Key Takeaways
- PR Newswire is a comprehensive press release distribution service that targets mainstream media outlets and has advanced targeting options. However, it is also more expensive, with prices starting at over $1,000.
- PRWeb is a more affordable press release distribution service, with prices starting at around $99. It offers strong online visibility and SEO benefits, making it a good choice for small businesses and startups.
- Both PR Newswire and PRWeb offer analytics, but PR Newswire provides more detailed performance metrics and reaches a broader audience of journalists and media outlets.
- AmpiFire is a modern alternative to traditional PR that converts your message into eight different content formats and distributes it across more than 300 platforms, creating multiple sources of traffic.
Why Choose a PR Service?
One of the biggest challenges in marketing is getting your company’s message in front of the right audience at the right time.
Press release distribution services like PR Newswire and PRWeb can help you overcome this challenge by delivering your news to media outlets, journalists, and online platforms.
However, there are significant differences in pricing, features, and distribution reach between these two industry giants, so you need to carefully consider which one is the best fit for your needs.
Why Press Releases Don’t Work Anymore
Smart Businesses Are Moving Beyond Traditional PR
• The Problem: Press releases reach one audience through one channel while your customers are everywhere online. Most get buried within days with poor ROI.
• The Solution: AmpiFire’s AmpCast creates 8 different content formats from one topic and distributes across 300+ high-authority sites including Fox affiliates, Spotify, and YouTube.
What You’ll Learn on PR Zen:
✓ Why multi-channel content delivers 10x better results than press releases
✓ How to amplify your PR efforts across multiple platforms
✓ Real case studies of businesses dominating search, social, video, and podcasts
✓ Cost-effective alternative to expensive PR agencies
Ready to Replace Press Releases? Learn the AmpiFire Method →
PR Newswire: Features
Founded in 1954, PR Newswire has built a network of relationships with journalists and media outlets worldwide over the past 7 decades.
This longevity has allowed the company to build an extensive distribution network reaching major media outlets, journalists, and news organizations worldwide. Their service is particularly favored by larger corporations, publicly traded companies, and organizations with significant news announcements.
Targeting Specific Media Outlets
PR Newswire shines at targeted distribution. You can segment your press releases by industry, location, and journalist type. This feature allows your news to reach the most relevant audiences and media professionals covering your industry.
The platform has relationships with thousands of journalists and editors, giving you direct access to the decision-makers at top publications and news outlets.
Support for Multimedia
PR Newswire understands that modern press releases need to be more than just text, so they offer robust multimedia integration. This allows users to embed images, videos, infographics, and audio clips directly into their releases, significantly increasing potential engagement.
These multimedia elements are distributed alongside the text, providing journalists with ready-made visual assets for any coverage.
Tools for Measuring Impact
PR Newswire offers Visibility Reports, which are comprehensive analytics tools that track the impact of press releases. These reports measure metrics like release views, multimedia engagement, social sharing, and potential audience reach.
They also identify which media outlets and websites have picked up your press release. This information is critical for evaluating ROI and provides concrete evidence of distribution effectiveness.
PR Newswire’s analytics dashboard provides real-time monitoring, enabling PR professionals to measure initial responses and adjust their subsequent strategies as needed.
The platform’s reporting tools also offer competitive benchmarking, enabling users to see how their releases compare with industry norms and rival companies.
Writing Assistance
PR Newswire has a professional editing service for businesses that don’t have a PR team or someone who can write professionally. Their expert editors can review releases for clarity, compliance with AP style, and overall effectiveness.
They also offer a full press release writing service for an additional cost, working with clients to create interesting announcements that meet journalistic standards and have the best chance of being picked up.
Features of PRWeb
PRWeb, a subsidiary of Cision, is a press release distribution service that is both affordable and user-friendly. PRWeb’s primary focus is on online distribution and digital visibility, rather than building relationships with traditional media.
This has made PRWeb a favorite among small- to medium-sized businesses, startups, and organizations with limited PR budgets.
Web-based Distribution
PRWeb is a specialist in web-based distribution, hosting releases on their popular news site and spreading content across a multitude of online platforms. Their network comprises major news aggregators, industry-specific websites, and a variety of online media channels.
While they may not have the direct journalist relationships that PR Newswire has, PRWeb makes up for it with extensive online visibility that can drive substantial traffic back to clients’ websites.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
PRWeb is all about SEO. They design their press releases to enhance your online visibility. Every press release you distribute creates valuable backlinks to your website, which can improve your domain authority and search rankings.
PRWeb also optimizes anchor text and keyword placement to maximize SEO performance. This is a feature that digital marketers who want to increase organic traffic love.
Integration with Social Media
PRWeb understands the importance of social amplification, and so they’ve included social media-friendly elements into their release format. They’ve added social sharing buttons directly onto the release pages to encourage readers to share the content across their networks.
The releases are also formatted so they display correctly when shared on major social platforms, ensuring visual integrity and engagement potential are maintained.
Metrics & Analytics
PRWeb provides a user-friendly dashboard that records the performance of each press release. It allows users to track headline impressions, full-release reads, click-through rates to their websites, and interactions with multimedia elements.
The dashboard also offers geographic data, indicating where press release readers are located. This helps businesses identify the markets that are most interested in their news.
What People Are Saying
While individual experiences will depend on the industry, type of announcement, and quality of the content, the overall feedback shows some interesting differences in satisfaction across different types of businesses.
User Review for PR Newswire
Users in companies often commend PR Newswire for its wide-ranging distribution network and professional support services. Reviews frequently underscore the platform’s efficacy in disseminating financial announcements, major corporate milestones, and regulatory disclosures.
Many users express satisfaction with the detailed analytics provided, which help justify the premium pricing. However, some small businesses may question whether the extra cost gives proportional value to everyday announcements.
User Review for PRWeb
Users of PRWeb are generally happy with the service and appreciate its simple pricing structure and easy-to-use interface. Small business owners, in particular, have found the SEO benefits and online visibility to be very valuable. Many of them have seen a noticeable increase in website traffic after distributing a press release.
Some users have mentioned that the service doesn’t have as much traditional media pickup as some of the more expensive services, but they generally feel that the lower price makes up for this.
Pricing
Price is a significant consideration when comparing these two services. Both of these providers offer different pricing levels, with more features and a wider distribution reach at higher price points.
PR Newswire Pricing
PR Newswire does not publicly share its pricing information outside its sales process, requiring potential customers to contact it directly for quotes. According to Prezly, there’s an annual membership fee of $195 that’s required before you can even distribute releases, and pricing varies dramatically based on distribution scope.
A 400-word release can range anywhere between $325–$8,700, depending on where you distribute. On average, a 1,000-word press release in the US will cost you nearly $3,000 or more. Most clients work through annual contracts with minimum commitments, making PR Newswire primarily accessible to larger corporations with substantial PR budgets.
PRWeb Pricing
PRWeb’s pricing structure is more straightforward and accessible, with packages starting at $99 per news release. For premium packages, you’ll be expected to pay around $480 per news release, which is a significant jump but comes with increased search visibility, online visibility, email distribution, and distribution to their recommended network.
Unlike PR Newswire, PRWeb allows users to buy individual releases without long-term commitments, making it especially suitable for organizations that only occasionally need PR or those that are experimenting with press release distribution.
PR Newswire vs PRWeb vs AmpiFire: Comparison Table
| Feature | PR Newswire | PRWeb | AmpiFire |
| Pricing | $195 membership + $325–$8,700 per release | $99–$480 per release | Starting at $495/month for unlimited content creation |
| Best For | Large corporations, publicly traded companies | Small to medium businesses, startups | Businesses seeking multi-channel organic traffic and long-term growth |
| Distribution Focus | Traditional media outlets, journalists | Online platforms, web visibility | 300+ platforms across search, social, video, and podcasts |
| Content Formats | Single press release format | Single press release format | 8 formats per topic (news articles, blogs, videos, podcasts, infographics, slideshows, social posts, shorts) |
| Media Relationships | Direct access to thousands of journalists | Limited traditional media connections | Distribution to Fox affiliates, major platforms like Spotify, YouTube, Pinterest |
| SEO Benefits | Some online visibility | Strong SEO focus with backlinks and optimization | Multi-channel organic traffic from search, social, video, and podcasts |
| Multimedia Support | Full multimedia integration (additional fees) | Multimedia capabilities included | All 8 formats created and optimized automatically |
| Analytics | Detailed Visibility Reports with competitive benchmarking | User-friendly dashboard with web metrics | Performance tracking across all channels and formats |
| Writing Services | Professional editing and writing available (additional cost) | Self-service platform | AI-powered content creation + optional Done-For-You service |
| Target Reach | Major news outlets worldwide | Online news sites and aggregators | Google News, YouTube, Spotify, Apple Music, 100+ Fox affiliates, social platforms |
| Longevity | Single release, typically buried within days | Single release with some lasting SEO value | Content continues generating traffic months after publication |
| Commitment | Annual contracts with minimums | Pay-per-release, no commitment | Monthly subscription with unlimited creation |
PR is Dead – Take a New Approach with AmpiFire
How AmpiFire Works
While traditional services rely on single news releases with uncertain pickup, AmpiFire transforms each topic into eight content formats using AmpCast AI: news articles, blog posts, infographics, slideshows, podcasts, videos, social posts, and shorts.
These are distributed across 300+ platforms, including Google News, YouTube, Spotify, Pinterest, and Fox affiliate sites, generating sustainable organic traffic from search, social media, video, and podcasts rather than relying on media coverage.
AmpiFire’s Actual Results
One AmpiFire client in the medical device space demonstrates the power of consistent, multi-channel content distribution. By using AmpiFire’s platform to create and distribute content across multiple formats and platforms, they achieved remarkable growth:
300% increase in eCommerce traffic and an initial 51% increase in sales.
These impressive results came from consistent content creation and distribution over time. The multi-format approach allowed them to reach potential customers across search engines, social media platforms, video sites, and podcast directories simultaneously.
Rather than relying on a single press release that disappears within days, this client built a sustainable traffic engine that continues to drive visitors and sales long after each piece of content is published.
This is the result of one specific case study and reflects consistent content creation over time. Results vary by industry, competition, and the consistency of your content publishing. Individual results are not guaranteed and will depend on your specific market conditions, content quality, and implementation strategy.
AmpiFire’s ROI
This multi-channel approach delivers measurable ROI through actual clicks and conversions from diverse traffic sources. Instead of paying thousands for a single release that disappears within days, AmpiFire campaigns continue driving results long after publication—all while costing less than maintaining an in-house team or working with multiple agencies.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Which service offers better value for small businesses?
PRWeb is generally a better value for small businesses with limited PR budgets. It offers affordable packages (starting around $99) that provide strong online visibility and SEO benefits without the significant investment required by PR Newswire.
But, if your announcement has considerable news value that piques the interest of major media outlets, PR Newswire could justify the higher cost for specific high-impact releases.
Can I monitor how my press releases are doing?
PR Newswire offers detailed metrics such as the number of views your release has received, the potential size of your audience, which media outlets have picked up your release, and where your readers are located.
PRWeb’s reporting concentrates on online performance metrics, such as views of your release, clickthrough rates to your website, and search engine visibility. Their dashboard is user-friendly for those without much PR analytics experience.
What is the typical processing time for a release?
Releases submitted to PR Newswire are generally processed within 24–48 hours. PRWeb, on the other hand, usually distributes releases within 24 hours of receiving them. Both services offer faster processing times for an additional fee. If you want your release to go live on a specific date, both services require you to schedule it in advance.
Can these services improve my SEO?
PRWeb focuses heavily on improving SEO by creating backlinks and optimizing releases to increase visibility in search results. PR Newswire offers some SEO benefits from its wide online distribution, but it is more focused on traditional media pickup.
How does AmpiFire beat traditional PR outlets?
AmpiFire uses AmpCast AI to create eight content formats from a single topic and distributes them across 300+ platforms, generating sustainable traffic from search, social, video, and podcasts.
Unlike traditional PR, which relies on uncertain media coverage, this approach delivers measurable ROI through real clicks and conversions that continue long after publication.
*Note: Pricing and/or product availability mentioned in this post are subject to change. Please check the retailer’s website for current pricing and stock information before making a purchase.
