PR for startups, without the agency

What is PR for startups?

Most startups have real news: a raise, a launch, a key hire. PR is the work of turning that news into credible outreach that reaches the journalists who cover your space. It is not about press releases for their own sake. It is about making your announcement findable, shareable, and pitchable in a format journalists already know how to use.

24HRPR gives founders a single workflow to do it, without an agency or a full-time PR hire.

Why founders get stuck

• No PR staff and no agency budget to build momentum from scratch.
• A blank page and no template for a professional, media-ready release.
• No clear way to know which journalists cover your space or how to reach them without cold emailing a list.

The 24HRPR startup PR workflow

Draft

Choose an announcement type: funding round, product launch, partnership, or executive hire. Answer guided prompts and get a structured, media-ready release with a professional headline, lede, quote, and boilerplate. No blank page, no guessing at format.

Publish

Publish your release to a hosted page with structured formatting built to be found by journalists and AI search engines like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Claude. Your announcement has a permanent URL you can share anywhere.

Pitch

Browse and validate the journalists who cover your beat. Then send a personalized pitch to each from your own Gmail or Outlook so replies land in your inbox, not a shared platform dashboard.

Pricing

Drafting and publishing are free. You only pay when you email a journalist. Starter is $99 one-time for 50 sends, valid for 12 months. Essential is $149 per month for 50 sends per month plus the brand intelligence dashboard.

One announcement, or an ongoing PR engine

Starter is built for a single announcement: $99 one-time, 50 sends, no subscription. It is the fastest way to get one release out and pitched. But for most founders, momentum is not a one-time event. You raise, then you launch, then you make a key hire, and the market needs to keep noticing. That is what Essential is for. For $149 per month you get 50 sends every month plus a brand intelligence dashboard that keeps your company visible between announcements, so PR becomes a credibility signal that compounds instead of a one-off.

• AEO Score: see how findable and citable your company is in AI search like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Claude, based on the real signals those engines can find.
• Story Radar: catch the stories rising in your market and the reporters covering them, so you can act on a moment without waiting for your next release.
• Quick Pitches: send a short, targeted note to a journalist on a rising story, no full release required.
• Coverage Recap and Competitor Coverage: track your own recent press and the coverage your competitors are getting.

If you are shipping news regularly and want a repeatable way to stay visible to investors, customers, and recruits, Essential is the fit. Compare plans

Frequently Asked Questions

Do startups really need PR?

Not always, but the moments when PR matters are predictable: fundraising announcements build investor and recruiter credibility, product launches create discovery beyond your existing network, and executive hires signal momentum to the market. If you have real news, getting it to the right journalists is worth the effort.

How do I write a startup press release?

A startup press release follows a specific structure: a one-sentence headline that states the news, a dateline and lede that answer who, what, where, and when in the first paragraph, one or two supporting paragraphs with context and data, a quote from the CEO or a relevant executive, a boilerplate about the company, and media contact information. 24HRPR guides you through each part with structured prompts.

How do I pitch journalists as a startup founder?

Find journalists who have recently covered companies in your space or announcements like yours. Write a pitch that references their specific coverage and explains why your news is relevant to their beat. Keep it under 150 words, include your release, and send from your own email address so replies come to you directly. Generic mass pitches rarely work.

How much does PR cost for a startup?

Traditional PR agencies charge $5,000 to $15,000 per month on retainer. Wire services charge $400 to $1,000 per distribution. With 24HRPR, drafting and publishing are free. You pay $99 one-time for 50 journalist email sends. You only spend when you have news to pitch.