Press release on USA Today: how a release gets onto its press release section, what it costs and how to check it

How a release gets there

Gannett’s release of 4 June 2025, which Editor & Publisher reproduced, says press releases distributed through its exclusive arrangement with XPR Media “will be featured on USA TODAY’s website and across all USA TODAY Network publications” and are “accessible through a dedicated press release section”. XPR Media describes itself as a content syndication platform with a network of more than 1,000 websites. The company has since been renamed USA TODAY Co.

Gannett names XPR Media as its exclusive distribution partner for the section. On Vokolla it comes with Premium Media: US$379 per release, “everything in Global Reach plus AP News, USA Today, Barchart and StreetInsider”. Our pricing page lists every package and price, and the media list names the outlets in each.

What the audience figure means

USA TODAY Co. reported 161 million average monthly unique visitors for the third quarter of 2026, with about 108 million coming from its US media network, which includes USA TODAY (Comscore, September 2026). These are company-wide figures; use them as context for where the release sits on a large news publisher’s site.

Our own releases on USA Today

Our own releases in the section went live 39 minutes (23 October 2026) and 67 minutes (15 October 2026) after we submitted them on the Premium Media package. By 4 November both pages were in Google’s index, 12 and 19 days after publication, and a Bing search for “Vokolla” showed them at positions 2 and 4, right after vokolla.com. These are our results for these two releases.

The 23 October release is the one we use as the worked example in the format guide. We wrote it with a dateline, a summary of 150 characters or fewer, 400 to 500 words, AP style and descriptive link text.

How to check your page

Your report from Vokolla lists every live link. Check the USA Today page the way a reader would.

• Open the link from the report. Confirm the headline, the date and the first paragraph match what you submitted.
• Read what the page says about where the release comes from, and keep a dated screenshot.
• View the page source and note the rel attribute of your link. Different outlets set different attributes, and a mix of dofollow and nofollow is normal.
• Search the exact headline in quotes a few days later, and your company name after two to three weeks, and save the results with the dates.

When it is the right choice

A named outlet suits news that buyers, partners and journalists will check on a publisher they know: a launch, a funding round, a market entry, a certification. For a first release or a local audience, Brand Starter at US$69 or Global Reach at US$129 is enough. If you are comparing services on whether they include USA Today, our comparison reads each company’s own published pages and dates.

Publish with Vokolla

Vokolla shows one public price per release, from US$69, with no quote, sales call or subscription. You write the release or draft it with the Vokolla AI assistant, choose the package, pay online and get a report with every live link, and an editor reviews each release before it goes out. You can try it first with one free release every 30 days; every package is on the pricing page.