A founder who fired eight PR agencies shares the seven questions that screen out bad firms fast, plus the red-flag answers to walk away from before you sign.
Ask the questions a good agency answers instantly and a bad one dodges: Who does my day-to-day work? How, and how often, will you report the work? What do you deliver each week beyond a strategy deck? How do you define success? The red flag is rarely the answer itself. It's the hedge, the vagueness, and the slide deck shown where coverage should be.
PressFriendly was built by a founder who fired eight PR agencies before building the one he'd actually hire, so treat what follows as a buyer warning other buyers. You don't need the twenty-question checklists the firms themselves publish. You need seven sharp ones and a trained ear for the dodge.
Here's the tell that runs through all of them: an agency that runs ~7,000+ targeted pitches a year (7,740 including follow-ups) to 2,500+ reporters can show you the work without breaking stride. An agency that can't will reach for a deck.
The oldest move in the agency playbook is partner-led pitch, junior-led delivery. The senior closer charms you in the room, you sign, and your day-to-day quietly hands off to a coordinator you never met. The promised VP becomes a junior point person the week after the contract clears. It's the most common bait-and-switch in the business, and the first thing your questions should expose.
The fix is structural: a small startup-specialist team where the people you meet are the people doing the work.
This is the question that exposes the black box. Most agencies report through a monthly summary, which leaves you three weeks between invoices with no way to tell whether anything is happening. A bad agency depends on that gap.
An agency that reports on all ~7,000+ of its pitches a year structurally cannot give you a vague answer here. That kind of reporting only exists when it's built into the operation: the PitchFriendly platform sends 35,000+ pitches a year, and the reporting falls out of the software that does the sending.
While you're on this, watch how they talk about results. Any agency that promises guaranteed placements is selling you something other than earned media, and a firm that treats a guarantee as a feature is papering over how it actually lands coverage. How it reacts to the guarantee question tells you a lot; here's why a guaranteed placement is a red flag.
"Strategy sessions" and beautifully bound decks are how agencies bill for months without producing a single piece of coverage. Push for concrete weekly output and watch whether they'll put it in writing.
Here's how to translate what you hear in the room into what you'll actually get:
| What they say (vague) | What you should hear instead (concrete) |
|---|---|
| "We'll build you a strategy." | "We'll send a set number of targeted pitches a week and report who we contacted, the replies, and the placements." |
| "You'll get a monthly report." | "You get a standing call and regular reporting on real outreach: named reporters, volume, replies, and placements." |
| "We'll drive awareness." | "We'll pursue named coverage in the outlets your buyers and investors actually read." |
| "We'll run a workshop." | "The workshop is week one; pitching starts week two." |
| "We have a great relationship with the press." | "Here's recent coverage we landed for a company at your stage." |
If an agency can't map its language onto the right-hand column, the work probably lives in the left.
A brilliant rolodex pointed at the wrong beat is worthless. A consumer-lifestyle firm will fumble a dev-tools launch, and an enterprise shop will treat your seed-stage startup like a Fortune 500 with a smaller budget. You need someone who already knows the reporters covering your category.
This is where a documented track record beats a pitch. On B2B and dev tools: GitLab (to IPO), DocSend (to Dropbox), PlanGrid (to Autodesk), TaskUs. On Consumer/DTC: Leesa (to #2 online mattress), Dr. Squatch (Kickstarter to Super Bowl ad), Ooni, Eczema Honey. Ask any agency for the equivalent named, on-beat work, and notice whether they reach for specifics or for adjectives.
Track record at the firm level is a separate question from any single campaign. To date, the broader body of work runs to 800+ clients across 32 countries and 16,000+ media hits, and, in a single year, 452 media placements and 11.1M media views. A serious agency can produce numbers like these on request. Treat them as credibility evidence rather than a forecast of what your campaign will get.
The fear here isn't the number. It's opacity. Vague hourly estimates, surprise line items, and twelve-month lock-ins exist to make it hard to leave when results don't show. A confident agency tells you the price, the scope, and what happens if the work underperforms.
Published pricing is the cleanest version of this answer. PressFriendly's is plain text: $5,000/month for Starter (Seed/Series A) and $9,500/month for Full Service (Series B), with custom consulting scoped on request. See what each tier actually buys. And ask one thing the listicles skip: a reference from a client who left. Churn is real, and a firm comfortable handing you a departed client's number isn't afraid of what they'll say.
PR is notorious for fuzzy scorekeeping. If the first metric out of an agency's mouth is "impressions" or "advertising value equivalent," you're being measured on vanity. Real success ties coverage to a business outcome you can name.
You don't need to become a measurement expert to screen for this. You just need to recognize a good metric when you hear one. Get clear first on how to tell if your PR is working: credibility, customers, fundraising leverage. Then you'll know in seconds whether an agency's definition of success matches yours.
Run every agency through these seven questions. Listen less to the answer than to how cleanly it lands.
| Question | Good answer sounds like | Red flag sounds like |
|---|---|---|
| Who does my day-to-day work? | Named lead, present in the pitch | "We'll assign a team after you sign" |
| How, and how often, will you report the work? | "A standing call plus regular reporting on outreach and placements" | "We send a monthly report" |
| What do you deliver weekly, beyond strategy? | Pitches and outreach, in writing | A deck, a "strategy," "awareness" |
| Have you done this for companies like mine? | Recent, named, on-beat case studies | A logo wall, "we cover everything" |
| How do you price? | Clear figure, defined scope | "It depends," surprise fees, long lock-in |
| What if it isn't working? | A reference from a client who left | A dodge |
| How do you define success? | Coverage tied to a business goal | Impressions and AVE |
This checklist makes you a sharper buyer: better at evaluating, screening, and choosing. It doesn't teach you to do PR yourself; the operator's reach and reporter relationships are the thing you're buying.
If you want a second read on the answers an agency just gave you, or you'd like to put these questions to a startup specialist and hear how ours land, talk to a human who's sat on your side of the table.
CEO & Founder
A startup entrepreneur who has worked in PR in-house, agency-side, and as a client. Marketing lead and employee #4–6 at early-stage software companies, and co-founder of enterprise storage company Bitcasa. MA in Communication with a PR focus; started his career at the third-largest PR firm in Seattle.
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