There’s overpriced, and then there’s Cision. A PR platform that markets itself as the gold standard in media outreach, media monitoring, and earned media analytics—but in practice? It’s more like a polished spam cannon firing into the abyss. And yes, that is my professional opinion. Cision is Let’s not sugarcoat this: Cision provides little to no return on investment for the modern PR professional or brand. It’s a bloated, legacy service that charges upwards of $500 or more for the privilege of having your press release flung across a meaningless distribution list, picked up by zero outlets, and posted to a Cision-branded subdomain that Google doesn’t even bother indexing much of the time. Cision provides little to no return on investment upwards of $500 or more Cision-branded subdomain Case in point: today, I received yet another one of Cision’s infamous spray-and-pray press releases. It landed in my inbox completely uninvited—sent by a system that clearly doesn't care about consent, targeting, or relevance. It had nothing to do with Australia, no bearing on my beat, and absolutely no business being sent to me. spray-and-pray press releases spray-and-pray press releases nothing to do with Australia Let’s call it what it is: spam. spam And not just colloquially. Under the Spam Act (and equivalent regulations in many countries), sending marketing or PR emails to individuals or publications who never opted in is a direct violation. who never opted in I have never signed up for Cision’s mailing lists. I have never asked to be contacted by their clients. Yet, their system continues to blast my inbox—unsolicited, untargeted, and unrelenting. So not only is their ROI laughable, but their practices may well be legally questionable. But the real tragedy here isn’t that I received a pointless email. It’s that some poor client paid hundreds—if not thousands—of dollars for this so-called “media coverage” and measurement service. They paid for reach, visibility, and potential impact. some poor client paid hundreds—if not thousands—of dollars What they got was a press release buried on a Cision subdomain, not indexed by Google, not covered by a single credible news outlet, and finally resulting in me publishing this article. buried on a Cision subdomain It’s Not Public Relations. It’s A Cash Dumpster Fire Cision likes to present itself as the industry standard, the necessary tool for any serious PR campaign. But the truth is, it’s a glorified list broker with a self-serving dashboard that shows “potential reach” and “impressions” while delivering no actual results. it’s a glorified list broker with a self-serving dashboard The contact databases are outdated, the analytics are vanity-driven, and the user interface feels like it hasn’t seen a UX designer since the Y2K bug. PR is about relationships. It’s about storytelling. It’s about sending the right story to the right person at the right time. What Cision offers is the opposite: a one-size-fits-all, fire-and-forget model that treats journalists like targets, not people. right right right Why Should Publishers Give Away Free Real Estate for Cision’s Paid PR? Here’s something that’s been bothering me for a long time—and if you’re a blogger, publisher, or run a niche news site, it should bother you too: Why in the world would I, or any site owner, use my time, my platform, and my bandwidth to publish someone else’s paid press release... for free? Why in the world would I, or any site owner, use my time, my platform, and my bandwidth to publish someone else’s paid press release... for free? Think about it. A company forks over hundreds—sometimes thousands—of dollars to Cision to distribute their press release. That money doesn’t go to journalists. It doesn’t go to publications. It doesn’t go to anyone actually doing the work of running a website, editing content, or maintaining an audience. hundreds—sometimes thousands—of dollars to Cision Instead, Cision pockets the full amount, fires off the release to an unfiltered, often untargeted list of media contacts, and then—somehow—there’s this unspoken expectation that site owners will graciously hit "publish" without a single cent of compensation. expectation Sorry, but… what kind of business model is that? what kind of business model is that? We’re talking about real online assets here. A blog, a news site, a niche content hub—they take time, money, and constant effort to run. Servers aren’t free. Editors don’t work for exposure. Even uploading a piece costs something in time, attention, and operational overhead. Yet, under the Cision model, there’s this absurd assumption that independent publishers will act as free labor in someone else’s paid PR campaign. The client pays Cision. Cision keeps the money. And the publisher? Gets nothing. Not even a thank you. If you’re a business considering using Cision to "get your news out there," let me save you the heartbreak: don’t. You’re paying top dollar for a press release that will most likely be: don’t. Ignored by journalists.
Deleted by editors.
Buried on a Cision subdomain that no one reads Ignored by journalists. Ignored by journalists. Deleted by editors. Deleted by editors. Buried on a Cision subdomain that no one reads Buried on a Cision subdomain that no one reads Instead? Take that same budget and do something smart with it: Pay a few reputable websites directly to host your release as sponsored content.
Use targeted content partnerships with niche publishers who actually reach your audience.
Track performance with tools that cost a fraction of Cision’s bloated fee—services like Google Analytics, UTM parameters, Mention, or Brand24, many of which are 90% cheaper (or even free) and provide more actionable insights. Pay a few reputable websites directly to host your release as sponsored content. Pay a few reputable websites directly Use targeted content partnerships with niche publishers who actually reach your audience. Use targeted content partnerships Track performance with tools that cost a fraction of Cision’s bloated fee—services like Google Analytics, UTM parameters, Mention, or Brand24, many of which are 90% cheaper (or even free) and provide more actionable insights. Track performance with tools that cost a fraction of Cision’s bloated fee Stop throwing money into the Cision furnace and hoping for a media miracle. It’s not coming. PR should be about building value—not siphoning budgets into legacy platforms that contribute nothing to the publisher ecosystem and deliver very little in return to the client. If you want coverage, offer value. If you want placement, pay fairly. And if you want results, ditch the middleman who’s doing nothing but padding their margins off your good intentions. Better still, pay news publications directly. ditch the middleman who’s doing nothing but padding their margins off your good intentions. Because in the end, the only people winning with Cision are the ones cashing the checks—not the ones writing them, and certainly not the ones being spammed. So yes, I feel sorry for the companies throwing money at this machine. I hope they stop. I hope they learn. I hope they figure out that Cision is a total rip-off when it comes to ROI and media coverage. Cision is a total rip-off Editor’s note: This story represents the views of the author of the story. The author is not affiliated with HackerNoon staff and wrote this story on their own. The HackerNoon editorial team has only verified the story for grammatical accuracy and does not condone/condemn any of the claims contained herein. If you would like us to include your version of events, please email us at yes-reply@hackernoon.com. #DYOR Editor’s note: This story represents the views of the author of the story. The author is not affiliated with HackerNoon staff and wrote this story on their own. The HackerNoon editorial team has only verified the story for grammatical accuracy and does not condone/condemn any of the claims contained herein. If you would like us to include your version of events, please email us at yes-reply@hackernoon.com. #DYOR Editor’s note: This story represents the views of the author of the story. The author is not affiliated with HackerNoon staff and wrote this story on their own. The HackerNoon editorial team has only verified the story for grammatical accuracy and does not condone/condemn any of the claims contained herein. If you would like us to include your version of events, please email us at yes-reply@hackernoon.com Editor’s note: This story represents the views of the author of the story. The author is not affiliated with HackerNoon staff and wrote this story on their own. The HackerNoon editorial team has only verified the story for grammatical accuracy and does not condone/condemn any of the claims contained herein. If you would like us to include your version of events, please email us at yes-reply@hackernoon.com yes-reply@hackernoon.com #DYOR #DYOR

This story contains new, firsthand information uncovered by the writer.

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