Prezly vs Qwoted in 2026: Newsroom-and-CRM platform vs a source marketplace with a free tier
One builds a permanent, branded newsroom and campaign CRM starting at 100 EUR a month. The other is a two-sided marketplace where journalists post requests and sources respond, with a genuine free plan.
Prezly
Qwoted- Prezly gives every story a permanent, indexed newsroom that keeps generating organic and AI-search views after a campaign ends. Qwoted has no publishing or newsroom component at all.
- Qwoted's free Basic tier includes expert database access and daily opportunity emails at no cost. Prezly has no permanent free plan, only a 14-day trial on Essential and Standard.
- Qwoted operates as a two-sided marketplace where journalists and podcasters actively post source requests. Prezly requires you to import and manage your own contact list for outbound pitching.
- Qwoted confirms it has no API or CRM integrations on any plan, including Teams. Prezly does not list API access in its own pricing table either, so neither tool documents a way to pull data into an external CRM.
- Prezly's Standard plan adds white-label newsrooms with a custom domain for 250 EUR/mo. Qwoted's white-label option only exists on the Teams tier, which is priced by custom quote.
- Qwoted's free-tier alerts run two hours behind Pro and Teams alerts, letting paying users respond to a request first. Prezly's campaign and analytics features are identical across all three of its tiers.
- For agency work, Prezly's Standard plan supports two users at 250 EUR/mo, while Qwoted's Teams tier adds unlimited pitches and a team dashboard for a custom price.
Prezly and Qwoted solve different halves of the PR workflow. Prezly is a CRM and publishing platform: you bring your own journalist contacts, publish stories to a branded newsroom that stays indexed and searchable long after a campaign ends, and run pitch campaigns with analytics included on every plan, starting at 100 EUR a month. Qwoted skips the newsroom and the outbound campaign tooling and instead runs a marketplace, where journalists and podcasters post what they need and PR teams or experts respond, backed by a free Basic tier that caps you at two pitches a month. Prezly assumes you already have a contact list to manage. Qwoted assumes you do not, and would rather match you to journalists who are actively looking right now. Neither tool has an API, so the choice comes down to which problem you actually have this year.
The tools at a glance
Prezly
PR CRM with branded newsrooms, email outreach, and campaign analytics in one platform
Prezly combines a branded online newsroom, contact and relationship management, and email outreach with campaign analytics in one platform. Every story you publish lives on an indexed, permanent site instead of an email attachment that disappears into an inbox, and Prezly has reported millions of organic views through client newsrooms generated with no active campaigns running, including views driven by AI systems increasingly citing indexed newsroom content.
The CRM side lets you tag and segment journalists by beat or outlet, tracks opens and clicks on pitches, and turns a contact list into a relationship history rather than a cold spreadsheet. You bring your own contacts, since Prezly is not a media database, but pitching, publishing, and coverage logging all happen inside one account. It is used by 500+ PR teams, including clients like IKEA, Sony, and Emirates.
Pricing is in euros, which adds currency uncertainty for teams outside Europe, and the Essential plan restricts you to one user and one site with a 5,000-contact cap. White-label newsrooms and localization require the Standard plan at 250 EUR/mo. A 14-day free trial with no credit card required makes it easy to test the newsroom before committing.
| Feature | Essential 100 EUR/mo | Standard 250 EUR/mo | Enterprise Custom |
|---|---|---|---|
| Users included | 1 | 2 | Custom |
| Contact limit | 5,000 | 10,000 | Custom |
| Branded, indexed newsroom | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| White-label / custom domain | No | Yes | Yes |
| Localization and auto-translation | No | Yes | Yes |
| 14-day free trial | Yes | Yes | No |
Qwoted
Expert source marketplace connecting journalists, podcasters, and PR teams with credible voices across every industry
Qwoted runs a two-sided marketplace rather than a contact list. Journalists and podcasters post source requests when they need an expert, and PR teams, founders, or subject-matter experts respond directly, which means the media professional on the other end is already in sourcing mode. The platform has been running since 2017 and was built by people with media backgrounds, which shows in details like how source requests are structured and how podcast guest booking is handled alongside traditional press.
The free Basic tier includes expert database access, daily opportunity emails, and real-time alerts, though free users see a two-hour delay on those alerts compared to paid tiers. Pro, at $149/month, raises the pitch cap to 35 a month, removes the alert delay, and adds pitch intelligence. Teams, priced by quote, adds unlimited pitches, a team dashboard, and white-label delivery for agencies managing multiple client programs.
What Qwoted does not have is a CRM, an API, or any newsroom or publishing layer, so pitch activity stays inside the platform rather than syncing to Salesforce, HubSpot, or a client-facing site. The two-pitch cap on the free tier is also tight for anyone trying to run more than an occasional media relationship.
| Feature | Basic Free | Pro $149/month | Teams Contact for pricing |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pitches per month | 2 | 35 | Unlimited |
| Real-time alerts | 2-hour delay | No delay | No delay |
| Pitch intelligence | No | Yes | Yes |
| White-label | No | No | Yes |
| Team dashboard | No | No | Yes |
| API access | No | No | No |
Head-to-head feature comparison
| Feature | Prezly | Qwoted |
|---|---|---|
| Core model | Outbound: bring your own contacts, pitch and publish | Inbound: journalists post requests, you respond |
| Journalist / media contact database | No (bring your own contacts) | Yes (expert and journalist profiles, marketplace-matched) |
| Contact CRM | Yes | No |
| Branded newsroom / publishing | Yes (indexed, SEO and AI-discoverable) | No |
| Email pitch campaigns | Yes | Limited (respond to inbound requests, no outbound campaign builder) |
| Coverage tracking | Yes | No |
| Free tier | No (14-day trial only) | Yes (Basic, 2 pitches/mo) |
| White-label delivery | Standard plan and above | Teams plan only |
| Team / agency collaboration | Up to 2 users on Standard | Yes (Teams: dashboard, unlimited pitches) |
| API access | Not publicly documented | No (confirmed on all tiers) |
| Starting price | 100 EUR/mo (Essential) | Free (Basic); $149/mo for Pro |
Considering AI Peekaboo alongside Prezly and Qwoted?
Prezly newsrooms are increasingly cited by AI systems generating answers about your brand, which is a real passive-discovery advantage neither Qwoted's marketplace nor its pitch tracking can match. But neither tool tells you whether your brand is actually showing up when someone asks ChatGPT, Gemini, or Perplexity a question in your category. AI Peekaboo tracks those citations directly, with a read and write API on every plan from $50 per month and white-label reporting for agencies, closing the measurement gap that a newsroom or a source marketplace leaves open on its own.
Read the AI Peekaboo review →Which should you choose?
PrezlyQwotedPrezlyQwotedPrezlyQwotedPrezlyThese tools rarely compete for the same budget line because they start from opposite assumptions. Prezly assumes you have contacts and gives you the infrastructure to pitch, publish, and measure. Qwoted assumes you do not, and gets you in front of journalists who are already asking. A well-resourced agency could reasonably run both: Prezly for owned newsroom infrastructure and client campaigns, Qwoted as a free or low-cost inbound channel layered on top. Most teams will pick based on whether they already have a contact list worth managing, not on price alone.
Bottom line
Choose Prezly if you already have journalist relationships worth organizing, want a permanent newsroom that keeps earning traffic between campaigns, and can absorb 100 EUR/mo in a euro-denominated budget. Choose Qwoted if you are starting from zero contacts, want to test the waters for free, or specifically need podcast guest-booking tools alongside press outreach. Qwoted's ceiling is real once you outgrow the pitch caps and hit the missing API, at which point Prezly's CRM and newsroom become the more durable investment.
Frequently asked questions
Is Qwoted's free plan a real alternative to paying for Prezly in 2026?
Qwoted's free Basic tier is a legitimate starting point for solo practitioners and small businesses, with expert database access and daily opportunity emails at zero cost, though it caps you at two pitches a month and delays alerts by two hours versus paid users. Prezly has no free tier at all, only a 14-day trial, so if budget is the deciding factor Qwoted's free plan is the more realistic option; if you need to run a proactive outbound campaign to your own contact list, Prezly is built for that and Qwoted's marketplace model is not.
Does Prezly or Qwoted give me a database to find new journalist contacts?
Neither tool ships a searchable database of journalist contacts the way a dedicated media database does. Prezly is explicit that you bring your own list; it is a CRM and newsroom, not a discovery tool. Qwoted gets closer through its marketplace model, since journalists post what they need and you respond, so you can build relationships with people you did not already know, but you cannot browse or search their contact list directly. For pure contact discovery, a database tool like Roxhill or Muck Rack fits better than either.
Can a solo PR freelancer run entirely on Qwoted instead of Prezly?
Yes, a solo freelancer can run on Qwoted's free or $149-a-month Pro plan without touching Prezly at all, since Qwoted needs no outbound contact list and its expert database plus daily opportunity emails cover the core workflow of responding to journalist requests. The trade-off is volume: two pitches a month on the free tier, or 35 on Pro, is a ceiling that a freelancer publishing regular commentary will hit quickly, and Qwoted has no newsroom to house that content once it is placed.
What does Qwoted's white-label option cost compared to Prezly's?
Qwoted only offers white-label on its Teams tier, priced by custom quote rather than a published number, while Prezly includes white-label newsrooms with a custom domain starting at its Standard plan for 250 EUR a month. For agencies that want a predictable, published price for white-label delivery, Prezly's Standard tier is the more transparent option.
Which tool is better for podcast guest booking, Prezly or Qwoted?
Qwoted is built for podcast guest booking specifically, with tooling designed around how podcast hosts evaluate guests differently from how journalists evaluate press sources. Prezly has no podcast-specific workflow; its feature set centers on press releases, newsroom stories, and email pitch campaigns, so podcast booking would run through Prezly's general contact and campaign tools rather than a purpose-built flow.
Do either Prezly or Qwoted offer an API for pulling data into a CRM?
Qwoted confirms it has no API on any plan, including Teams, and cannot connect to Salesforce, HubSpot, or similar CRM tools. Prezly does not list API access as a feature on any of its published tiers either, so teams that need programmatic access to pitch, coverage, or contact data will not find it natively in either platform.