Prowly reviews: Pros & cons, pricing, features & more

So you’re interested in learning more about the all-in-one public relations management platform, Prowly. If you want to understand their offerings, you can certainly look at their advertising materials, features, and pricing to get an idea of what they offer.

But what are happy – and not so happy – current and former customers saying about the software, and is there possibly a better alternative that might suit your needs?

Without further ado, let’s jump in!

Prowly PR software (often just called "Prowly") is a public relations tool made for teams, agencies, and solo PR folks to tackle press release creation, distribution, and media outreach.

They boast an extensive media database for sending releases to journalists, which can be helpful for press release distribution even if it cannot guarantee the attention of journalists.

Prowly has a media monitoring tool and social listening capabilities for finding and tracking your brand’s online mentions, as well as a media pitching tool and online newsrooms for sending press releases and pitches to journalists via email.

Lastly, Prowly PR software has a media reporting tool to share your PR progress with your team, clients, and C-suite.

Now that we know what Prowly says about itself and its key features, what are the people saying about Prowly?

We’ve compiled a few real-world reviews from around the web to help you make an informed decision about this all-in-one tool.

This G2 reviewer enjoys Prowly’s cost-effectiveness, especially when many PR tools cost an astronomical amount of money (we’re looking at you, Cision).

The reviewer does say that Prowly’s email pitches can be cumbersome, which is something to take into consideration if pitching is your primary priority.

This Reddit user had mixed reviews of Prowly’s service. They loved the cost and how open Prowly was to feedback. Not to mention their customer service and educational materials.

They didn’t love how limited the database is or the exporting features. Ultimately, the user switched to another software platform.

This G2 reviewer enjoys Prowly’s press release capabilities and access to media contacts through their database, though the reviewer indicates the categories of contact recommendations could be more relevant to their industry.

This TrustPilot reviewer had a positive experience that did not match the negative reviews of other TrustPilot reviewers.

They reported that the customer service was responsive and that their overall experience of the platform has been great.

While technically a free trial user, this Prowly tester enjoys the media contact database capabilities but found the free trial quite limiting when using the software on the free trial (outside of the database).

G2 Rating: 4.2/5.0

Capterra rating: 3.9/5.0

TrustPilot rating: 3.3/5.0

Prowly, like most services, will be a fantastic fit for some brands and not a perfect fit for others.

Their branding and promotion lean heavily on being a media database-driven pitching service, which will appeal to businesses who are just starting out or who haven’t had the time or opportunity to build their own media relationships and contact lists.

Prowly’s media database reportedly has over 1,000,000 contacts, which gets close to rivaling industry giants like Cision.

One of the platform’s biggest benefits is its ability to do a little of everything: monitoring capabilities, visual press releases, email pitches, and report creation. It also has a fairly straightforward user interface, making for a low learning curve.

That being said, the basic plan and the professional plan both have a user limit of two, meaning it may not be the ideal software for larger teams that plan on collaborating regularly within the tool.

Prowly's basic plan does have some additional limitations. Reporting appears to be unavailable on the basic plan, and email pitches are limited to 1,000 per month, which is quite a bit less than other competitors.

This will likely be enough for startup PR teams and smaller-scale users, but larger teams may struggle with these limits.

They have an enterprise option for agency-level users and high-volume pitch senders, but it’s unclear how much it costs.

Prowly’s pricing is on the lower end of PR software offerings, and their basic and pro options have refreshingly transparent pricing plans, though enterprises will need to reach out to Prowly for a custom quote.

Because it is all-in-one PR software, Prowly has a decent range of feature offerings for their PR clients.

As previously mentioned, Prowly has a media database of over a million contacts, many of whom are media and journalism professionals.

This database includes contact info and an AI-powered search for finding relevant media contacts.

Prowly newsrooms are customizable, adapt to mobile views, and contain SEO capabilities and multimedia elements.

They also integrate into your (or your client's) website for easy searching and Google indexing.

You can send emails straight from the platform to your contact lists.

While this feature is absolutely essential, it is often one of the most cited issues in critical online reviews, with reviews reporting high email bounce rates.

As previously mentioned, pitching is also limited on the basic plan to 1,000 per month, which may be limiting for PR agencies working with multiple clients.

With Prowly's basic plan, you can monitor up to 10,000 online media mentions. This is increased to 50,000 including social media mentions with the pro plan.

The ability to monitor media mentions is incredibly important for brands to practice crisis comms and stay ahead of any potential PR issues.

Prowly's press release creator and pitching tools include an AI-powered PR tool to help with writing press releases and emails.

Prowly’s costs start at $369 if you pay monthly and $258 if you sign up for the yearly plan. The Prowly Pro plan is $589 when paid monthly and $416 for the annual plan.

Take a deeper look into Prowly's pricing here as compared to other PR software solutions.

As previously mentioned, enterprise pricing is not publicly available and you'll need to speak to the Prowly sales team about those details.

Contact Prowly for the most up-to-date and specific rate for your team.

Every software offering will have its pros and cons. What are Prowly's?

Several online reviewers have raved about Prowly’s team – their customer service team seems to go above and beyond, is responsive, and provides plenty of help for users.

Some reviewers state that Prowly is easy to use and intuitive.

PR professionals won’t need extensive coding knowledge to start using the platform to its full capabilities.

The lack of a learning curve is a huge plus for many PR professionals who would rather focus on getting coverage than fighting a complex software tool.

Several users complained that the media database is out-of-date or doesn't work as well as other competitors, such as Muck Rack.

Frustration about accuracy and outdated contacts wasn’t the only gripe – some users said that media databases, in general, don’t work, as a “spray and pray” method to media relations is rarely effective. This is why Prowly alternatives like Prezly do not offer a media database, instead focusing on a relationship-building approach to PR.

A few reviewers complained that the Prowly distribution service was tricky to use, cumbersome, or had a disappointing email bounce rate, making email pitching difficult or frustrating.

Others complained that the emailing functionality was only available with a paid membership, not the free trial, meaning the ability to try the service at its full capacity is limited for trial users.

If you do want to test out email outreach before you buy, all-in-one PR tool Prezly lets you send out pitches and campaigns during its 14-day free trial.

Now that you know about Prowly’s great (and not-so-great) qualities, what are the Prowly alternatives? Here's a top 5 of versatile PR software to help you get to that perfect pitch.

Prezly and Prowly are often mentioned together, and for good reason. They share many of the same features and functionality, and PR folks often try both services when picking a comprehensive PR tool.

Both have journalist-friendly newsrooms, the ability to pitch journalists, and a plug-and-play user-friendly interface that PR managers love.

So, what are the key differences, you might ask?

Well, for starters, Prezly is cheaper, starting at a modest $90 per month and offering specialist agency subscriptions.

Unlike Prowly, Prezly prioritizes relationship-based outreach over database-based pitching. It uses advanced filters and tagging to make building your own dynamic media lists simple, and you can use it to make personalized pitches for your target audience and send emails at scale.

Prezly offers beautiful multimedia press releases and customizable newsrooms to enable link building, as well as making it easy to track mentions thanks to its built-in media monitoring solution.

Prezly is a fantastic alternative software for PR agencies and in-house PR teams who value building longstanding relationships with journalists.

Compared to Prowly:

• No media database
• Cheaper pricing, starting at $90/month vs Prowly's $258
• Similar features and capabilities

Muck Rack is another popular alternative to Prowly and is often cited in Prowly's online user reviews as a favored alternative.

The Muck Rack PRM platform is a good choice buying a database of addresses for journalists is your priority. They also have personalized email pitching and media monitoring capabilities.

The main difference between them? The pricing. The Muck Rack PRM platform boasts a high-quality media database, but it comes at a steep cost of anywhere from $3,500 to $40,000+ (at our best estimate).

Compared to Prowly:

• More powerful list of journalists database
• Significantly more expensive
• Both have AI capabilities

See also, Prowly vs Muck Rack →

PR.co is another all-in-one software option that you may consider instead of Prowly.

PR.co has newsroom capabilities, a dedicated CRM, pitching, and data reporting.

They also have reduced rates for non-profits and NGOs, making it a popular option for charities.

Another benefit is the ability for PR.co clients to have five users per license along with unlimited categories and an unlimited media kit compared to Prowly's basic plan limit of two users.

The main drawback is the price--starting at $349 per month, PR.co is a bit more expensive than Prowly.

Compared to Prowly:

• Easy to set up and use (per reviews)
• More expensive
• Great for NGOs
• More user licenses

If a contact database is your primary focus and you've got the budget, Cision may be a great Prowly alternative for your team.

Cision is one of the biggest names in PR software, thanks to its truly massive selection of tools and extensive media database of over 1.4 million additional contacts.

Cision falls short in its ability to send pitches or create newsrooms, however, so it may not be a good alternative if you need a true all-in-one.

Another place Cision falls short? Transparent pricing plans. Cision has not release its pricing data to the public.

Compared to Prowly:

• More expensive (based on online reports)
• Fewer pitching features
• No newsrooms
• Bigger database

Mynewsdesk platform, like Prowly, allows you to create and publish press releases and send them to a vast network of over one million contacts.

This alternative also boasts brand monitoring software features, as well as tools to measure coverage and analytics.

The Mynewsdesk platform also offers a newswire of sorts, as they aggregate and share their users' most recent stories.

Their basic subscription plan also allows 3,000 emails to be sent monthly, contrasted with Prowly's 1,000 emails.

Compared to Prowly:

• Does not release its pricing info
• 3x more pitches per month
• Roughly the same database size

If you're looking for a comprehensive PR solution, Prowly might be the way to go – but there are certainly alternatives on the market depending on what you're looking for.

While many happy customers have left positive user reviews about their experience with Prowly, others express frustration with the software, citing email deliverability issues, dead email addresses, irrelevant media contacts, or less-than-stellar trial experiences.

Our advice? Take advantage of free trial for users to test out the different comprehensive tool options on the market to really understand what solution best fits your PR team and use-case.

With that in mind, if you'd like to try Prezly as an alternative to Prowly, take advantage of our 14-day, no credit card-required trial and see if it's the right fit for you.