Press release distribution costs anywhere from about $20 to over $1,000 for a single release, and the price tells you surprisingly little about what you get. This guide breaks down what the market actually charges, what drives the difference, and how to work out which tier your announcement needs.
Disclosure: Concierge Wire is a press release distribution service. Our own pricing is included below alongside the rest of the market, and we have tried to describe the trade-offs honestly rather than argue that one tier is always right.
What the market charges
Published pricing across the better-known services, at the time of writing in 2026:
| Service | Published price per release |
|---|---|
| IssueWire | from around $21 |
| RedPress | around $89 to $950 |
| Concierge Wire | $149 to $499 |
| EIN Presswire | around $149 |
| PR Newswire | around $350, plus an annual membership fee |
| eReleases | around $399 to $699 |
| Business Wire | from around $760 |
Prices change, and most of these services quote differently depending on word count, region and add-ons, so treat this as a map of the landscape rather than a quote. Independent round-ups from eReleases and BrandPush put the full range at roughly $20 to $3,000 once enterprise add-ons are included.
Why the range is so wide
Four things account for almost all of the price difference.
1. Wire syndication
The expensive services pay to push your release onto the newswires that newsrooms actually monitor, including Associated Press syndication. That access is what you are buying at the $700-plus level, and it is genuinely expensive to provide. Below roughly $200, assume you are not getting it.
2. Editorial review
Whether a human reads your release before it publishes. Services that review will reject submissions, which is a cost to them and a quality signal for everyone published there. Services that auto-publish anything are cheaper for a reason.
3. Where the release lives afterwards
Some services publish to a page that stays live permanently. Others remove releases after 30 or 90 days, or keep them behind a subdomain that carries little weight. If the durable URL matters to you, check this before paying, because it is often buried in the terms.
4. Add-ons
This is where advertised prices stop being useful. Extra words beyond a limit, images, video hosting, geographic or industry targeting, and translations are commonly charged separately. A $350 release with three add-ons can land closer to $700.
What you should actually be comparing
Price per release is the wrong first question. Ask these instead, and get the answers in writing:
- Is the URL permanent? Or does it expire?
- Is there a word limit, and what does exceeding it cost?
- Are images included, and how many?
- Is there editorial review, and what happens if you are rejected? Is it refunded?
- What is the turnaround from submission to live?
- What links are included, how many, and are they followed?
- Do you get a report showing where it was published?
A cheaper service that answers all seven clearly is a better purchase than an expensive one that answers none.
Which tier does your announcement need?
Match the spend to the news, not to the budget.
Under $100
Suitable for routine announcements where the goal is a citable, indexed record: a new hire, a minor product update, a certification. Expect auto-publication and little or no editorial input. Do not expect journalist pickup.
$100 to $500
The working range for most small and mid-sized businesses. You should get editorial review, a permanent URL, images, and links to your site. This is the right tier for launches, funding announcements, partnerships and awards where you want a credible published record and search visibility rather than national coverage.
$500 and above
Justified when you genuinely need newsroom reach: a public company disclosure, a regulated announcement, a major funding round, or anything where being picked up by financial media changes the outcome. If none of those apply, the extra spend is unlikely to return anything.
The honest limits of any press release
Distribution puts your announcement in front of an audience. It does not make the announcement newsworthy, and no service can. If the underlying story is thin, a $760 wire distributes a thin story more widely than a $149 one does. Every provider knows this; not all of them say it.
The highest-return improvement is almost always the release itself. Our guide to writing a press release covers the structure, with a template and a worked example.
Frequently asked questions
How much does a press release cost on average?
Most small and mid-sized businesses pay between $100 and $500 per release. Budget services start around $20, and full enterprise wire distribution runs from roughly $760 up to $3,000 once add-ons are included.
Is free press release distribution worth using?
Free tiers usually auto-publish without review, offer no-follow links, and often remove the release after a set period. They can be useful for a low-stakes announcement or to test a service, but they rarely produce a durable, citable record. Check whether the URL stays live before relying on it.
Why do enterprise wire services cost so much more?
They pay for syndication onto the newswires that newsrooms monitor, including Associated Press feeds, and they carry compliance obligations for regulated disclosures. That access has a real cost. If your announcement is not aimed at newsrooms or regulators, you are paying for reach you will not use.
Do press releases still help with SEO?
A published release gives you an indexed page referencing your company, which can rank for brand and long-tail queries and can be cited by others. It is not a link-building shortcut, and treating it as one produces poor releases that get rejected. Value it as a citable record rather than as a ranking tactic.
How many press releases should a small business publish?
Only as many as you have genuine news. For most small businesses that is somewhere between two and six a year. Publishing on a schedule regardless of whether anything happened produces releases that nobody reads and that weaken the ones that matter.
Concierge Wire pricing
For transparency, since this article compares the market: our plans run from $149 for a single release to $499 for three, each with editorial review, a permanent indexed URL and backlinks to your site. Full details are on our pricing page, and you can submit a release directly.
