ENTREPRENEURSHIP
The Real Cost Of PR For Indie Beauty Brands—And What They Get For It
In a May 20 post on TikTok as part of her “Founder Diaries” content series, Poom Cosmetics founder Irene Ham recapped a meeting she had with an unnamed public relations agency in which the agency quoted her a rate of $2,000 a month, too much for her baby brand’s budget. The PR agency
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Taylor Bryant·June 5, 2025·1 min read
The 30-second read
In a May 20 post on TikTok as part of her “Founder Diaries” content series, Poom Cosmetics founder Irene Ham recapped a meeting she had with an unnamed public relations agency in which the agency quoted her a rate of $2,000 a month, too much for her baby brand’s budget. The PR agency also mentioned that, to be considered by retail buyers, brands need to have a distribution center, brand deck and around 100,000 social media followers per platform.
Curious if the agency’s rate is widespread, and its breakdown of retail requirements is accurate, for this edition of our ongoing series posing questions relevant to indie beauty, we asked 11 public relations professionals the following: Do you think the figure Ham was quoted and the social media threshold for retail are correct? If not, what is more usual for a PR fee, and what may be required for a brand’s social media following? What should brands expect from PR in terms of what it can deliver when they first sign up for it? Are those expectations different from what you would have said last year or the year before?
The players
3 mentionedBrand
AS Beauty
Founded2019
HQNew York, New York, United States
Revenue Range$150M+
Brand
Poom Cosmetics
Founded2025
Brand
The Center
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