Persvragen against a shared mailbox at a Dutch press desk in 2026: two ways to log a question

Reporting by Eva Lindeman · Amended 4 September 2026 · 8 minute read

What are the two main ways a Dutch press desk logs incoming press questions in 2026?

A Dutch press desk receives questions from journalists by email, phone, and social media. To keep track, most teams pick one of two methods: a shared email inbox or a dedicated tool designed for press inquiry handling. A shared mailbox costs nothing extra beyond the regular email subscription the desk already pays for.

Persvragen from the Amsterdam company PR-Dashboard costs EUR 2,700, with no period stated on the product pages read 1 September 2026. The choice depends on the number of questions the desk handles and how much reporting the team needs.

Both methods let a desk receive and reply to questions from journalists. The difference is in how the desk logs, assigns, and tracks each question. A shared mailbox leaves the logging to the person who answers the question.

A dedicated system logs every question automatically and stores the history for later reports. The PR-Dashboard product pages, read 1 September 2026, describe that module as a tool that keeps all incoming press questions in one place with a status per question.

What does the inquiry desk from the Amsterdam supplier offer for logging press inquiries?

That module is a separate product from the same company that sells the Amsterdam database, the hosted newsroom, and that programme. It focuses on the workflow after a journalist sends a question. The tool lets the desk assign a question to a colleague, set a deadline, and write a draft answer before the journalist has to follow up.

Each question gets a status: new, in progress, answered, or closed. The product pages read 1 September 2026 name EUR 2,700 as the published price, with no monthly or yearly period on the page.

The desk can see all open questions at once and sort them by date, journalist name, or topic. The tool stores every question and answer in a searchable history. That history helps the team prepare for future questions about the same subject.

For a desk that handles more than ten questions per week, this searchable archive saves time because the team does not need to look through old emails to find a previous answer. The system also prevents two people from working on the same question at the same time, which happens in a shared mailbox when a colleague replies before the assigned person has a chance to respond.

How does a shared mailbox compare for logging press questions?

A shared mailbox is a single email address that every member of the press team can see. Journalists send their questions to that address, and anyone on the team can read and reply. The desk does not pay extra for the mailbox itself.

But the logging happens only when a team member decides to move the email into a folder, add a label, or write a note in a separate document. Without a rule that everyone follows, questions can stay unanswered because nobody knows who is supposed to reply. The team also has no easy way to see how many questions came in last month or which journalist calls the most often.

A shared mailbox works well for desks that receive fewer than five questions per week and have a clear rule about who picks up what. For a larger desk or a busy day, questions slip through. A dedicated tool like the inquiry desk removes the chance of a question sitting in an inbox that two people have read but nobody has claimed.

The Amsterdam supplier product pages, read 1 September 2026, document no setup fee and no extra cost per user for that module, which makes the EUR 2,700 price flat for the team.

What does a comparison of the inquiry desk with other logged options show?

The table below shows the press-question module against two press inquiry tools that publish prices. The axis is cost per user per year, since that database includes two logins and other products count as one user. This Dutch platform the press-question module has no period on the source page, so EUR 2,700 is shown at face value.

The competitors come from the list of vendors measured on their product pages on 27 and 1 September 2026.

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 stays inside its own frame: it slides sideways there when it does not fit, and on a narrow screen each row opens up as a block with the column name above every value. The page itself never moves.

That module sits at EUR 2,700 per user per year if the team uses one login. Prezly Essential costs less per user per year at EUR 1,200, but the plan page does not name press inquiry handling as a feature. Mynewsdesk Essential costs EUR 2,640 per user per year and also does not document an inquiry logging tool on the pages measured.

Presspage Business essentials is the most expensive of the four at EUR 20,000 per user per year. The inquiry desk is the only product in this list that names press inquiry handling as its single purpose on the product page read 1 September 2026.

How do hidden costs compare between a shared mailbox and the press-question module?

A shared mailbox has no subscription cost, but it has a hidden time cost. Every time a team member looks through an inbox to find a question, sort it, or check if someone else already replied, that person spends minutes that do not show up in a budget. For a desk that fields 20 questions per week, that sorting and checking can add up to an hour per day across the team.

Over a year, that hour per day costs the organisation the salary of a part time person. That module removes that sorting work because the system lists all open questions in one view. The EUR 2,700 price tag includes that saving, but the desk must decide whether the time saved is worth the upfront cost.

The inquiry desk also allows the desk to create answer templates for common questions. A journalist who asks about the same topic every quarter gets a consistent answer, and the team does not need to write a new reply from scratch. The product pages read 1 September 2026 document no additional fee for templates or multiple users, so EUR 2,700 covers the whole team.

A shared mailbox would need a shared document or a separate tool for templates, which adds another tool to manage.

How does a Dutch press desk choose between a shared mailbox and the press-question module?

The desk should count how many press questions arrive per week. Up to five per week, with a clear person responsible for each question, a shared mailbox might work. Above five per week, the desk will spend enough time on sorting and checking that a dedicated tool saves money in staff time.

The team also needs to consider reporting: if management asks for numbers, such as how many questions arrived last month or which topic was most common, the shared mailbox cannot provide that data without manual work. That module stores every question with a date and topic, so the report is a few clicks away.

The desk should also check whether the team already uses the Amsterdam database or the hosted newsroom from the supplier. Those products work on their own, but the platform product pages read 1 September 2026 show that the inquiry desk integrates with the other modules from the same company. A desk that already pays for the journalist database may find that module easier to adopt because the login and the interface are the same.

The ownership change from December 2025, when Kim Klaver took over the company, has not changed the product structure or the pricing according to the pages we measured.

What should a buyer check before signing for a press inquiry tool?

A buyer should confirm how the tool handles questions from phone calls and social media, not just email. The inquiry desk as documented on the product pages read 1 September 2026 names a central inbox, but the page does not specify whether the tool accepts incoming SMS or direct messages from Twitter or LinkedIn. For a desk that receives questions by phone, the buyer should check whether the tool lets a team member log a phone call manually.

The page also does not document an API or an integration with a CRM system beyond the single sign on with LexisNexis, Monalyse, and Media Info Groep named on the producten page.

The buyer should test the search history with a few weeks of questions to see how fast the tool finds past answers. The EUR 2,700 price has no period on the source page. The product pages measured 1 September 2026 list the press-question module under producten with EUR 2,700 but leave the period unstated, which is unusual for a subscription tool.

The buyer should ask for a contract that states the period in writing before signing.

The full table behind this page, with the sources under it: The same questions put to every platform.