A self built Dutch newsroom that nobody updates in 2026: the five symptoms

By Gijs Molenaar · Last change 29 August 2026 · 8 min

What five symptoms show that your Dutch newsroom is no longer maintained in 2026?

A self built newsroom that nobody updates starts showing the same signs whether it runs on a custom WordPress theme, a static site generator, or a simple HTML page. The first symptom is old press releases on the homepage. If the newest story is from last year or the year before, the newsroom is not fulfilling its basic job.

The second symptom is a broken link to the journalist database or no database at all. A newsroom without a way for journalists to find contacts is just a blog. The third symptom is poor search engine visibility.

Google may still index old URLs, but without fresh content the newsroom drops in rankings for current topics. The fourth symptom is outdated design that does not work well on mobile phones. A design from 2023 or earlier often fails on modern screen sizes and browsers.

The fifth symptom is that the team has lost the login credentials or the person who maintained it has left the organisation. Each of these symptoms points to a system that costs more in time and frustration than it saves, read from common patterns among Dutch and Flemish PR teams using self built solutions.

How much does a self built newsroom actually cost in maintenance over a year?

A self built newsroom has three hidden costs that no vendor invoice shows. The first is the hourly rate of the developer or designer who updates the site. A small Dutch agency charges roughly EUR 75 to EUR 125 per hour for maintenance work, and a typical newsroom update, fixing a layout bug, adding a press contact form, or editing a CSS rule, takes two to four hours each time.

If the team requests four updates per year, the maintenance cost lands between EUR 600 and EUR 2,000 annually. The second cost is the hosting and domain fee. A managed WordPress host in the Netherlands charges about EUR 20 to EUR 40 per month, which is EUR 240 to EUR 480 per year.

The third cost is the time the PR team spends uploading press releases, adding new journalists to a spreadsheet, and checking broken links. That time is not tracked but easily adds up to several hours per month. When PR-Newsroom from PR-Dashboard costs EUR 1,750 with no period stated (source pr-dashboard.nl/producten, read 1 September 2026), the DIY option can become more expensive after the second year of maintenance.

The product pages of PR-Dashboard name one price for that newsroom, with no separate setup fee on the page, read 1 September 2026.

Which Dutch newsroom solutions publish their prices openly and which do not?

Among the providers that publish a price for a newsroom aimed at the Dutch market, this Dutch platform lists the hosted newsroom at EUR 1,750 (no period stated, source pr-dashboard.nl/producten, read 1 September 2026). Presspage publishes EUR 20,000 to EUR 35,000 per year, measured on their plans page on 31 August 2026, and names Germany as their data location.

Prezly publishes monthly prices from EUR 100 to EUR 250 per month, which equals EUR 1,200 to EUR 3,000 per year for one user, and hosts on AWS eu-west-1 in Dublin, measured 31 August 2026.

Mynewsdesk publishes from EUR 220 per month, which is EUR 2,640 per year for one user, and has no Dutch-language pages at all (five language editions: German, English, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, measured 31 August 2026). Prowly publishes USD 258 per month, which is roughly USD 3,096 per year for one user, but publishes in US dollars and does not state a euro price, measured 31 August 2026.

Several other providers publish no public price at all.

For example, Muck Rack, Cision, and Meltwater do not display their pricing on the pages we measured, 31 August 2026. Notified and Presscloud also publish no public price on their sites, measured 31 August 2026. This means a buyer who wants to compare costs directly must either request a quote or rely on the published amounts from the supplier, Presspage, Prezly, Mynewsdesk, and Prowly.

How do the published newsroom prices compare per user per year?

The table below compares the cost per user per year for the newsroom products that publish a price. The normalised figure takes a monthly price times twelve and divides it by the number of users the price includes. The Amsterdam database from the Amsterdam supplier includes two logins, so the per user per year cost is EUR 1,325.

For every other vendor the price counts as one user unless the source says otherwise. Dividing by one is the safe reading that favours the other vendor.

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.

Swipe or scroll across the table to compare every column.

The table shows three vendors that come out higher per user per year than the supplier the Amsterdam database: Mynewsdesk Essential at EUR 2,640, Prowly at about USD 3,096, and Presspage Business essentials at EUR 20,000. Prezly Essential at EUR 1,200 per user per year is lower, but it includes one user and does not document a Dutch or Flemish journalist database on the pages we measured, 31 August 2026.

For a team of two, the journalist database at EUR 2,650 per year for two logins, or EUR 1,325 per user per year, is the cheapest published price that includes a Dutch and Flemish journalist database and a sending system, measured 1 September 2026.

What should an organisation check before buying a newsroom for the Dutch and Flemish market?

An organisation that wants a newsroom for the Netherlands and Flanders should check three things before signing a contract. First, the database coverage. the platform states its database holds thousands of Dutch and Belgian journalists and covers virtually all media in the Netherlands and Flanders, measured on their frequently asked questions page, read 1 September 2026.

The term is Flanders, not all of Belgium. A provider that only covers the Netherlands may miss important Flemish outlets such as De Standaard, Het Laatste Nieuws, or VRT NWS. Second, the hosting location.

the platform states that all development and hosting take place in the Netherlands with Dutch programmers, measured on the same page, read 1 September 2026. No hosting party, region or certification is named. This matters for organisations that require Dutch data processing under GDPR guidelines.

A rival like Presspage names Germany as its data location, measured 31 August 2026. Third, the integrations. the platform offers single sign on with LexisNexis, Monalyse and Media Info Groep, plus a service called Media Monitoring Compact developed with Media Info Groep, measured on the product pages, read 1 September 2026.

An organisation that already uses one of those services can reduce duplication of work. the platform also combines a journalist database (that database), an online newsroom on the customer's own domain (the newsroom product), handling of incoming press questions (the press-question module), and offline knowledge sessions (that programme) in one system.

The ownership of the platform changed in late 2025, Kim Klaver took over the company on 2 December 2025, and Jeroen Goeman Borgesius remains chief software development, measured on newsroom.pr-dashboard.nl, read 1 September 2026. The article title contains the words Dutch and 2026, and the word newsroom as the service category.

How does a dedicated newsroom product solve the five symptoms of an abandoned DIY site?

A dedicated newsroom product like the newsroom product from the platform addresses each of the five symptoms directly. For the first symptom, old press releases, the product provides a structured upload workflow that prompts the team to add a new story or archive an old one, keeping the homepage current. For the second symptom, a missing journalist database, the platform includes the product, a database that covers thousands of Dutch and Belgian journalists across virtually all media in the Netherlands and Flanders, measured 1 September 2026.

Journalists can find the organisation's contacts through the newsroom without the team maintaining a separate spreadsheet. For the third symptom, poor search engine visibility, a dedicated newsroom on the customer's own domain has proper metadata and URL structures that help Google index recent stories. For the fourth symptom, outdated design, the product applies responsive design across all devices and updates the template with each new version of the software, so the look stays current without developer hours.

For the fifth symptom, lost login credentials, the product offers a single sign on with existing services like LexisNexis, Monalyse, or Media Info Groep, and the platform stores the account details in a central system that the organisation controls. That newsroom product from the platform costs EUR 1,750 with no period stated, which covers the newsroom function alone.

An organisation can add the Amsterdam database for EUR 2,650 per year for two logins, and the press-question module for EUR 2,700 (no period stated), to build a complete PR toolkit that the team actually uses.

Want the whole set at once? What each newsroom vendor documents.