How to Choose a PR Agency Without Getting Played

Every PR agency sounds good in the first two calls. They will tell you they have relationships, they will tell you they can “get you in,” and they will usually show you one or two impressive logos or a marquee hit. None of that tells you what your next 90 days will look like.

If you are hiring PR, don’t focus on buying attention. Focus on getting credibility that changes outcomes. It should make sales conversations easier, shorten enterprise cycles, improve investor posture, and raise the baseline of trust around your brand. 

The easiest way to get burned is to choose based on promises. The safest way is to choose based on proof, capacity, and operational clarity.

Referrals Do Not Always Work for You

Referrals are a starting point, not a decision point. A referral tells you someone liked an agency. It does not tell you whether the agency is built specifically for your stage, your pace, your approvals process, or your internal readiness.

Instead of asking who to hire, see who has produced consistent wins for companies that look like yours, at the retainer level you are willing to pay. That shift in questioning will ground you.

How to Read Between the Lines of a PR Deck

If you collect a stack of proposals, you will likely choose based on writing style and confident promises. That is not vetting. Keep the shortlist small before you ever request a formal plan. Two or three finalists is enough.

Once you are down to the finalists, a proposal should answer two things: how do we operate together every week, and how do we measure whether this is working. If the deck is heavy on vision and light on workflow, you are being sold.

The Difference Between "Using Tech" and Having a System

A PR relationship lives or dies inside the unsexy details. How pitches are written, how follow-ups are tracked, how approvals are handled, how reporting works, and how the team knows what is happening without a long status call.

Ask to see their internal workflow, don’t settle for a slide that describes it. Ask how they track outreach and responses. Ask how they document campaign status. Ask how they account for time. If their answer is “we integrate AI and maximize tech,” keep pressing until you see the actual system. If they refuse because “it is proprietary,” it’s best to assume it is disorganized.

A well-run agency should be able to show you exactly where a campaign stands quickly in two to three clicks. If it takes a scavenger hunt through messages and spreadsheets, you will pay for that chaos in delays and missed opportunities.

How to Spot a Stretched-Thin Team

PR results come from consistent output, and output takes time. Your retainer is not a general investment in good intentions. It funds labor.

Ask how your fee translates into hours across the team, and ask how those hours are split between pitching and overhead. Ask how many accounts the assigned account executive carries. Ask how much senior oversight you actually get each month. If the agency avoids specifics, that is a sign they do not track time well or they do not want you to do the math.

This one question will expose most bad fits. If the team is stretched thin, pitching becomes reactive, follow-up gets sloppy, and media wins turn into occasional spikes.

Verify Consistency with Recent Results

A single flashy placement is not a strategy. It can happen for reasons that have nothing to do with repeatable execution.

Ask for the last 30, 60, and 90 days of earned media for clients on a similar retainer to what you would pay. That should be public information. A serious agency will not act like it is a secret. If they show only a curated highlight page, ask for the full list.

Then ask to see one client’s coverage across a full year. You are checking whether the agency sustains output when the initial excitement fades and the work becomes routine. That is when you learn if they have a system or if they run on bursts of energy.

Match Agency Experience to Your Growth Stage

Well-known brands often hire agencies for narrow projects because brand awareness is already baked in. That does not prove the agency can build credibility for a company that is still earning its place in the market.

If you are early-stage or in a growth phase, look for examples where the agency took a company with limited press and built consistent coverage over time. That is a different skill set, and it is the one that actually applies to your model.

Be Honest and Realistic about the Budget Because PR is Not a Low-Commitment Experiment

You know that meme where clients share their goal of building a cruise ship, but their budget is barely enough to build a boat? That happens in real life. If you want PR that moves the business, you need enough budget to fund consistent execution. So, how much does a PR agency cost per month? It’s roughly $12,000 to $15,000 per month. Around $10,000 is often the floor at which a real team can maintain a steady cadence without cutting corners.

When the retainer is too small, the agency has to remove parts of the engine. That shows up as fewer pitches, weaker follow-up, slower turnaround, and thinner strategy support. Many PR-failed stories start there, not because the channel is broken, but because the investment never matched expectations.

What Happens After Signing with an Agency?

You are allowed to ask how the engine runs.

Ask how many

they write each week for a typical client, how many journalists they reach, and how they maintain quality. Good agencies can answer without hedging.

Ask how they quantitatively measure effectiveness beyond “we sent pitches.” Do they track responses, open rate, conversion to conversations, and what topics land best? Do they adjust based on data, or do they stay in the same groove no matter what happens?

If an agency talks about results but cannot talk about output, you are not looking at a disciplined operation.

Think Twice Before Hiring a Solo Publicist

To date, many still ask, “Should I hire a PR agency or a freelance publicist?” Great independent publicists exist, but they are rare, and their rates usually range from $250 to over $500 an hour. The bigger risk here is capacity. One person has to pitch, manage approvals, report, prospect, and keep relationships warm. When bandwidth breaks, quality breaks.

If you do not have the budget for a strong agency or a proven independent, you are often better off investing founder time into content rooted in real experience and real stories. That creates narrative clarity you can convert into press when the budget is ready.

Choose an agency that will push you. If your positioning is muddy, if your story is bloated, or if your delivery weakens the message, a good partner will not hesitate to say so plainly. An agency that only agrees with you is only protecting the relationship. While that is good, that’s not what you’re paying for.