Almost no PR agency publishes prices. You get a discovery call, a proposal, and a number that feels arbitrary because you have nothing to compare it to. Here is the comparison: what PR actually costs in 2026 across every delivery model, and what moves the number up or down.
This article covers ongoing PR programs. If you only need one announcement distributed, the numbers are much smaller and live in our press release cost breakdown.
The short answer
- Boutique agency retainer: $3,000–$8,000/month. Two to four people, one of whom is senior and actually touches your account.
- Mid-size agency retainer: $8,000–$20,000/month. Named accounts, a real media team, some analyst and awards capability.
- Large / global agency retainer: $20,000–$50,000+/month, usually with a 12-month minimum. You are buying reputation, scale, and crisis depth.
- Freelance PR consultant: $75–$250/hour, or $2,000–$6,000/month on a light retainer.
- Project fees: $5,000–$25,000 for a launch, funding announcement, or awards season push.
- DIY plus tooling: $200–$1,500/month for a media database, distribution, and your own time.
Most venture-backed startups and profitable SMBs land in the $4,000–$10,000/month band. If someone quotes you $1,500/month for "full-service PR," they are selling you a few hours of a junior's attention and a press release.
What each model actually gets you
Boutique agencies (2–15 people). The senior person who pitched you is often the person doing the work. That is the main advantage. You get real relationships and fast turnarounds without paying for account-management layers. The risk is bandwidth: if their one healthcare reporter contact leaves, so does part of your program. Ask how many accounts each person carries. Above six is a warning sign.
Mid-size agencies (15–100 people). You get specialization: a media relations lead, a content person, someone who knows awards deadlines. You also get account managers whose job is partly to manage you. The work quality is usually consistent, but your account is rarely anyone's favorite.
Large agencies. Worth it for regulated industries, public companies, IPO runways, and genuine crisis exposure. Not worth it for a Series A trying to get into TechCrunch. The seniority you meet in the pitch meeting is not the seniority that shows up on Tuesdays.
Freelancers. The best value in PR if you find a good one. A senior freelancer at $150/hour for 20 hours a month costs $3,000 and often outperforms a $6,000 boutique retainer, because 100% of the hours are senior hours. The tradeoff: no coverage when they are sick, on vacation, or busy with a bigger client, and no team for a surge week.
DIY. Genuinely viable for founders who are good writers and comfortable being told no. The hard cost is small. A media database subscription runs $100–$500/month, and distribution is $150–$500 per release. The real cost is 8–15 hours a month of founder time, forever. We wrote a full playbook on getting coverage without an agency if you want to try it before you buy it.
The five things that actually drive price
- Seniority of the hours. This is most of the spread. Agency rate cards run roughly $125/hour for a coordinator, $200–$300 for a director, $400–$600 for a partner. A $6,000 retainer is not 40 hours of expert work. It is a blend, and the blend is what you are negotiating.
- Category difficulty. Consumer product PR is cheaper than enterprise security PR, because the reporter pool is larger and the story is easier. Fintech, healthcare, defense, and anything requiring subject-matter literacy costs 20–40% more.
- Scope breadth. Media relations only is the cheapest scope. Add analyst relations, executive thought leadership, awards submissions, event support, or social, and each line adds roughly $1,500–$3,000/month at boutique rates.
- Geography. A U.S. national program costs one thing. Add UK and DACH coverage and you are typically adding 60–100%, either through the agency's partner network or a second retainer.
- Urgency and crisis. Crisis retainers carry premiums, and out-of-hours work bills at 1.5–2x on most contracts. Read that clause before you need it.
Where the money actually goes
A useful sanity check: at a healthy agency, roughly 50–60% of your retainer is salary, 20–25% is overhead, and 15–25% is margin. That means a $6,000/month retainer buys about $3,300 of actual labor. At a $200 blended rate, that is around 16 real hours a month, or four hours a week on your business.
Sixteen hours is enough to run a disciplined program: a couple of pitches, a byline, a media list refresh, reporting. It is not enough to "own the category." Retainers get oversold because nobody says the hours part out loud.
Hidden costs to budget for
- Onboarding. Many agencies charge a one-time $2,000–$5,000 onboarding fee, or a first month at 1.5x. Negotiable, often waived on a 12-month term.
- Pass-throughs. Wire distribution, media databases, awards entry fees ($300–$1,200 each), event fees, and travel are usually billed on top. Ask for a pass-through cap in writing.
- Your own time. Every PR program needs 3–6 hours a month of internal time for interviews, approvals, and fact-checking. Programs die from client slowness more often than from agency incompetence.
- The ramp. Months one and two are research and list-building. You pay full price for output you cannot see. Budget for that honestly, and we mapped the realistic timeline here.
What you should actually spend
- Pre-seed / pre-product: $0 on agencies. Spend on your own founder narrative and a distributed announcement when you have news.
- Seed to Series A: $3,000–$6,000/month with a freelancer or boutique, or project fees around your funding and launch moments.
- Series B and beyond: $8,000–$15,000/month, or a first in-house hire plus a smaller agency for surge capacity.
- Profitable SMB, local or niche: $2,000–$4,000/month with a freelancer, or DIY plus distribution. Most SMBs do not need a retainer at all.
- Public, regulated, or crisis-exposed: whatever your counsel says, plus a retained crisis partner.
If you are trying to decide between an agency and doing it yourself, we compared them directly in PR agency vs. DIY.
Bottom line
PR is priced in senior hours, not outcomes, so evaluate proposals by who does the work and how many hours you get, not by the deliverables list. Anyone who prices on guaranteed coverage is either lying about the guarantee or charging you for something they cannot control. Buy hours, buy judgment, and measure the program at six months.
Want to see real numbers before a sales call? [Our pricing is public](/pricing), with every package and every inclusion listed.