How to get press coverage for your startup with HARO
TL;DR
HARO (Help a Reporter Out) is a free email service that sends founders and other experts the questions journalists need answered for upcoming stories. Sources get up to three digests per weekday, and the service is free for sources and journalists. It suits founders who can answer a reporter's question quickly, with a real opinion or real numbers.
What is HARO?
HARO connects reporters on deadline with people who can give them a quote. Peter Shankman started it in 2008 as a Facebook group, then turned it into an email list. Vocus bought it in 2010 and Cision took it over in 2014.
In 2024 Cision renamed the service Connectively and shut it down in December 2024. Featured.com bought HARO in April 2025 and brought back the original format: a free email newsletter, now with masked journalist addresses, detection of AI-generated answers and lifetime bans for rule breakers. HARO says it has more than 800,000 registered sources and more than 75,000 journalists and bloggers.
Queries cover every beat, from business and health to technology and finance, and each one names the source wanted, the exact question and a deadline.
Who should use HARO?
- Founders with a clear specialty, such as a fintech CEO who can comment on payments or a femtech founder who can speak about women's health.
- Startups that want press mentions to quote on their site, in pitch decks and in sales calls.
- PR freelancers and in-house marketers who answer queries on behalf of a founder.
- Skip it if you want a product review or a launch announcement. Reporters on HARO ask for expert answers, and product pitches break the rules unless the query asks for products.
How much does HARO cost?
HARO is free for sources and journalists. Featured.com pays for it with ads inside the newsletter, and helpareporter.com lists no paid plan for sources.
How do you answer queries on HARO?
- Go to the HARO sources page and sign up with your email address.
- Read the digests. They arrive up to three times a day, Monday to Friday, and list every open journalist query.
- Pick queries that match what you know. Reply to the anonymous @helpareporter.net address printed at the start of the query, before the deadline.
- Follow the rules: no off-topic pitches, no product pitches unless the query asks for a product, and no harvesting of reporter details. Forwarding a query to a colleague who fits better is allowed.
- If the journalist picks your answer, they contact you directly for the full quote or an interview.
Tips to get more out of HARO
- Answer within the first hour. Reporters on deadline pick from the first strong replies.
- Lead with the quote. Put two or three ready-to-print sentences first, then one line on who you are and why you know this.
- Bring a number. A figure from your own data (sign-up growth, a customer survey, pricing tests) makes your answer the one a reporter can use.
- Write it yourself. HARO runs AI-content detection and bans repeat offenders for life.
- Set realistic link expectations. The DA of 60 belongs to helpareporter.com. The link you earn sits on the publisher's site, and the journalist decides whether to link to you at all. The press mention itself is the prize.
Our verdict
HARO is the cheapest way for a founder to land quotes in real publications: it costs nothing but time. Treat it as a weekly habit with fast, specific answers, and skip queries outside your field. One good placement a month is a win.
More options: see all tech media, blogs and newsletters. Planning the launch around this listing? The Fe/male Switch startup game walks women founders from idea to first customers.