How much does PR cost?

PR costs can vary and are dependent on different factors.

Agencies often charge anywhere between £1,000 and £6,000 per month for retained PR contracts. Freelance PRs will charge an hourly rate for project-based work too. If you’re owning your PR in-house, the size and experience of your PR team will help determine their salaries.

PR costs are also influenced by the experience of the agency, freelancer or internal team and also how extensive your scope of work is. For instance, if your scope of work only contains press pitching, the cost will likely be lower than if it also contains VIP & influencer relations, events and partnerships.

However, when investing in PR, you are paying for someone’s time to pitch your business’s news to the press rather than the results. This holds true whether you’re working with an agency, freelancer or owning PR in-house.

Whether you are looking to work with an external agency or own your PR in-house, we’ve included 3 important PR cost considerations below.

Set a monthly PR budget

Before investing in PR, it’s important to determine a budget. When working with a PR agency, you’ll need to commit to paying a regular fee for a minimum commitment of at least 6+ months. PR takes time plus a regular drum beat speaking to the press, don’t expect a one-hit wonder in outreach. To be sure you can maintain payments and thus your level of service, determine a budget you can commit to before approaching agencies.

Establish what success looks like

To maximise your ROI on your PR investment, consider what success looks like for your business and which PR tactics will help you achieve this. Depending on your product or service, if you have a limited budget it is key to prioritise rather than scattergun your tactics. Consider if time is best spent on pitching for editorial coverage, product seeding with influencers or hosting events for key journalists. Determining what success looks like for this element of the marketing mix will help inform your brief to the internal PR team or your PR agency.

Consider owning your PR in-house

We believe that PR is best owned in-house for the long term.

Following an initial project fee to set up your press office and be coached on how to operate it, you’ll:

• Avoid ongoing PR agency monthly retainer fees which you can invest elsewhere in your business instead

• Become your own best storyteller given you know your business better than any external party

• Build and maintain direct press relationships that you won’t lose - unlike when you end a PR agency contract

To find out more about FF&M’s different ways of working, email us via hello@fallowfieldmason.com.