# Featured Review (2026): PR Pricing, Limits & Alternatives

> Featured is a SaaS Platform tool for PR (PR Intelligence & Media Relations) in Social & Influencer. Pricing: Free plan · $0/yr. Best suited to B2B Marketing & GTM Teams. Editor ratings: AI autonomy L3 (conditional automation); moat score 3.8/5.0 (Proprietary moat). Fact-checked by Jiacky Lee on Oct 25, 2026.

AI-assisted PR intelligence and expert media placement platform (formerly Terkel) connecting subject-matter experts with journalists.

## Key facts

| Field | Value |
| :-- | :-- |
| Category | Social & Influencer › PR Intelligence & Media Relations (PR) |
| Category aliases | Media Monitoring, Media Database, AI PR, Press Release Distribution |
| Official website | https://featured.com |
| Pricing | Free plan · $0/yr |
| Pricing source | https://featured.com/pricing |
| Free plan | Yes |
| Delivery | SaaS Platform |
| Audience | B2B Marketing & GTM Teams |
| AI autonomy level | L3 · Conditional automation |
| Moat tier | 3.8 / 5.0 · Proprietary moat |
| Funding stage | Seed |
| Verified total funding | $2M |
| Verified lead investors | Stout Street Capital, Calm Company Fund, Sonoran Founders Fund |
| Founders | Brett Farmiloe |
| Company size | 2-10 employees |
| Headquarters | Scottsdale, Arizona, United States |
| Founded | 2022 |
| Ecosystem integrations | Slack |
| Verified profiles (sameAs) | https://www.linkedin.com/company/featureddotcom/, https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/terkel |
| Fact-checked by | Jiacky Lee on Oct 25, 2026 |
| Last data check | Oct 25, 2026 |

## Buyer fit verdict: when to choose vs. skip Featured

### Choose Featured if

- **Target ICP & Stack Fit**: You operate as B2B Marketing & GTM Teams requiring a SaaS Platform deployment for PR, with verified ecosystem connectivity for Slack.
- **L3 Architecture & Defensibility**: Featured (formerly Terkel) operates a two-sided marketplace and AI PR co-pilot that matches verified subject-matter experts with thousands of active publisher queries to earn high-authority editorial backlinks and brand citations.
- **Commercial Model Fit**: Your procurement budget aligns with Free plan · $0/yr and want a self-serve free tier for zero-cost initial validation.

### Walk away from Featured if

- Walk away if your workflow requires uncapped enterprise volume on the Free plan · $0/yr entry plan without upgrading tiers.
- Walk away if your workflow cannot tolerate primary operational trade-off: In practical PR and SEO execution, the primary trade-off is that placement decisions remain entirely at the editorial discretion of third-party journalists and publishers.
- Walk away if functional scope boundary is a deal-breaker for your team: Featured is not built for guaranteed paid advertorial placement, mass cold email scraping of unopted-in press lists, or enterprise social media crisis monitoring.

## Featured verified pricing tier schedule

| Tier / Plan | Verified Rate | Team Scale Fit | Highlights & Quota Gates |
| :-- | :-- | :-- | :-- |
| Free / Sandbox | $0 | 1–2 seats (Evaluation) | Entry free tier with capped usage or feature quotas for initial workflow testing. |
| Lite | $29/yr | 1–2 seats | For solo practitioners running focused PR. |
| Pro | $79/yr | 5 seats | For power users running a full PR operation. |
| Lite | $348/yr | 15 seats | For solo practitioners running focused PR. |

## Hidden TCO multipliers & contract negotiation playbook

### Hidden cost drivers to audit

- **Annual Billing Headline vs. Monthly Premium**: Headline entry rates reflect annual billing commitments; month-to-month flexibility carries a higher effective monthly rate or requires annual prepayment.
- **Credit & Usage Burn Multiplier**: Automated workflows consume metered credits/usage quotas; multi-step enrichment, voice minutes, or high-frequency agent runs can trigger mid-cycle top-up packs.

### Contract levers to demand before signing

- Validate exact quota thresholds (seats, credits, or API calls) included in Featured's Free plan · $0/yr tier before converting from monthly to annual billing.
- Require a sandbox proof-of-concept testing primary operational trade-off against your live CRM/data schema before annual sign-off.

## Key questions to ask on a Featured vendor demo

1. **CFO / Tier Escalation (Free / Sandbox vs. Lite)**: Between Free / Sandbox ($0) and Lite ($29/yr), what exact seat or credit ceiling triggers a mandatory tier upgrade, and can we cap renewal uplift in the order form?
2. **RevOps / Primary Operational Trade-Off**: How does Featured mitigate "Primary Operational Trade-Off" (In practical PR and SEO execution, the primary trade-off is that placement decisions remain entirely at the editorial discretion of third-party journalists and publishers.) when syncing live payloads with Slack?
3. **GTM Lead / Functional Scope Boundary**: What human-in-the-loop approval gates and rollback controls prevent "Functional Scope Boundary" during scaled execution?
4. **CISO / SOC 2 Type II / GDPR & Model Training**: Can you provide your current SOC 2 Type II / GDPR security packet, sub-processor list, and a signed DPA confirming customer data is never used to train shared foundation models?

## Ecosystem integrations & compliance

- **Supported integrations**: Slack.

## Pros & cons

### Pros (Core strengths)

- **Real-time journalist query matching**: engine alerting executives and marketers to relevant editorial source requests
- **AI PR Co-Pilot and**: voice-to-pitch transcription tools that help experts draft authentic, journalist-ready commentary
- **End-to-end placement tracking monitoring**: submission status, article publication, domain rating, and backlink attribution
- **Full-article Q&A publishing network,**: podcast guest matching, and multi-profile agency management with Slack alerts

### Cons (Operational limitations)

- **Primary Operational Trade-Off**: In practical PR and SEO execution, the primary trade-off is that placement decisions remain entirely at the editorial discretion of third-party journalists and publishers.
- **Functional Scope Boundary**: Featured is not built for guaranteed paid advertorial placement, mass cold email scraping of unopted-in press lists, or enterprise social media crisis monitoring.
- **Deployment & Governance Considerations**: Because journalists reject generic or overly promotional pitches, users must still invest authentic subject-matter expertise and rapid response turnaround, and teams on the free tier face strict monthly submission caps (3 pitches per month) that limit high-velocity link building.

## Moat analysis

Featured (formerly Terkel) operates a two-sided marketplace and AI PR co-pilot that matches verified subject-matter experts with thousands of active publisher queries to earn high-authority editorial backlinks and brand citations.

## Editorial review

Fact-checked by Jiacky Lee on Oct 25, 2026.

### Background

Featured (formerly known as Terkel, accessible at `featured.com`) is an AI-assisted public relations, expert commentary, and earned media placement platform built for founders, SEO/GEO managers, PR agencies, and B2B thought leaders. Founded in 2022 by Brett Farmiloe and headquartered in Scottsdale, Arizona, the company operates with a lean team of 2 to 10 employees and has raised $2M in Seed funding backed by Stout Street Capital, Calm Company Fund, and Sonoran Founders Fund. Following the shutdown of traditional Help A Reporter Out (HARO), Featured has become a primary two-sided marketplace connecting subject-matter experts with journalists and publishers seeking credible quotes.

### How Featured works

At the operational core of Featured is an intent-matching marketplace and AI PR co-pilot that links verified domain experts directly to active editorial deadlines. Publishers, media outlets, and B2B blogs post specific source queries on the platform, which Featured's matching engine routes to experts based on their credentials, industry tags, and historical answer quality. Experts can record spoken insights or bullet points and use Featured's AI drafting assistant to structure concise, publication-ready responses while enforcing anti-spam originality checks so journalists are not flooded with generic copy-pasted AI text. When a publisher selects an expert's insight, Featured automatically verifies live article publication, tracks the resulting do-follow or editorial backlink, and logs brand mentions that feed both search engine rankings and LLM brand visibility.

### Limitations

Operational considerations and platform boundaries include:
- **Primary Operational Trade-Off**: In practical PR and SEO execution, the primary trade-off is that placement decisions remain entirely at the editorial discretion of third-party journalists and publishers.
- **Functional Scope Boundary**: Featured is not built for guaranteed paid advertorial placement, mass cold email scraping of unopted-in press lists, or enterprise social media crisis monitoring.
- **Deployment & Governance Considerations**: Because journalists reject generic or overly promotional pitches, users must still invest authentic subject-matter expertise and rapid response turnaround, and teams on the free tier face strict monthly submission caps (3 pitches per month) that limit high-velocity link building.

### Featured pricing

Featured operates on a transparent freemium subscription model per expert profile. The Free plan costs $0 per month and includes up to 3 question submissions per month and basic placement notifications. Paid tiers unlock unlimited monthly pitch submissions, priority query access, AI PR Co-Pilot drafting tools, and link-monitoring analytics: the Lite plan is priced at $29 per month when billed annually ($348 per year), and the Pro plan costs $79 per month billed annually ($948 per year), with multi-seat agency options for managing client executives.

### How Featured compares

In the digital PR and media relations landscape, Featured competes with Qwoted, SourceBottle, Help a B2B Writer, and enterprise PR suites like Muck Rack and Cision. Unlike Cision or Meltwater—which require expensive annual contracts for cold journalist databases—Featured delivers inbound, high-intent journalist requests where reporters are actively asking for quotes right now. SEO teams, founders, and PR agencies should evaluate Featured to build organic domain authority and authoritative brand citations.

## Frequently asked questions about Featured

### How much does Featured cost and what pricing tiers are available?

Published pricing summary for Featured: Free plan · $0/yr. Featured includes a free tier or sandbox entry point. Verified tier schedule: Free / Sandbox ($0 for 1–2 seats (Evaluation)); Lite ($29/yr for 1–2 seats); Pro ($79/yr for 5 seats); Lite ($348/yr for 15 seats). Featured operates on a transparent freemium subscription model per expert profile. The Free plan costs $0 per month and includes up to 3 question submissions per month and basic placement notifications.

### How does Featured work and how autonomous is its AI architecture?

AI-assisted PR intelligence and expert media placement platform (formerly Terkel) connecting subject-matter experts with journalists. Within PR (PR Intelligence & Media Relations), MarTechRadar rates its execution architecture at L3 · Conditional automation with a verified Moat Score of 3.8 / 5.0 (Proprietary moat). Featured (formerly Terkel) operates a two-sided marketplace and AI PR co-pilot that matches verified subject-matter experts with thousands of active publisher queries to earn high-authority editorial backlinks and brand citations. Corporate profile: Founded by Brett Farmiloe, operating at 2-10 employees scale.

### What are the main limitations of Featured and when should buyers walk away?

Based on our editorial technical audit, key operational considerations and boundaries for Featured include: (1) Primary Operational Trade-Off: In practical PR and SEO execution, the primary trade-off is that placement decisions remain entirely at the editorial discretion of third-party journalists and publishers. (2) Functional Scope Boundary: Featured is not built for guaranteed paid advertorial placement, mass cold email scraping of unopted-in press lists, or enterprise social media crisis monitoring. (3) Deployment & Governance Considerations: Because journalists reject generic or overly promotional pitches, users must still invest authentic subject-matter expertise and rapid response turnaround, and teams on the free tier face strict monthly submission caps (3 pitches per month) that limit high-velocity link building. Primary procurement walk-away rule: Walk away if your workflow requires uncapped enterprise volume on the Free plan · $0/yr entry plan without upgrading tiers.

### What integrations, compliance certifications, and contract terms apply to Featured?

Verified ecosystem and stack integrations include Slack. Key TCO multiplier to watch: Annual Billing Headline vs. Monthly Premium (Headline entry rates reflect annual billing commitments; month-to-month flexibility carries a higher effective monthly rate or requires annual prepayment.) Before signing a contract, procurement teams should validate exact quota thresholds (seats, credits, or API calls) included in Featured's Free plan · $0/yr tier before converting from monthly to annual billing.

### What are the best Featured alternatives and head-to-head competitors in 2026?

Top fact-checked alternatives to Featured in PR (PR Intelligence & Media Relations) include Muck Rack (Custom / enterprise pricing), Cision (Pricing not disclosed), Sprout Social AI ($199–$399/seat/mo), GRIN (From $200/mo). In the digital PR and media relations landscape, Featured competes with Qwoted, SourceBottle, Help a B2B Writer, and enterprise PR suites like Muck Rack and Cision.

## Alternatives

- Muck Rack: https://martechradar.ai/tools/muck-rack/
- Cision: https://martechradar.ai/tools/cision/
- Sprout Social AI: https://martechradar.ai/tools/sprout-social-ai/
- GRIN: https://martechradar.ai/tools/grin/
- Honeyjar: https://martechradar.ai/tools/honeyjar/

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Source: https://martechradar.ai/tools/featured/ — MarTechRadar.ai (data licensed CC BY 4.0, attribution required).
