Hey Press vs SourceBottle in 2026: a search tool folded into JournoFinder vs Australia's free directory with human pitching
Hey Press no longer operates as an independent product; hey.press is now a PR content hub. SourceBottle is a free Australian expert directory with an optional human-driven pitching service starting at $25 per pitch.
Hey Press
SourceBottle- Hey Press is no longer an independently operating product. It merged into JournoFinder, and hey.press now functions primarily as a PR content and guides hub.
- SourceBottle's free Expert Profile gives passive discoverability in a searchable directory, something with no direct equivalent in what Hey Press originally offered as a pure search tool.
- SourceBottle's human-driven pitching service, starting at $25 per pitch with no monthly commitment, has a real person on the team match your profile to relevant journalist call-outs.
- SourceBottle's media relationships are predominantly Australian; founders targeting US or UK press will find lower call-out volume than platforms with stronger international reach.
- SourceBottle's Agency plan supports up to 5 Expert Profiles for $130/month, aimed at PR professionals managing several clients under one account.
- Neither tool has an API. SourceBottle has none on any tier. Hey Press's API status now depends entirely on JournoFinder, since hey.press has no live product left to integrate with.
- The comparison guides still hosted on hey.press remain useful reading for founders evaluating the PR tool landscape, regardless of which live platform they end up choosing.
Hey Press and SourceBottle both aimed to give founders and small businesses a low-cost way into earned media, but they took different routes and only one of them is still driving. Hey Press was an outbound search tool: find a journalist by topic, then pitch them cold. SourceBottle runs the HARO-style inbound model instead, a free Expert Directory plus journalist call-out alerts, but has layered a genuinely distinctive feature on top: a human-driven pitching service where a real person on SourceBottle's team matches your profile to relevant call-outs. Hey Press has since merged into JournoFinder, leaving hey.press as a content hub rather than a working product, while SourceBottle continues operating exactly as designed, with its main real constraint being that most of its media relationships are Australian.
The tools at a glance
Hey Press
Journalist discovery tool for startups, now part of JournoFinder
Hey Press launched as a lean journalist search tool for startup founders who wanted to find relevant press contacts without paying for a Muck Rack-level subscription. The core model was outbound: search by topic or beat, get a list of matching journalists, and pitch them on your own initiative.
The product has since merged into JournoFinder, and hey.press now announces itself as "now part of JournoFinder" on the homepage. Anyone trying to use the live search functionality is directed off-domain to JournoFinder's own site and pricing, which is not documented on hey.press.
What remains natively on hey.press is a library of PR guides and comparison articles, including content on journalist request platforms and how to pitch as a startup founder. These guides hold up as independent reading, even though there is no product left under the Hey Press name to evaluate on its own pricing or feature set.
| Feature | See JournoFinder Via JournoFinder |
|---|---|
| Journalist search | Via JournoFinder |
| Contact database | Via JournoFinder |
| PR guides and resources | Free on hey.press |
SourceBottle
Free journalist-to-source matching platform with optional human-driven pitching service
SourceBottle is an Australian publicity platform founded in 2009 by Bec, built on the same journalist-to-source model as HARO: journalists post call-outs, and SourceBottle emails them to subscribers who match the topic. A free Expert Profile also gives you a permanent, searchable listing in the Expert Directory, so journalists can find you without you having to spot and respond to a call-out first.
What sets SourceBottle apart is the shift from purely automated matching to human-driven pitching. On the paid tiers, a real member of the SourceBottle team reviews incoming call-outs and proactively submits Expert Profiles to the ones that fit, rather than leaving every match to the subscriber's own attention and keyword luck. The No Pitch No Pay option, at $25 per pitch with a cap of 3 per month, is designed specifically for experts who only expect occasional media opportunities.
The Agency plan, at $130/month for up to 5 Expert Profiles with unlimited keywords and pitching, makes SourceBottle viable for PR professionals managing several clients. The clear limitation is geography: the platform's media relationships and call-out volume are predominantly Australian, so founders targeting US or UK press will see meaningfully less relevant activity than they would on platforms built around those markets.
| Feature | Free $0 | No Pitch No Pay $25/pitch | Unlimited Pitches $65/mo | Agency $130/mo |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Expert Profile | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Expert Directory listing | Basic | Basic | Priority | Priority |
| Human-driven pitching | ✗ | Up to 3/mo | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Expert Profiles supported | 1 | 1 | 1 | Up to 5 |
| Helpdesk support | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ |
Head-to-head feature comparison
| Feature | Hey Press | SourceBottle |
|---|---|---|
| Free tier | Not published on hey.press | Yes |
| Pricing published on own domain | No, redirects to JournoFinder | Yes |
| Outbound journalist search | Original core feature, now via JournoFinder | No |
| Inbound call-out / query alerts | No | Yes |
| Searchable expert directory listing | No | Yes, free on all tiers |
| Human-driven pitching service | No | Yes (paid tiers), team pitches your profile for you |
| PR guides and resource content | Yes, comparison and pitching guides | No |
| API access | Depends on JournoFinder | No |
| Actively developed as a standalone product | No, merged into JournoFinder | Yes |
| Starting price | Via JournoFinder | Free |
Which should you choose?
SourceBottleSourceBottleSourceBottle is simply the more useful tool of the two as they exist today, but the comparison is worth making because it shows two different takes on the same low-budget PR problem. Hey Press was built as an outbound search product and no longer operates that way under its own name; hey.press is a content hub now, with the live journalist search functionality sitting under JournoFinder. SourceBottle kept building on its original HARO-style model, adding a searchable directory and, notably, a human-driven pitching layer that most free or low-cost tools in this category do not offer. The real limiting factor for SourceBottle is not features, it is geography: the platform's strength is Australian media, so its usefulness drops for founders targeting other markets.
Bottom line
Create a free SourceBottle Expert Profile if you are targeting Australian media, then consider No Pitch No Pay at $25 per pitch once you want SourceBottle's team actively matching you to call-outs. Do not evaluate Hey Press as software: read its guides if useful, then go to JournoFinder if the original outbound journalist-search pitch is what you actually wanted. For US or UK-focused founders, neither tool's live database is the right primary fit, so look at a platform with stronger coverage in those markets instead.
Frequently asked questions
Is Hey Press still a product I can sign up for in 2026?
No, not as an independent product. Hey Press merged into JournoFinder, and hey.press now functions as a content hub for PR guides while the live journalist search tool operates under the JournoFinder name and pricing.
Is SourceBottle actually free, or does it require a paid plan to be useful?
SourceBottle is genuinely free at the entry level: creating an Expert Profile, getting listed in the Expert Directory, and receiving journalist call-out alerts all cost nothing with no time limit. Paid plans only add the human-driven pitching service on top of that free base.
Does SourceBottle work for US or UK media, or is it only useful in Australia?
SourceBottle accepts global experts and journalists, but the bulk of its call-out activity and media relationships are Australian, so founders targeting US or UK press should expect meaningfully lower relevant call-out volume than they would get from platforms with stronger international reach.
How is SourceBottle different from a free digest like Source of Sources?
The core call-out model is similar, but SourceBottle adds a searchable Expert Directory for passive discoverability and a human-driven pitching service where a real team member proactively matches your profile to relevant call-outs, rather than leaving every match entirely to the subscriber's own attention.
What does SourceBottle's No Pitch No Pay plan actually cost?
No Pitch No Pay costs $25 per pitch, with SourceBottle's team pitching your Expert Profile to up to 3 relevant journalist call-outs per month and no charge in months where no pitch is made, which suits experts with infrequent media opportunities.
Does either Hey Press or SourceBottle offer an API for pulling media data into other tools?
No. SourceBottle has no API access or CRM integrations on any tier. Hey Press has no live product of its own to offer an API for; any integration question would need to be directed to JournoFinder instead.