--- description: A press release service costs from €9.95 to about £300 per release. A PR agency retainer starts near £3,000 or €3,000 a month. Published rates, dated. modified: '2026-11-13' resource: https://pressonify.ai/blog/press-release-service-vs-pr-agency-cost tags: - Pricing - PR Agencies - Press Release Distribution - Small Business timestamp: '2026-11-13T12:00:00Z' title: 'Press Release Service or PR Agency: What Each Costs' type: article --- # Press Release Service or PR Agency: What Each Costs **A press release service is priced per release, from under €10 to about £300. A PR agency is priced per month, with published retainers starting around £3,000 or €3,000.** They do different jobs, so the comparison that matters is what each one buys. All figures below were read from the publisher's own page on 13 November 2026. ## The published rates | Option | Published price | Unit | Publisher | |---|---|---|---| | Write and post it yourself | Free | Your time | n/a | | **Pressonify** (drafted, published, citation tracking) | €9.95 first release, €49.95 after, €200 for five | Per release | [Pricing](/pricing) | | **ResponseSource** (UK journalist send) | From £85 plus VAT | Per release | [responsesource.com](https://www.responsesource.com/pr/pricing/) | | **PR Fire** (UK journalist send) | £95 plus VAT; £290 with the release written | Per campaign | [prfire.co.uk](https://www.prfire.co.uk/pricing/) | | **Presswire** (journalist send) | £185 for one region, £300 worldwide, plus VAT | Per release | [presswire.com](https://presswire.com/pricing/) | | Release written by a person | £200 plus VAT (PR Fire); $300 (eReleases) | Per release | [eReleases](https://www.ereleases.com/pricing/) | | **UK agency retainer** | From £3,000; median of 61 independent agencies £3,571 | Per month | [Essential Content](https://www.essentialcontent.co.uk/blog/public-relations-agency-retainer-cost-uk-2024-2025/) | | **Irish agency retainer** | €3,000 to €10,000 (estimate); €3,000 to €15,000 (one agency's rates) | Per month | [Comit](https://www.comit.ie/pr-blog/2023/05/pr-retainer-fees-in-dublin-how-much-should-i-budget/), [CultureHead](https://www.culturehead.com/post/how-much-does-public-relations-pr-cost-in-ireland) | | **US agency retainer** | $15,000 to $75,000 at one large agency; "$5,000 or $6,000" for some B2B programmes | Per month | [5W](https://www.5wpr.com/new/pr-firm-cost/), [Idea Grove](https://www.ideagrove.com/blog/how-much-does-a-b2b-pr-agency-cost-in-2026) | *Read on 13 November 2026. US wire prices are in our [distribution pricing comparison](/blog/press-release-distribution-pricing-comparison-2026).* ## How soft the agency numbers are Treat every agency figure as a guide. We could not find a retainer figure published by an industry body in the UK, Ireland or the US. What exists is: - **Agencies' own rates.** Essential Content says its retainers "start at £3,000 per month". CultureHead lists "€3,000 to €15,000 per month". 5W says its retainers "start at around $15,000 per month and run up to $75,000". - **One agency's analysis.** Essential Content's median of £3,571 and mean of £4,672.55 come from 61 independent UK agencies, partly estimated, first published in November 2023. - **A stated estimate.** Comit gives €3,000 to €10,000 for Dublin and says plainly that it is "purely based on general market knowledge and not on hard research data". A figure sometimes quoted as a UK industry average of about £4,700 matches that one agency's mean. We could not find it in the industry census it is attributed to. ## What each one buys | | Press release service | PR agency | |---|---|---| | Unit | One announcement | A month of work | | The release | Written by you, by a writer for a fee, or drafted by software | Written as part of the retainer | | Reaching journalists | A send to a list, or none | Pitching by people who know the reporters | | Where it lives | A wire page or a release page | Wherever coverage lands | | Commitment | None | Usually several months | 5W puts the agency model this way: "Press release writing is part of that retainer ... so a company pays for the release and the pitching together rather than buying a standalone document." ## Which fits - **Routine news, small budget:** a per-release service. If the goal is to be found and cited when people ask AI about you, a [structured release page for a small business](/press-release-distribution-for-small-business) does that for €9.95 to €49.95. - **A launch that needs coverage:** an agency or freelancer for the pitching, with a release page as the reference they link to. See [whether press releases get media coverage](/blog/do-press-releases-get-media-coverage-2026). - **No time to write:** a service that drafts it. See [which press release services write the release for you](/blog/do-press-release-services-write-the-release). - **Hoping for SEO links:** read [whether press releases still earn backlinks](/blog/do-press-releases-get-backlinks) before paying anyone. ## Related Reading - [Press Release Distribution Pricing Comparison](/blog/press-release-distribution-pricing-comparison-2026) - [Small Business Press Release Distribution: Wires or AI?](/blog/press-release-distribution-for-small-businesses-guide) - [Do Press Release Services Write the Release for You?](/blog/do-press-release-services-write-the-release) - [Press Release Distribution for Small Business](/press-release-distribution-for-small-business) --- *Written by the Pressonify team in Dublin. We build the platform described above, publish our own citation data, and correct it in public when it turns out to be wrong.* ## Knowledge bundle - [Pressonify OKF bundle root](/okf/index.md)