Newswire services have been popular for years, and it’s not hard to see why. They give businesses the chance to publish their releases on top websites, as well as offering a certain level of convenience. But while the access continues to be a major selling point of these businesses, the fees are a whole other issue.
Among some of the most common complaints about legacy wire services are the endless hidden fees attached to them. It’s not unusual to assume that your publication will only cost a certain amount, only for hidden fees to creep up on you. In this article, we’ll explain some of the common hidden fees and how to avoid falling victim to them.
How Legacy Wire Services Apply Hidden Fees
When you look at the price listing for a legacy wire service, you’ll typically see a base price listed, sometimes a very affordable one. But before you get excited, you might notice an asterisk next to many of these fees. This is because they can’t potentially increase based on the following factors:
1. Word-Count and Length-Based Fees
Press releases can vary in length, naturally, and sometimes a longer press release can attract a higher overall fee. The baseline prices usually advertised by legacy wire services tend to be for press releases up to a certain word count. Sometimes these are mid-length press releases like 600 words, and in other cases, as low as 300 or 400 words.
But as we’ve said in previous blog posts, a press release that is too short can end up being ineffective. This means our business is trying to make the most of legacy wire services might find themselves having to pay extra to meet their ideal word count or try to navigate a lower word allowance.
2. Distribution Network and Geographic Surcharges
Legacy wire services have the advantage of having access to publications around the world. While this means that you can get your business far and wide, some places are pricier to advertise to than others. Certain regions of the world, such as Europe and North America, are often pricier to distribute press releases in compared to others.
This means that businesses have to consider whether their target audience is and if they can actually afford to advertise to them. You might just get to the final part of submitting a press release to a legacy newswire service and then find several hundred dollars added to your bill because you want to advertise in the US or the United Kingdom. This is doubly frustrating if that is where you already operate from or where your target audience is based.
3. Multimedia and Embedded Content Fees
These days, press releases are not limited to just text. Many businesses are adding pictures, videos, and other multimedia assets to make the press releases more enjoyable to read, more eye-catching, and more aligned with their general branding. Legacy wire services are aware of this, and some of them charge a premium to include images.
Sometimes this is a flat fee per image, and other times, it’s a feature that includes up to a certain number of images and videos. If your press release has been designed with the intention of adding these multimedia assets, it can be frustrating to learn only at the point of submission that you have to pay extra for them.
4. Industry and Regulatory Distribution Fees
Anyone who has used legacy wire services will know that distribution fees can vary by industry. Specifically, industries like healthcare, tech, finance, and so on might require distribution on specific industry or regulatory platforms.
These can be due to law, creating credibility, or simple industry practice; in that case, these are sometimes attached, which means that businesses operating in these industries have to pay a premium to be seen in the first place. And in many cases, these premiums are not stated in the initial advertisement, only popping up when the press releases are ready to be submitted.
5. Formatting, Editing, and Proofreading Charges
Many businesses like the fact that they can get formatting, editing, and proofreading services from various legacy wire services. After all, this means their content will be as polished as possible and more likely to meet editorial standards for the publications they are targeting. While many of these services will not perform these tasks for free. Instead, there might be a fee for one or all of them and depending on the service, it can be up to a fraction of the actual distribution cost.
6. Additional Fees for Social Media and Online Visibility
Given that the end goal of these press releases is more visibility, legacy wire services sometimes offer the chance to be featured on their social media, have the publications and question feature the press release, as well as other activities that can gain greater online visibility. These come with extra fees, however, and while some businesses are willing to pay them, others simply do not have the budget.
7. Renewal, Subscription, and Account Maintenance Fees
In an ideal world, a business could simply pay for a press release distribution, and that would be the end of it. In reality, many of these legacy services require a subscription to even publish any form of release. So, an annual membership renewal will be charged before you even pay for the press release and question. Other things like account maintenance fees, transaction fees, and much more could make this add up over time. For newer businesses still working with a small budget, this can prove to be very inconvenient
How to Spot Hidden Newswire Fees Before You Publish
Of course, no one wants to be bombarded with hidden fees while they are simply trying to make a purchase. The good news is that you can spot some of these fees well ahead of time.
Some of the common ways to do this include:
- Look for an asterisk beside the advertised price. This typically means that there are some terms and conditions and possibly hidden fees.
- Look through their pricing tables and find out what exactly you get for each price. Sometimes, this reveals that you’ll have to pay extra for certain features.
- Look through in-depth reviews of wire services such as the one we published a while ago
- Engage with the communities on platforms like Reddit, Quora, and Twitter/x or business owners often disclose how much they pay for these services
- Consider doing a test run of these services by adding a sample of the type of press release you want to publish and getting up onto the payment page. This can tell you definitively how much you would pay if you are going to publish.
Final Thoughts: Getting More Value From Your Press Release Budget
While navigating the complex pricing of legacy wire services can be done, some business owners would rather work with services that are upfront from the jump about what everything costs. Here at XpressWire, for example, all of our packages explicitly state what is included, and none of these come with a surcharge.
From our editorial support to our metrics, everything is included in what you pay for, so there is no need to guess. Feel free to look through our packages page for more information or contact us to get started.