Public relations for startup companies, judged on published evidence

Agencies with a verified published price

How to shortlist a startup PR firm

1. Write down the outcome, not the activity. Decide first whether you are buying investor credibility ahead of a round, customer awareness at launch, or recruiting signal. Those three need different outlets, different spokespeople and different timelines, and a firm that is excellent at one can be ordinary at another. Put the outcome in one sentence and open every call with it.
2. Ask what news you actually have. Good firms will interrogate your news pipeline before quoting, because coverage follows substance: funding, data, a customer story, a product that changes something measurable. A firm that promises placements without asking what you will have to say in month three is selling a press release cadence rather than a programme.
3. Filter on the disclosed minimum and the term. Ask every candidate in writing for the smallest engagement they accept, the contract length and the notice period. PR retainers commonly run on longer terms than search or paid work, and the term is where a bad fit becomes expensive. This single email removes more names from a shortlist than any meeting.
4. Meet the people who will do the work. Agency pitches are often fronted by partners and delivered by juniors. Ask who is on your account, how many other accounts they carry, and what percentage of their week you are buying. Then ask for two clients at your stage that you can email, and email them about responsiveness rather than results.
5. Agree measurement before the first invoice. Coverage volume is easy to game. Agree instead on a short list that matters to you: named target publications, analyst or podcast appearances, inbound recruiter or investor mentions, and referral traffic. Write the list down, review it quarterly, and treat everything else in the report as context.

What startup PR firms publish, and what they hold back

Our index records what each firm states on its own website, with the date we read it: a published starting retainer, a stated minimum engagement, named clients, sector focus and team size. Firms that publish a floor tend to publish a narrow one, so read a starting price as the smallest scope the firm will sell rather than a forecast of your cost.

Most PR firms publish less than search or paid agencies do, and pricing is the field most often withheld. That is a fact about the category rather than a judgement about any firm, but it means the buyer has to ask directly. The comparison that works is not who has the prettiest client logos, it is who will tell you the minimum, the term and the named staff before you are in a room with them.

What actually moves the price

Seniority is the main driver. A programme run by an experienced operator with genuine relationships costs several times one staffed by an account executive working from a media list, and the difference shows up in whether the pitch gets read. Sector specialism costs more again, particularly in regulated categories where a firm has to know what may and may not be claimed.

Scope drives the rest. Ongoing media relations, thought leadership writing, awards submissions, analyst relations, event support and crisis readiness are separate workstreams, and bundling them into one number makes proposals impossible to compare. Ask each firm to price the workstreams individually so you can see where the money goes and drop the parts you do not need.

Claims, endorsements and the parts a founder gets wrong

PR output is advertising in the eyes of the regulator when it makes claims about your product. The FTC's advertising guidance for small business states that claims must be truthful, not misleading and substantiated before they are made, which applies to a press release and a founder quote as much as to an ad. If your announcement contains a performance number, decide who holds the evidence for it before it goes out.

Paid placement is the other trap. Where a firm arranges coverage that involves payment, or a spokesperson has a material connection to a company being praised, the FTC's endorsement guidance requires that connection to be disclosed clearly. Ask any candidate firm which of its placements are earned and which are paid, and require that distinction to appear in your monthly report rather than in a footnote.

Questions people actually ask

When is a startup too early for PR?

When there is nothing to say for the next two quarters. If you have no funding news, no customer willing to be named, no data and no product milestone, a retainer buys activity rather than coverage. Spend that money on the product or on demand generation and revisit when the pipeline of news is real.

Retainer or project?

A launch, a funding announcement or a single report can be run as a project and often should be. Sustained media relations is a relationship business and works badly in short bursts. A sensible pattern is a project to test the firm, then a retainer if the project showed they can get you read.

How long until coverage appears?

The first month is usually onboarding, messaging and media list work, with placements landing from the second or third month onward for most programmes. Ask each candidate what they expect in the first ninety days and hold the review to their own forecast rather than to your hopes.

Can we do PR in house instead?

Founders often can, especially early, because journalists prefer talking to the person who built the thing. What an in house effort lacks is the media list, the discipline of a weekly pitch cadence and someone who knows which reporter is on which beat this month. Many startups do best with a founder as spokesperson and a small firm doing the mechanics.

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