How Much Does PR Cost?

Jan 26

Ah, the big question every PR client has, and every PR expert dreads. Because it requires an explanation that often borders on an education about what PR is, what it isn't, and how different types of PR and different goals require completely different pricing structures.

TL;DR Version

$5,000.

"Wait... but for what?"

See, that's what's hard about pricing PR. It's not as though there's something called "PR" and one firm charges $10,000 and another charges $5,000 for the exact same thing. You can't comparison-shop PR like you'd compare-shop a hotel room.

If you want to know what Canvas charges: we charge a flat fee per article placement, ranging from $5,000 to $60,000 per article, depending on the publication and type of placement.

For example, a mention or brief quote in a Forbes article is $5,000. A feature article in Cosmopolitan is $60,000. Most of the placements we do fall in the $5,000 to $15,000 range, with discounts when clients pay for three or more placements upfront. We have access to 200+ publications, so there's a lot of room to build a strategy that fits your goals and your budget.

PR Pricing: The Detailed Version

Rather than asking how much PR costs, the better question to ask a PR firm is "What's your minimum monthly retainer?"

Most PR firms charge a monthly retainer, meaning a set amount per month, usually with a minimum number of months. If you sign up for a single month of PR on a retainer, that's not enough time for the firm to get you anything. That first month is strategy, planning, and getting ready to do outreach. It's unlikely any pitches even go out in month one. And if they did, who handles things when a journalist responds and wants more info, and you haven't paid for month two?

Most PR firms require a minimum of four months, sometimes 6 to 12. Some retainer contracts run longer than that.

Whether you're an author looking for book publicity or a startup trying to get into tech publications, expect to pay around $5,000 per month at a smaller firm not based in New York, London, or Singapore.

If you hire a NYC PR firm, you might struggle to find a retainer under $20,000 per month. That barely covers the office rent. For major corporations with dedicated account teams, retainers can run into the hundreds of thousands or millions per month.

There's no price for PR services that's inherently a ripoff. If you get a positive ROI, you didn't overpay. What I hate to see is clients who come to us and say, "I paid a NYC PR firm $20,000 per month for nine months, and all I got was a single quote in a Forbes article." That's frustrating, because we could have delivered the same thing in a month for a fraction of the cost.

Managing PR Expectations

A ripoff in PR is when you pay for something and you don't get what was promised. I guarantee anyone who paid $180,000 and got a single mention in a single article was led to believe they'd get more. That's on the PR firm for not setting honest expectations.

But if a PR firm tells you, "For $10,000 per month over six months, we expect to get you 3 to 4 articles in top-tier publications and 7 to 8 in second-tier or industry-focused pubs," and then they deliver exactly that, and you complain because you didn't land the cover of Forbes... that's on you for not listening.

Avoiding PR Scams

If a firm promises something and comes up short, that's not necessarily a scam. Maybe they believed they could get the results they described and things didn't come together as expected.

A scam is when someone sells PR with no intention to deliver what's promised. It almost always happens at the low end, with offers so cheap and so vague they sound too good to be true.

Examples:

'“We'll get you into 7,000 publications for just $200!"
"See your name in the New York Times for just $800!"
"Get 10 articles in top-tier publications for just $2,000!"

The only way anyone can promise thousands of publications is through mass press release distribution. Those press releases do get published, technically, but nobody sees them. They're not indexed by search engines, they go into a "press" section of the publication that no journalist or reader ever visits, and they're removed shortly after posting.

Someone might get your name in the NYT for $800, but it won't be editorial. They might buy a small ad on a back page and list your name among 50 others. That's not a placement in any meaningful sense.

I hesitate to say, "If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is," because some people say that about Canvas.

"You can't guarantee PR!" they'll say. The longer answer is here, but the short version: a firm can't promise "we'll get you into Forbes, no matter what." That's not how editorial works. What Canvas can promise is this: if we take you on as a client, we deliver or you don't pay. If we don't believe we can get you into a publication, we won't pitch it.

Why PR Pricing Is Worth Thinking About Differently Now

Here's something that didn't use to matter but matters a lot now. When someone asks ChatGPT or Perplexity "how do I get featured in Forbes" or "best PR firms for entrepreneurs," the AI tools pull from editorial content, not ads and not press releases. A genuine article about you in a credible publication does something a paid placement can't: it signals to both search engines and AI tools that you're a real authority worth recommending.

That changes the ROI math on PR. You're not just buying exposure. You're building a record that AI tools can find and reference. One well-placed article in Forbes or Inc. can keep showing up in AI-generated answers for years. That's a different way to think about whether $5,000 or $15,000 for a placement is worth it.