6 Popular Paid PR Distribution Services for Businesses

Paid press release distribution services syndicate your content across different channels, sites, and locations in exchange for a fee. The fee varies, depending on the plans or packages you’ll get.
Let’s first discuss the differences between paid and free wire services to give you insights on what service you really need.

What are free distribution sites?

From the word “free,” clients don’t need to pay anything to get the basic distribution package. Since it is free, you can’t expect to get the same results you’re getting from a paid newswire.
Paid services are “paid” because they provide features, services, and PR results. It is free because it lacks the features that are perhaps important to your business. Most of them do not create much online noise.
There’s no guarantee that your story reaches your target audience. It only posts your story on their site, so there’s no chance that it gets seen by your target press. You’ll find a lot of limitations like you’re not allowed to add images, videos, HTML format, or tagging. Examples of free distribution services are PRLog.org, Amzeal.com, 24-7pressrelease.com, OnlinePRnews.com, and PR.com.
 

What are paid distribution sites?

A paid wire service distributes content to their network of journalists, reporters, influencers, and media outlets. It also appears on RSS feeds,  Google News and other search engines.
It offers additional features like formatting, writing, editing, and social media exposure. Sometimes these are offered as part of the package, while other wire services ask for an additional fee.
Clients receive an analytics report that monitors the progress of the campaign. It contains important metrics like traffic, page views, social media likes, shares, engagement rates, click-through rates, and more. Paid distribution sites include eReleases, Newswire, Business Wire, PR Newswire, and Marketwired.
Now, let’s check the popular paid distribution services in the market today:

1. Newswire

Newswire is a paid PR distribution site that distributes stories to their target audience, across different channels. It offers four plans for a single distribution package: Premium, Premium Plus, State Newsline, and the National Newsline.  A single distribution basic plan starts at $119.
 

 
The wire service also offers monthly and annual packages. Monthly plans are priced at $399, $699, and $1, 599 each month respectively. Annual plans come with 20 per cent off, making it $317, $558, and $1,271 each month.
The Small Business package is the most popular plan in the monthly and annual plans. Aside from the distribution, these subscription plans include newsroom, media database, media monitoring, and influence.
It offers a flexible monthly plan for more customization of their clients can’t find a suited package for them. Newswire also offers media monitoring, media database, media outreach, newsroom, and writing service for an additional cost.
 

2. eReleases

eReleases is a paid distribution site that is popular for its wide distribution at a cost-effective price. It is PR Newswire’s partner in the distribution.
Releases are sent to a minimum of 4, 200 networks of journalists, bloggers, and other sites for the package of less than $300. It is the best solution for startups and small businesses looking for immediate exposure and great returns-on-investment (ROI).
Check out its distribution plans:

 
If a client wants the next business day distribution, they have to pay an additional of $100. Distribution takes 3 days after the submission. Writing services can be availed at a separate package.
 

3. PR Newswire

PR Newswire is one of the pioneers in distributing releases and providing their clients with their needed exposure and media coverage. It features industry-specific targeting. They require a membership fee of $195 on top of the distribution plan.
It highlights features, such as Online member centre, visibility reports, editorial services, and media studio. The packages are $350, $575, and $805.

 
The newswire distribution plan includes sending your news to their network of 4,000 sites, 3,000 media outlets, and more than 550 news content systems. They deliver your news directly to editorial systems and newsrooms of top media outlets.
It sends your story to relevant journalists who are subscribed to their RSS feeds. They have 36, 000 members who opted to receive stories.  
 

4. Business Wire

Business Wire is a paid distribution site that has patented NX network reaching more than 89, 000 media outlets in 162 countries. Clients can also opt to choose from their 193 industry and trade categories for distribution. They offer distribution that caters to more than 20 languages.
It promises to syndicate news across different channels, digital, broadcast and print newsrooms, editors and reporters, websites, news and financial portals, bloggers, news syndicators, social media networks, consumers, and more.
It provides a quick distribution for a targeted list. Compared to other newswires, it is quite expensive. They are noted for their responsive and timely customer service.
There are no available pricing plans online. However, review forums indicated that it asks $400 for a 400-word press release. There’s an added fee for an additional 100-word.
 

5. Send 2 Press

One of the paid and oldest distribution sites to date is Send 2 Press that was founded in 1983. It highlights targeted press release distribution and professional press release writing services.
Its distribution includes direct-to-editors email delivery to targeted media across different channels (print, broadcasting, wire). The basic plan is a full national package that costs $199. The Standard level “state” costs $99.
It syndicates news to more than 40, 000 U.S. media outlets and RSS feeds, financial content network, exclusive Neotrope News Network sites, news syndicators, and traditional wires.
Check out their distribution plans:

Standard Level Distribution Plans

• Standard National Distribution Plan: $199 per release
• Standard Industry + Regional Plan: $149 per release
• Standard Event Distribution Plan: $99 per release
• Standard Online Only Post Plan: $89 per release

Premium Level Distribution Plans

• Premium National PLUS Plan: $499
• Premium Industry Focus PLUS: $469
• Premium National “Online LITE” Plan: $399

 
The wire service offers writing and revision services. The writing service can be availed as a solo service or as part of the plan. There is usually a 2 to 3 days turnaround time for writing a full release, and one full-working-day for rewriting service.

6. Marketwired

Marketwired, another PR solution helps businesses gain exposure to their news across different channels. It helps them publish their news and track it online and offline through a metrics dashboard.
It features specialized distribution channels where it allows its clients to create their customer lists. They also highlight online and social media visibility, editorial support and translation, and helping clients meet their regulatory filing requirements.
It is a platform that clients find easy-to-use. Industry-specific and geo-targeting are great features that let businesses reach their target audience. Unfortunately, they don’t have the available pricing list on their site.
 

Advantages of Using a paid release distribution platform

Investing in paid wire services like Newswire, PR Web, PR Newswire, Market Wired, and Business Wire is worth the price. Why?
Certainly, there’s the truth behind the saying “You get what you pay for.” Free sites don’t offer the features they provide, and so don’t expect to get the results.
On the other hand, if you pay for a fee, you’re paying for such features and services that you need. All of these benefit your campaign’s success.
You don’t want to pay for something that you’re not going to use anyway. So, before hiring a service, you need to weigh if you really need what they are offering.
These distribution services are connected to a vast network that they have relationships with. It means a lot in the PR business. If your news is placed in relevant sites, locations and sent to relevant journalists, there’s more possibility that you’ll get exposure for your story.
Even you’re not going to get media coverage, the exposure you get is enough to develop a good working relationship with the media. If they are subscribed to the industry, they are more likely to receive your news.
When you use a paid service for distribution, you have the peace of mind that it reaches popular and major media outlets and search engines like Google News, Yahoo, AP, Reuters, New York Times, and more. It can bring you an influx of traffic to your site and promote brand awareness.
Getting paid service may include added perks like the inclusion of images, embedding of video, more hyperlinks, immediate distribution, and so on. It gives your news more elements that can help in optimizing it for the search engines.
Lastly, the most important thing that you can get from these services is analytics reports. For each distribution, you’ll get insights and data that interprets how many reads, clicked, or shared your release. You’ll also know how much traffic your site acquired, engagement rates and more.
Getting the outcome of your campaign is very important because you’ll get the idea if you’ve reached your business goal. Since you’ll know where and how much traffic is visiting your site, you can use the information on how you can better interact with them.
If you know how many journalists covered your story, you’ll have the idea of what topics to pitch them next time, or how to approach them. All the results you get are important for you to improve your next releases. It also helps you avoid the errors in your next campaign.