The number on the eReleases pricing page is $399. The number on the invoice is often not $399, and the gap between those two facts is the whole reason this post exists.
eReleases sells three packages and prices every meaningful extra per release, not per month and not per account. That structure is not hidden and it is not dishonest. Every figure below came off the vendor’s own pricing page on 8 September 2026. But it does mean that the advertised price is a floor rather than a price, and that two store owners buying the same package can pay wildly different amounts depending on how long their release runs and what they attach to it.
So this is the invoice post. Three packages, the full add on ladder, the arithmetic that turns a $499 release into $1,149, the discount that almost nobody computes correctly, and the several places where stepping up a tier costs less than adding on. Nothing here is a test result. No release was purchased and no account was opened. This is pricing, counting and arithmetic on published figures.
One thing needs saying before any of the tables, and it applies to every service in this category. Distribution buys placement on a wire. It does not buy coverage. eReleases distributes through Cision PR Newswire as a reseller, which puts your release on a serious circuit, and no amount of money on that circuit guarantees that a journalist writes a word about your store.
The three packages, side by side
Per release pricing, not a subscription. All three include national Cision PR Newswire distribution, access to what eReleases describes as more than 100,000 journalists, and WireWatch reporting.
| Package | Price | Words | Industry target lists | Images |
| Buzz Builder | $399 | 400 | 1 | 2 |
| Newsmaker, badged as the number one pick | $499 | 500 | 2 | 2 |
| PR Pro | $699 | 600 | 3 | 2 |
PR Pro adds one thing the other two do not include: the Cision Influencer List, which is a direct to journalist email send on top of the wire distribution. Hold that detail, because it changes the arithmetic later in a way most comparison pages miss entirely.
eReleases also prints a stated PR Newswire value against each package: $1,145 for Buzz Builder, $1,510 for Newsmaker, and $1,875 for PR Pro plus an influencer list it values at as much as $785. Those are the vendor’s own marketing comparison figures, not independent valuations by anybody else, and I would read them the way you read a manufacturer’s suggested retail price. They tell you how eReleases positions the packages. They are not a market rate somebody else confirmed.
What each $100 step actually buys
The interesting way to read a three tier price list is not down the column but across the gaps. Here is what the money buys at each step.
| Step | Extra cost | What you gain |
| Buzz Builder to Newsmaker | $100 | 100 more words and a second industry target list |
| Newsmaker to PR Pro | $200 | 100 more words, a third target list, and the Cision Influencer List |
| Buzz Builder to PR Pro | $300 | 200 more words, two more target lists, and the Cision Influencer List |
Keep those three rows in view. In a moment they will explain why buying add ons on a cheap package is usually the most expensive way to end up where you were going anyway.
The add on ladder, priced per release
This is the part of the pricing page that most write ups summarise in a sentence and then never return to. Every one of these is charged per release, which means it recurs on every announcement you send, not once.
| Add on | Price per release |
| Additional words, per 100 word block | $150 |
| Additional industry target list, each | $150 |
| Local saturation | $150 |
| Cision Influencer List | $150 |
| Image embedding | $150 |
| YouTube video embedding | $200 |
| International distribution | $150 per country, or $1,000 global |
| Press release writing service | $300 |
Two honest notes on that table. The packages each list two images, and the ladder separately prices image embedding at $150, so before you budget for images it is worth asking eReleases directly which of those applies to the release you are sending. And the writing service at $300 is the only line here that is not distribution at all; it is somebody producing the copy.
Price the release you would actually send
Buzz Builder is $399 for 400 words, Newsmaker is $499 for 500, PR Pro is $699 for 600 and includes the Cision Influencer List. Extra words run $150 per 100 word block. Total your real configuration before you compare anything, and remember that what you are buying is placement on a wire rather than any promise of coverage.
The invoice that turns $499 into $1,149
Here is the configuration that made me want to write this post. It is not an extreme case. It is a fairly ordinary product launch release for a store that sells something worth photographing.
Take a 700 word release. Put it on Newsmaker, the package eReleases itself badges as the number one pick. Embed the YouTube video you already made for the product page. Add the Cision Influencer List so the release also lands in journalist inboxes directly rather than only on the wire.
| Line item | Cost | Running total |
| Newsmaker base, 500 words included | $499 | $499 |
| Two extra 100 word blocks, taking 500 to 700 | $300 | $799 |
| YouTube video embedding | $200 | $999 |
| Cision Influencer List | $150 | $1,149 |
The total is $1,149. That is 2.3 times the advertised $499, and every single figure in that table is published on the vendor’s pricing page. Nothing was estimated, nothing was inferred and nothing was marked up by me.
Now look at that invoice again with the tier table from earlier in mind. The Cision Influencer List is included in PR Pro. PR Pro also includes 600 words rather than 500. So the same release configured from PR Pro reads like this: $699 base, plus one extra 100 word block to reach 700, plus the $200 video. That totals $1,049. The identical release, sent to the identical circuit with the identical influencer send, is $100 cheaper when you start from the more expensive package.
That is the single most useful thing on this page. On this pricing structure, upgrading is frequently cheaper than adding on, and the direction of the saving is counterintuitive enough that a lot of people configure their way into paying more for less.
Three more places where the cheaper package costs more
The $1,149 case is not a one off quirk. It falls out of the fact that a target list costs $150 as an add on but only $100 as a tier upgrade, while 100 words cost $150 as an add on and are bundled into that same $100 step.
| What you want | Built up from a cheaper package | Straight package price | Better route |
| 400 words and two target lists | Buzz Builder plus one list, $549 | Newsmaker, $499, with 500 words and two lists | Newsmaker, $50 less and 100 more words |
| 600 words and one target list | Buzz Builder plus two word blocks, $699 | PR Pro, $699, with 600 words and three lists | PR Pro, identical price and two extra lists |
| 600 words and two target lists | Newsmaker plus one word block, $649 | PR Pro, $699 | $50 buys a third list and the influencer list, which cost $300 as add ons |
In every row the built up version is either worse value or flatly dominated. I cannot find a configuration where padding out Buzz Builder with add ons beats simply buying the tier that already contains what you are adding. If you take one habit away from this post, make it this: check the next tier up before you tick a single box.
What a word costs, which nobody prints
Divide the package price by the words included and the three tiers land almost on top of each other. Buzz Builder is $399 for 400 words, so about $1.00 a word. Newsmaker is $499 for 500, also about $1.00. PR Pro is $699 for 600, which works out closer to $1.17.
Now price an add on word. A 100 word block is $150, so extra words cost $1.50 each. Extra words are roughly half again as expensive as included words, which is the mathematical reason the upgrade beats the add on so consistently. That is my arithmetic on published prices, not a figure eReleases quotes.
The practical version of that finding: write to the word count you have bought. A 500 word release on Newsmaker costs $499. A 520 word release on Newsmaker costs $649, because the ladder charges by the block and not by the word. Twenty words of throat clearing cost $150. Cutting them is the highest paid editing you will ever do, and it usually makes the release better anyway, which is the argument I make at length in the guide to writing a press release for an ecommerce store.
The international arithmetic
International distribution is priced two ways: $150 per country, or $1,000 for global. That gives you a break even you can compute in your head.
Six countries at $150 each is $900, which is under the global price. Seven countries is $1,050, which is over it. So global becomes the cheaper option at seven countries and stays cheaper from there. Below that, pick your countries individually and pay the per country rate.
Put that against a base package and the totals get large quickly. PR Pro at $699 with global distribution is $1,699 before you have added a single word, a video or an image. A store owner shipping to three European markets is looking at $699 plus $450, which is $1,149 again by a different route. If international reach is the actual reason you are shopping, the trade offs across the whole category are laid out in the eReleases alternatives breakdown.
Check the tier above before you tick a single add on
A target list costs $150 as an add on and $100 as a tier step. PR Pro at $699 includes 600 words, three target lists and the Cision Influencer List, which is $300 of add ons on the tier below. Configure both ways and buy the cheaper one, knowing that neither route promises a journalist covers you.
The 30 percent first time discount
eReleases states a 30 percent discount for first time customers. Applied to the three package prices, that computes to $279.30 for Buzz Builder, $349.30 for Newsmaker and $489.30 for PR Pro. That is my arithmetic on a stated discount, not three rates quoted by the vendor.
What the pricing page does not spell out is whether the discount extends to the add on ladder or applies to the package price only. Because I cannot confirm it, I will not print a discounted figure for a configured release, and I would suggest you ask before you assume. If the discount is package only, then the $1,149 example above becomes $999.30, since the $650 of add ons would be unaffected. If it applies to the whole invoice it lands lower. One of those numbers is right and the pricing page does not tell you which.
Either way, notice what the discount does structurally. It applies once. The add on ladder applies every time. A store that sends four releases a year gets one discounted invoice and three full price ones, and the add ons recur on all four. Pricing your first release is not the same exercise as pricing your year.
Bulk pricing, and why I will not quote a rate
eReleases states that bulk pricing is available at two releases or more. It does not publish the rates. That is the entire honest answer.
I have seen specific per release bulk figures quoted on other sites and I have no idea where they come from, because they are not on the pricing page. If somebody prints an eReleases bulk rate as a fact, ask them for the source. Where a vendor does publish volume pricing, the arithmetic is easy to check, and that is exactly the contrast drawn out in the eReleases and EIN Presswire comparison, where the bundle prices are printed and the effective per release figure is computable to the cent.
If you are planning several releases, ask eReleases for the bulk quote before you buy the first one at list price. There is no way to know from the outside whether two releases at the bulk rate beats one release plus the first time discount, and the only person who can tell you is the vendor.
What the guarantee actually covers
This is the most consistently misdescribed thing in the category, so here it is plainly. eReleases says it will not distribute your press release until you are satisfied. That covers the writing service and the copy it produces.
It is a satisfaction guarantee on writing. It is not a money back guarantee on distribution, and it is not a promise about outcomes. If your release goes out on the wire and no journalist picks it up, that is not a refundable event anywhere in this industry, at any price, with any vendor. Anyone who tells you otherwise is describing a product that does not exist.
What $399 does not buy
Worth stating explicitly, because the packages are described in terms of what is included and it is easy to read past what is not.
It does not buy coverage. It buys placement on the national Cision PR Newswire circuit and a target list send. Whether a reporter opens it, reads it and writes something depends entirely on whether the news is interesting to that reporter’s readers.
It does not buy links you can count on. Wire syndication produces copies of your release on various sites, those sites make their own decisions about how they treat outbound links, and none of that is guaranteed or contractual. If organic search traffic is what you are actually after, the money is better spent on the work described in the guide to ecommerce SEO strategies that drive free organic traffic, which compounds in a way a single release never does.
And it does not buy a story. If the announcement is that your store now stocks a colour it did not stock last month, no distribution budget rescues it. The release has to be about something first.
How to price your own release in five minutes
A procedure, in the order that avoids the expensive mistakes.
Write the release first, then count the words. Do not buy a package and then write to fill it, because you will overshoot and every overshoot is charged in $150 blocks.
Round your word count up to the next hundred and find the cheapest package that already contains it. Then list the extras you genuinely need: target lists, a video, images, international countries, local saturation.
Now total that configuration twice. Once starting from the cheapest package that fits, and once starting from the tier above it. Buy whichever total is lower. On the numbers in this post, the higher tier wins more often than people expect.
Finally, before you pay, get the bulk quote if you plan more than one release this year, and ask whether the first time discount touches add ons. Those two questions are worth more than any comparison table, including mine. When you have your figure, the sensible next move is to check it against what the same money buys elsewhere, which is the job of the ranked list of press release distribution services.
Total your real configuration before you buy
First time customers are offered a stated 30 percent discount, which computes to $279.30, $349.30 and $489.30 on the three packages. Bulk pricing starts at two releases and the rates are not published, so ask. Whatever you pay, distribution places the release on the wire and never guarantees that anyone covers it.
Is any of this worth $399
Sometimes, and the honest test is narrow. It is worth it when a specific audience expects to see the release on the national wire: an investor, a retail buyer, a distributor evaluating you, a partner doing diligence, or a compliance requirement that says an announcement was made publicly. In those cases the circuit is the product and $399 is a reasonable price for it.
It is not worth it when the goal is traffic, rankings or a vague sense of legitimacy. For that money you can run a month of paid testing, produce a great deal of content, or fix the parts of the store that are losing the sales you already have. I have written the same sentence in several posts in this cluster and I will keep writing it, because it is the most common way store owners waste $399.
The middle case is a genuine judgement call, and it is where the tier arithmetic earns its keep. If the release matters enough to send but not enough to over configure, buy the package that already contains what you need, skip the ladder entirely, and spend the difference on the launch itself. The long form assessment of what eReleases does well and badly sits in the full eReleases review. The head to head against the cheapest Cision route is in the eReleases and PRWeb comparison.
Running the business behind the store
A release is a marketing line item, and marketing line items only make sense against a category with enough margin to absorb them, which is why I would start with the high ticket niche list before worrying about which package to buy.
If larger order values are new to you, the reasoning is laid out in the explanation of high ticket dropshipping, where a single sale can cover an entire $499 release.
Supplier relationships come before announcements, and the approach that actually gets replies is in my step by step guide to finding high ticket suppliers.
Get the legal entity in place before you publish anything with your company name on it, following the guide to business formation for high ticket dropshipping.
For the storefront I use Shopify, because it is where every one of these announcements eventually sends the reader.
To form the company I use Bizee. For liability cover once orders are moving, I point people at Hiscox.
Every one of these figures needs to land somewhere countable, so I keep the books in QuickBooks and code each release against the launch it belonged to.
If you would rather have the whole operation assembled for you, my team runs a done for you high ticket dropshipping build and launch service.
Frequently asked questions
How much does eReleases cost?
Three packages priced per release: Buzz Builder at $399 for 400 words and one industry target list, Newsmaker at $499 for 500 words and two lists, and PR Pro at $699 for 600 words, three lists and the Cision Influencer List. All three include national Cision PR Newswire distribution and WireWatch reporting.
What do the eReleases add ons cost?
Per release: $150 for each additional 100 word block, $150 for each additional industry target list, $150 for local saturation, $150 for the Cision Influencer List, $150 for image embedding, $200 for YouTube video embedding, $150 per country or $1,000 global for international distribution, and $300 for the press release writing service.
Why did my eReleases quote come out so much higher than $399?
Because the ladder is priced per release and stacks. A 700 word Newsmaker release with a video embed and the influencer list totals $499 plus $300 plus $200 plus $150, which is $1,149. Configuring the same release from PR Pro instead comes to $1,049, so always price it both ways.
Does eReleases publish bulk pricing?
It states that bulk pricing is available at two releases or more, but the rates are not published. Any specific bulk figure quoted elsewhere is somebody’s estimate rather than a published rate, and the only way to get the real number is to ask for a quote.
Is the eReleases first time discount 30 percent off everything?
A 30 percent discount for first time customers is stated. Applied to the packages that computes to $279.30, $349.30 and $489.30. The pricing page does not specify whether add ons are included in the discount, so confirm that before you budget a configured release.
Does eReleases offer a money back guarantee?
Not on distribution. eReleases says it will not distribute your release until you are satisfied, which is a satisfaction guarantee covering the writing service and the copy. It is not a refund on distribution and it is not a guarantee of results.
Will paying more get my release more coverage?
No service in this category can promise that, and eReleases does not. Higher tiers buy more words, more target lists and a direct journalist send. Whether anyone writes about your store depends on whether the news is genuinely interesting, not on which package you selected.
Related Articles
eReleases vs PRWeb 2026: Two Cision Resellers, $399 Against $120
eReleases vs EIN Presswire 2026: $399 a Release or $66.60
eReleases Alternatives 2026: Same Wire, Very Different Prices
Best Press Release Distribution Services 2026: Ranked by What the Wire Actually Is
eReleases Review 2026: The Press Release Distribution Service for Small Businesses
Trevor Fenner is an ecommerce entrepreneur and the founder of Ecommerce Paradise, a platform focused on helping entrepreneurs build and scale profitable high-ticket ecommerce and dropshipping businesses. With over a decade of hands-on experience, Trevor specializes in high-ticket dropshipping strategy, niche and product selection, supplier recruiting and onboarding, Google & Bing Shopping ads, ecommerce SEO, and systems-driven automation and scaling. Through Ecommerce Paradise, he provides free education via in-depth guides like How to Start High-Ticket Dropshipping, advanced training through the High-Ticket Dropshipping Masterclass, and fully done-for-you turnkey ecommerce services for entrepreneurs who want a faster, more hands-off path to growth. Trevor is known for emphasizing sustainable, real-world ecommerce models over hype-driven tactics, helping store owners build scalable, sellable, and location-independent brands.
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