Roxhillvs
Cision
Cision: Cision is the choice when you need genuine global journalist coverage rather than UK depth, at a correspondingly higher price.
Roxhill
UK-focused journalist database and media monitoring, founder-owned and annual only
As of 31 August 2026, Roxhill's pricing is not published; the vendor quotes on request. A media database and monitoring platform built for UK press offices, with an in-house research team maintaining journalist profiles rather than scraped bylines. Softwr lists it under Marketing. Roxhill is made by Roxhill Media Limited, available on Web, iOS, Android.
Overview
What Roxhill does
Roxhill combines a journalist and outlet database of roughly 297,000 contacts across 35,000 titles with press release distribution, forward-feature and journalist request alerts, and media monitoring through smart folders, workspaces and bespoke morning newsletters. Journalist profiles carry recent articles, social activity and stated pitching preferences, and the Journalist Assistant uses those to help personalise a pitch. Spokespeople monitoring and share-of-voice reporting sit on the upper bands. What distinguishes it is the maintenance model and the ownership. Contacts are researched by an in-house UK team rather than harvested, which is why the database is far smaller than the million-plus contacts Cision and others claim, and why the UK coverage is denser than the size suggests. Ownership matters more than PR buyers usually credit: Companies House records a single individual person with significant control holding over 75% of shares, with no corporate PSC. Cision sits under Platinum Equity, Vuelio and Isentia under Access Intelligence. Roxhill is unfunded and founder-controlled, which means no roll-up pricing pressure and no forced platform migration, but real key-man risk. The founder previously built and sold Gorkana, which Cision absorbed, so a change-of-control clause is not paranoia. Buyers are UK in-house press offices and UK agencies. The trade-off is geography and commitment. Reviewers consistently describe the database as UK-centric, with weaker US, Australian and broader Asian journalist coverage, so a multi-market programme needs a second vendor and the single-vendor cost case evaporates. Selling is annual only, sales-gated and functionally trial-limited to about two weeks. The vendor publishes no prices, but the G-Cloud 14 listing puts the band at £6,450 to £25,000 per instance per year with EEA hosting, which is a free negotiating anchor before the first sales call.
What people use it for
- A UK in-house press office that needs journalist contacts with current pitching preferences rather than a scraped byline list.
- An agency tracking forward features across UK trade and consumer titles to place clients into planned coverage months ahead.
- A communications team monitoring named spokespeople and measuring their share of voice against competitors in UK media.
- A UK public sector body procuring through G-Cloud that needs EEA-hosted media monitoring with a published framework price band.
Related searches
The honest half
Where it falls short
Concrete and checkable, so you can decide whether any of them matter to you. This is the half of a review a vendor will not write about Roxhill.
- The database is UK-centric by reviewers’ own account, with weak US, Australian and broader Asian journalist coverage, so any multi-market programme needs a second vendor and the single-vendor cost case disappears.
- Contact records go stale: reviewers report old email addresses and phone numbers, distribution bounces, and there is no self-serve verification step before you send.
- At roughly 200,000 to 300,000 journalists it is far smaller than the million-plus figures Cision and Prowly claim, with repeated complaints about thin trade, academic and journal coverage.
- Selling is annual only with no monthly plan and a trial functionally restricted to around two weeks, so you cannot genuinely pilot before a twelve-month commitment, which is a poor fit for project or retainer agency work.
- Licence bands are 1, 3 and 5 seats, and extra logins, workspaces, smart folders, historical search, share of voice and the spokespeople platform are all chargeable add-ons, so a team of eight to fifteen pays well above any headline band.
- Search behaviour is described as counter-intuitive and sometimes returns implausibly few results, which means a null result cannot be trusted and lists need manual cross-checking.
- Monitoring accuracy takes time to settle after switching, so coverage is missed in the first weeks after a cutover, which is a real gap risk if you time the migration badly.
Cross-shopped
What people choose instead of Roxhill
Each pairing was judged by two reviewers asking whether a buyer would genuinely weigh the two against each other. The ones that failed were deleted rather than published.
- RoxhillvsProwly
Prowly: Prowly is cheaper, self-serve and publishes its pricing, which suits smaller teams unwilling to commit annually.
- RoxhillvsMuck Rack
Muck Rack: Muck Rack has stronger US journalist coverage and better search, and is the natural counterpart if you run transatlantic PR.
Pricing
What Roxhill costs
Taken from the vendor's own pricing page. Prices move, so check before you buy.
Core
On request
- 1 licence
- Standard database access
- Journalist Assistant
- 1 workspace, 3 smart folders, 3 spokespeople, 1 newsletter
Boutique
On request
- 3 licences
- Adds press release distribution
- 3 workspaces, 6 smart folders, 10 spokespeople, 3 newsletters
- Historical search
Enterprise
On request
- 5 licences
- 5 workspaces, 10 smart folders, 5 newsletters
- Spokespeople platform
- Dedicated support
Premium
On request
- Everything in Enterprise
- Insights analysis and bespoke reporting
- Competitor share of voice
- Priced on application
Capabilities
Features
Journalist database
Around 297,000 journalists across 35,000 outlets, researched in-house
Journalist profiles
Recent articles, social activity and stated pitching preferences per contact
Media lists and distribution
Builds lists and sends releases with open and click tracking
Media requests and alerts
Journalist callouts, moves and forward features from 200+ outlets
Media monitoring
Smart folders and workspaces with AI coverage metrics
Bespoke newsletters
Scheduled morning digests of relevant coverage
Historical search
Twelve months of retrospective coverage search on upper bands
Journalist Assistant
AI assistance for personalising pitches to a specific journalist
Answered, with sources
Questions people ask
Each answer names the page it came from, so you can check it rather than take our word for it.
How much does Roxhill cost?
Not published on the vendor site, but the UK G-Cloud 14 listing discloses £6,450 to £25,000 per instance per year. Use that as your anchor.
Is Roxhill owned by Cision or Access Intelligence?
No. Companies House shows a single individual holding over 75% of shares and no corporate PSC. It is founder-controlled and unfunded. Note the founder previously sold Gorkana to Cision, so ask for a change-of-control clause.
Is it usable for US or APAC media relations?
Not well. Reviewers describe US, Australian and Asian coverage as materially weaker than UK. Budget for a second database.
Can I buy monthly?
No. Contracts are annual, sales-gated, with a trial of around two weeks.
Keep looking
Where to go from Roxhill
- Roxhill alternativesEvery product people weigh against it
- Roxhill pricingPlans, floors and what the tiers exclude
- Roxhill badgesWhich rules it meets, and the figure behind each
- All Marketing softwareThe full category
- Best Marketing softwareThe shortlist, and how it was cut
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Softwr does not host reviews and shows no star rating for Roxhill, because a rating we did not collect is not ours to publish. What is here is the pricing and platform detail from the vendor’s own pages, limitations we could state concretely, and alternatives a reviewer confirmed people weigh against it. Tell us if any of it is wrong.
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