Cision vs Source of Sources in 2026: Enterprise media platform vs a free HARO-style email list
One is a global communications intelligence platform priced through a sales process. The other is a free email digest run by the person who invented the category.
Cision
Source of Sources- Source of Sources is completely free with no paid tiers. Cision is entirely custom-priced and requires a sales process before you see a number.
- Peter Shankman, who founded Source of Sources, also created the original HARO, which Cision acquired and later shut down in its original form.
- Cision's journalist database has more than one million contacts with beat data, recent articles, and social profiles. Source of Sources has no searchable database at all, only email digests up to three times a day.
- Cision includes media monitoring, social listening, and PR Newswire distribution. Source of Sources has none of these; it is exclusively a journalist-query email list.
- Neither platform offers meaningful self-serve API access for a typical buyer: Cision limits API to Enterprise contracts, and Source of Sources has no API, dashboard, or tracking of any kind.
- Source of Sources enforces a strict no-spam policy where off-topic pitchers are removed from the list without appeal, a quality control mechanism Cision does not need since it is a paid contact database rather than an opt-in query list.
Comparing Cision to Source of Sources only makes sense once you accept they are not competing for the same job. Cision is CisionOne, a paid, enterprise-scoped platform with a million-plus journalist database, monitoring across 190 countries, social listening, and PR Newswire distribution, sold through a sales team with no public price. Source of Sources is Peter Shankman's free rebuild of the original HARO model he created in 2008 and later sold to Cision itself: journalists submit queries, subscribers get up to three email digests a day, and you reply directly with no platform, dashboard, or fee involved. One is infrastructure for a comms department. The other is a free source of leads for anyone who signs up with a name and email.
The tools at a glance
Cision
Enterprise PR intelligence platform covering 190 countries with PR Newswire distribution
Cision is CisionOne, an enterprise communications intelligence platform built through years of acquisitions and used by 84% of the Fortune 500. Media monitoring spans print, online, broadcast, radio, podcasts, and social media across 190 countries and 75 languages, paired with a journalist and influencer database of more than one million contacts kept current by automated systems and human editors.
Because Cision owns PR Newswire, press release distribution runs inside the same platform as monitoring and outreach, targeted by industry, geography, or journalist segment. Social listening and sentiment tracking sit alongside all of it, feeding a reporting layer built for board-level presentations and an API that reaches Tableau and Power BI on higher-tier contracts.
None of it is accessible without a sales conversation, and pricing is never published. The interface reflects the platform's acquisition history and takes real ramp-up time to learn. For a team with genuine global reach and the budget to match, Cision remains one of the most complete platforms available; for anyone smaller, the cost and complexity are disproportionate.
| Feature | CisionOne Contact for pricing | Enterprise Contact for pricing |
|---|---|---|
| Media monitoring | Yes | Yes |
| Countries covered | 190 | 190 |
| Journalist database | Yes | Yes |
| PR Newswire distribution | Add-on | Included |
| Social listening | Yes | Yes |
| API access | Limited | Full |
| Dedicated account manager | No | Yes |
Source of Sources
Free daily email digest connecting journalists with expert sources, from the founder of HARO
Source of Sources is run by Peter Shankman, the person who originally built Help a Reporter Out (HARO) in 2008 before selling it to Cision, which later shut the original version down. SOS recreates the core mechanic with none of the platform layer: journalists submit queries through a simple form, Shankman reviews them by hand, and subscribers get compiled digests by email up to three times a day.
There is no login, dashboard, or search interface. If a query matches your expertise, you reply directly to the journalist from the email, and the relationship is yours from that first message with zero tracking or analytics involved. Signing up takes seconds: a name and an email address, nothing else.
Shankman enforces a strict relevance rule, removing off-topic pitchers from the list without appeal, which keeps quality reasonable given the total absence of filtering or categorization tools. This is not a scalable SaaS product; Shankman describes running it as a few minutes of work per day, funded by nothing more than requests for charity donations or social shoutouts. As a serious standalone PR tool it is thin, but as a free supplementary channel it costs nothing to add.
| Feature | Free $0 |
|---|---|
| Daily journalist query emails | Yes |
| Direct journalist contact | Yes |
| Dashboard or search interface | No |
| Topic filtering | No |
| Analytics or tracking | No |
| API access | No |
Head-to-head feature comparison
| Feature | Cision | Source of Sources |
|---|---|---|
| Journalist database (searchable) | Yes (1M+ contacts, 190 countries) | No |
| Media monitoring | Yes | No |
| Press release distribution | Yes (owns PR Newswire) | No |
| Social listening | Yes | No |
| Topic filtering | Yes (by keyword, brand, geography) | No |
| Analytics or coverage tracking | Yes | No |
| API access | Limited on CisionOne, full on Enterprise | No |
| Cost to join | Custom (sales-led, annual contract) | $0 |
| Signup process | Demo and negotiated contract | Name and email, instant |
Which should you choose?
CisionSource of SourcesCisionSource of SourcesCisionCisionThis comparison exists mostly because Source of Sources and Cision share a bloodline: Shankman built HARO, Cision bought it, and Source of Sources is what he built afterward with none of Cision's commercial layer attached. That history does not make them substitutes. Cision is a paid, structured, searchable platform for teams that need to prove media ROI to a board. Source of Sources is a free, unstructured mailing list for anyone willing to read three daily emails and reply fast. The two rarely compete for the same buyer; more often, Source of Sources gets used as a free add-on next to a paid tool like Cision, not instead of it.
Bottom line
Pick Cision if you run comms for an organization with real global media exposure and need monitoring, a searchable database, and wire distribution under one contract, and you have the budget and patience for a sales process. Sign up for Source of Sources regardless of what else you use, since it costs nothing and takes thirty seconds; just do not expect it to replace search, filtering, or coverage tracking. Small teams outgrowing SOS should look at Qwoted or Connectively before jumping straight to Cision-scale pricing.
Frequently asked questions
Is Source of Sources the same company as Cision, since they share a HARO connection?
Source of Sources and Cision are separate, unrelated companies today despite sharing a HARO connection. Peter Shankman founded the original Help a Reporter Out (HARO) in 2008 and later sold it to Cision, which eventually wound HARO down in its original form. Source of Sources is Shankman's independent relaunch of the same idea, built and run entirely separately from Cision.
Can Source of Sources replace Cision for a small PR consultancy?
Source of Sources cannot fully replace Cision for a small PR consultancy, since it has no search, filtering, analytics, or media monitoring, and query volume and outlet quality are not publicly documented. Cision offers a searchable million-plus journalist database, monitoring across 190 countries, and press release distribution, which SOS simply does not attempt to provide. Consultancies typically use SOS as a free supplementary channel, not a Cision replacement.
How much does Source of Sources cost compared to Cision?
Source of Sources is entirely free, with no paid tiers of any kind. Cision has no published pricing at all; every account requires a sales demo and a negotiated annual contract, which for enterprise PR platforms in this category typically runs into five or six figures a year depending on scope.
Does Source of Sources let you search or filter journalist queries by topic?
Source of Sources has no filtering or search by topic; it sends every subscriber the identical full digest with no categorization by topic or industry. Cision, by contrast, lets you configure monitoring and outreach by keyword, brand, publication tier, or geography, which is one of the clearest functional gaps between the two.
Why would a company pay for Cision if a free option like Source of Sources exists?
Because they are not solving the same problem. Cision provides a searchable database of over a million journalist contacts, global media monitoring, social listening, and owned press release distribution through PR Newswire, none of which Source of Sources offers. SOS is a passive, unfiltered email list with no platform behind it, useful as a free add-on but not a substitute for structured monitoring or outreach infrastructure.
Is Source of Sources reliable enough to use as a primary PR strategy in 2026?
Source of Sources works better as a supplementary channel than a primary strategy, since it has no analytics, no tracking, and undocumented query volume. Its own positioning acknowledges this: it is a free, low-effort list run by one person, not a scalable platform. Teams wanting a primary tool with more structure should look at Qwoted or Connectively before considering enterprise options like Cision.