How Do PR Companies Charge?

The question of how PR companies charge for their services can be turned into at least three questions:

• How much do PR companies charge?

• How do PR firms decide how much to charge?

• How do PR agencies structure the way they charge?

To answer these, we need to start with the last question, first.

How do PR Agencies Structure the Way They Charge?

Most PR firms charge a monthly retainer, and generally for a set number of months. For example, a PR firm might charge $20,000 per month for six months, or $50,000 per month for 12 months, or $4,500 per month for four months.

That makes it sound arbitary but it’s not. There are many types of PR firms, and they charge different amounts depending on the type of work they do.

For example, Smith Publicity focuses on author PR, or book PR. Their minimum retainer (last I checked) was around $5,000 per month for four months.

While retainers are the most common way to charge, other PR firms may charge a flat fee for a defined set of services over a specified time range, although I rarely see this.

Another way some PR firms charge is on a performance basis, where they get paid per PR objective met. This is how we do it at Canvas—we charge a flat fee per article placement secured.

A retainer is necessary when the PR firm is doing custom work and pitching you to a lot of places. At Canvas, we’re able to charge a flat fee because we’re working with journalists with whom we have strong relationships, so we “know” we can get an article placed even before we pitch it, and rather than saying, “We’re going to send out a bunch of pitches to a lot of publications,” we ask you which publication you want to be in, and if you say you want to be in Forbes, then we get you an article in Forbes. If you want Mashable, we get you an article in Mashable. And we charge a set fee for each placement so that you know what you’re going to get and what you’re going to pay for it.

How do PR Firms Decide How Much to Charge?

A NYC PR firm will charge more than a PR firm based in Arizona.

A big, well-established PR firm will charge more than a new PR firm just getting started.

And of course, a PR firm will charge you more if they’re doing more work for you.

Exactly how much a PR firm is going to charge you depends on exactly what services you need. Most PR firms don’t have set packages (although some do) so the only way to know what you’re going to pay is to have a consultation with them and have them work up a proposal. If you decide you want to pay less, they can probably change their proposal to give you a more limited set of services (e.g. pitching five publications per month instead of ten).

At Canvas, we charge per article secured, and we have different prices for different publications, depending on what it takes to get in. We have very strong relationships with writer at Forbes, for example, so we can charge a lower rate to get into Forbes, while it costs a lot more to get into Vogue because we don’t have the same types of relationships there and that means more work and expense on our end.

How Much Do PR Companies Charge?

You’ll rarely find a traditional PR firm that charges anything less than $5,000 per month on retainer. If you’re looking for an NYC PR firm, you probably won’t find one that charges less than $20,000 per month (after all, they have to pay the office rent, and high salaries to their employees so their employees can pay their rent).

These are minimum PR prices for small clients, like an individual or small business. If you’re Coca-Cola or Uber, then of course you’re going to pay tens of millions per year for PR services. For the rest of us small-to-medium business types, the range is more likely to be $10,000 to $50,000 per month.

At Canvas, we have different prices for different publications where we guarantee placement, with prices starting around $5,000 per article. However, we offer bulk discounts, and sometimes we have special discounts on “excess inventory,” such as when a client pulls out of an article, but we already have a writer ready to take that article.

Canvas isn’t the right fit for everyone, but if you’re interested in getting our full price sheet, please Contact us or check out our pricing: