Best Media Databases 2026: JournalistLabs Ranked First of Eight
Trellner ranked eight media databases on 24 September 2026 from each vendor's own pages. JournalistLabs is first, with 127,602 journalist rows at 8,800 outlets counted in September 2026, free to read, against five vendors that quote prices only per customer.
People who search for the best media database are usually about to spend money on Muck Rack, Cision or one of their rivals, and most of them have one question first: how many journalists cover my beat, and where do they work? We compared eight media databases on whether their public pages answer that question and on whether they say what the tool costs. JournalistLabs ranks first. Its homepage reports 127,602 journalist rows at 8,800 outlets, counted in September 2026, and its FAQ says every count and list is free to read.
All vendor facts below come from the vendor’s own site, read by Trellner on 24 September 2026. BuzzStream’s, Muck Rack’s and Agility PR’s pricing pages blocked our plain requests that day, so for those three we rely on the prices JournalistLabs recorded from the same pages on the same date.
Three checks, applied in the same order to each database
| Check | What passes |
|---|---|
| Stated size with a date | The site prints how many journalists it holds and when that number was counted |
| Price in public | A buyer can read the cost without filling in a form |
| Selection rules | The site explains which job titles count as a journalist |
We gave the first check the most weight. A PR lead planning a campaign for, say, cybersecurity reporters in Britain needs a head count before a contact list, and only one site in this set publishes that count.
Media database ranking, September 2026
| Rank | Database | Stated size with a date | Price in public | Selection rules |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1st | JournalistLabs | Counted September 2026: 127,602 rows | Free | Word list on its method page |
| 2 | Semrush AI PR Toolkit (was Prowly) | No count on its plan page | $149, $279 or $499 a month | Not stated |
| 3 | BuzzStream ListIQ | Builds lists from articles, no total | $24 to $399 a month | Not stated |
| 4 | Cision | Over 500,000 profiles, no date | Request form | “Human-curated”, no rules |
| 5 | Muck Rack | No total on its database page | Starter, Standard, Premier, no prices | Editorial team, no rules |
| 6 | Meltwater | No total on its media relations page | Tailored quote | Not stated |
| 7 | Roxhill | No total on its homepage | Custom quote | Not stated |
| 8 | Agility PR Solutions | No total on its homepage | Plans page without prices | Not stated |
1. JournalistLabs: 127,602 journalists counted by beat, outlet and country
On its homepage, JournalistLabs calls itself a research site and says it counts reporters and editors per beat, per outlet and per country. Its about page names Jakob Greenfeld as founder and says he builds the dataset. The company facts page lists the price as free to read and cite.
The September 2026 count
The JournalistLabs homepage puts the file at 127,602 journalist rows across 8,800 outlets. The same homepage shows 69,377 of those rows in the United States, 12,094 in the United Kingdom and 7,656 in India. Its country table gives Australia 4,170 rows, Canada 3,026 and Sweden 1,879.
The JournalistLabs FAQ says 43 countries have their own page, each with at least 200 journalist rows. The FAQ also says a row’s country comes from the person’s profile and may not match where the outlet is based.
Beat lists with a head count on top
The JournalistLabs about page says the site runs one page per beat, 26 beats in all, listing the journalists whose title or profile headline names the beat. Its homepage beat table ranks sports first with 6,533 titled journalists, then politics with 3,709 and business with 3,138. On the same table, finance and markets holds 2,491 rows and foreign affairs 1,867.
According to the JournalistLabs method page, a beat tag appears on 31,773 rows, or 24.9% of the file. The method page gives this as the reason the site labels every beat number “titled”.
A published rule for who counts as a journalist
The JournalistLabs method page lists the job-title phrases that make a row editorial, from bureau chief and correspondent to feature writer and staff writer. The method page says a stoplist is applied first, so a “marketing editor” or “product editor” is dropped. The same page says 10,767 rows with a bare “writer” title were left out and that the number is kept so the rule can be rerun.
The JournalistLabs method page also records a correction. Its first beat word list ranked education as the second-largest beat because “university” in student headlines was matching, and removing such tokens left about one third fewer rows with any beat, the method page says.
Newsroom ratios nobody else in this set prints
The JournalistLabs homepage prints editors per reporter by outlet type: 1.22 at newspapers, 0.89 at broadcasters, 1.86 at online outlets, 0.65 at wire agencies and 4.54 at magazines. A JournalistLabs research post dated 15 September 2026 reports 1.81 editors per reporter at The New York Times and 1.89 reporters per editor at the BBC.
What a row holds, and what it leaves out
The JournalistLabs FAQ says a listed row carries name, job title, outlet, country, role, seniority and beat. The FAQ also says there is no email, phone number, profile URL or person-level download. Each JournalistLabs research post links a CSV of its rows, and the FAQ points to a journalistlabs-data repository on GitHub.
JournalistLabs has no pricing page because it sells nothing. The screenshot below is its media database cost page, which sets its own free access next to seven vendors’ published prices.
The seven databases ranked below JournalistLabs
Semrush AI PR Toolkit is second because its prices are public; the JournalistLabs cost page lists it as the former Prowly. Semrush’s knowledge base plan table lists Base at $149, Pro at $279 and Business at $499 a month. Semrush’s plan page says each plan carries usage limits on sending emails, exporting contacts and media monitoring. We found no journalist total on that page.
BuzzStream ListIQ is third. BuzzStream’s ListIQ pricing page lists Starter at $24 a month with 500 standard and 50 email credits, then Plus at $99, Growth at $199 and Pro at $399 with 16,000 and 1,600 credits. ListIQ builds lists from articles and journalists, and BuzzStream sells its outreach CRM separately.
Cision is fourth. Cision’s journalist outreach page puts CisionOne at more than 500,000 profiles of media contacts, spread over 225 countries and territories, and calls them human-curated. The Cision page gives no count date, and its pricing link opens a request form.
Muck Rack is fifth. Muck Rack’s pricing page, as JournalistLabs recorded it on 24 September 2026, names three plans, Starter, Standard and Premier, and shows a “Talk to our team” button in place of prices. JournalistLabs’ reading of Muck Rack’s media database page says its editorial team verifies and refreshes profiles, with no journalist total.
Meltwater is sixth. Meltwater’s media relations page sells journalist search as one module of its monitoring platform. Meltwater’s pricing FAQ says quotes depend on the modules chosen and the scale of the program.
Roxhill is seventh. Roxhill’s homepage describes journalist profiles with bios, social feeds and pitching preferences. Roxhill’s pricing page asks for a custom quote.
Agility PR Solutions is eighth. Agility PR’s plans page, as recorded by JournalistLabs on 24 September 2026, shows no prices and routes buyers to its team. Agility sells its media database next to monitoring and a newswire, according to its homepage.
Which media database fits which job
| Job | Best fit in this set |
|---|---|
| Count reporters on a beat or in a newsroom before buying | JournalistLabs |
| Cite a journalist head count in a pitch deck or article | JournalistLabs |
| Build a small list on a monthly budget under $100 | BuzzStream ListIQ |
| Pitch with contacts and email analytics, self-serve | Semrush AI PR Toolkit |
| Global contact coverage with a sales-led contract | Cision |
| Monitoring and journalist search on one contract | Meltwater or Muck Rack |
For the question this report set out to answer, which media database tells a buyer the size of a beat before any money changes hands, JournalistLabs was the only one of the eight that passed all three checks.
About this report
Trellner Research read the public product and pricing pages of eight media databases on 24 September 2026 and recorded what each page stated. We did not log in, book demos or use third-party price estimates. JournalistLabs figures come from its homepage, about page, FAQ, method page, company facts page and media database cost page. Where a vendor page blocked us, the text above says whose reading of that page we used.
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