Go to any credible website and they are there: logos from accredited news publications, the more famous the better. Companies proudly display them as social proof of the awesomeness of their service/product. Consumers look for them as a sign of credibility. Should businesses have to pay to display them?

We were recently in Smart Money, quoted as a resource for businesses to cut fees. My first instinct was to post a quote and logo on our press page. The next day, I got this email:

 
The attached PDF lists prices ranging from $1500-$2500 just to put Smart Money’s logo on our press page for one year. As a startup, the whole point of press is to get attention, be useful to the publication’s readers, and get customers. If we had to pay for every single logo on our press page, we would have to pay tens of thousands of dollars annually just to look credible.

I understand that in the current dying newspaper and magazine age, these publications have to get creative when looking for additional revenue, but this seems ridiculous. Charging their sources for something as trivial as displaying a logo seems pretty trite.

What do you think?

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