PRWeb vs Source of Sources in 2026: Paid press release distribution vs a free HARO-style query digest
PRWeb publishes your announcement to a paid distribution network starting at $120. Source of Sources costs nothing and only sends you journalist queries to respond to, no publishing involved.
PRWeb
Source of Sources- PRWeb charges $120 to $480 per release. Source of Sources is completely free for both journalists and sources, with no paid tier at all.
- PRWeb publishes and distributes your own content. Source of Sources does not publish anything; it only forwards journalist queries for you to respond to directly.
- Source of Sources has no dashboard, search, or filtering by topic. Every subscriber gets the identical digest up to three times a day.
- PRWeb's reporting shows views and syndication pickup counts. Source of Sources has no tracking of any kind since replies go directly from your inbox to the journalist.
- Neither tool has an API, but PRWeb at least has a formal platform with tiers and a release builder, while Source of Sources is literally an email list.
- Source of Sources enforces a strict no-spam policy: off-topic pitches get you removed from the list with no appeal. PRWeb has no equivalent enforcement because it is not a two-way pitching system.
- PRWeb is built for a company with something to announce. Source of Sources is built for an individual expert waiting to be asked.
PRWeb and Source of Sources get compared because both show up in searches for cheap or free PR options, but they do opposite jobs. PRWeb takes a release you have written and pushes it out to a network of news sites, aggregators, and search engines for a flat per-release fee starting at $120. Source of Sources, run by Peter Shankman, the person who built the original Help a Reporter Out (HARO), does the reverse: it emails you journalist queries up to three times a day, and if one matches your expertise, you reply directly. There is no publishing, no distribution, and no cost. One tool gets your announcement out into the world; the other gets you in front of a journalist who is already looking for someone like you.
The tools at a glance
PRWeb
Self-serve press release distribution to thousands of news outlets and search engines
PRWeb exists to get a release you have already written out to a fixed network of news sites, aggregators, and search engines. Four tiers run from $120 to $480 per release, with PR Newswire syndication kicking in at Standard and industry journalist email distribution unlocking at Advanced. There is no subscription and no ongoing relationship management; you pay when you publish.
The platform assumes you are initiating contact on your own terms, on your own timeline. You are not waiting for a journalist to ask for a source; you are announcing something and paying for guaranteed reach. Reporting is limited to views and pickup counts, which is enough for a basic ROI estimate but not full attribution.
PRWeb is the right tool when you have a concrete announcement, like a launch or a funding round, that needs to exist in searchable, syndicated form regardless of whether any specific journalist picks it up. It cannot get you into a story that a journalist is actively working on; that is not what it does.
| Feature | Basic $120/release | Standard $245/release | Advanced $360/release | Premium $480/release |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Search visibility | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| PR Newswire syndication (1,200+ sites) | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Industry journalist email distribution | No | No | Yes | Yes |
| Editorial proofreading | No | No | Yes | Yes |
| Turnaround time | 48 hours | 48 hours | 24 hours | 24 hours |
Source of Sources
Free daily email digest connecting journalists with expert sources, from the founder of HARO
Source of Sources is a free email digest, nothing more. Peter Shankman, who built Help a Reporter Out (HARO) before it was sold to Cision and eventually shut down in its original form, runs SOS as what he describes as a few minutes of work per day. Journalists submit queries through a form on the site, Shankman manually reviews them, and relevant ones go into a digest sent to subscribers up to three times daily.
There is no platform to log into. You respond to a query by replying directly to the journalist from the email, with no intermediary tracking the exchange. That simplicity is the entire value proposition: zero friction to sign up, zero cost, and a strict no-spam rule that gets off-topic pitchers removed from the list without appeal.
What SOS does not do is just as important. It has no search, no topic filtering, no dashboard, and no analytics of any kind, and query volume and outlet quality are not publicly documented. It works as a free, low-effort supplementary channel for an expert who occasionally matches a journalist's need, not as a structured PR program on its own.
| Feature | Free $0 |
|---|---|
| Daily journalist query emails | Yes |
| Direct journalist contact | Yes |
| Dashboard or search interface | No |
| Topic filtering | No |
| API access | No |
Head-to-head feature comparison
| Feature | PRWeb | Source of Sources |
|---|---|---|
| Core model | One-way press release distribution to outlets and search engines | Free email digest of inbound journalist queries |
| Cost | $120 to $480 per release | $0 |
| Publishes your own announcement or release | Yes (this is the entire product) | No (you can only respond to existing journalist queries, not publish your own) |
| Journalist contact or database access | No | No (no searchable database, digest only) |
| Filtering by topic or industry | N/A (broadcasts to a fixed network, not filtered by journalist) | No |
| Analytics or tracking | Basic (views and pickup count) | No |
| Search engine and news aggregator distribution | Yes (thousands of sites, search engines, PR Newswire syndication on Standard+) | No |
| API access | No | No |
| Platform or dashboard | Yes (account, tiers, release builder) | No (email only, no login) |
| Signup friction | Low (free account signup, pay at publish) | Very low (name and email, about 30 seconds) |
Which should you choose?
PRWebSource of SourcesPRWebSource of SourcesPRWebSource of SourcesThese two are not really competing for the same use case. PRWeb is something you pay for when you have already decided what you want published. Source of Sources costs nothing because it does not publish anything, it only forwards what journalists are already asking for. Comparing them by price alone misses the point: PRWeb's $120 buys distribution infrastructure, while SOS is genuinely just a free mailing list with a well-known founder and a strict spam policy behind it.
Bottom line
If you have something to announce and need it published and searchable on a set timeline, pay for PRWeb; there is no free equivalent that gets a release syndicated across 1,200-plus outlets. If you are an expert with no announcement to make and just want the occasional shot at being quoted, sign up for Source of Sources since it costs nothing and takes 30 seconds, but do not expect it to replace a real PR program: no search, no filtering, and undocumented volume mean it is a supplementary channel at best, not a primary one.
Frequently asked questions
Can Source of Sources be used to distribute a press release the way PRWeb does?
No, Source of Sources has no distribution mechanism at all; it only forwards journalist queries to subscribers who then reply directly. If the goal is publishing and syndicating your own press release to news sites and search engines, PRWeb is the tool built for that, starting at $120 per release.
Is Source of Sources actually connected to HARO, or just similar in concept?
Source of Sources shares a founder with HARO but is a separate, independently run service. Peter Shankman created Help a Reporter Out (HARO) in 2008, sold it to Cision, and launched Source of Sources afterward as a simpler, self-run version of the same journalist query digest model once HARO was wound down.
Why would anyone pay $120 for PRWeb when Source of Sources is free?
PRWeb and Source of Sources solve different problems, so the price comparison is not really apples to apples. PRWeb guarantees your specific announcement gets published and distributed to a fixed network on your schedule, while Source of Sources only works if a journalist happens to post a matching query, with no guarantee of timing, relevance, or coverage.
Does Source of Sources let you filter journalist queries by industry or topic?
No, Source of Sources has no filtering, search, or categorization of any kind, and every subscriber receives the identical full digest up to three times a day. If topic-filtered journalist requests matter to your workflow, platforms like Qwoted offer that functionality where SOS does not.
How reliable is Source of Sources for getting actual media coverage compared to a paid PR platform?
Source of Sources is a free supplementary channel, not a reliable primary strategy, because query volume and outlet quality are not publicly documented and there is no tracking to measure results. PRWeb is more predictable for a specific outcome, guaranteed distribution to its network, but it does not get you quoted in an existing story the way responding to an SOS query can.