PR Newswire vs PRWeb

Service details

Detail	PR Newswire	PRWeb
Founded	1954	1997
Ownership	Cision	Cision
Company size	N/A	N/A
Headquarters	New York, United States	N/A
Funding history	Operated by Cision	Owned by Cision US Inc.
Customer audience	PR professionals, comms teams, and public companies	Businesses and PR professionals seeking online visibility
Distribution reach	Distributes to over 500,000 media outlets, newsrooms, and financial portals across 170+ countries in 40+ languages.	1,200+ partner websites on Standard
Turnaround	Press releases can be distributed within hours of approval by the 24/7 editorial team.	24–48 hours by package
Pricing model	Starts at $350 for local distribution plus a $195-$249 annual membership fee. National releases start at $805, with steep overages for extra words and multimedia.	$120/$245/$360/$480 per release; bulk packages by quote

Side by side

Data point	PR Newswire	PRWeb
Pricing & value1.60 vs 3.48PRWeb leads
Entry-level release cost	$350 for state/local release2.0	$120 per release4.4 ▲
Pricing transparency	No public rate card (returns 404)1.0	Four published tiers; two quote-based packages4.6 ▲
Word-count & multimedia overages	$140+ per 100 extra words, $325 per image1.0	Unlimited media assets4.0 ▲
Contract flexibility	$195-$249 annual membership required2.0	Individual releases available for purchase4.4 ▲
Refund policy	Unused portion refunded if vendor discontinues service2.0 ▲	Nonrefundable; 0% of fees returned0.0
Distribution reach4.82 vs 2.85PR Newswire leads
Stated outlet count	500,000+ media outlets and newsrooms5.0 ▲	1,200+ websites3.5
Country coverage	170+ countries5.0 ▲	U.S. business week default2.6
Financial & regulatory circuits	Full regulatory disclosure points4.8 ▲	Public-company releases and stock tickers prohibited0.0
Trade & vertical targeting	100+ industries and trade categories4.5 ▲	Industry keyword tags; 1–3 curated journalist lists3.8
Outlet variety (regions & niches)	Multicultural, language-specific, and industry verticals4.8 ▲	Industry websites, bloggers, search and social3.2
Additional reach services	ProfNet, media tours, paid placement, social sharing4.8 ▲	Journalist emails, Sovrn network and SocialPost4.0
Placement quality4.04 vs 2.75PR Newswire leads
Tier-1 pickup likelihood	Yahoo Finance, Bloomberg, CNBC, AP News4.8 ▲	Rarely lands on major news outlets2.0
Guaranteed placements	Guaranteed paid placement available4.0 ▲	Media use and search placement not guaranteed1.0
Average outlet authority (DR & traffic)	High domain authority and web traffic4.5 ▲	Mostly low-traffic aggregators2.0
Speed of distribution	Within hours of approval4.0 ▲	24–48 hours, depending on package3.3
Search indexing durability	N/A3.5	Strong search engine indexing4.2 ▲
Indexing ratio	N/A3.5	Hosted permanently on PRWeb.com4.0 ▲
Platform & workflow3.97 vs 3.34PR Newswire leads
Release editor usability	AI-powered Create+ tool for drafting and enhancing4.5 ▲	Template editor with saved drafts and link insertion3.8
Approval & compliance workflow	Internal approvals required before submission4.0 ▲	Editorial review; holds with emailed revision requests3.4
Multimedia support	Photos, videos, logos, infographics4.5 ▲	Images, embedded video, documents and presentations4.0
Integrations	Website integration and social media connections4.0 ▲	Cision Communications Cloud3.0
Team & multi-user management	Individual registered-user logins; no sharing2.0	N/A3.3 ▲
Additional tools & extras	AI campaign planning, content creation, media monitoring4.8 ▲	File Library for images and attachments2.5
White label & reseller4.04 vs 3.70PR Newswire leads
White-label reporting	N/A4.0	N/A4.0
API access	N/A3.1	N/A3.1
White-label publishing	N/A4.6	N/A4.6
Agency & reseller pricing	Channel Partner and Publishing Partner programs3.5 ▲	Bulk pricing available by quote3.3
Dedicated account manager	Dedicated agency account management team5.0 ▲	Dedicated account manager offered3.5
Customer support3.85 vs 2.47PR Newswire leads
Support channels	Phone & e-mail3.5 ▲	Email only for editorial support2.0
Response speed	24/7 editorial team availability4.5 ▲	Up to 24 hours (monitored 24/7)3.0
Support quality (public reviews)	3.9/5 on G2 (781 reviews)3.9 ▲	Trustpilot: 1.6/5 from 23 reviews1.6
Onboarding & training	MediaRoom CMS training and 24/7/365 support3.5 ▲	Submission FAQ, articles, webinars and videos3.3
Analytics & reporting4.24 vs 3.24PR Newswire leads
Pickup reporting detail	Visibility Reports showing engagement, pickup, and reach4.5 ▲	Basic media coverage reporting2.9
Audience & engagement metrics	Performance and audience engagement data4.2 ▲	Views and engagements2.8
Report speed after distribution	Visibility Report 2 hours after distribution4.5 ▲	Real-time reporting4.0
Real-time dashboards	Real-time newsfeed and analytics4.0 ▲	Real-time views and engagement reporting3.5
Export & sharing	Downloadable reports to share results4.0 ▲	Emailed Visibility Reports and on-demand access3.0

N/A means the provider does not publish that detail; the data point then inherits the directory average so a missing disclosure neither helps nor hurts. See how we rank.