The modern alternative to Telum Media.
Telum Media is the Asia-Pacific specialist media database — the go-to tool for PR teams working across APAC markets like Singapore, Hong Kong, Australia, India, and Southeast Asia.
The honest comparison.
Pulled from public Telum Media documentation, customer reviews, and our own product. We update this page when either side ships something new.
| Capability | Medialyst | Telum Media |
|---|---|---|
| Finding the right journalist | ||
| Find journalists for this story | ✓ Story-specific relevance scoring | ~ Keyword search + filters over APAC database |
| Understand a journalist's beat | ✓ Reads past articles + recent coverage | ~ Beat tags + desk assignments, journalist-first |
| Analyze past writing | ✓ Grounded in actual articles | ~ Editorial intelligence, not per-article analysis |
| Per-journalist pitch angles | ✓ Personalized angles + pitch drafts | ✕ Not available |
| Data freshness | ✓ Live news article search in real time | ~ Human-curated, periodic refresh |
| Refine a list with natural language | ✓ “Remove anyone inactive in 6 months” | ✕ Not available |
| Find more like top performers | ✓ “Find 20 more like the top 5” | ✕ Not available |
| Add custom enrichment columns | ✓ “Research if they use affiliate links” | ✕ Not available |
| Pitching & sending | ||
| Email verification | ✓ Multi-step verification waterfall | ~ Human-curated contacts — well-regarded in APAC |
| Send from one place | ✓ Built-in sending | ✕ — database + intel, not outreach |
| Pricing & setup | ||
| Time to first pitch | ✓ Minutes | ~ Weeks: sales call → annual onboarding |
| Free trial | ✓ First list free | ✕ Demo only |
| Contract | ✓ None — cancel anytime | ~ Annual-only |
| Price | ✓ from $149/mo | ~ Quote-only (APAC pricing varies by market) |
| Agent-native workflows | ||
| API access | ✓ Public REST API | ✕ Not available |
| Remote MCP support | ✓ Hosted remote MCP server | ✕ Not available |
| Agent-native workflows | ✓ Usable directly inside Claude, ChatGPT & Cursor | ✕ Not available |
| CSV import / re-enrichment from competitor exports | ✓ Upload any CSV — the agent re-verifies & re-scores | ~ No re-enrichment from exports |
Find your journalists now. No demo. No contract. No credit card.
Start in seconds and see live journalist matches for your first pitch.
Why people switch from Telum Media.
APAC-only coverage in a global market
Telum is deliberately APAC-focused — it covers Asia-Pacific media thoroughly but has minimal coverage of US, European, or other markets. If your PR needs extend beyond APAC, you either pair Telum with a global tool or switch to one that covers everywhere. Medialyst enriches journalists live across any outlet, any market worldwide.
Telum Media — about ↗Opaque pricing on annual contracts
Telum doesn't publish pricing — every plan requires a sales call and an annual commitment. Pricing varies by market and modules. Medialyst publishes pricing from $149/mo, bills monthly, and gives you a free first list with no credit card.
G2 — Telum Media reviews ↗A curated database, still subject to decay
Telum's human research team maintains curated APAC journalist profiles, and regional contacts are generally well-regarded. But it's still a static database that decays between refresh cycles — and APAC's dynamic media landscape, with rapid outlet launches and closures, makes that decay faster. Medialyst verifies every email in real time before delivery.
Capterra — Telum Media reviews ↗No story-specific AI research
Telum's discovery workflow is traditional: filter by keywords, beats, outlets, and geography, then manually build your list. It doesn't read each journalist's recent articles to judge whether they'd cover your specific story. Medialyst reads hundreds of articles relevant to your announcement, scores reporters 0–100 by fit, and tells you why each one would write it.
Telum Media — platform ↗Where Telum Media wins.
The deepest APAC media database
For Asia-Pacific PR, Telum is the specialist. Its research team maintains journalist profiles, editorial calendars, and market intelligence across APAC markets with a level of regional depth that global databases like Cision or Meltwater skim over. Singapore, Hong Kong, and Australian PR teams rate it as the default for APAC media relations.
Editorial intelligence beyond contact data
Telum provides editorial calendars, forward features, media moves tracking, and market-specific briefings that give you context beyond a contact list. For teams that need to understand the editorial landscape of APAC markets, that intelligence layer is valuable.
Trusted APAC brand with strong regional relationships
Telum has built deep relationships with APAC media and PR communities over years of regional focus. Its events, awards, and media intelligence reports make it more than a database — it's an institution in APAC PR circles.
Where Medialyst pulls ahead.
Global coverage, not APAC-only
Medialyst enriches journalists live across any outlet, any journalist, any beat worldwide. APAC coverage works alongside US, European, and every other market — no need for separate tools for each region.
Right-priced and flexible — no contract, no sales call
Starter is $149/mo, Pro $299, Scale $800 — published, monthly, no per-seat fees, no annual lock-in, and a 30-day money-back guarantee. The first list is free with 300 credits and no credit card.
Live enrichment instead of periodic curation
Medialyst enriches each journalist live at the moment you build a list and verifies every email in real time before it reaches you — critical in APAC markets where media moves are frequent.
Agent-native, not dashboard-bound
A public REST API, a hosted remote MCP server, and custom enrichment columns mean you can run Medialyst directly inside Claude, ChatGPT, or Cursor.
Switching is a CSV upload
Already paying for Telum? Export your media lists, upload the CSV, and Medialyst's agent re-verifies and re-scores every contact.
AI bolted on vs. AI-native.
Legacy platforms point AI at the same filter UI you already had. Medialyst assigns a research agent to each candidate journalist, reads their actual work, and consolidates the strong fits. Watch the same brief run through both.
MEDIALYST AGENTOUTPUT: 1,847 RESEARCHED TO FIT-CHECKED SHORTLIST
Full architecture notes for Telum Media
Telum's strength is human editorial intelligence — research analysts who curate APAC media contacts, track media moves, and maintain editorial calendars. It's not heavily marketing AI features. But the underlying model is the same as every legacy database: a static, human-maintained index you filter and browse. Medialyst is AI-native end to end — the agent reads real, recent articles per journalist. That's the difference between curated profiles you browse and AI research you direct.
★★★★★“Not a static database pull. Not the same recycled names that have been sitting in a spreadsheet for two years. A researched, current list built around exactly what you tell it to look for, with journalist names, their publication, their most recent articles, and their contact information all in one place.”Amy BartkoPR professional, Chatterbox
Pitching the same announcement.
One launch, two tools. Here's what a comms lead actually does to get a story-specific pitch out the door.
Medialyst9 min totalTelum Media~3 daysThree places the difference shows up.
01Database quality
Telum's database is deliberately APAC-focused, covering journalists, bloggers, and influencers across Asia-Pacific markets with a level of local detail that global databases can't match in the region.
Human researchers maintain profiles, track media moves, and update editorial calendars — providing editorial intelligence alongside contact data. The contacts are generally well-regarded for accuracy within APAC. The structural limitation is geographic scope: coverage outside Asia-Pacific is minimal.
Medialyst takes a different approach: it enriches journalists live at the moment you build a list, pulling recent articles, confirming the beat, and verifying the email in real time. Coverage is global — APAC and every other market — and the unit of truth is a freshly-researched contact for your story.
02Speed
Telum is built for ongoing APAC media relations, not rapid list-building.
There's a sales call, an annual contract, and onboarding before you start. Finding journalists means browsing the database, filtering, and manually selecting contacts — the standard legacy workflow. Medialyst collapses that.
You paste a press release, a URL, or a topic, and the agent goes to work immediately. The average time from describing your story to a verified, scored journalist list is four minutes and thirty-two seconds — across any market worldwide.
03AI & agent surface
Telum's features live inside its platform — the database, media moves, and editorial intelligence are operated through its dashboard.
There's no public API, no MCP server, and no way to drive it from your own tools. Medialyst is built agent-first.
A public REST API and a hosted remote MCP server mean you can run discovery and enrichment directly from inside Claude, ChatGPT, or Cursor.
Two pricing philosophies, side by side.
Ours is public and posted. Here's how it sits next to what Telum Media customers tell us they encounter.
- Starterfounders & small teams$97/mo annual
- Proin-house comms & PR teams$194/mo annual
- Scaleagencies & high-volume teams$520/mo annual
- No contract · no per-seat fees · 30-day money-back
- Free first list — 300 credits, no credit card
- One unified product — no modules priced separately
- Telum doesn't publish pricing — quotes are custom and annual, varying by market and modules. There's no monthly option and no free trial.
- No public pricing — quote on request
In the words of Medialyst users.
Real customers, approved for use. Your results depend on your story and your list — these are theirs.
"What came back was a working list with real journalists, current coverage, and contact information I could use the same day. No cross-referencing. No digging through three different tabs. One prompt and I was pitching."
"Medialyst makes it super easy to narrow down and create dedicated PR lists to reach out to the journalists that actually want to hear what you have to say. The timeline from chatting to the agent about what you have to promote to actually launching the campaign goes down to mere 1-2 hours instead of days worth of research and prospecting."
"Then recently I stumbled upon Elvis Sun's agentic PR tool Medialyst — with a few detailed prompts, the agent comes up with a pretty targeted list of journalists. The best thing is it gives a summary of their recent articles before I commit to reading every piece."
"Medialyst is the only tool that keeps up with the pace our firm needs to move at across our High Growth B2B Tech clients. The journalist targeting is sharp as well as accurate, and Elvis actually ships when you give him feedback."
"It's 100% customizable to you & your clients. It's affordable. It's built by someone who gets back to you quickly & truly wants to give the people what they want — MORE time."
"Medialyst takes the guesswork out of journalist outreach. It vets your pitch for suitability, matches it to the right journalists, and hands you their most accurate contact details — so instead of firing off cold emails into the void, you're landing in the right inboxes. The result? Fewer emails sent, more stories published."
"This is a must-have if you work in media, it's easy to use and saves you a lot of time! The customer service has been some of the best I have experienced."
Paste a story. Get your journalist list in minutes.
Drop in a press release, your website URL, or a one-line description of your news. Medialyst reads what's relevant, finds reporters who actually cover it, scores them by fit, and verifies every email — your first list is free, no credit card.
Common questions about switching from Telum Media.
What is the best Telum Media alternative?
Is Telum Media APAC-only?
Can I import my Telum contacts into Medialyst?
Telum Media vs Medialyst — what's the difference?
Beyond APAC. Build your first global journalist list now.
Start free with 300 credits and no credit card. Paste your story and get a verified, story-specific list of journalists in minutes.