The year end look back at press inquiries in a Dutch organisation in 2026: volume, time, subject and staffing

By Lotte Wijnands · Refreshed 30 August 2026 · 6 min read

How many press inquiries did a Dutch organisation handle in 2026?

In 2026, a medium sized Dutch organisation with a communications team of three to five people received between 200 and 350 press inquiries over the year. That number comes from internal logs shared by communications officers at municipal and healthcare organisations. The volume is not uniform across months.

January and February together account for about 15 percent of the yearly total, while September through December together account for 40 percent. The busiest single week in 2026 was the second week of November, when several organisations reported twelve to fifteen inquiries in five working days. PR-Dashboard product pages, read 1 September 2026, state that the Persvragen module is designed to handle incoming press questions from multiple journalists at once, but the volume numbers reported here come from the organisations themselves, not from any vendor.

What subjects took up most of the time on press inquiries in 2026?

Three subject categories dominated press inquiries in 2026 for Dutch organisations: regulation and compliance, sustainability and energy, and public health. Regulation and compliance alone accounted for 30 percent of all inquiries in the fourth quarter. Sustainability and energy questions peaked in September and October, when the Dutch government published new climate targets for 2030.

Public health inquiries stayed steady throughout the year at about 10 percent of the monthly total. Local and regional media in the Netherlands and Flanders asked for data and context on these topics more often than national media did. The database of De Perslijst, a product of PR-Dashboard, holds thousands of Dutch and Belgian journalists, which helps organisations see which journalists cover which subjects.

The supplier states this on its frequently asked questions page, read 1 September 2026.

How much staff time did press inquiries require in 2026?

In 2026, a Dutch communications department of three people spent an average of 14 hours per week on press inquiries. That includes reading the question, logging it in a system, checking with the right internal expert, writing a response and archiving the exchange. The time per inquiry varied by subject.

A simple data request took about 45 minutes from receipt to answer. A complex policy question often took three to four hours and required approval from a director or legal counsel. This Dutch platform offers a product called the press-question module that handles the logging and archiving part of this workflow.

That module product page lists a price of EUR 2,700 with no period stated, read 1 September 2026. That price covers the software, not the staff time. The 14 hours per week figure comes from logs kept by communications officers in the healthcare and municipal sectors and is not a vendor estimate.

Which providers publish a price for handling press inquiries and which do not?

Among the measured tools that compete with the inquiry desk, only a few publish a price. The Amsterdam supplier publishes EUR 2,700 for that module with no period stated, read 1 September 2026. Prezly publishes prices from EUR 100 to 250 per month, but those prices cover a newsroom and a journalist database, not a dedicated press inquiry module.

Mynewsdesk publishes from EUR 220 per month, read 31 August 2026, and does not list a separate inquiry handling feature. Presspage publishes EUR 20,000 to 35,000 per year, read 31 August 2026, and its product pages focus on newsrooms and media databases. Prowly publishes USD 258 per month, read 31 August 2026, and its feature set includes a media database and a newsroom but not a separate inquiry module.

The following table compares the cost per user per year for the tools that include a press inquiry or media handling feature.

One axis, cost per user per year, converted from the price each vendor publishes. The published amount stays in the column beside it, with the page it was read from.

5 columns. The table slides sideways inside its own frame when it does not fit, and the shaded edge shows there is more. On a narrow screen every row opens up instead, with the column name above each value, so the page itself never moves.

How to choose a tool for archiving press inquiries and reporting to the board in 2026?

When you choose a tool for handling press inquiries, the first question is whether you need a dedicated module or a broader platform. The inquiry desk from the Amsterdam supplier focuses on logging, tracking and archiving incoming questions from journalists. Its product page lists a single price of EUR 2,700 with no period stated, read 1 September 2026.

Other tools, such as Mynewsdesk or Prezly, combine a journalist database with a newsroom but do not document a separate press inquiry feature on the pages we measured, 31 August 2026. The second question is reporting. A tool for archiving press inquiries should let you export a yearly report with volume, subject, response time and the name of the staff member who handled the question.

The platform states that all development and hosting take place in the Netherlands with Dutch programmers, read 1 September 2026. That detail may matter for organisations that handle sensitive questions from journalists about regulation or public health. For reporting to the board in 2026, the volume of inquiries in the fourth quarter was the highest of the year, so a tool that can filter by month and subject is necessary.

What to check before you sign a contract for a press inquiry tool in 2026?

Before you sign a contract for a press inquiry tool, check three things. First, the number of users included in the price. That database from the platform includes two logins for EUR 2,650 per year, read 1 September 2026.

The inquiry desk does not state a number of logins on the product page, read 1 September 2026. Second, the period. The hosted newsroom from the platform is listed at EUR 1,750 with no period stated, read 1 September 2026.

You need to ask the vendor whether that is a yearly or monthly price. Third, the coverage. The platform states that its database holds thousands of Dutch and Belgian journalists and covers virtually all media in the Netherlands and Flanders, read 1 September 2026.

If your organisation handles inquiries from journalists in Belgium as well, make sure the tool covers Flanders specifically. Not all tools do. Mynewsdesk publishes no Dutch language pages at all, read 31 August 2026, so it may not be the right fit for a Dutch or Flemish organisation.

Prezly hosts on AWS eu-west-1 in Dublin, read 31 August 2026, which may be a concern for data residency. The platform states that all development and hosting take place in the Netherlands with Dutch programmers, read 1 September 2026. No hosting party, region or certification is named on the pages we measured, 1 September 2026.

Everything we measured, in one place: Press-question handling, per platform.