Muck Rack vs Cision vs Prezly: 2024 User Reviews, Features, Pricing & More

With so many PR platforms to choose from, which one do you go with? 

To make your decision easier, we’ve done a deep dive comparison of three of the best PR tools around: Muck Rack vs Cision vs Prezly.

In short, here’s a summary on Muck Rack vs Cision vs Prezly: 

• Muck Rack: Best for finding new journalists to send pitches to. Expensive and requires an annual contract.
• Cision: Best for maximizing reach (not coverage) with your PR outreach and distribution strategy. Also expensive and requires an annual contract.
• Prezly: Best all-in-one PR tool for earning more media coverage. Affordable and comes with a 14-day free trial.

For more details on each tool, keep reading below.

Let's get right into comparing Muck Rack vs Cision vs Prezly where it matters most: their features.

• Media Database: Comes with over 250,000 contacts. Just like all media databases, their data isn't always 100% accurate, but has a reputation for being well curated.
• Press Release Creator: You can't create press releases with Muck Rack.
• Outreach: You can create and send pitches directly from the app.
• Media Monitoring and Analytics: You can track news and mentions both off and online. Their analytics features help with understanding media mentions and engagement, but aren't as detailed as dedicated analytics tools.

• Media Database: Has the largest media database on the market (>1.4 million contacts), but is known for being poor quality.
• Press Release Creator: You can create simple press releases, and an online newsroom. But, set up isn't easy and it all comes at an (extremely high) added cost.
• Outreach: You can distribute press releases through Cision's distribution tool PR newswire, but at an added cost. This will get your press lots of coverage, but that coverage will likely be low-quality and ineffective. ​
• Media Monitoring and Analytics: Comes with online and offline media monitoring. Has simple PR analytics tools that track campaign performance and brand mentions​​​​.

• Media Database and CRM: We don't sell media databases at Prezly – they're ineffective and unethical. Instead, we help you focus on earning high-quality media coverage and press. So, instead of a media database, we offer a powerful CRM for PR that helps you build one-on-one relationships with journalists at scale
• Press Release Creator: Baked into Prezly is a no-code online newsroom builder and press release creator. Set it up and in no time, you'll have your own PR site live and filled with multimedia press releases
• PR Outreach: In Prezly, we've also built our a PR Outreach Software that's hooked up to our CRM and Press Release Creator. That means you can easily create personalized outreach campaigns with your press releases directly embedded in them
• Media Monitoring: Prezly monitors and stores all your third-party mentions (online and offline) by integrating directly with popular media monitoring tools like Belga Press, Auxipress, Google Alerts, and RSS Feeds. Making it super easy to track and report on how your stories are performing
• PR Analytics: We've partnered with Plausible to provide built-in reports that are 100% privacy-first. They're kept simple and actionable so you can easily understand exactly how your PR is performing

Looking at their features, all three tools have their own set of strengths (and weaknesses).

Muck Rack has a well-curated media database, but can't be used to create press releases or online newsrooms.

Cision has a massive (though inaccurate) media database, but is difficult to use and nagivate.

Prezly, is incredibly easy-to-use and comes with all the tools you need to get more earned media coverage and results from your PR. But, if you need a media database, you won't find one.

We’ve now mentioned a few times that Prezly doesn’t offer media databases.

Let’s pause to explain why.

With the rise of digital and social media, PR isn't about quantity anymore – reaching as many journalists as possible. Today, it's about quality – building meaningful, personalized connections.

At the same time, the problems with media databases are becoming clearer:

• Outdated information: Journalists change roles all the time, making these databases quickly outdated
• Impersonal outreach: Generic outreach to people in these lists doesn't feel personalized and is often ignored or thrown into spam.
• Not GDPR compliant: Buying a media database means you’re getting someone’s personal information without their consent (i.e. violating GDPR)
• Less effective: "Spray and pray PR” doesn't really work. With targeted pitches, you'll earn far more engagement and real coverage.

That’s why we suggest ditching expensive media databases.

Instead, use tools like Prezly that are designed to help you get more earned media coverage. With it, you can build your own contact lists and focus on direct, personalized communication with journalists.

Nearly as strong as the power of storytelling in business, is the power of budget in PR. Here’s how Muck Rack, Cision, and Prezly compare on pricing:

Muck Rack's pricing plans and Cision's pricing plans are both quite expensive. While not publicly listed, it's estimated to be around $10,000/yr for Muck Rack and around $7,200/yr for Cision.

That's a significant investment, especially if you're a smaller team or a solo practitioner.

Meanwhile, Prezly's pricing plans are public, starting at only $90 a month. We've done what we can to make it much more accessible, especially for smaller teams or PR pros who need a reliable platform at a fair price.

Plus, the flexibility of monthly plans means you're not locked in for a whole year​​.

A great set of features is one thing, but how easy are these platforms to use? And when you hit a snag, how good is the support you get?

• User experience: Muck Rack is known for having a solid user interface, and is generally easy to use.
• Customer support: Muck Rack's customer support is also solid. Their support team is known for being helpful and responsive.

• User experience: Cision's known for having a steep learning curve. This is due to their sheer quantity of tools and features, along with their dated interface.
• Customer support: Cision's support is generally considered helpful, but also painfully slow.

• User experience: We've built Prezly to be as user-friendly as possible. Anyone on your PR team can jump right into it and do whatever they need (add a contact, write a press release, send a media pitch) in just a few clicks.
• Customer support: Our customer support team runs 24/7 and can be reached by phone, email, and chat. Unlike others, we don't outsource support — our agents all work with us full-time and love helping our customers with any chance they're given.

Muck Rack and Prezly both have user-friendly interfaces and strong customer support teams, making them a great pick if you care most about ease-of-use and quick support.

Cision however, is much harder to use, with slow, hit-or-miss customer support.

Let's see what actual users are saying about Muck Rack vs Cision vs Prezly.

Here's a breakdown of their pros and cons based on user reviews.

"No tool is perfect, but MuckRack's pitching capabilities are excellent and they have a pretty solid database of writers. Their reporting capabilities and media monitoring leave a lot to be desired in my opinion."

Muck Rack Pros

• Solid media monitoring tools
• Easy to use
• Detailed media database

Muck Rack Cons

• Tough to get accurate coverage reports with
• Extremely high pricing
• Requires annual contracts
• Media database isn't 100% accurate, meaning high bounce-back rates on emails.

"All I can say for Cision is that even though the database is huge(1,2 million contacts available) you will find 80% of the data useless. Also the information becomes outdated once you reach middle sections of a certain keyword query."

Cision Pros

• Large media database
• Solid media monitoring tools

Cision Cons

• Outdated, inaccurate media database
• Complex and hard to use
• Has bad customer support, with slow response times
• Expensive
• Requires annual contracts

"Prezly is extremely easy to use and clear. I love being able to have all of our media contacts in one place and to keep them incredibly organised. Also, I appreciate that newsrooms are available so that our clients' latest and past releases can all be easily found and shared with the appropriate journalist, also through Prezly."

Prezly Pros

• Extremely easy to use
• Fantastic customer support
• Designed to generate more earned media coverage
• Monthly and annual pricing offered (with a 14-day free trial offered)
• Affordable

Prezly Cons

• We don't sell contact databases
• Our analytics are intentionally simple, which may feel limiting if you need deep data.

Muck Rack is loved for its ease of use and curated media database. But, their reporting isn't great and their media database isn't always accurate.

People like Cision for it's wide range of tools and large media database. But, they don't like how hard it is to use, or how slow their customer support can be.

Prezly, is incredibly easy-to-use, affordable, and was built from the ground up to help PR teams generate more earned media coverage.

Here's our final takeaway on Muck Rack vs Cision vs Prezly:

For teams that need a traditional PR platform that's still easy to use and has a detailed media database, Muck Rack is legit.

Best for teams that have a high-budget, don't mind a steep learning curve, and want to maximize reach (over impact).

Perfect for modern PR teams and agencies that want to generate more earned media coverage and value a straightforward, easy-to-use platform with transparent pricing.

Prezly for PR agencies | Welcome to your new PR HQ

Tired of using a million tools to support your PR workflow? Prezly lets you handle contacts, newsrooms, pitches, and coverage for all your clients.

Here’s a look at some alternative PR tools to consider:

• BuzzSumo: Useful for seeing what content is well-received in your industry, and tracking brand mentions. (starting at $99/month).
• Mynewsdesk: Good for managing your newsroom, distributing your content, and monitoring media (starting at $250/month)
• Anewstip: Great for finding journalists, influencers, and media outlets (public pricing not available)

→ See how we compare to other tools with our Prezly vs comparison pages

You've seen what Prezly can do, especially if you’re keen on a PR tool that is easy to use, helps you generate earned media coverage, and doesn't break the bank.

Why not experience it for yourself?

Our 14-day free trial is your no-cost, no-commitment chance to test drive Prezly’s features. No credit card is required to sign up either.

Give it a shot today, and if you need any help, just let us know!