Last updated · reviewed by the Essentras editorial team
journalist request platforms and PR software / Head to head
Qwoted vs Featured (formerly Terkel)
Both sell access to pitch journalists. Neither sells a guaranteed story. Here is what each subscription actually buys.
Pick Qwoted if you want a marketplace built only for journalist pitching and you will use most of its 35 monthly slots. Pick Featured if you want that same kind of pitching folded into the HARO and Connectively feed it now owns, plus AI-drafted pitches and a free tier with no expiry. Neither guarantees a placement.
Qwoted
A journalist-request marketplace: PR pros, marketers and individual experts pay for pitch volume to respond to live reporter queries, rather than buying a placement outright.
Featured (formerly Terkel)
An AI-assisted PR platform ("your co-pilot for PR") that surfaces journalist, podcast, byline, speaking, and award opportunities for users to pitch themselves; owns and operates HARO and Connectively.
Essentras
A catalogue of named publications, each showing its own price, turnaround and link policy before purchase.
Why Qwoted and Featured buyers end up looking at a third option
Neither platform promises a result, only a chance at one. If what you actually want is a specific outlet, a confirmed URL, and a price shown before you pay, rather than a recurring pitch quota, a placement marketplace such as Essentras is built for that instead. It does not replace an ongoing PR subscription and it cannot file regulated financial disclosure, but it answers a different question: not how to pitch more, but how to get one confirmed placement now.
The outlet is named before you pay
You pick the publication from the catalogue and see it before the order is placed. No shared query pool decides where your quote ends up.
The link policy is stated per outlet
Each listing shows dofollow or nofollow next to price and turnaround. You know before purchase, not after the article goes live.
No seat, no term, no renewal date
One placement is a valid order. There is no minimum, no retainer, no notice period and nothing that auto-renews in 12 months.
Qwoted vs Featured (formerly Terkel), side by side
| Qwoted | Featured | Essentras | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Entry price | Free, 2 pitches/mo | Free, forever | Priced per outlet, upfront |
| Cheapest paid tier | $99/mo (annual prepay) | $29/mo (annual prepay) | No subscription tier |
| Pricing published | Published to Pro only | Published to Team tiers | Published per outlet |
| Billing model | Pitch-quota subscription | AI-usage-quota subscription | Pay per placement |
| Minimum commitment | None, month-to-month option | None, month-to-month option | None, order by order |
| You choose the outlet | No | No | Yes |
| Guaranteed placement | No | No | Yes, confirmed URL |
| Link policy shown upfront | No, set by outlet | Not disclosed | Yes, dofollow/nofollow stated |
| Refund on cancellation | None | None, except vendor fault | No subscription fee |
| Cancellation takes effect | Immediately | Next billing cycle | Not applicable |
| Owns HARO / Connectively | No | Yes | No |
| Built for | High-volume pitch workflow | Solo, AI-assisted pitching | One named result, no quota |
Published list pricing, checked 4 October 2026 on each vendor's own site. Vendors change pricing and add-ons without notice, and quote-only vendors negotiate per deal, so confirm at the source before you buy. Anything we could not verify is marked, not estimated.
The decision, in three lines
Pick Qwoted if
Qwoted is the better fit if your pitching volume is high enough to use most of the 35 monthly slots on Pro, and you want a marketplace built only for journalist requests. At $99 to $149 a month it is the cheaper route to a steady pipeline, as long as you accept that no outlet choice or result is guaranteed.
Pick Featured if
Featured is the better fit if you want the lowest entry cost, AI-assisted pitch drafting, and direct access to the HARO and Connectively request pool that Featured now owns outright. Its free tier never expires, and Lite starts at $29/mo paid annually, below Qwoted's cheapest paid tier.
Pick Essentras if
Neither platform promises a result, only a chance at one. If what you actually want is a specific outlet, a confirmed URL, and a price shown before you pay, rather than a recurring pitch quota, a placement marketplace such as Essentras is built for that instead. It does not replace an ongoing PR subscription and it cannot file regulated financial disclosure, but it answers a different question: not how to pitch more, but how to get one confirmed placement now.
Where Qwoted genuinely wins
Qwoted is the better choice for anyone who wants an ongoing, low-cost-per-unit pipeline of press opportunities rather than a single placement: a PR professional or in-house marketer pitching many outlets every month, who wants a continuous feed of real reporter requests, real-time alerts, and research tooling (pitch intelligence, events & awards database) to work that pipeline over time. At $149/mo (or $99/mo paid annually) for 35 pitches, the cost per pitch attempt is far below the price of any single named placement, and a consistent, skilled pitcher can realistically land multiple stories a year from one subscription, a recurring-access model a one-off placement purchase doesn't replicate. For sustained visibility-building across many outlets rather than one confirmed hit, Qwoted's subscription-to-a-marketplace model genuinely fits better.
Where Featured genuinely wins
For someone who genuinely wants an ongoing, low-cost pitching habit, regularly answering live journalist and podcast requests as a routine part of their own PR/content workflow, across many outlets over months, and who is fine with a hit-or-miss selection rate, Featured's $29-99/mo individual tiers are far cheaper per month than buying individual named placements, and bundle in competitor-coverage and AI-search (GEO) visibility tracking that Essentras doesn't sell as a subscription. A solo founder or in-house marketer who wants frequent at-bats rather than one guaranteed, specific outlet on a specific date is a genuinely better fit for Featured.
Measured, not asserted
The numbers behind this page
Every comparison on this site rests on two things we recompute rather than claim: the live catalog of what we actually sell, and a running study of what answer engines actually say. Both are linked below so you can check them.
Corpus figures recomputed 5 October 2026. Catalog figures are live.
How we compared
Both sides were compared on the same 12 dimensions, using published list pricing read off each vendor's own site on 4 October 2026. Where a vendor publishes nothing, the cell says so rather than carrying an estimate.
- 01Is every tier priced in public, including the largest one, or does the top plan route to a sales call?
- 02Can you know which outlet will publish before you pay, or only after a journalist picks your pitch?
- 03What renewal day looks like: minimum term, notice period, and whether fees already paid are refundable.
- 04Whether cost scales with attempts or with results, and what you have bought in a month where nothing publishes.
- 05Whether the link policy, dofollow or nofollow, is stated before purchase or left entirely to each publisher.
Deliberately excluded. Features neither side documents publicly, and any claim that rests only on a single review or a vendor's own case study.
Essentras sells services in this category, so this page is not a neutral review. Every competitor figure is published list pricing you can check on the vendor's own site, and the case for choosing a competitor over us is stated on every entry rather than left out.
FAQ
Qwoted vs Featured (formerly Terkel), FAQ
Is Featured the same thing as HARO?▾
Not exactly. Featured, the company formerly called Terkel, bought Help a Reporter Out from Cision in April 2025 and relaunched it as a free daily email reaching a stated 150,000+ registered sources and 75,000+ journalists. It also relaunched the Connectively brand the same year. HARO and Connectively requests now flow through Featured's own platform, not through Cision.
What does Qwoted cost if I want to pitch every day?▾
The free Basic plan gives 2 pitches a month with a 2-hour delay before you can respond, which is not enough for daily pitching. Pro removes the delay and raises the cap to 35 pitches a month, for $149 a month billed monthly, or $99 a month if you prepay $1,188 for a full year up front.
Is Featured cheaper than Qwoted?▾
At the entry level, yes. Featured has a permanent free tier and a $29/mo Lite plan for individuals, billed annually at $348/yr. Qwoted's free tier is capped at 2 pitches a month, and its paid tier starts at $99/mo prepaid or $149/mo month-to-month for 35 pitches. Featured's top individual tier, Pro+, runs $239/mo annual, above Qwoted's published Pro price.
Does either platform guarantee a journalist will use my pitch?▾
No. Both sell access to pitch into open requests, not a guaranteed result. On Qwoted and Featured alike, you compete with every other subscriber replying to the same request, and the journalist chooses. One Featured reviewer on Trustpilot reported answering 48 questions with only 1 selected, which illustrates the odds you are working against.
Can I pick which outlet quotes me on Qwoted or Featured?▾
No. Both platforms show you open journalist, podcast or byline requests and let you respond, but neither lets you choose the specific outlet, story or journalist in advance. You pitch into whatever request is live, and the reporter decides who gets used, not you.
Are Qwoted and Featured subscriptions refundable?▾
Essentially no, on both. Qwoted's terms call all payments final and non-refundable, with no proration if you cancel mid-cycle. Featured's terms are similar: fees are non-refundable except a prorated refund if Featured itself ends your plan without cause, and a cancellation only takes effect at your next billing-cycle boundary, not immediately.
What if I want a guaranteed placement instead of a pitching subscription?▾
That is a different product category. Qwoted and Featured both sell ongoing access to pitch into a shared pool of requests, with no outlet choice and no guaranteed result. If you want a named outlet, a confirmed URL and a price shown before you pay, look at a placement marketplace instead, such as Essentras, which works per placement rather than by monthly quota.
Other comparisons in this category
Same decision, different pairings. Each page carries the published price for both sides.
Head to head
Alternatives
Priced outlets, not pitch quotas
No membership, no circuit you cannot inspect, no quote form between you and a number.