Chapter 3

Market and comparables

Every priced comparable found in the research, with a URL and a check date. The purpose of this chapter is one finding: in classical music there is nothing between a $49 spreadsheet and a £6,450 agency database, and nothing at all that combines a curated list with a human who will read your material. That is where the £299 tier sits, and it sits there alone.

The three price bands

$49 to $60The self-serve band. A spreadsheet of contacts, a template pack, a low-cost community. Bought once, used twice, forgotten. Nothing classical-specific.

$1,300 to $3,000The programme band. A year of access, templates, a database, some group calls. Gloria Chou, Selena Soo, Ari's Take. All aimed at entrepreneurs or non-classical musicians.

£6,450+The agency band. Roxhill, Muck Rack, Prowly. Professional tools priced for teams, general rather than classical, with no judgement attached.

The £299 membership at £3,588 a year sits inside the programme band on price and above every one of them on what is delivered, because none of them includes a specialist reading your actual material once a month. There is no classical competitor in any band.

The full comparables table

Name	Category	Price	Format	Size reported	What converts
tonebase	Classical education	$49.95/mo, $24.95/mo annual (about $299/yr), $695 lifetime^S14	Video library plus live sessions with named artists, one vertical per instrument	Not published	Named artists and the annual discount. The lifetime tier exists because library products churn hard.
Gloria Chou, PR Starter Pack	PR for creatives	$1,495 for 12 months^S11	Media database across 50 industries, pitch training video, sample pitches, quarterly group calls	Not published	The database is why people buy. The calls are why they stay. This is the closest structural comparable to the £299 tier.
Selena Soo, Impacting Millions	PR for creatives	$2,997 or 12 x $297^S12	Year-long publicity programme	Not published	Named-outlet case studies. Withdrawn from sale, which says something about the cost of running a big annual cohort solo.
Ari's Take Academy	Music business	Courses $1,297 (or 12 x $127); mentorship $1,500 to $3,000^S13	Cohort courses with fixed dates, plus a mentorship tier	"Over 6,000 musicians, industry professionals and students" per its own site	Fixed cohort dates. The deadline converts, not the content.
PR ON THE GO media list	Media list	$49 one-off^S10	Spreadsheet, 900+ contacts, updated monthly, 3 months of updates included	Not published	Price. It is an impulse purchase, and it is the price anchor a member will quote at Sam.
Roxhill Media	Media database	£6,450 + VAT up to 5 licences; £8,950 up to 10; £11,450 up to 15; £13,950 up to 20; £16,450 up to 25; £17,700 up to 30^S7	UK and international journalist database, journalist-move alerts, forward features, unlimited distribution and list management	Published on the UK Digital Marketplace	Nothing, for this buyer. It is priced for agency teams. It is the number that makes £299 look cheap.
Muck Rack	Media database	Reported $3,500 to $40,000+/yr, average about $15,000^S8	Database plus monitoring	Not published	Not relevant to this buyer. Cite it once and move on.
Prowly	Media database	From $258/mo^S9	Database and pitching	Withdrawn as a standalone product in December 2025, folded into Semrush	Note the price: $258 a month is almost exactly £199, the founding rate. A general database costs what Sam charges for a specialist one plus her judgement.
Repair Music Members Club	Music community	€5.99/mo and €10.99/mo^S36	Low-cost membership	Not published	The floor of the category. Shown to make the point that the range is wide and the top of it is empty.
Group masterminds, general market	Coaching	Reported £97 to £997/mo, groups of about 20^S37	Small-group coaching	About 20 per group	Access to the expert and to peers. £299 sits mid-band, and 20 is the right size for a live clinic.
Independent Society of Musicians	Professional body	£185/yr full^S15	Membership	Not verified here	Insurance and legal cover. Not a competitor; a channel. Chapter 10.
Association of British Orchestras	Professional body	£646 to £6,752 full, £201 sole trader^S18	Membership	200+ members	Sector representation. Its smallest members are the buyer.
Making Music	Professional body	£109 to £496/yr by group income^S17	Group membership	Thousands of member groups	Insurance and a promoting network. A channel, not a competitor.

What other publicists have productised

Every successful product built by a PR person has the same three parts, in the same order of importance.

1 · The list

This is what is bought. PR ON THE GO sells 900 contacts for $49^S10; Gloria Chou's $1,495 pack is built around a searchable media database across 50 industries^S11; Roxhill sells the professional version at £6,450^S7. A list is concrete, it can be described in one line, and it justifies a price without argument.

2 · The templates

This is what is used in week one. Pitch templates, sample pitches that got coverage, a press release skeleton. Low cost to produce, high perceived value, and they make the first month feel productive, which is what stops a first-month cancellation.

3 · Access to the human

This is what is renewed. Gloria Chou includes quarterly coaching calls and sells a 90-minute 1:1 as the upsell^S11. Selena Soo's programme ran for a year^S12. Without a person, a list is a one-off purchase and churn is total by month three.

The competitive position, in one paragraph

There is no classical-specific PR education product anywhere on the market at any price. The general products are built for entrepreneurs and non-classical musicians and their media lists are irrelevant to a violinist announcing a Wigmore debut. The professional databases are general, expensive, and contain no judgement. The professional bodies sell insurance, not publicity. Sam's position is not "a better version of X". There is no X. The risk is therefore not competition, it is that the category has to be explained from scratch every time, which is exactly why Chapter 10 puts a column in the trade press above every other channel.

Who could do this instead, and what it would take them

Potential competitor	What they would need	How long Sam has
Another UK classical publicist (Nicky Thomas Media, Premier, Albion, Quite Great)	The same list, the same roster credibility, and the willingness to spend a day a week teaching instead of billing. Most will not.	Indefinite on capability, about eighteen months on the idea. Once one exists, the second is obvious.
Ikon Arts Management, which already sells branding, marketing and media relations as a service line	Very little. They have artists, a brand and the service already. Read their page before approaching them^S30.	They are the nearest thing to a competitor in the target list. Treat them as a possible partner, never as a cold pitch.
A conservatoire building it in house	Staff time and a media list they do not have. They will always prefer to buy a workshop.	No real threat. This is why the conservatoire channel is a partnership, not a competition.
tonebase or a similar platform adding a business vertical	A publicist. They would hire one, and they could hire Sam.	Worth watching, and worth answering the phone to.

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