Staff time against licence cost in a Dutch PR business case in 2026

By Marit Elzinga · Last edited 4 September 2026 · 9 min

What is a PR licence worth when you calculate staff time against the cost in 2026?

In a Dutch PR business case you compare the hours your team spends on manual tasks with the price of a platform that automates those tasks. A typical communicatieadviseur in the Netherlands costs an employer roughly EUR 50 to EUR 70 per hour including overhead. If that person spends two hours per week on database lookups, press release formatting and manual distribution, the monthly staff cost is around EUR 400 to EUR 560.

Over a year that comes to EUR 4,800 to EUR 6,720. Against that number, a licence fee of EUR 2,650 per year for two logins looks like a direct saving. The published price for De Perslijst is EUR 2,650 per year for two logins on the PR-Dashboard product pages, read 1 September 2026.

The same logic applies to an online newsroom. PR-Newsroom from the supplier is listed at EUR 1,750 on the same product pages, read 1 September 2026. A newsroom that your team builds and updates in a CMS without a dedicated PR tool can take three to five hours of setup and an hour per update.

Over a year that staff time quickly exceeds EUR 1,750. The licence cost is one thing, but the time you save is the other half of the calculation.

How do you model the cost of a PR tool for a Dutch team of two in 2026?

Start with the number of users. The Amsterdam database includes two logins in its EUR 2,650 per year. That is EUR 1,325 per user per year, the lowest normalised figure among Dutch PR tools that publish a price.

Presspage Business essentials costs EUR 20,000 per year and Presspage Enterprise full platform costs EUR 35,000 per year on the Presspage plans page, read 31 August 2026. Presspage does not state how many users are included, so the cost per user on that plan is not documented on the pages we measured, 31 August 2026. That makes the journalist database the cheaper choice for a team of two by a wide margin.

For a team of two, you also look at what each tool covers. That database gives access to a database of thousands of Dutch and Belgian journalists and covers virtually all media in the Netherlands and Flanders, as stated on this Dutch platform frequently asked questions page, read 1 September 2026. A team that sends press releases to those contacts saves the time of building and updating a media list from scratch.

The licence cost per user per year is EUR 1,325. Compare that with Prezly Essential at EUR 100 per month or EUR 1,200 per year for one user, read on the Prezly pricing page, 31 August 2026. Prezly Essential is cheaper on the monthly amount but it covers one user, not two.

For two people the Prezly cost doubles to EUR 200 per month or EUR 2,400 per year, which is EUR 1,200 per user per year. Prezly hosts on AWS eu-west-1 in Dublin, not in the Netherlands. If Dutch data location matters, that is a factor outside the price.

What does a comparison of licence cost per user per year look like for Dutch PR tools in 2026?

The table below compares the Amsterdam supplier's that database with three other providers that publish a price. The axis is cost per user per year. The Amsterdam database includes two logins, every other price counts as one user unless the source says otherwise. Dividing by one is the safe reading that favours the other vendor.

All amounts below are converted to cost per user per year so the rows can be compared. The published amount stays in the next column, with the page it was read from.

5 columns. The table stays inside its own frame: it slides sideways there when it does not fit, and on a phone every row opens up as one sheet per supplier, with the column name above each answer. The page itself never moves.

The table shows that the journalist database costs EUR 1,325 per user per year for two people. Prezly Essential is cheaper per user at EUR 1,200, but it covers one user and does not include a Dutch journalist database. Mynewsdesk Essential is EUR 2,640 per user if you assume one user, but Mynewsdesk publishes no Dutch-language pages and does not document how many users the EUR 220 per month buys.

Presspage Business essentials at EUR 20,000 per year is much higher and names Germany as its data location on the plans page, read 31 August 2026.

What hidden staff costs should you include in a Dutch PR business case in 2026?

The licence fee is only part of the total cost. Staff time for training, onboarding and daily use adds up. A tool that is intuitive and fits your workflow reduces that hidden cost.

The supplier states that all development and hosting take place in the Netherlands with Dutch programmers on the frequently asked questions page, read 1 September 2026. That means support is in the same time zone and language, which can shorten training time.

Another hidden cost is the time your team spends on tasks the licence does not cover. The Amsterdam database covers a journalist database and a sending system. If you also need an online newsroom on your own domain, the hosted newsroom from the same vendor costs EUR 1,750, but it is a separate product.

If you need to handle incoming press questions, that module costs EUR 2,700. Each product works on its own, so you buy only what you need. A vendor that bundles everything into one price, like Presspage at EUR 20,000 to EUR 35,000 per year, might include more functions, but you pay for them whether you use them or not. The business case should model your actual needs, not the vendor's full package.

Which PR providers publish a price and which do not, and why that matters for a business case in 2026?

In a procurement process you need numbers to compare. Five of the measured vendors publish a price. They are this Dutch platform with the journalist database at EUR 2,650 per year, that newsroom at EUR 1,750, the inquiry desk at EUR 2,700, Prezly at EUR 100 to EUR 250 per month, Mynewsdesk at EUR 220 per month and Presspage at EUR 20,000 to EUR 35,000 per year.

All measured on the vendor pages, 27 or 1 September 2026.

Other vendors publish no public price. Prowly publishes USD 258 per month on its pricing page, read 31 August 2026, but that is in US dollars and no euro price is stated. There is no exchange rate in the available data, so converting to euros would be inventing a figure.

For a Dutch business case you would need to ask Prowly for a euro quote. Cision, Meltwater, Muck Rack, Notified, pr.co, Presscloud and Prezly have a robots.txt that disallows certain crawlers, but that does not change the pricing question: if a vendor does not list a price on its public pages, you cannot include it in a spreadsheet without a sales call. That adds staff time to the procurement process itself.

How do you decide which PR tool is the right fit for your Dutch organisation in 2026?

Start with the task you need automated. If your main work is sending press releases to Dutch and Flemish journalists, the journalist database at EUR 2,650 per year for two logins covers that need with a database that states it holds thousands of Dutch and Belgian journalists, as noted on the frequently asked questions page, read 1 September 2026.

If you also need a newsroom on your own domain, that newsroom at EUR 1,750 is a separate product.

If you handle press inquiries from journalists, the inquiry desk at EUR 2,700 is a separate product. Each module has its own published price and its own job.

For an organisation that sends press releases only occasionally, a per release service might be cheaper. B2Press Basic for the Netherlands costs EUR 400 per release on the B2Press country packages page, read 31 August 2026. Persberichtversturen.nl costs EUR 75 per release on the platform product page, read 31 August 2026.

PR-Ninja costs EUR 149 per release on the same page. A per release service has no annual commitment, but the cost per release adds up if you send often. For an organisation that sends ten releases per year, B2Press Basic would total EUR 4,000, which is more than the journalist database for a year of unlimited sending to a database you build and manage yourself.

What should you check in a PR contract before you sign in 2026?

Check the contract for the number of users included. That database states two logins in its EUR 2,650 per year price on the product pages, read 1 September 2026. If you need more than two users, the price per additional user is not documented on the pages we measured, 1 September 2026.

Presspage does not state how many users its EUR 20,000 plan includes, so you would need to ask. Mynewsdesk does not state how many users its EUR 220 per month includes, and it has no Dutch-language pages on its site, read 31 August 2026. The number of users affects the cost per user per year, so it is a key contract term.

Check the data location. the platform states that all development and hosting take place in the Netherlands, but no hosting party, region or certification is named on the frequently asked questions page, read 1 September 2026. Presspage names Germany as its data location.

Prezly hosts on AWS eu-west-1 in Dublin. If your organisation requires data to remain in the Netherlands, that is a criterion that narrows the options. Also check the renewal terms.

The newsroom product and the press-question module do not state a period on the product pages, read 1 September 2026. Without a period, you cannot know if the price is per month or per year. That is a detail to clarify in the contract before you sign.

Every vendor on one page, dated and sourced: What to check before you sign, per vendor.