People rarely leave Cision because it does the job badly. They leave because they can't see a price, and because its database and wire are sized for a global enterprise. Before you go, work out which of those two strengths you use.
| Tool | Best for | Price | Stated database | Newswire |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cision | Global PR that sends on a wire | Quote; about $10,600 a year (est.) | 500k+ journalists and outlets | PR Newswire built in |
| Muck Rack | Media relations at volume | Quote, by number of users | Size not published | Paid add-on |
| Meltwater | Monitoring in many languages | Quote; 12-month minimum | Size not published | Press distribution listed |
| Vuelio | UK media and political contacts | Quote, modular | 1.3m contacts, outlets and opportunities | UK wire via ResponseSource |
| Semrush AI PR Toolkit | A big database at a list price | $149, $279 or $499 a month | 600,000+ journalist profiles | Not claimed |
| Agentcy | B2B tech teams pitching trade press | Free plan; Core $269/month | CRM of 500 to 10,000 contacts | None |
Prices in each vendor's own currency. Cision's estimate is SpendHound's small-business average (updated 1 October 2026), not a list price. Database counts are the vendors' own and measure different things.
Sources: Cision pricing; CisionOne; Cision AI visibility; CisionOne list export; SpendHound on Cision; Vendr on Cision; Muck Rack pricing; Meltwater pricing; Meltwater homepage; Vuelio media database; Vuelio media monitoring; Semrush AI PR Toolkit plans; Semrush digital PR; ResponseSource pricing; Roxhill database figures; Agentcy pricing. Last checked 13 October 2026.
Agentcy is ours, so take the Agentcy row as a claim and the rest as what each vendor publishes. Each tool here beats Cision on price, on how you buy it, or on focus.
What Cision does best
The database claims more than 500,000 journalists and outlets, "meticulously curated, researched, and verified", across 190-plus countries and 96 languages; only Vuelio claims comparable reach. PR Newswire is built into CisionOne as well, so a release goes out on the wire from the same place you pitch it.
Monitoring covers print, broadcast, online, social and podcasts, with AI visibility dashboards inside the same platform.
A global comms team that sends releases on a wire and needs print and broadcast clips in many languages should keep Cision for those jobs, especially if it pitches outside its home market every week. It can still run Agentcy alongside for the rest.
Finding out the price
Cision's pricing page is a three-step "Request Pricing" form that asks for your email, then your company and role, then your name, country and phone number. It shows no plans, prices or trial, so third-party data has to fill the gap. SpendHound puts the small-business average at $10,618 a year and the enterprise average at $87,883 (updated 1 October 2026); Vendr's median is $12,625 (February 2026).
What replaces it
If the job is pitching, look at Muck Rack. Its database is smaller on paper but sold on accuracy, and print, broadcast and distribution are add-ons. Muck Rack alternatives has more.
If it's monitoring, Meltwater covers 240-plus languages with social listening built in, though it asks for a 12-month minimum. See Meltwater alternatives.
Vuelio is the UK choice, with a political database alongside its media contacts and its own analyst-written daily brief. It sells by quote, in modules.
The Semrush AI PR Toolkit gives you 600,000-plus profiles at a published price. It monitors online news, blogs and forums only.
Agentcy suits a team that pitches the same few hundred trade journalists and wants its contacts and its coverage in one place. It has no newswire and doesn't monitor print or broadcast.
Cision against Agentcy
Cision is the bigger tool on database, languages, wire and broadcast. Agentcy is built for a team with a few hundred trade journalists and mostly online coverage, which wants to see the price before the demo. Its press lists score how well each journalist fits the story, and its coverage log grades every piece on depth, message and favourability.
Newswires
If you send releases on PR Newswire, budget for a wire separately. ResponseSource's UK wire is pay-as-you-go from £85 a release, or £675 for ten. A B2B team may need one only for a funding round; the rest of the year, a pitch to the ten trade journalists who cover you does more.
Switching
Cision doesn't publish a contract term, so you'll find the notice period in your order form. In CisionOne, each list has a Download CSV button; ask your account manager for a coverage export before you give notice.
Questions
Is Agentcy cheaper than Cision?
Agentcy is cheaper than Cision for most teams that don't need a wire. A year of Agentcy Core, with three seats, costs a fraction of SpendHound's small-business average for Cision, $10,618 a year (updated 1 October 2026), and it's billed month by month with no annual contract. Pro, which adds AI visibility tracking and five seats, sits in roughly the same band as that Cision average. You'd give up the 500,000-plus database and PR Newswire, and Agentcy doesn't monitor print or broadcast.
Do the database sizes compare like for like?
Cision's database figure doesn't compare directly with its rivals' figures, because each vendor counts something different. Cision claims more than 500,000 journalists and outlets together, the Semrush AI PR Toolkit counts 600,000-plus journalist profiles, and Vuelio's 1.3 million mixes contacts, outlets and opportunities. Roxhill gives the narrowest count, 297,332 journalists across 35,259 outlets. Muck Rack publishes no number at all. In a demo, search the twenty titles you pitch most and count the names you'd actually email.
Does Cision track AI visibility?
Cision tracks AI visibility inside CisionOne, with dashboards for visibility and share of voice across nine AI platforms and benchmarks against competitors. Its page doesn't name the nine, and the dashboards come as part of CisionOne, which is sold by quote. Agentcy asks ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity your buyers' questions every week and grades each answer against the facts you record about your company, so a wrong price or an old product name shows up as an error. You can buy that tracker on its own. How it works.
Which Cision alternative is best for a UK team?
Vuelio is the closest Cision alternative for a UK team, because it pairs a media database with the UK political database and monitors 25,000 hours of broadcast a day. Roxhill is the other UK specialist. It counts 297,332 journalists kept by an in-house research team, says it's strongest in the UK, US and MENA, and takes print and broadcast through NLA and TV Eyes. Both sell by quote. ResponseSource, which offers Vuelio's database, does publish prices for its journalist enquiry service, from £625 a year per category.
Try it on one brand, free
You can set up one brand in an afternoon and see what it finds. Paid plans are monthly, and you can stop whenever you like.