What's the differenece between free and paid press releases?

Most definitely there are differences between free and paid press releases. I would much rather pay the money to submit a press release to PRWeb or other top sources than spin my wheels distributing through free channels.

btw, if you need more clarification, just ask.

I have not used a paid press release service, so I am unable to offer any feedback about this. I do use two different free PR services. One is Wire Service Canada (you do not have to be Canadian or have a Canadian based business to use this service) and the other is PRLog. PRLog recently began offering a paid PR service, too. Wire Service Canada allows you to put in clickable links. With PRLog, the links must begin use the "http:" stuff. PRLog has a way for you to check the statistics of your PR and learn how often, and where, visitors are coming from. Both give you the option of putting in a company logo. I feel comfortable writing press releases, as do other members of my company, so I have not had to use a paid service. I am considering trying a paid PR service someday, as I am interested in learning if doing so is worth the expense. If you have any questions about this, please let me know.

I used free PR sites for Backlink Purpose!

I have only used a free press release site and have done really well with It. It sends a decent amount of traffic to my site. The site by the way is PRlog.com. I have heard that some paid sites are worth the investment because they distribute your release to more sites.

I have been using press releases just for linking purposes + getting to Google News. Some of free PR distribution sites also gets into google news. While nofollow is no longer so important, i do not see any reason to pay hundreds of dollars for a Google news (which is presented as one of the most important features) submission.

I have used PRLog which is pretty good although now they have added a premium service you have to pay if you want anchor text with your back-links.
I suppose it really depends on what the purpose of your Press Release is? If it is purely to build back-links then you can do that well enough through free services as long as you choose the right ones.

Check out Daniel Tans' 'Back-link Syndication System' WSO for some really good advice.

There are many options when it comes to sending press releases.

I think you know about free ones so let's talk about the paid services.

There's a HUGE difference depending on what you're trying to achieve.

There are the cheap services (anything up to around $400) which are targeting small businesses with not much money and they will charge you different amounts depending on whether you want to have live links, attach images and documents, videos etc...

They're generally focused on just blasting it out to their other online properties. These can get you some links but in a way they're like a cross betwee spamming forum profiles and article submissions. They may help somewhat for link building purposes but they're probably not going to get your message to most of the people in your market.

Then there are the professional news services. These are a different thing altogether and these companies tap in to the same systems the TV and Newspapers use to spread the daily news. If you use these companies then your press release could end up in the Financial Times or relevant trade journals and magazines, or even be picked up for tv and radio.

So if you have $50 to spend then use a service like PRWeb.com and PR9.net

If you have $1000 and want to reach newspapers then use somewhere like Presswire.com

I've used just about every service around (including the ones I just mentioned and all the free ones) so I'm not making this up.

I've created info products about using press releases in the past and included videos which show how quickly different places have links show up. The last time I used Presswire I had around 2500 links within 24 hours where it had been republished on news websites/blogs. I've never seen that many using PRweb (I think the best was 1200 reprints using the $380 option) and they don't hook into the proper news system that feeds the journalists news desks.

One of the benefits of using most PR services is that they archive the press release so you can end up with a lot of views over a long time.

Andy

Go to Free-Press-Release and sign in a new account.

Then put in $20 to your account and every time you submit a press release upgrade for $1 and watch how many visitors come to your site.

This is the best price and PR company I can truly recommend.

EXAMPLE:

Non paid = 300-400 hits.
Paid $1 = 2,800 visitors within first week.

If you want the best for your business then you must put in a few dollars to your business.

REMEMBER: Treat your business like a business and you will get business results. Treat it like a hobby and you will DIE...

Something to keep in mind about PRweb is that if you have already distributed your PR to a lot of free sites, they may not distribute yours as wide.

I sent a PR to several dozen free sites first and then sent it to PRweb, after a few weeks It had few indexes and views. When I asked about this, they told me it was because I had submitted it to so many free sites and that they were not able to syndicate it (even to Googlenews). (Guess it was not unique enough?)

So much for that $200!

I suggest you play around with as many free sites as possible for a while and discover which works best for you.

Thanks to all who replied. So basically from what I gather, the difference between paid and free is that paid gives you the chance to be in google news right?

Paid press release sites are always better : they provide a better delivery, higher PR and more backlinks.

At least, this is what I can judge from my personnal experience