How to Get Featured on Business Insider: Press Release, Contributor or Paid Placement

"Get featured on Business Insider" covers four very different things. Only one of them is a Business Insider article. Here is how to tell them apart before you spend a dollar.

Disclosure: I work on RedPress, and we sell press release placements on Business Insider's Markets Insider pages. That is exactly why I want the difference to be clear.

TL;DR

businessinsider.com is the newsroom. markets.businessinsider.com (Markets Insider) hosts syndicated market news and press releases.
A press release placement lands on Markets Insider. It is not a BI article.
BI does pay freelancers for essays and features. That is journalism, not promotion.

Route 1: Earned coverage

A BI reporter writes about you, quotes you or uses your data. It's free and it can't be bought.

What moves reporters:

A number nobody else has: pricing data, survey results or usage trends from your own product.
A founder who is quotable on the record and replies fast.
A story that fits a reporter's recent beat, not a generic launch.

BI publishes a general tips address. For pitch structure, we collected media pitch email examples that work for any newsroom.

Route 2: Freelance essays and as-told-to stories

BI buys personal essays, trend pieces and features from freelancers. A freelance market guide from the Association of Health Care Journalists (February 2025, focused on BI's health and lifestyle coverage) reported about $0.50 per word for shorter pieces and $0.75–$1.00 per word for features.

The catch is that these are stories about an experience, with a real angle and real stakes. If your "essay" is a disguised product pitch, it won't get past an editor. As-told-to stories work the same way: the company is incidental to the story.

Route 3: BI Studios

Business Insider's branded content studio (formerly Insider Studios) makes sponsored campaigns. They are priced like advertising and labeled as branded content. It is a fit for brands with a campaign budget, not for a single announcement.

Route 4: A press release on Markets Insider

This is the route most "get featured on Business Insider" offers are really selling. Your release appears on a markets.businessinsider.com/news page next to syndicated market news.

What we checked on September 14, 2026: the sample release page carried <meta name="Robots" content="NOINDEX,NOFOLLOW">. So:

It's good for: a citable Business Insider–domain URL for your site, deck or sales follow-ups.
It's not for: rankings, backlinks or traffic.

Services that sell these placements include wire services such as ACCESS Newswire, which lists Business Insider among its outlets, and RedPress. We list ours at $220 (as of September 2026) with a 5-day delivery window, arranged through an authorized distribution partner.

Which route fits your goal

Independent credibility with investors: earned coverage. It is slow but real.
A founder story: a freelance essay or an as-told-to pitch.
Awareness with budget behind it: BI Studios.
A same-week, citable announcement URL: a Markets Insider press release placement.

Red flags

"Guaranteed BI article" or "bylines for sale".
"Permanent URL" or "backlink juice" promises.
"We know an editor." Paying for inside access should end the conversation.

Describe it accurately

Good: "Our announcement was published on Business Insider's Markets Insider news pages."
Misleading: "Featured by Business Insider."

I wrote the detailed version, with a route comparison table and an essay pitch template, here: how to get featured on Business Insider. If the press release route fits, our Business Insider placement page lists what is included.

Question for the group: has anyone here sold a freelance essay to BI about building their company? How did you pitch it without it reading as promotion?