PR Newswire Reviews of Features, Prices & More

Press releases are a great way to gain media coverage, and for that, you need a press distribution service. PR Newswire has been in the business a long time and it’s managed to make a name for itself, so if you’re curious to know more, you’re in the right place.

From our PRNewswire reviews, you can learn everything about this service—how it works, what its strengths and weaknesses are, and understand its pricing model.

Stay tuned!

What Is PR Newswire and How Does It Work?

PR Newswire is a press release distribution service that’s been around since 1954, with the initial goal of delivering news releases to the popular media so they reach more people and achieve the desired impact. Although this goal hasn’t changed over the years, PR Newswire today offers a wider range of products and tools, targets specific industries and regions, and has a broad distribution—it can reach people across 170 world countries through more than 3,000 media outlets.

Who Owns PRNewswire?

Over the years, PR Newswire has been owned by several different corporations, including Western Union and the United Newspapers of London. Currently, the press distribution service is owned by Cision, which acquired PR Newswire at the end of 2015 and merged it into the company in 2021, thus ending its status as a separate legal entity. In other words, PR Newswire is part of a larger media software company currently owning several other media services.

How Does PR Newswire Work?

For this PR Newswire review, we looked into how the service works, and the model is quite simple. All PR Newswire clients have to subscribe to the service and pay an annual membership fee to gain access to its services. However, in addition to the fee, clients are billed per release—you’ll find more on the pricing model further below.

The submission process is extremely simple—there are step-by-step instructions on how to submit a press release, and if you’re having trouble writing a press release, the PR department experts can help you write it.

Main Features

Although the PR Newswire press release distribution is the company’s primary occupation, there are plenty of other features that make it a well-rounded news distribution channel. Below, you can read about some of the features available to PR Newswire users.

Real-Time Monitoring

One of the services offered by PR Newswire is real-time monitoring that lets clients track their brand’s mentions in news alerts across various channels: online, in print, on broadcasts, and on social media. They can track clicks, downloads, and social media engagement, and get the overall impression numbers and information on audience demographics.

Mobile Optimization

As more and more users are accessing news releases from their mobile devices, it’s essential that press releases and product announcements are optimized for mobile view. Mobile optimization is factored into the PR Newswire costs, and all published content is just as easily accessible through mobile phones, tablets, and e-readers as it is through desktops.

Custom Reporting

Something not commonly seen with other press distribution services is custom reporting. PR Newswire allows users to customize their releases and campaign reports if the campaign is time-sensitive or they have multiple campaigns at once. Users can also choose what metrics show up on the reports and share these reports with stakeholders.

Social Posting

In addition to distributing press releases, PR Newswire offers social media posting, but what’s even better is that social media posts are SEO optimized, tag-optimized, and appear on the three major search engines: Google, Bing, and Yahoo. This is included in the PR Newswire prices, as are industry-specific Twitter handles that allow you to reach the largest number of followers and improve your social signals.

Targeting

Targeting is a feature in which PR Newswire excels, as the company is able to target unique niches, many of which (charities, foundations, public officials) can’t be targeted elsewhere. Clients can also choose to target the audience based on location, language, demographics, etc. Using this feature, the client can execute marketing campaigns that are hard to organize elsewhere.

Online Syndication

When going through PR Newswire reviews, we came across the term ‘online syndication’. Upon further research, we found this feature allows you to expand your media channel’s digital footprint—PR Newswire offers global wire distribution across more than 10,000 websites, increasing brand visibility and attracting a larger viewership.

International Press Release

PR Newswire offers something not even the other top-notch press distribution services do—international releases. This service offers distribution to 170 countries worldwide, and in more than 40 languages. What’s more, apart from global distribution, it also offers translation services and local and regional support that establishes a good communication strategy with regional audiences.

Local Press Release

You probably want to know—how much does PR Newswire cost? Well, it depends on the type of release you choose (we’ll go into more detail on that later), but if you opt for a local release, the price will be significantly lower than for an international release. PR Newswire lets you target specific towns and cities, both large and small, and ensure the release reaches local audiences only.

Websites, Content Systems & Media Outlets

PR Newswire has a well-established media relations network, currently with connections with over 4,000 websites, 3,000 media outlets, and more than 550 content systems. In addition to this, PR Newswire has approximately 39,000 subscribing journalists, which means your content will get a significant amount of traffic once connected to this network.

Multimedia Optimization

The PR Newswire cost increases if you decide to use multimedia optimization, which lets you add photos and videos to your releases. Although this will cost you extra, it’s been proven to boost visibility and lead to more media engagement.

Ease of Use

For this PR Newswire review, we looked into the service to determine whether it’s easy to use. After a thorough look through all the features, we concluded using this service is quite straightforward, and beginners and experienced users alike can easily find their way around.

The signup process is quite simple, too—when you enter the PR Newswire homepage, you need to click on the ‘Sign Up’ button at the top of the page.

After that, you’ll be redirected to a contact form where you’ll need to enter information about you/the primary user and the essential info about your organization.

The signup process is concluded in two steps, and you can start planning your first release as soon as you create your account.

Plans and Pricing

Throughout this review, we already mentioned the PR Newswire pricing a few times, hinting at the fact that it’s an important aspect of using PR Newswire. However, the company doesn’t disclose the prices on their official website, claiming that pricing is tailored to the client’s needs and you’ll know the true cost of using PR Newswire once you start using their services.
The prices shown below are acquired from other sources and serve to provide info on the general pricing range.

The first thing you need to know about PR Newswire’s complex pricing model is that in order to use any of the services, you need to pay for an annual subscription fee of $195 ($295 if invoiced). Then, you need to choose one of the three offered plans, the reported prices of which you can see in the table below:

As you can see from the table, the PR Newswire cost isn’t the lowest among press distribution services available on the market, especially considering any additions to the release will cost you extra.

• Additional 100 words per release – $140–$2,200
• Multimedia attachment (photos, videos) – $325–$425
• Logo attachment – $495

As previously mentioned, PR Newswire doesn’t publicly disclose prices, so the numbers shown above are acquired from other sources and aim to give you a rough estimate of what additional PR Newswire services cost.

Taking this into account, PR Newswire might not be the best choice for small businesses with limited budgets—if you have a longer release, or decide to add your logo, links, or multimedia to it, the PR Newswire cost per release can be very significant.
Well-established businesses with bigger budgets, on the other hand, can expect excellent results with this service.

Customer Support

The customer support team at PR Newswire can be reached by phone and through an online contact form. If you opt for online support, you need to fill out the form, and support should reach out to you in the next 24 hours. Phone support is available at 888 776 0942, and it can be reached between 8 AM and 9 PM Eastern Time.

If you choose a PR Newswire press release, rest assured the support team will promptly respond to contact forms. Plus, the hold times for phone support are great—most users wait less than a minute.

Alternatives

After reading through this review, you may have found something you don’t like about PR Newswire. So, if you’re after some alternative options, check out our comparison of PR Newswire to three of its competitors: eReleases, EIN Presswire, and Newswire Jet.

After reviewing these similar services, we can conclude that PR Newswire is the best choice for larger businesses that aim to reach a wide network of media outlets and need to see immediate results.

Is PR Newswire Worth It?

PR Newswire is a long-standing, reputable press distribution service that boasts excellent features and has shown excellent results over the years.
For established businesses that don’t mind paying the extra cost, PR Newswire is the perfect solution—the results a business can achieve with this service are definitely worth paying slightly more.