Cision PR Newswire Reviews & Product Details

Support was quick to respond whenever we needed assistance. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

PR Newswire online experience was dreadful. First off, the login asks for username but you are supposed to use your email. I had a username with CISION, which was another awful login experience altogether. I had to call support just to login and though support was very helpful and quick to get to me, they asked, "are you a CISION migration." When i said yes, they said, "oh we're taking a lot of calls from those migrations, I'm sorry you're having trouble."

Logging in was only the tip of the iceberg. The whole posting-through-their-portal experience was dreadful.

1. You get an error trying to get to billing system and have to contact your rep. I did so and he never replied.

2. Because of problem in #1 you don't know what your license covers. This is important because you undoubtedly will check the distributions that aren't covered in your license and there is an added cost. You must be careful here and it is very scummy of PR Newswire not to allow you to view what is covered by your license. I still don't know.

3. After speaking with support, they said they understand the issue in #2 above and apologized and said they would set my account up so that only options that are covered by my license are available to click on. That never happened and on my next distribution, they tried to charge me extra for selecting an extra distribution that was not in my plan. Again, there is no way to view what is in your plan bc it is not in the UI and you cannot access billing portal to see what is in your plan.

4. The UI is terribly designed, not intuitive at all. Other than the problem in 2 above, you aren't able to get a PDF preview so you don't know what they are posting unless you call them and ask for a PDF. I was told there is a view PDF option in the UI but there is not.

5. In my case, I was told to call in to get my distribution live. This completely defeats the purpose of having an online portal for distributions. The first PR they apologized for this and I asked if they could set it up so that i didn't have to call them every time i had a distribution. They assured me I would not have to call them next time.

6. Next distribution I had to call them to get it approved after saying I did not have to do that.

I've been in the software business for 20+ years and have the utmost empathy for people working in tech. I also know when an app has poor requirements that aren't user needs, and is rushed and not properly tested. This is one of the worst software experiences I've ever had. Took us about 3 hours to do a distribution and through the submit-for-approval process. We also use EIN Newswire (we are an agency) and I can do this process there in about 15 minutes.

I suspect, a legacy PR Newswire customer experience might be better than mine for we were migrated from CISION, which had its own set of submission issues. All-in-all I cannot recommend PR Newswire. I declined on my client's behalf to renew a license because of this terrible user experience where it takes hours to submit a PR. Objectively and fairly I could not bill this client for the hours spent trying to get through the bad EUX and ended up eating a lot of billing hours due to their poor app design. We are glad to have this company's bad tech behind us after the license period lapsed. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The many distribution options - local, regional and national and lots of features to choose from. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The cost is prohibitive to some clients. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The service is simple and easy to use, reliable, and also tends to be less expensive than other wire services I've used. Customer service team is great as well. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Honestly, there isn't much not to like. Sometimes the website stalls or goes offline during periods of high traffic but that usually gets resolved within a minute or two. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The newswire support team is always on top of it Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The database is a bit outdated when it comes to media information Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Easy to use platform, no delays even with detailed press releases with tables, images and links. Does what they say they will do, helpful staff and truly a turnkey service. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

For our smaller public company, we didn't need the turnkey nature and didn't need the advanced features that we were paying for. We'd consider returning for a lower price with less features tailored to companes like ours that don't need all the bells and whistles. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

*Reach

*Extension-related coverage

*Less spam emails

*Market selection for coverage

*Easy to use Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

*PRICE! (*C'mon!!)

*Do get spam emails

*Reporting can be improved

*Limits with word counts and photos

*Misc. extra add on costs Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Mmmm let me think...

Oh, yes...

NOTHING Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I am utterly disappointed with Cision Newswire. This platform is anything but user-friendly - it's outdated and frustrating to navigate. As if that weren't bad enough, their customer service is absolutely atrocious. They take forever to respond to emails (if they even bother to respond at all), and when we did manage to reach someone via chat or email, they had the audacity to ask us to call them! What kind of company in this day and age operates like that?

But that's not even the worst part. Cision Newswire has zero transparency when it comes to billing. If you select certain options that require extra payment, they won't even tell you until you receive their invoice at the end of the month. That is completely unethical and downright sleazy.

And if that wasn't enough to make you want to steer clear of this platform, they also modify your URLs without your permission. We lost out on 300 backlinking opportunities because they decided to make our links "trackable" without our consent.

In conclusion, I would not recommend Cision Newswire to anyone. Their platform is terrible, their customer service is even worse, and they engage in unethical practices that only serve to line their own pockets. One star is too generous for a company like this. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The product is easy to use and distribution list is better than others I have used. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Approval wait times can sometimes take awhile in quick turn situations but they do try to work with you. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

We've been using PR Newswire for almost 3 years now and have been extremely satisfied with the coverage of our press releases. The team is especially knowledgeable and helped us get the biggest bang for our buck. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Sending out a press release can get a little spendy, and the contract system is a little unforgiving, making it difficult to pivot until your contract expires.Adding a picture or going a little over word count hits you with additional charges. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The online portal is super easy to use and the visibility into release pickup is easy to just pass onto clients. But the most amazing thing (in this day and age) is the support team - I've had to get a hold of them on a number of occasions and anyone that picks up the phone is both knowledgeable and wonderfully helpful. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Sometimes the pages take a long time to load, and it would be really great if there was a way to gauge the 'success' benchmark of releases for 'like' releases - the client always asks for this. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.