What Medialister does

Medialister is a Delaware-incorporated marketplace platform, founded in 2024 by Alexander Storozhuk, that connects brands with over 106,913 media outlets worldwide for paid editorial placements. The platform enables self-serve discovery, filtering, ordering, and tracking of editorial content campaigns, with metrics pulled from third-party data providers Similarweb, Ahrefs, and Semrush, and a proprietary Medialister Attention Index (MAI) for outlet evaluation. Its core technology is a SaaS marketplace supplemented by a public API and a Model Context Protocol (MCP) server that allows AI assistants such as ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini to query and shortlist placements directly.

The company targets three primary customer segments: PR/SEO/digital agencies running paid media across multiple clients, scale-up companies expanding into new markets, and enterprises executing media campaigns across teams and regions. Additional modules include a Content Marketing Service with guaranteed outcomes, an AI Visibility Audit covering GEO/AEO/LLO disciplines, a Bulk Search tool for competitor-driven outlet discovery, and an affiliate program managed via Tapfiliate.

Medialister operates on a pure transaction-based revenue model, charging a 10% commission on each placement price with no subscription, entry fee, or minimum spend, and offering automatic refunds for rejected content. The platform is built on payment infrastructure from Stripe Connect and cloud services from DigitalOcean. Medialister is closely tied to Estonian parent company PRNEWS (operator of PRNEWS.IO), from which it inherits operational know-how, supply-side relationships, and a reported 5,500-customer base. The company is currently raising a ~$2M seed round and operates with a 1–10 person team.

Name

Medialister

Legal name

Medialister Inc.

Website

https://medialister.com

Company type

Private

Founded year

2024

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

1–10 employees

Short description

Medialister is a marketplace platform founded in 2024 that connects brands with 106,913+ media outlets for paid editorial placements. It serves agencies, scale-ups, and enterprises via a 10% commission model, with AI agent integration (MCP), AI visibility audits, and content marketing services.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Editorial Advertising Platform

NAICS

Media Buying Agencies (541830)

SIC

Services-Advertising Agencies (7311)

akta.pro primary industry

News & Content Aggregation Portals (BPAMAAAI)

Keywords

• Editorial advertising marketplace
• Paid media placements
• Advertorial distribution
• Media buying platform
• AI visibility optimization

Headquarters

HQ city

Wilmington

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Software

Cost components

Technology or R&D, Marketing or Sales, Personnel, Operations, Infrastructure

Revenue model

1. Marketplace Commission: Medialister charges a 10% commission on the price of each media placement. Customers pay only for placements they want: the price of the placement plus 10% commission. No subscription, entry fees, or minimum spend required. Automatic refunds are issued if content is rejected.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion2 records

Distribution channels3 records

Marketing channels6 records

Core offering

Medialister operates a SaaS marketplace platform that lets brands, agencies, and marketers plan, purchase, and manage paid editorial media placements across 106,913+ media outlets worldwide. The platform provides filtered outlet discovery using traffic and SEO metrics from Similarweb, Ahrefs, and Semrush, instant self-serve ordering with money-back guarantees, end-to-end campaign tracking, and an MCP server for AI agent integration, monetizing each transaction via a 10% commission on the placement price.

Product overview

Medialister is a PR-tech company operating as a unified marketplace platform for paid editorial media placements. The core product is the Medialister Platform, which connects brands with 106,913+ media outlets worldwide for planning, buying, and managing paid content. Built on this core, Medialister offers several integrated modules: the MCP Server for AI agent integration with ChatGPT/Claude/Gemini, the Content Marketing Service for editorial-grade content development with guaranteed outcomes, the AI Visibility Audit for assessing and improving brand presence in LLMs, and an Affiliate Program for referral commissions. The platform also provides a public API for developers and a Bulk Search feature for competitor link replication. Pricing follows a transparent model with a 10% commission on placements plus the outlet price, with no subscription or minimum spend.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Quantifiable outcome

• Platform completes deal-making cycle within 2 business days
• +1 more outcomes

Named customers4 records

Segments4 records

Ideal customer profiles3 records

API detail

Has API

Yes

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Integration6 records

AI capability5 records

Feature4 records

Partnerships

Four partnerships are on record, tiered core and minor.

• Stripe ConnectcoreTechnology or IntegrationPayment infrastructure for processing payouts to publishers. All payments made in USD via Stripe Connect to verified bank accounts.
• DigitalOceancoreTechnology or IntegrationCloud infrastructure provider for secure data storage of customer account information, click log data, and platform data.
• PRNEWS.IOcoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerEstonian parent company behind Medialister. PRNEWS.IO is a global platform supporting brands and media. Alexander Storozhuk and Alex Nigmatulin created PRNEWS.IO and later launched Medialister as a product/sibling platform.
• Digital NeighborminorChannel Partner/ Reseller/ DistributorTampa-based digital marketing agency that uses Medialister to provide local PR services to law firm clients. Featured as a case study customer.

Scale indicators4 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights6 records

Direct peers

• Featured.com: Marketplace that connects brands with publishers for sponsored editorial articles and brand stories. Closely aligned product offering and customer segment to Medialister, competing for the same paid editorial budgets.
• Stacker: Syndicated content distribution network that places branded editorial features across hundreds of US news outlets. Operates a marketplace of editorial placements similar to Medialister, with comparable advertiser and publisher dynamics.
• PRNEWS.IO: Strategic parent and sister product of Medialister, founded by the same team (Alexander Storozhuk, Alex Nigmatulin). Operates an adjacent global marketplace for brand mentions and editorial coverage, making it the closest direct comparable in product, customer, and operating model.

Broad incumbents

• Nativo: Native advertising platform enabling brands to distribute sponsored editorial content across premium publisher networks. A broader incumbent in the paid editorial/native content space with overlapping advertiser demand.
• GlobeNewswire: Press release and corporate communications distribution service. Targets a similar PR/communications buyer for paid media distribution, with broader scale and traditional wire-format focus versus Medialister's marketplace model.
• Outbrain: Large-scale native advertising and content-discovery platform connecting advertisers to premium publisher networks. Comparable as an intermediary between advertisers and editorial publishers, though at much larger scale and focused on programmatic native units rather than sponsored editorial articles.
• PR Newswire (Cision): Global press release distribution and earned-media platform from Cision. Competes for the same marketing/PR budgets Medialister targets, with comparable value proposition of guaranteed editorial exposure in trusted outlets.
• Business Wire: Press release and corporate news distribution service owned by Berkshire Hathaway. A broad incumbent in paid content distribution to media, with overlapping customer base of PR/comms teams buying guaranteed media coverage.
• Taboola: Public content-discovery and native advertising network powering sponsored editorial placements across thousands of publishers. Directly analogous marketplace model for paid editorial exposure, but at incumbent scale with different pricing mechanics.

Emerging players

• Prowly: SaaS PR platform for press release creation, media database, and journalist outreach. Comparable in serving PR/comms teams with online media placements, with partial overlap on the editorial distribution workflow.

Market position

Strengths4 records

Weaknesses4 records

Competitive moat5 records

Key risks5 records

Key highlights6 records

Customer concentration

• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/medialister
• Xx.com/MedialisterHQ

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles2 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Medialister