In short
- PR is sold by the hour even when it is quoted by the month
- Ask what is billed on top — distribution, monitoring, events
- A cheap retainer usually means a junior doing the pitching
- Project pricing suits one story; retainers suit a programme
Search for PR cost in Mumbai and you will find tables with tidy monthly bands, nearly all published by agencies. We have taken the view elsewhere that published price ranges are close to useless when the publisher is also the seller, and PR is the worst offender, because no two retainers contain the same work.
So this is the other approach: what the money actually buys, what gets billed on top, and the questions that make two quotes comparable.
What determines PR costs?
Hours and seniority, almost entirely. A PR retainer is a block of someone's time dressed as a monthly fee. The variables that move the price are how many hours, how senior the person spending them is, how much writing is involved, and whether the agency is also handling events, crisis cover or monitoring.
The three ways PR is sold
| Model | Suits | Watch out for |
|---|---|---|
| Monthly retainer | An ongoing programme with regular news | Quiet months where you pay the same for less; vague deliverables |
| Project fee | A single launch, funding round or crisis | Scope creep, and what happens to the relationship afterwards |
| Per release or per placement | Occasional announcements | Incentive to send releases that should not be sent |
Per-placement pricing deserves particular care. It sounds like paying for results, but it quietly rewards volume on sites that will publish anything, and it is a short step from there to paid placement presented as earned coverage.
What should be inside a retainer
- Strategy and story development. Working out what is actually newsworthy, which is the part that determines everything else.
- Writing. Releases, bylines, quotes, Q&A documents and the media briefing notes your spokesperson needs.
- Pitching. The actual contact with journalists — ask how many hours a month go into this specifically.
- Media training or briefing. Preparing whoever is going to speak.
- Reporting. Named placements with links, and what was pitched that did not land.
What usually gets billed on top
- Wire distribution. Paid newswire services are a separate cost and are rarely necessary for Indian trade press.
- Media monitoring tools. Subscriptions billed at cost, or marked up — ask which.
- Events and press conferences. Venue, travel, production. Often the largest line nobody budgeted for.
- Photography and video. Frequently assumed to be included. It usually is not.
- Paid or sponsored placements. If these appear at all, they should be a separate, clearly labelled line.
A quote that does not mention any of these is not cheaper. It is less complete.
How to compare two quotes
- Ask both to state hours per month, split between strategy, writing and pitching.
- Ask who does the pitching and what their experience is. This single answer explains most price gaps.
- Ask what is excluded. Compare the exclusion lists rather than the headline figures.
- Ask for a sample monthly report from a real client, names removed.
- Ask what a three-month trial would cost and what it would deliver.
If one quote is dramatically lower, the usual explanation is seniority: a junior sending templated pitches costs less and achieves less. That can still be the right purchase for a simple announcement. It is the wrong one for a story that needs judgement.
Is PR cheaper than advertising?
Usually, and it buys something different. Advertising is space you control and nobody believes; coverage is credibility you do not control. The honest comparison is not cost per impression but what you need — if you need a specific message in front of a specific audience by a date, that is advertising.
What we would ask for first
Before paying anyone a monthly fee, get one story placed. Agree a project fee, pick the single best thing happening in your business, and see what the agency does with it. You will learn more about them in six weeks than in six months of retainer, and the cost of being wrong is bounded.
If you are still choosing, the companion piece is how to choose a PR agency in Mumbai. Our own work is on the PR and press releases page.