Search for free press release distribution and you will find dozens of services advertising it. Most of them are not free in the way you expect. This guide explains what a free tier actually gives you, where the limits sit, and when paying is genuinely worth it.
Disclosure: Concierge Press Wire runs a free tier of its own, described below alongside the general picture. We have tried to be specific about what free does not cover.
What free usually means
Free press release distribution almost always means one thing: your release is published on the provider’s own website, and that is the extent of it. What varies is how much of the value you keep.
The four things to check before you submit anything:
- Is the link followed or nofollowed? Free tiers almost universally give nofollow links. That is not a scam, it is the trade. A nofollow link still sends referral traffic and still creates a citable record, it just does not pass ranking signal.
- How long does the page stay live? Many free tiers remove the release after 30, 60 or 90 days. If the URL disappears, so does anything you built on it.
- How many submissions are allowed? Usually one per month, sometimes one ever.
- Is there editorial review, and how long does it take? Free submissions sit behind paid ones in the queue. A 24 to 48 hour review is normal.
What free is genuinely good for
A free release is worth publishing when the goal is a record rather than reach:
- Testing a provider before you spend anything. Submit one release, see the editorial standard, see how the published page looks, see whether it gets indexed.
- Routine announcements that do not justify a spend: a small product update, a certification, a minor hire.
- Building a public trail for a new company, so that searching your brand name returns something other than your own website.
- Learning the format. Writing a real release that has to pass a real editor teaches you more than reading templates.
Where free stops being enough
Pay when one of these is true, and not before:
- You need the link to count. If the point is a followed backlink to your site, free will not do it.
- Timing matters. A funding announcement or a launch tied to a date cannot sit in a 48-hour review queue.
- You are publishing more than once a month. Free tiers cap volume.
- You need the page to stay live indefinitely. A permanent URL is usually a paid feature.
- You want more than one image, or video, or a logo on the listing.
Free tiers to be wary of
Not every free offer is worth taking, even at zero cost. Skip anything that:
- Publishes anything with no review. A site that accepts every submission fills up with spam, and being published next to spam does your brand no favours.
- Puts your release behind a subdomain or a parameter that search engines will not treat as a real page.
- Asks for payment to remove your own release later.
- Requires a followed link back to them from your site as the price of the free listing.
The simplest test: search the provider’s own domain and look at what is already published there. If the existing releases read as spam, yours will sit alongside them.
The Concierge Press Wire free tier
For transparency, since this article is about free tiers generally, here is exactly what ours includes and excludes:
| Included | Not included |
|---|---|
| 1 article per month | Instant publishing (24-48 hour review) |
| Editorial review before publication | DoFollow backlink (the free link is nofollow) |
| 1 image | More than one image |
| 30 days live | A permanent URL |
| Basic SEO | Homepage placement, Google News submission |
The paid tiers start at Rs 999, which adds instant auto-publish, a dofollow backlink, three images and a permanent listing. Full details are on the pricing page.
Getting a free release accepted
Free submissions are reviewed by the same editors as paid ones, and rejected for the same reasons. The most common are: no actual news behind the announcement, superlatives with no evidence, and content written to carry a link rather than to inform.
A release that states what happened in the headline, answers who, what, when, where and why in the first paragraph, and carries at least one verifiable number will usually get through.
Frequently asked questions
Is free press release distribution actually worth it?
Yes, for a record rather than for reach. A free release gives you an indexed page stating that something happened, which is useful when investors, partners or customers search your company name. It will not drive meaningful traffic and the link will usually be nofollow, so judge it on that basis.
Do free press releases give dofollow backlinks?
Almost never. A followed link is the main thing paid tiers sell, so free tiers nofollow theirs. Any free service promising guaranteed dofollow links at scale is either mislabelling them or running a link scheme that will eventually be devalued.
How long does a free press release stay online?
It varies, and it is the detail most people miss. Thirty days is common, ninety days is generous, and permanent is normally a paid feature. Check before you submit, because a release that disappears takes any citations pointing at it with it.
Can I submit the same release to several free services?
You can, and it used to be standard practice, but publishing identical text across many low-quality sites produces a lot of duplicate pages and little value. One release on a reviewed site is worth more than the same release auto-published on twenty.
Will a free press release help my SEO?
Indirectly at best. It creates an indexed page mentioning your brand, which can rank for brand and long-tail queries and can be cited elsewhere. It is not a link-building tactic, and treating it as one leads to releases that get rejected.
Try it before you pay
If you have an announcement and are not sure whether distribution is worth paying for, submit it on the free tier first and see what happens. Submit a press release, or compare what each tier adds on the pricing page.
