How to get your business in the news: free and paid routes compared

“How do we get in the news?” is usually asked by a founder with no PR budget and no idea where to start. This guide lists every route we know works in 2026, with what it costs, how long it takes and what you get at the end, then puts them in a 30-day order. The numbers come from the two big journalist surveys of 2026, the tools' own pricing pages and a 16,625-publisher study of sponsored-content prices.

What “in the news” can mean

Each row does something the others cannot. Earned coverage is the only kind that recommends you; AI assistants cite it far more than anything paid (Muck Rack's May 2026 analysis put earned media at 84% of AI citations). Paid pages are the only kind you can schedule, and the only kind guaranteed to exist on the date of your launch. Most small companies need one of each.

Prepare these five things first

Every route below asks for the same material, and the companies that get coverage have it ready:

1. One sentence that says what you do and for whom, in words a stranger understands. It opens every pitch, every release and every podcast introduction.
2. One original number. Something only you can report: results from your customers, a survey you ran, a trend in your own data. Journalists in Muck Rack's survey ranked original data among the most valuable things a pitch can carry (40%), behind beat relevance and access to a source.
3. A spokesperson with a title who can answer a question within a day.
4. Images: a logo, a product shot and a headshot at print resolution; 37% of journalists want them.
5. A newsroom page on your site with the above, your boilerplate and a contact email, so anyone who finds you can finish the job alone.

The free routes

1. Answer journalists' source requests

This is the free route with the best odds, because the journalist has already decided to write the story and is asking for someone like you. HARO, the original service, changed hands twice: Cision closed its replacement, Connectively, in December 2024, and Featured.com bought the HARO brand in April 2025, keeping it free for sources. The current services, with prices from their own pages in October 2026:

Answer only requests on your subject, within the hour if you can, in under 200 words: who you are in one line, the answer in three or four, a sentence the journalist can quote, and your title and headshot link. Skip the pitch for your product; they asked a question, so answer it.

2. Pitch a journalist directly

The 2026 surveys describe the inbox you are writing into. Muck Rack's State of Journalism 2026 (897 journalists, mostly US) found that 86% say some of their stories start as pitches, that 88% immediately disregard pitches outside their beat, that 69% want a pitch under 200 words, 78% want it before noon and 62% want it as a one-to-one email. Cision's State of the Media 2026 (1,899 journalists) adds that 72% say fewer than a quarter of the pitches they receive are relevant and 53% object to AI-written pitches. Read the pattern: one person who covers your subject, one short email, one usable fact, sent in the morning, written by you.

Find the person by reading what they wrote last month, not by buying a list. A pitch that opens with the headline of their last story and explains what your number adds to it gets read; a pitch that opens with your company does not.

3. Local news

Local outlets cover local businesses because that is their job, and the bar is lower: a new location, a hire with a story, a donation, an event, a local customer with a result. Email the reporter who covers business or your neighbourhood, offer a time to visit, and have the photos ready. Local television assignment desks take the same email. A local story is also the easiest kind to show a national journalist later as proof you are real.

4. Write an op-ed or a guest column

Opinion pages take outside writers with a view and the credentials to hold it. The rules are public: USA Today says its columns typically run 550 to 750 words and are submitted by email to its forum desk, and the New York Times asks for guest essays of 800 to 1,200 words, original and exclusive, with a three-business-day wait before you offer the piece elsewhere. Trade publications in your industry are easier and often more useful. An op-ed is about an issue, with you as the expert; it is not about your product, and the editor will cut any line that is.

5. Be a podcast guest

Listen Notes counts more than 3.8 million podcasts, and the active ones, roughly 480,000 with an episode in the last 90 days by Apple's count, need guests every week. Search the directories for shows in your niche with recent episodes and a few hundred listeners, listen to one, and pitch the host a topic, not yourself. Matching services such as PodMatch charge about $32 a month for guests. The episode page is a permanent, indexable mention with your name and site on it, and the host usually promotes it harder than you do.

The paid routes

6. A press release on a wire

A wire distributes your release to a network of sites and, on the better tiers, to named finance and news pages. Published 2026 prices: PRWeb from $120 to $480, EIN Presswire $149 (AP News and the USA TODAY Network included; no supplement content), Newswire.com $399 to $965 (AP News on every tier, Yahoo on the top one), and PR Newswire from a list price of $850 for 400 words plus membership. What a release can and cannot do is the subject of are paid press releases worth it?; the full price breakdown is in PR Newswire pricing in 2026.

7. A named-outlet placement

Instead of a network, you buy one page: a press release in USA Today's press-release section, a wire copy on Yahoo Finance, a release on AP News. The page is labelled, indexed and dated, and it ranks for your brand name within days, which is why launches use it. LegitPR prices each outlet on its own and shows the label and link type before you order; the mechanics of the most popular one are in how to get published on USA Today.

8. A sponsored article

A labelled article, written by you or for you, on a news or magazine site. The largest public price study, of 16,625 publisher rate cards (September 2026), found a median price of $570 for one sponsored article, $1,840 on sites with a Domain Rating of 80 or more and $2,030 on sites with more than a million monthly visits; 39% of the high-authority publishers sell nofollow-only links and 27% label the article as sponsored. Which to choose between a release, a sponsored article and a guest post is a short decision, made in press release vs sponsored article vs guest post.

9. An agency

An agency does routes 1 to 8 for you, with relationships you do not have. In 2026 retainers run from $3,500 to $10,000 a month at boutiques, $10,000 to $25,000 at mid-size firms and more above that; a 2025 industry survey put the average digital-PR retainer at about $5,500 a month. Worth it when earned coverage is the goal and you have a story worth a year of pitching. Not needed to get a launch indexed on the finance pages.

The routes side by side

A 30-day plan

1. Days 1–3. Build the five things: the sentence, the number, the spokesperson, the images, the newsroom page. Nothing else works without them.
2. Days 4–5. Place the paid page: a release on a named outlet or a wire tier that includes AP News or Yahoo Finance, so the launch exists on a date, with a URL, before the pitching starts. Link to it from your newsroom page.
3. Days 4–30, every morning. Read the source requests and answer the one or two on your subject.
4. Week 2. Pitch five journalists who covered your subject in the last month, one email each, before noon, under 200 words, with the number. Pitch three podcasts the same way.
5. Week 3. Email the local reporter and, if you have a view worth defending, draft the op-ed for a trade publication.
6. Week 4. Count: quotes placed, podcast bookings, replies, visits from each. Keep the routes that produced; drop the rest; do it again with next month's number.

What coverage does, and what it doesn't

Coverage changes how people search for you and what assistants say about you. In Edelman and LinkedIn's survey of 3,500 B2B buyers, 75% said thought leadership led them to research a product they had not been considering and 73% trusted it more than marketing materials. We have not found a 2026 study that cleanly ties a single article to sales, and anyone selling you one is guessing. What you can measure is branded search volume, referral visits and the share of AI answers that name you, each of which moves within weeks of coverage. How to measure the last one is in how to check if ChatGPT mentions your brand.