EIN Presswire vs eReleases: Why Cheaper Doesn’t Mean Better

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EIN Presswire costs $149 for a single release. eReleases starts at $399. If you’re comparison shopping, that gap is hard to ignore. But these two services don’t do the same thing.

EIN Presswire sends your release to web aggregators that mostly sit unread. eReleases sends your press release through PR Newswire’s national wire to 82,000+ newsrooms then sends it directly to a hand-curated group of those who are most likely to cover your story.

One is syndication. The other is actual press release distribution.

Full disclosure: eReleases is one of the services being reviewed here. We’ve been in this business for 27 years. That’s not a conflict, it’s context.

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What Each Service Actually Does

Price comparisons only make sense if you’re comparing the same product.

EIN Presswire is a self-serve wire submission tool. You submit your release, it gets published to a network of news aggregator websites. These are auto-published pages that collect press releases. Journalists don’t monitor them. Google doesn’t rank them well. Virtually nobody reads them. Your release appears there and nothing else happens…

eReleases is the only authorized national PR Newswire affiliate. We’ve been doing this since 1998. When you submit a release through eReleases, it goes out on the full national PR Newswire wire, through the AP Member Editorial Wire, and directly to hand-curated journalist contacts in your industry. That’s the distribution network actual reporters watch.

These aren’t two versions of the same thing. One gets ignored. The other gets you in front of the journalists who want to cover your story. They’re two totally different products with different goals.

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EIN Presswire vs eReleases Pricing

	EIN Presswire	eReleases
Entry-level price	$149/release	$399/release
Writing/editing services	No	Yes (add-on)
Editorial review	No	Yes (included)
Distribution network	Web aggregators	PR Newswire (national)
Journalist reach	Minimal	Direct (100,000+ newsrooms)

EIN’s volume plans: 5 releases for $499, 15 releases for $999. At that level, you’re paying more for a higher volume of releases that still go to the same aggregator network that gives you virtually nothing in return for the dollars you spent.

What You Get for the Price Difference

The $250 gap between EIN’s single-release price ($149) and eReleases’ Buzz Builder plan ($399) buys you a lot more than a wire submission.

eReleases includes professional editorial review on every single release. Not as an upsell. Included. A real editor checks your release before it goes out, which means no embarrassing errors, no weak hooks, no releases that journalists immediately ignore.

Plus the value you get from the PR Newswire national distribution is huge. PR Newswire charges $600 to $1,300 or more for the same national wire access, plus hundreds of dollars for a setup fee. Through eReleases, you get that exact same network at a fraction of the cost.

You’re paying more for significantly better distribution and for putting your press release into the hands of those who can give you real media coverage for your story.

And isn’t that why you’re sending out a press release in the first place?

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Distribution: Where Your Press Release Actually Goes

Distribution is the whole game. Everything else is packaging.

How EIN Presswire Distributes

EIN sends your release to a network of news aggregator websites. These pages auto-publish incoming releases to sites that virtually nobody ever looks like. Yes, those sites exist, and you can show your boss a list of URLs where they were published.

But if nobody reads them, what good does that do for you?.

There’s no targeting by beat, industry, or publication. There’s no human review. Your release goes in, it appears on a list of other press releases, and that’s largely the end of its journey.

How eReleases Distributes

eReleases routes your release through PR Newswire distribution at the full national level, not a regional or limited tier. It also goes out to the AP Member Editorial Wire and to over 82,000 newsrooms with 1.7 million journalist contacts.

Beat reporters subscribe to PR Newswire categories that match what they cover. Releases land directly in their inboxes, which is why being on the wire means working journalists see your story, not just search engines.

Plus, in addition to distribution through PR Newswire, every release is sent out to a hand-curated group of journalists from our database to the people who are most likely to cover your story. This journalist targeting is hand-selected by industry and geography. Your release reaches reporters who actually cover your beat, not a generic firehose of contacts who will ignore it.

After 27 years of building journalist relationships, that contact list is one of the most valuable things eReleases brings to every distribution.

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Features Compared

Feature	EIN Presswire	eReleases
PR Newswire access	No	Yes
Human editorial review	No	Yes (every release)
Press release writing	No	Yes (add-on)
Journalist targeting	No	Yes (hand-curated)
Industry/geo targeting	Limited	Yes
Reporting/analytics	Basic	WireWatch™
Customer support	Self-serve	Live/editorial guidance

Writing and Editorial Support

This is where the gap gets significant, and no other major competitor closes it the same way.

EIN Presswire has no writing or editing services. You submit whatever you write, it goes out as-is. If your headline is weak, your lede is buried, or your release reads like a product brochure, that’s what journalists see.

eReleases includes professional editorial review with every release. Writers and editors with real PR experience look at your release before distribution. Writing services are also available as an add-on if you need a release built from scratch.

Knowing how to write a press release that actually gets pickup matters more than most first-timers expect.

Reporting and Analytics

EIN Presswire provides basic reporting. eReleases includes WireWatch, which gives you visibility into where your release was picked up, which outlets ran it, and how it performed. That matters when you need to show results to a client, a board, or yourself.

Customer Support

EIN is self-serve. eReleases offers live support and editorial guidance throughout the process, which is not a small thing for a high-stakes release.

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What Real Media Coverage Looks Like

Just look at these case studies:

Arthur Bradley, author of The Handbook to Practical Disaster Preparedness for the Family, tried a lower-cost service first: “I must confess that I tried a lower-cost provider once, but the results were so poor that I will never make that mistake again.” He moved to eReleases and was interviewed by the New York Times, Money Magazine, and Costco Connection.

Craig Klein at SalesNexus had the same story. He overpaid for other wire services, tried emailing releases directly to journalists, and got nothing. When he switched to eReleases, he got picked up by the Wall Street Journal and the LA Times.

Mike Allebach, a Philadelphia photographer, had the exact doubt you may be having right now: “Before doing a press release I had doubts. Are journalists really going to see these press releases, or are they just going off into the abyss?” His first eReleases distribution landed in Huffington Post, Cosmopolitan, Daily Mail, Yahoo! Lifestyle, and the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Frank Rosello, co-founder of Reflection Band, sent one release. Three days later: five media inquiries, including a call from the executive producer of a national morning TV show. His take: “Getting eReleases’ value along with the power of the PR Newswire distribution engine is the best of both worlds.”

The pattern repeats itself over and over: releases that went nowhere on aggregator-based distribution started getting journalist calls once they were distributed by eReleases.

That’s the difference between a press release being published on sites nobody reads and a press release getting real media coverage.

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Is EIN Presswire Worth It?

EIN Presswire is a real service. It’s not a scam. But it’s built for a specific, limited use case.

When EIN Presswire Makes Sense

If your goal is purely SEO, specifically getting your announcement indexed on multiple web pages with keyword-rich content, EIN can serve that purpose at a low cost per release. If you’re sending high volumes of routine announcements where journalist pickup is not the goal, EIN’s volume plans work as a budget option.

When EIN Presswire Is the Wrong Tool

If you want a journalist to actually read your release and decide to cover it, EIN is not built for that. If you need your story in front of trade reporters, regional press, or national outlets, EIN’s aggregator network does not reach them.

If you’re launching a product, announcing a funding round, responding to an industry event, or doing anything where earned media coverage is the actual goal, EIN Presswire will not get you there. Using it for journalist coverage is like using a classified ad to land a national magazine feature.

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Who Should Use eReleases

eReleases is built for businesses that want actual media coverage.

That means small and mid-sized businesses that can’t afford to go directly to PR Newswire but want the same national reach. Startups making announcements that need to land with trade press. Companies where one placement in the right publication is worth more than a hundred aggregator mentions.

It’s also the right fit for anyone who wants a professional set of eyes on their release before it goes out. The included editorial review catches problems that kill coverage before distribution even begins.

If you want to learn what makes a release worth covering in the first place, start with how to write a press release that journalists actually read.

The eReleases pricing structure is designed to give small businesses access to the same national wire that large corporations use. That’s the original reason eReleases was founded in 1998.

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Verdict: EIN Presswire vs eReleases

EIN Presswire wins on price per submission. That’s the honest answer.

Compare press release services.

eReleases wins on everything that determines whether your press release actually does anything: journalist reach, editorial support, distribution infrastructure, reporting, and 27 years of proven results.

If you’re weighing these two services, the real question is what you’re paying for. EIN Presswire charges you to put your release on sites nobody reads. eReleases charges you to get your release in front of the people who decide what gets covered.

For most businesses with a real story to tell, that’s not a close call.

See eReleases plans and pricing.

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