Best alternative to Cision for small teams: a lean PR stack that actually fits
Looking for a Cision alternative for a small PR team? Here is a practical way to replace the parts small teams actually use: media list building, PR outreach, email tracking, and campaign follow-up.
Erik Murin
Co-Founder & CEO, Neshys·
|12 min read
Cision is one of the oldest names in the PR business, and it shows up on every shortlist of media relations tools. The problem is that it wasn’t built for a three-person team trying to land coverage. Many small teams need just a reliable way to find the right journalists, send better pitches, track outreach, and avoid messy spreadsheets. So, let’s have a look at what smaller teams can use, and why it’s often a good decision to skip Cision.
Why small teams look for a Cision alternative
Cision is built for big PR operations.
First of all, Cision does not publish list pricing. Their real-world pricing ranges from about $10K to over $23K per year, with costs varying based on features, users, and distribution needs.
One buyer on Reddit reported paying $3,500 a year for two seats on the media database. Another paid $25,000 for a five-seat package, according to a recent pricing roundup. For a small agency or a solo founder doing PR on the side, that number is hard to justify.
What’s interesting is that despite the crazy price, many users find the interface outdated and hard to use, particularly when managing multiple campaigns. If you are not in the tool every day, a steep learning curve turns into wasted time.
The problem with many large PR tools is that small teams can end up paying for features they barely use. If you send a few campaigns per month, your main problem is probably not the lack of another dashboard. It is the time lost finding relevant contacts, rewriting pitches, checking attachments, tracking replies, and remembering what happened in the last campaign.
Let’s have a look at how a small team usually works:
You pitch a focused list of 20 to 60 journalists.
You care about only a handful of beats.
You send personal emails.
You measure a few campaigns at a time, not a year-long share-of-voice study.
For that kind of work, Cision is often overkill since its database and the wire distribution (the two most expensive parts of an enterprise package) are often the parts you use least. Your main job is writing the pitch, sending it to the right person, following up, and tracking what landed.
The data backs this up. Cision’s 2026 State of the Media Report found that 72% of journalists say fewer than a quarter of the pitches they receive are actually relevant. That means the problem is that too many contacts are poorly matched. Our own 2026 survey showed that 79% of journalists only a third of pitches they got are interesting, and for quite a few, the number is less than 1/10th.
Neshys as a Cision alternative for small teams
Neshys is best seen as PR outreach and media relations software. It is a Lithuanian PR outreach platform built around a simple idea: help communications teams move away from mass media pitching toward more relevant, journalist-specific outreach. Instead of selling you a giant list and hoping volume does the work, it is built for the quality side of the job.
The platform is designed for PR teams that already have their own journalist contacts but struggle to manage preferences, previous interactions, topic relevance, and campaign history across multiple clients or markets. Its strength is helping PR people send more relevant pitches.
With Neshys, small teams can:
manage journalist contacts in one place;
segment contacts with tags;
store pitch length, sending time, topic, and format preferences;
create different pitch versions for different journalist groups;
track outreach history;
see email open data;
reduce common mistakes such as wrong names or missing attachments.
That makes it a strong Cision alternative that small agency teams can use when they care most about outreach quality and relationships.
However, Neshys does not give you a ready global media database. For some teams, that is a dealbreaker. For others, it is fine, since their best contacts come from their own research, past relationships, client work, LinkedIn, and outlet pages.
The media database workaround
If you are leaving Cision or skipping it altogether, the biggest question is simple: how do you build a media list without a media database? The whole premise behind Neshys is that PR outreach will increasingly depend less on the size of a contact list and more on the quality of each interaction, and that better-organised relationships, not bigger databases, become the more valuable asset.
But you still need to get your contacts, because you have to build relationships with someone. Here is how to build a database even if your budget (and team) is small.
Read the outlets you want to be in. The best exercise to understand an outlet is to read it. Pick the publications that reach your audience, then note who writes the stories closest to yours. Even though there are now AI tools that sort of help you do this, the manual approach still works the best long-term.
Use journalists’ public profiles. Most reporters list contact details or a preferred pitching method on their profile pages, personal sites, X (Twitter), or LinkedIn.
Spend time on social media. Reporters often post calls for sources, beat changes, and what they are working on. Following the journalists in your space and searching for beat-specific terms surfaces the right people and warms up the relationship before you ever pitch.
Check contacts from your previous coverage. Anyone who has ever written about you, a competitor, or your category is already a qualified contact. Search news for those stories and add the writers to your list.
Export and reuse, don't rebuild. Once you have found a contact, store the full record (name, outlet, beat, email, what they cover, when you last spoke) inside your PR CRM. The point of doing the research manually once is that you never have to repeat it. This is exactly the kind of contact history Neshys is built to hold.
You don’t know which outlets you want to be in? Don’t look for “tech media” or “business media”. Instead, start with the story angle and look for that. Use Google News, regular Google search, outlet search pages, LinkedIn, and newsletters. Search phrases such as:
“site:example.com fintech funding journalist”
“climate tech reporter Europe”
“writes about PR software”
“covered earned media tools”
Open recent articles and check whether the person has covered the topic in the last few months. A journalist who wrote about your topic three years ago may no longer be relevant.
AI browsers can help you build a media database as well
Tools such as Perplexity Comet, or another agentic browser, can significantly speed up repetitive research tasks. For example, you can ask it to gather public contact data from a list of media outlet pages and add it to your PR CRM.
Even though the approach above is better, AI browsers can still save you some time and help you achieve the desired result. Use an AI browser as an assistant. Ask it to find and put the contacts into your CRM, but still check the results: whether the contacts added are correct, whether they are relevant, fit your topic, and are of high quality.
How to pitch journalists when you don't have an agency
Muck Rack found that 86% of journalists say PR pitches inspire at least some of their stories, while Cision found that 66% rely on PR-provided content for story ideas. The opportunity is still there, but only if the pitch is relevant, credible and easy to use.
Aim for 30 to 80 contacts per campaign. Smaller is fine if the list is accurate.
A good contact list answers four questions:
Has this journalist covered the topic recently?
Does this outlet reach the audience you care about?
Is the angle relevant to the section they write for?
Do you know why this pitch should land in their inbox?
If the answer is no, remove the contact. Muck Rack’s 2026 State of Journalism report says 88% of journalists immediately delete pitches that miss their beat.
Then, lead with the story, not your company. Reporters care about why their readers should care today. Put the news and the angle in the first two lines.
Personalise the opening with a real reason you picked this journalist: a recent piece they wrote, a beat they own, a question they raised. A generic "Hi {first_name}" opener is the fastest route to the bin. Do not send the same pitch to every journalist.
Be careful about using AI. Cision’s own report says 53% of journalists oppose AI-generated pitches because of accuracy and personalisation concerns.
For one campaign, you might create segments such as:
business media;
startup media;
local media;
trade media;
personal finance media;
technology reporters;
podcast hosts;
newsletter writers.
Keep it short. A tight pitch of 120 to 180 words with a clear subject line beats a wall of text. Save the details for a press kit or a follow-up.
Follow up once, politely, after a few days. A single, well-timed nudge lifts response rates without annoying anyone. A tool with built-in follow-up automation handles the timing, so you do not have to remember. Don’t forget to add new data, a sharper angle, a related development or something else. Just saying “Checking if you saw my email” will definitely put you in spam.
Although every journalist has a different routine, mid-morning on weekdays tends to outperform late afternoons and weekends. Test and watch your own open rates.
Lastly, a proper sending domain, authenticate your email, and avoid attachment-heavy blasts so your pitch lands in the inbox instead of spam. A GDPR-compliant outreach tool also keeps you on the right side of European rules, which matters for teams pitching across the EU.
Best Cision alternative for small agencies, freelancers or startups
For a small agency or small company, the best Cision alternative is the one that matches how work happens in real life.
A normal inbox does not handle that well. A spreadsheet gets messy. A newsletter tool is not built for journalist relationships. Neshys works better for this use case since it treats PR outreach as relationship management, not bulk email.
For a small agency PR workflow, the strongest setup is:
Neshys for outreach, segmentation, preferences, campaign history, and tracking;
Google News, outlet pages, LinkedIn, and AI-assisted research for media list building;
Google Alerts or a dedicated monitoring tool for coverage tracking;
a fact-checking and writing tool for pitch quality.
That stack gives a small team most of what they need without paying for a large system they do not fully use.
Freelancers usually need a different answer. They may send fewer campaigns, work with smaller budgets, and rely more on personal relationships. A freelancer-friendly Cision alternative should help with:
saving contacts by client;
remembering journalist preferences;
tracking past pitches;
sending from a trusted email domain;
reusing campaign structures;
avoiding awkward errors.
Neshys fits that pattern, mainly for freelancers who care about direct journalist outreach rather than newswire distribution.
Lastly, startup PR usually starts messy. Founders want coverage, but they do not always have a PR team, a media list, or time to learn enterprise software.
For startup teams, the best setup is simple:
build a media list around one story;
pitch a small number of relevant journalists;
track every interaction;
save the contacts for the next campaign;
learn which angles work.
That is far more useful than buying access to thousands of contacts and sending a weak pitch to the wrong people. For startups, Neshys can work as a lightweight press outreach platform. It helps turn one-off pitching into a repeatable PR process.
FAQ:
What is the best alternative to Cision for small teams?
For small teams that need a lighter PR outreach workflow, Neshys is a strong option. It helps manage journalist contacts, segment audiences, personalise pitches, track email opens, and keep campaign history in one place. It does not include a full global media database, so pair it with a focused media-list building process.
Is Neshys a full Cision replacement?
No. Neshys does not replace Cision’s full media database, PR Newswire distribution, or broad media monitoring suite. It can replace the outreach workflow for teams that care about sending better pitches, managing contacts, and tracking relationships.
How can I build a media list without Cision?
Start from your story angle, search for recent bylines, collect public contact details, verify topic fit, then store contacts in a PR CRM or outreach tool. Use Google News, outlet pages, LinkedIn, newsletters, author pages, and AI-assisted research. Keep the list updated after each campaign.
Is a media database worth it for a small PR team?
A media database is worth it if you work across many markets, need volume fast, or pitch unfamiliar sectors every week. If you work in a smaller market, niche industry, or relationship-driven PR, a focused list may perform better.
Final verdict
Cision is a powerful PR platform, but it is often too large for small teams that mainly need better outreach. The best alternative to Cision for small teams is a leaner system. Build a high-quality media list, manage it, send personalised pitches, track the results, and keep improving your journalist relationships.
Neshys is a strong fit for that role. It will not give you a huge media database. It will help you use the contacts you have, build better outreach habits, and run PR campaigns with less manual work.
