Pressfarm
One-time PR packages for startups: press release, media kit, custom media list, and pitching done for you
Pressfarm is a startup-focused PR service that sells fixed-price, one-time packages rather than monthly software or an agency retainer. Each package bundles written or reviewed PR content (press release, media kit, PR action plan), a hand-built media list, submission to startup directories, and a year of access to its searchable database of journalists, bloggers, podcasters, and influencers. Higher packages add its team pitching your story to journalists on your behalf.
Overview
Most tools in PR and media outreach sell you a subscription and leave the work to you: a database, a pitch inbox, a coverage report, billed monthly whether you have news or not. Pressfarm sells the opposite shape. You pay once, fill in a questionnaire about your company, and a team produces the artifacts a launch actually needs (a press release, a designed media kit, a written PR plan, a list of journalists who plausibly cover your niche) and then, on the higher packages, sends the pitches. The database is included as a bonus rather than being the product.
That structure suits a specific buyer: a founder with one piece of news, no PR person, and no appetite for a four-figure monthly retainer or a twelve-month software contract. Against a traditional agency the price difference is an order of magnitude. Against a database subscription such as Muck Rack or a HARO-style pitch marketplace, Pressfarm is buying labor rather than access, which is the right trade when the constraint is that nobody on the team has time to write and send fifty personalized pitches.
The trade-offs are real and worth naming before you buy. Pressfarm is a service, so quality varies with the account executive assigned and with how newsworthy your story genuinely is; the company states plainly on its own site that nothing in PR is guaranteed. The database refuses CSV export by design and cannot be filtered by country, only by job interests and publication. And the site itself is inconsistent: the pricing page, the FAQ page, and the enterprise services page list different package names and different prices at the same time, which means the number you should trust is the one on the checkout page on the day you buy.
Best for
Early-stage startups and small companies with a single launch or funding announcement, no in-house PR person, and a few hundred dollars rather than a monthly retainer: it buys finished content, a targeted list, and outbound pitching as a one-time purchase.
Not the right fit for
- Teams that want a media database as software; the database is bundled with a service purchase, has no standalone subscription, and does not allow CSV export.
- Companies needing ongoing, always-on PR; packages are one-time deliverables, so a continuous program means buying repeatedly.
- Anyone whose targets are outside the US, UK, Canada, and Australia, since contact coverage is concentrated there and there is no country filter.
- Buyers who need brand or press monitoring; Pressfarm creates and distributes but does not track mentions, sentiment, or share of voice.
- Communications teams with a newsroom, an approval workflow, and a need for coverage reporting, which is the job of a PR platform rather than a productized service.
- Anyone expecting guaranteed placements in named publications; the company states that nothing in PR is guaranteed and sells effort, not outcomes.
How it works
- 1
You choose a package from the pricing page and pay once. There is no subscription, no retainer, and no contract; the company markets this explicitly as no monthly charges. Payment is what starts the engagement rather than a trial or a demo call.
- 2
After purchase you complete an intake questionnaire covering your company background, the news you want to announce, your target audience, and any existing assets (photos, logos, quotes, prior coverage). This document is the input the writing and design work is built from, so a thin questionnaire produces thin content.
- 3
A team of writers and designers produces the deliverables your package covers. On the lowest paid tier that means proofreading and reviewing a press release you wrote, plus a designed media kit and a written PR action plan. On the higher tiers a press release is written from scratch, the media kit runs longer, and a guest post is written and placed in a Google News indexed outlet.
- 4
An account executive builds a custom media list for your specific story, pulled from the Pressfarm database and other sources, sized by package (roughly 1,000 contacts at the entry tier up to 3,000 at the top). Separately, your company is submitted to curated startup directories and review sites for backlinks and early visibility.
- 5
On the Campaign and Enterprise packages the Pressfarm team pitches journalists, bloggers, and influencers directly on your behalf, personalized rather than blasted, and follows up. Every package also includes a year of logged-in access to the media database, where you spend a fixed allowance of credits to unlock individual contact details for your own outreach.
Feature breakdown
24 features in 4 modulesPR content creation
The written and designed artifacts a launch needs, produced from your intake questionnaire.- Press release writing
- On the Campaign and Enterprise packages a release is written from scratch by the team; the entry Launch package only proofreads and reviews a draft you supply, which is the single most important difference between tiers.
- Designed media kit
- A branded press kit covering company background, brand brief, mission, team, and images, sized by package at roughly two, four, or six pages.
- PR action plan
- A short written strategy document (one to three pages by tier) covering angles, timing, and outreach sequence, intended to be usable after the package ends.
- Guest post placement
- On Campaign and above, a personalized article about your company is written and published in an outlet indexed by Google News, which is usually the most durable search asset in the bundle.
- Feature article and newsletter placement
- A feature story on the company is published to Pressfarm's own blog and shared to its newsletter (stated at over 20,000 subscribers) and social accounts.
- Email pitch copy
- Pitch emails are written per contact rather than as one template, on the stated principle that personalized pitches outperform mass sends.
Media database
A searchable contact database included with every package for a full year, credit-gated.- Contact search by niche
- Filter journalists, bloggers, podcasters, and influencers by the topics they cover and the publications they write for, across categories from fintech and SaaS to fashion, parenting, and crypto.
- Credit-based unlocking
- Contact details are revealed by spending credits, capped by package at roughly 1,500, 2,500, or 5,000 unlocks, so the database allowance is a real ceiling rather than unlimited access.
- One year of access
- Every package includes twelve months in the platform after purchase, which is what makes a one-time payment usable for more than the single announcement it was bought for.
- Publication-level filtering
- Search narrows by outlet as well as beat, useful when you have a specific target list of publications and need names attached to them.
- Journalist self-submission
- Reporters can request inclusion by sending a bio, beats, and keywords, which is how the database refreshes alongside the company's own maintenance.
- No bulk export by design
- CSV download of email addresses is deliberately not offered; the company frames it as an anti-spam measure, and it is a hard constraint if you planned to load contacts into your own sequencer.
Outreach and distribution
Getting the content in front of people, by list, by pitch, and by wire.- Custom media list
- An account executive assembles a list specific to your story rather than to your industry generally, sized at 1,000, 2,000, or 3,000 contacts by package.
- Done-for-you journalist pitching
- On Campaign the team pitches 100 or more journalists and influencers on your behalf; Enterprise raises that to 300 or more with multiple story angles.
- Press release distribution
- Standard distribution on Launch, premium on Campaign, and an enterprise tier that advertises syndication to major newspaper and financial outlets.
- Startup directory submissions
- Your company is submitted to a curated set of directories and review sites (50 plus, 75 plus, or 80 plus by package) chosen for backlink quality, editorial review, and relevance.
- Directory account handling
- Where a directory requires registration, Pressfarm creates the account using your company email and hands you the credentials, so listings remain yours after the engagement.
- Follow-up on pitches
- The team follows up with contacted journalists rather than treating the first send as the campaign, which is where most self-run founder outreach quietly stops.
Service and support
How the engagement is run and what human contact is included.- Assigned account executive
- One person owns the media list and the outreach for your campaign, which is the main practical difference from buying a database subscription.
- Intake questionnaire
- A structured brief plus attachments is the formal starting point, and it doubles as the alignment step that a retainer agency would spend a kickoff call on.
- Priority email support
- All three paid packages advertise priority email support, with email and Slack correspondence described on the enterprise services page.
- PR consultant service
- For buyers who need advice on one component rather than a full package, an on-demand consultant option is offered by arrangement over email and live chat.
- Template and resource library
- Free press release templates, media kit templates, and a curated startup directory list are published publicly, which are useful even if you never buy a package.
- No contract or lock-in
- Because there is no subscription there is nothing to cancel; the commitment ends when the deliverables land, apart from the year of database access you keep.
Use cases
4 documentedSolo founder announcing a seed round
A two-person startup closes funding and has three weeks before the announcement date, no PR contact, and no budget for an agency that quotes 5,000 dollars a month with a three-month minimum.
The Campaign package produces a written release, a four-page media kit, and a list of 2,000 contacts, and the team pitches over 100 journalists in the relevant beat; the founder spends an afternoon on the questionnaire rather than three weeks learning outreach.
Hardware startup running a crowdfunding launch
A Kickstarter campaign lives or dies in its first 72 hours, and the team needs coverage timed to go live with the page, plus a press kit journalists can pull assets from.
The media kit and release are ready before launch day, directory submissions build early visibility and backlinks, and pitching runs against a list assembled specifically for consumer hardware rather than general tech.
Small agency handling PR for a client without a PR practice
A digital agency's client asks for press coverage on a product launch; the agency does not staff a publicist and does not want to subcontract to a retainer shop that will pitch the client directly next year.
The agency buys a one-time package per launch, keeps the client relationship, and passes through a fixed cost it can quote confidently instead of an open-ended monthly fee.
Bootstrapped SaaS founder doing PR themselves
The founder is prepared to write and send pitches personally, believing correctly that a founder's own voice lands better, but has no way to find the right fifty journalists.
The entry Launch package delivers a custom list plus a year of database access with 1,500 unlocks, and the founder runs the outreach; the press release is reviewed rather than ghostwritten, which suits someone who wants to keep their own words.
Pricing
from $280 one-time (Launch package)One-time package pricing. There is no subscription, no retainer, and no per-seat fee. Each package is a fixed bundle of content, list building, distribution, and outreach volume, and every package includes twelve months of media database access with a capped number of contact unlocks. Extra work means buying another package.
| Plan | Price | Includes |
|---|---|---|
| Launch | $280 one-time charge |
The critical limit: at this tier Pressfarm does not write your release and does not pitch journalists for you. You get assets and a list; the outreach is yours. |
| Campaign | $480 one-time charge |
Marketed as the most popular option, and the first tier where the service actually does the outreach rather than handing you the tools. |
| Enterprise | $1,080 one-time charge |
Aimed at a large launch, a merger, or a crowdfunding raise where several distinct stories need pitching at once. Still a one-time charge, not a retainer. |
Billing notes
- Every tier is a single charge with no recurring component; the company advertises no retainer fees and no monthly charges as a headline claim.
- The published prices are inconsistent across Pressfarm's own site as of August 2026: the pricing page shows $280, $480, and $1,080, while the FAQ page still lists Launch at $180 and Enterprise at $980, and the enterprise services page lists separate Power ($480) and Premium ($980) packages. Confirm the figure at checkout before assuming any of them.
- Database access lasts one year from purchase, and contact unlocks are capped per package; running out of credits means buying another package rather than topping up.
- There is no free plan and no trial. The only way to see the database is to buy a package, which is a real commitment barrier for a first-time buyer.
- Nothing about placement is guaranteed. Pressfarm states directly that nothing in PR is guaranteed, so the purchase buys effort and deliverables, not coverage.
- Ongoing PR means repeat purchases. Three Campaign packages across a year cost roughly $1,440, which is still far below a typical agency retainer but is no longer a single small purchase.
Value assessment: Priced against the alternatives, Pressfarm sits in a genuinely underserved gap. A retainer agency starts in the thousands per month, a media database subscription costs low four figures a year and still leaves the writing and sending to you, and a wire service distributes but does not pitch anyone. Under $500 for a written release, a designed media kit, a hand-built list of 2,000 contacts, and someone actually pitching 100 journalists is hard to assemble any other way at that price. The honest counterweight is that outcomes vary with the newsworthiness of your story and the executive assigned, there is no trial to de-risk the first purchase, and the database allowance runs out. Treat it as buying a competent freelancer's launch week, not as buying coverage.
Strengths & limitations
Strengths
- One-time pricing with no contract, which fits the actual shape of startup news: bursty, event-driven, and hard to justify as a monthly line item.
- Buys labor rather than access, so the deliverables exist whether or not anyone on the team knows how to write a press release.
- Entry price under $300 puts real done-for-you PR within reach of a company that could not otherwise consider it.
- The guest post placed in a Google News indexed outlet and the directory backlinks are durable search assets that outlive the news cycle.
- Media lists are built per story by a person, not filtered generically by industry, which is the difference between a usable list and a spreadsheet.
- A year of database access is included, so the purchase keeps returning value after the campaign ends.
- Free public resources (press release templates, media kit templates, a curated startup directory list) are useful independent of any purchase.
Limitations
- Pressfarm's own site publishes three conflicting price lists simultaneously (pricing page, FAQ, enterprise services page), including packages such as Starter and Power that no longer appear at checkout; this is the clearest signal that site maintenance lags the product.
- No CSV export of contacts, stated as permanent policy, so the database cannot feed your own outreach tooling and everything must be worked inside the platform.
- No country filter. Contacts are filtered only by job interest and publication, and coverage is concentrated in the US, UK, Canada, and Australia, which limits usefulness for a company targeting continental Europe, LATAM, or Asia.
- Database size claims are inconsistent between one million plus contacts on most pages and 50,000 plus in the site's own structured FAQ data, so treat the headline number cautiously.
- No trial, no free tier, and no way to search the database before paying, so the first purchase is made on faith.
- The entry Launch package does no pitching and does not write your release, which is easy to miss when comparing package names rather than line items.
- Results depend on the assigned account executive and on how newsworthy your story genuinely is; a productized service cannot manufacture news, and there is no coverage guarantee.
- No monitoring, coverage reporting, or analytics; once pitches are sent, measuring what landed is your job.
- Ongoing programs are awkward, since sustained PR requires buying discrete packages repeatedly rather than running a continuous campaign.
Head-to-head comparisons
6 alternativesPressfarm vs Brand24
from $199 per month billed annually on Individual ($249 month to month)These solve opposite halves of the same job and are frequently bought together. Pressfarm creates the story and pitches it; Brand24 tells you whether anyone wrote about it, tracking mentions, sentiment, and reach across news, social, blogs, and podcasts on a monthly subscription. Pressfarm has no monitoring at all, so a founder who runs a Pressfarm campaign and then wants to know what it produced needs something like Brand24 to find out.
Full Pressfarm vs Brand24 comparisonPressfarm vs Mention
from From $599 per month on an annual contract, quoted through a demoSame complementary relationship, different emphasis. Mention combines listening with social publishing, which makes it the better pairing for a team that wants one subscription covering both what people are saying and what the brand posts back. Neither Mention nor Pressfarm overlaps the other: Mention will never write your press release, and Pressfarm will never tell you a journalist mentioned you.
Full Pressfarm vs Mention comparisonPressfarm vs Muck Rack
from Quote only; reported entry points around $5,000 per year for a single-seat Starter license, with most teams reported near $10,000 per yearThe clearest either-or in this category. Muck Rack is the professional standard for journalist research, pitching, and coverage reporting, sold as an annual platform subscription that typically runs into four or five figures and expects a communications professional to operate it. Pressfarm sells the labor instead, for a few hundred dollars, once. Buy Muck Rack when you have a PR person and continuous news; buy Pressfarm when you have neither.
Full Pressfarm vs Muck Rack comparisonPressfarm vs PRWeb
from $120 per release (Basic)Both are one-time purchases around a launch, but they do different things. PRWeb is distribution: your release goes onto the Cision wire and into syndicated outlets and search results, with no human pitching anyone. Pressfarm includes distribution but its value is the writing, the hand-built list, and the personalized pitching on the higher packages. A wire release generates syndication; a pitch generates an article. If you only want the syndication footprint, PRWeb is cheaper and more predictable.
Full Pressfarm vs PRWeb comparisonPressfarm vs Hunter
from 0 euros (Free, 50 credits per month), then 49 euros per month (Starter)The DIY route. Hunter finds and verifies email addresses at a fraction of the cost and exports them freely, which is precisely what Pressfarm's database refuses to do. What Hunter cannot supply is judgment about which journalist covers your beat, a written release, or anyone to send the pitches. Founders who enjoy the outreach and have identified their targets by hand save real money with Hunter; founders whose bottleneck is time or writing do not.
Full Pressfarm vs Hunter comparisonPressfarm vs Semrush
from $139 per month (SEO plan, monthly billing) or $117.33 per month billed annuallyOverlaps only on the digital PR side, and the comparison is worth making because the same budget often gets spent on one or the other. Semrush covers backlink analysis, brand monitoring, and (through Prowly, which it owns) an actual PR platform with a media database and newsroom. If the real goal behind the PR push is search authority rather than press clippings, Semrush plus targeted link building is the more measurable spend. If the goal is a founder story in a publication, Pressfarm is the more direct route.
Full Pressfarm vs Semrush comparisonImplementation & onboarding
- Setup time
- Minutes to purchase, then an intake questionnaire that realistically takes one to two hours to complete well. Deliverables and outreach follow over the days and weeks after that, with directory submissions alone taking up to 14 business days for review and acceptance.
- Learning curve
- Essentially none on the service side, since the work is done for you. The database interface is simple: search by niche or publication, spend credits to unlock. The judgment that matters is upstream, deciding whether you actually have news worth pitching, and Pressfarm cannot make that call for you.
- Onboarding
- Self-serve purchase followed by the questionnaire and an assigned account executive. There is no demo call or sales process gating the entry tiers, which is unusual in this category and the main reason a small business can buy it at all.
- Migration notes
- Nothing to migrate in or out. Assets produced (release, media kit, guest post, directory listings with credentials you own) remain yours after the engagement. The one thing that does not survive is database access, which expires twelve months after purchase, and contacts cannot be exported to CSV, so anything you want to keep must be recorded manually before the year runs out.
Platform, API & security
- Platforms
- Web applicationEmail and live chat for service delivery
- API
- No public API. The database is a web interface with credit-gated contact unlocking, and bulk export via CSV is explicitly not offered, so programmatic access is not part of the product.
- Compliance
- GDPR (data processing clause published)
- Data residency
- Not published.
- Security notes
- Standard web account security with a customer dashboard covering subscription, orders, and settings. Because contacts cannot be exported, journalist data stays inside the platform, which is a privacy posture as much as an anti-spam one. Note that Pressfarm's own help content has at times leaked a staging domain in a published contact address, a minor but real indicator of site hygiene.
Support & resources
- Channels
- Priority email support on all packagesLive chat on the websiteAssigned account executiveSlack correspondence on enterprise engagements
- Documentation
- Practical rather than technical: a help center, an extensive FAQ covering the database and the service process, plus free press release templates, media kit templates, and a curated list of startup directories.
- Community
- No user community. The company runs a widely read blog on startup PR and a newsletter with a stated 20,000 plus subscribers, both of which double as the distribution channel for client feature stories.
Company
- Founded
- 2015
- Headquarters
- Canada
- Ownership
- Independent, privately held
- Employees
- Not disclosed
- Funding
- No disclosed venture funding; operates as a self-funded productized service.
Timeline
- 2015Launches as a searchable database helping startup founders find tech journalists to pitch, positioned as a growth-hacking tool rather than an agency.
- 2017Adds agency-style services after customers ask for the writing and pitching as well as the contacts, becoming a hybrid database and productized service.
- 2019Expands coverage beyond tech into fashion, health, entertainment, fintech, and consumer categories, and adds startup directory submissions to the packages.
- 2021Media database claim reaches one million plus reporters, bloggers, podcasters, and influencers, with credit-based unlocking replacing open browsing.
- 2023Package structure consolidates around Launch, Campaign, and Enterprise, with guest posts placed in Google News indexed outlets added to the higher tiers.
- 2025Enterprise tier adds guaranteed syndication to major newspaper and financial outlets, and package prices rise to $280, $480, and $1,080.
- 2026Reports more than 6,000 businesses served; remains one of the few genuinely small-business-priced done-for-you PR options, though published pricing across the site is inconsistent.
Integrations
- Google News (guest post placement)
- Startup directories and review sites
- Press release distribution networks
- Email (pitch delivery and support)
- Slack (enterprise correspondence)
- Mailchimp (Pressfarm newsletter distribution)
Frequently asked questions
12 questionsWhat is Pressfarm and what does it actually do?
Pressfarm is a startup PR service sold as one-time packages rather than a subscription. For a fixed price it produces the content a launch needs (a press release, a designed media kit, a written PR action plan), builds a media list specific to your story, submits your company to startup directories, and on the higher packages pitches 100 to 300 journalists and influencers on your behalf. Every package also includes a year of access to its journalist database.
How much does Pressfarm cost?
As published on its pricing page in August 2026, three packages: Launch at $280, Campaign at $480, and Enterprise at $1,080, each a one-time charge with no retainer or monthly fee. Be aware that Pressfarm's FAQ page and enterprise services page still list older and different figures ($180, $980, and package names like Starter and Power), so verify the price at checkout.
Does Pressfarm have a free trial or a free plan?
No. There is no free tier and no trial, and you cannot search the media database before buying. The lowest commitment is the $280 Launch package. That is a genuine drawback compared with database subscriptions that let you look before you pay.
Is Pressfarm a PR agency or a media database?
Both, and the company says so itself. It started in 2015 as a searchable database of journalists for startup founders and added agency services when customers asked for the writing and pitching too. Today the database is bundled as a bonus with every package and there is no way to subscribe to it on its own.
Does Pressfarm write my press release?
It depends on the package, and this is the most commonly misread detail. On the entry Launch package Pressfarm only proofreads and reviews a release you have written. The Campaign and Enterprise packages include a release written from scratch by their team. If you want the writing done for you, Launch is not the tier.
Does Pressfarm guarantee press coverage?
No, and it says so plainly: nothing in PR is guaranteed. What is contracted is effort and deliverables, personalized pitches to a stated number of contacts, plus the content and lists. The Enterprise tier advertises guaranteed syndication of the press release to major newspaper and financial outlets, but syndication of a wire release is not the same thing as an article a journalist chose to write.
Can I export contacts from the Pressfarm database to a CSV?
No, and this is stated as a permanent policy rather than a missing feature. The company argues that bulk export encourages mass emailing, which journalists treat as spam. In practice it means the database cannot feed your own outreach sequencer, and anything you want to keep past your year of access must be recorded by hand.
How many journalists are in the Pressfarm database?
Most pages claim over one million reporters, bloggers, podcasters, and influencers, though the site's own structured FAQ data elsewhere says 50,000 plus, so the figures are inconsistent. Contacts are concentrated in the US, UK, Canada, and Australia, and can be filtered by job interests and publication but not yet by country.
How long does a Pressfarm campaign take?
Content production begins once you submit the intake questionnaire, and pitching runs over the following days and weeks; the enterprise services page describes 30 to 60 day campaign windows. Startup directory submissions are the slowest component, typically taking up to 14 business days for each directory's review and acceptance.
Pressfarm vs Muck Rack: which should a small business choose?
Muck Rack is the professional platform, sold as an annual subscription that runs into four or five figures and assumes a communications person operates it, with proper coverage reporting. Pressfarm sells the labor for a few hundred dollars, once, and includes no reporting. If you have continuous news and someone to run it, Muck Rack. If you have one announcement and nobody to write it, Pressfarm.
Do I keep anything after the package is finished?
Yes. The press release, media kit, PR action plan, and guest post are yours, and directory listings created on your behalf come with the login credentials on your own company email. The database access is the exception: it expires twelve months after purchase and contacts cannot be exported.
Who owns Pressfarm and where is it based?
It is an independent, privately held company operating out of Canada, in business since 2015, with no disclosed venture funding or acquisition. Public directory listings give conflicting locations, and the company does not publish an ownership or team page, so the corporate detail available is thinner than for most tools in this category.
Editorial verdict
Pressfarm occupies a gap that most of this category ignores: the founder who has one piece of real news, no publicist, and no way to justify a retainer or an annual platform subscription. Under $500 for a written press release, a designed media kit, a media list built by a person for your specific story, and someone pitching a hundred journalists is not assemblable any other way at that price, and the year of database access plus the Google News guest post keep returning value after the announcement passes. The reservations are equally concrete. There is no trial, so the first purchase is on faith; the database cannot be exported and cannot be filtered by country; the entry package neither writes your release nor pitches anyone, which the tier names obscure; and the company's own site publishes three different price lists at once, which does not inspire confidence in operational tidiness. Buy it as a competent freelancer's launch week at a fixed price, with the understanding that no productized service can make an unremarkable announcement newsworthy, and pair it with a monitoring tool if you want to know what the campaign actually produced.
Written by the SaaSTracker editorial team. Awards, when shown, are judged against the published criteria in our methodology.