in 2026?
Hey Press is no longer a real alternative to Cision as an independent product, because it has merged into JournoFinder. The hey.press domain now redirects active users to that platform while keeping its original PR guides and comparison content live. If you want a genuine head-to-head against Cision, you should be evaluating JournoFinder's current pricing and database, not hey.press directly.
What happened to Hey Press after the JournoFinder merger?
Hey Press was absorbed into JournoFinder, which now provides the active journalist-search functionality that Hey Press originally built. The hey.press domain still operates, but mainly as a content hub for PR guides and tool comparison articles rather than as a standalone product with its own pricing.
Why is Cision so much more expensive than what Hey Press used to offer?
Cision is built for a completely different buyer: enterprise communications teams that need media monitoring in 190 countries, a database of more than a million contacts, and owned press release distribution through PR Newswire. Hey Press, even before the merger, was a lean topic-based search tool for startup founders with none of that infrastructure, which is why the pricing gap was never close.
Does Cision offer anything close to Hey Press's founder-friendly, self-serve positioning?
No, Cision has no self-serve signup at all. Every buyer goes through a sales demo and an annual contract negotiation, which is the opposite of the low-friction, founder-focused approach Hey Press was originally built around. A founder wanting that experience should look at JournoFinder or a similarly self-serve tool instead.
Are the PR guides on hey.press still worth reading if I end up choosing Cision?
The PR guides on hey.press are still worth reading even if you end up choosing Cision. The comparison guides covering Muck Rack alternatives and how to pitch journalists give a reasonably honest view of the broader PR tool landscape, and that context is useful regardless of which platform's enterprise scale you ultimately decide you need.