# What Is a Boilerplate in Press Release? Write One Fast URL: https://trycompass.co/journal/what-is-a-boilerplate-in-press-release Type: blog Locale: en Published: 2026-10-23 Updated: 2026-10-25 --- > A boilerplate is the fixed About paragraph closing every press release. Here is what it contains, how long it should be, and how to write one reporters can quote. A journalist opens your release at 4:50 pm, needs one line on who you are, and scrolls to the bottom. If that paragraph is vague, stale or missing, your story waits. So, what is a boilerplate in press release terms? It is the fixed "About" paragraph at the end of every release: 50 to 150 words describing your company, your proof points and your press contact, reused word for word. ## Where the word boilerplate comes from, and why it stuck The term predates email by a century. Boilerplates began as reusable steel plates used in newspaper printing, mainly between 1890 and 1950, according to [Prezly's guide to press release boilerplates](https://prezly.com/academy/press-release-boilerplate). Newspapers cast a block of text once and stamped it onto page after page. ![Antique letterpress plate with metal type, the origin of the word boilerplate](https://fdzlnqpwsaniezitwiuw.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/cms-media/trycompass/2026-10/6f26b0-img1.webp) The logic survived the printing press. A press release carries news that changes every time: a launch, a funding round, a partnership. The boilerplate is the part that does not change. It sits under the body and the contact block, so the reporter gets the story first and the background second. That split is the whole point. The release answers "what happened". The boilerplate answers "who is this company, and can I trust it enough to quote it". ## What a boilerplate must contain, and what it can skip Most guides agree on the same core. [Newswire's template](https://www.newswire.com/blog/how-to-write-a-press-release-boilerplate) lists the company name, what it does, the mission, and an award or provable advantage. Add the website, a press contact and, for public companies, the ticker symbol. Here is the working checklist we use: - **What you do, in plain nouns.** "A payroll platform for restaurants with 5 to 50 staff" beats "a leading provider of innovative workforce solutions". - **One proof point.** A customer count, a founding year, a country footprint, a funding stage. One figure, with its date. - **A hyperlinked URL and one or two contact lines.** A generic address plus a named PR contact is ideal. Missing contact details are the most common omission. - **Active social handles only.** A dead account tells the reporter you stopped paying attention. Skip the mission statement if it could belong to any company. Skip the founder biography. Skip the product feature list. Those belong in the release body or on the About page. Concrete facts carry the paragraph. Prezly's examples are useful here: Uber's boilerplate cites more than 42 billion trips and a 2010 start, while Boeing's cites operations in more than 150 countries. Both are checkable, and both save the reporter a search. ## How long should a boilerplate be? Short. The guidance varies: Newswire says about 100 words, Prezly says 50 to 150. Both agree on the direction, because a boilerplate can be too long but is hard to make too short. The distribution channel sets the real limit. Newswires often charge by character count, so Boeing's newswire version runs 75 words and 511 characters. Lush's version on its own newsroom runs 198 words and 1,235 characters. Same company logic, two different budgets. Our rule: write a 100-word master, then keep a 50-word cut for paid wires and a 150-word cut for your newsroom. Store all three in one place. Which brings us to the mistake that costs the most. ## Three mistakes that make reporters skim past you **Writing something that fits any business.** "We are a multinational company" tells nobody anything. Replace each adjective with a fact, or delete it. **Letting it rot.** Your boilerplate says "serving 800 customers" while the homepage says 2,000. A journalist who spots the gap trusts the rest of the release less. Review it every quarter, and the day a funding round, an acquisition or a rebrand closes. **Burying the contact.** If a reporter has to hunt for an email, the quote deadline passes without you. Put the address in the last line, every time. ![Marketer holding a pencil over a blank page, drafting a short company description](https://fdzlnqpwsaniezitwiuw.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/cms-media/trycompass/2026-10/5a8917-img2.webp) ## A boilerplate template you can fill in under ten minutes Copy this skeleton, then cut every word that could describe a competitor: > **About [Company].** [Company] is a [category] that helps [specific customer] [concrete outcome]. Founded in [year] in [city], the company serves [number] customers in [number] countries. [One proof point: award, funding, certification.] Learn more at [URL]. Press contact: [name], [email]. Fill it in. Then run three checks. Does the first sentence work if it is the only sentence quoted? Is every number dated or current? Would a stranger be able to tell you apart from your closest rival? If the answer to the last question is no, rewrite the category line, not the adjectives. "Marketing orchestration agent that reroutes campaigns across email, ads and CRM" is a category. "Innovative growth platform" is a mood. ## Where the boilerplate lives after the release goes out A good boilerplate is not a one-release asset. It also appears on your website, in email signatures, on social profiles and in your online newsroom. That reuse is why consistency matters: journalists and AI search tools often lift the paragraph as-is, so the version they find should be the version you approved. Three habits keep it consistent: - **One source of truth.** A single shared document or newsroom page, not a paragraph copied into six decks. - **One owner.** Whoever runs PR approves changes. Everyone else requests them. - **One review date.** Put it in the calendar. Quarterly is enough for most teams. If you run releases through a tool, the same logic applies. Prowly bundles press release publishing with a newsroom and media database, Cision pairs a journalist database with wire distribution, and Muck Rack is built around journalist relationships and monitoring. Each lets you store reusable text, so the boilerplate stops living in somebody's Downloads folder. ## A weak boilerplate and its rewrite, side by side Abstract advice only goes so far, so here is a before and after with a made-up company. **Before:** "Northwind is a leading provider of innovative, end-to-end solutions that empower businesses to unlock growth in today's fast-moving landscape." That sentence names no customer, no product and no number. A reporter cannot quote it, and a competitor could paste their own name over it. **After:** "Northwind makes scheduling software for independent dental clinics. Founded in 2019 in Leeds, it serves 1,400 clinics in the UK and Ireland and raised a Series A in 2025. More at northwind.example. Press: Dana Hill, [press@northwind.example](mailto:press@northwind.example)." The rewrite is 36 words, every claim can be verified, and the contact is the last thing the reporter sees. Add a second proof point and a mission line if your channel allows 100 words, and stop there. The test is simple. Cover the company name. If the paragraph still points to one company, it works. If it could describe any firm in your category, it is filler. ## Boilerplate versus the rest of the release: a quick map New marketers mix up the parts of a release. The order is stable: - **Headline and subhead** state the news, and change every release. - **Dateline and lead paragraph** give who, what, when and where, and change every release. - **Body and quotes** supply evidence and a human voice, and change every release. - **Boilerplate** gives company background, and changes rarely. - **Media contact** says who to call, and changes occasionally. Only the boilerplate is written once and reused. That makes it the cheapest asset in your PR stack and, if it is weak, the most expensive one to ignore. ## Why a clean boilerplate now matters beyond journalists Reporters are no longer the only readers. Search engines and AI assistants pull company descriptions from newsrooms, wires and About pages, then repeat them in answers. If your paragraph is specific and consistent across those places, the summary people see about you is the one you wrote. If it varies, the summary is a blend of whichever version was crawled last. The risk is easy to picture: an old wire copy outranks your newsroom page, and the outdated headcount becomes the one people read. The fix costs nothing. Align the wording everywhere, and use the same company name spelling and the same category phrase each time. Write the first sentence so it stands alone. That is the line most likely to be lifted, so it should carry the category, the customer and the outcome without needing the sentences after it. ## How a boilerplate fits into a multi-channel launch A release is rarely a standalone event. It lands in inboxes, gets pitched by email, gets quoted on social and gets retargeted with ads. The boilerplate travels with all of it, so one outdated claim gets copied into every channel. ![Compass resting on a newspaper next to a smartphone and notebook](https://fdzlnqpwsaniezitwiuw.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/cms-media/trycompass/2026-10/98ff6f-img3.webp) This is where orchestration earns its place. When the company description changes, the reroute should reach the pitch email, the newsroom page and the social bio on the same day, not three weeks apart. That is the kind of job Compass is built for: a marketing stack that acts on a change instead of waiting for someone to notice it. For the CRM side, the same fact base feeds your outreach. Keep the press list and the company description in one system, such as HubSpot, and the pitch template pulls the approved paragraph automatically. ## When to write more than one boilerplate One company can need two versions. A parent brand and a product launch, for example, rarely share the same audience. Keep a company-level boilerplate for corporate news and a product-level one for launches, and make sure both link to each other. Do not multiply them past two. Every extra version is another paragraph to keep current, and the point of a boilerplate is that it stays boring and correct. ## What we would write today Skip the mission statement unless it is specific. Skip the superlatives. Keep one dated number, one plain sentence on what you do, one working link and one human contact. If you launch a product in Q4, here is the bearing: write the 100-word master this week, cut the 50-word wire version, and book the quarterly review before the release goes out. Ten minutes of work now saves a reporter the search later, and keeps your story from stalling at 4:50 pm. ## FAQ ### What is a boilerplate in a press release? It is the short, standard company description at the end of a press release, usually labeled About. It gives journalists background on who you are, what you do and how to reach you, and it stays the same from one release to the next. ### How long should a press release boilerplate be? Aim for about 100 words, within a 50 to 150 word range. Use a shorter 50-word cut for newswires that charge by character count and a longer version for your own newsroom. ### What should a boilerplate include? Include the company name, what it does in plain terms, one dated proof point, a hyperlinked website and a press contact. Add a ticker symbol if you are public and active social handles if they matter. ### Where does the boilerplate go in a press release? It sits at the bottom, after the body text and quotes, and usually next to the media contact details. The news comes first and the background second. ### How often should you update a press release boilerplate? Review it quarterly and whenever a major fact changes, such as a funding round, an acquisition, a rebrand or a new headcount. A well written one rarely needs more than that. ### Can you reuse the boilerplate outside press releases? Yes. It works on your website, in email signatures, on social profiles and in your online newsroom. Keeping the wording identical everywhere makes your company description consistent for reporters and search tools.