How to get featured in Forbes: contributors, Councils, BrandVoice and pitching

The short answer

To get featured in Forbes, you either earn it or you pay Forbes's own programmes for a labelled slot. Earning it means pitching a story to a Forbes staff journalist or a contributor who covers your field, or applying for a list such as 30 Under 30. All of that is free, and none of it is guaranteed. Paying means joining Forbes Councils, which lets you publish your own labelled posts, or buying BrandVoice, Forbes's paid content programme.

If the real goal is that investors, clients and partners find a credible, accurate article about you when they search your name, you do not need Forbes for that. Our founder and executive PR service writes and publishes a profile feature about you on one of the publications we work with. Forbes is not one of them, and we say so plainly.

First, know which kind of Forbes page you mean

Forbes is a magazine founded in 1917, a website launched in 1996, and a publishing platform. Its own editorial standards page says the Forbes Contributor Network was formed in 2010, and lists the commercial and partner products that run alongside the journalism: BrandVoice, Councils, Forbes Advisor, Forbes Vetted and others, plus 47 international editions.

That matters because "featured in Forbes" can describe very different pages. Check the byline and the label under the headline:

• "Forbes Staff" means a Forbes employee wrote it. This is the coverage most people mean.
• "Contributor" or "Senior Contributor" means an outside writer published it on forbes.com. Wikipedia counts these as self-published and treats them as generally unreliable.
• "Council Post | Membership (fee-based)" means a paying member wrote it.
• "BrandVoice | Paid Program" means a company paid for it.
• A country edition is a separate publication with its own editors and audience, often run under licence.

Decide which one you are after before you spend time or money. The rest of this guide takes each route in turn.

Route 1: pitch a Forbes staff journalist

This is the route with the most weight and the lowest odds. Forbes staff cover beats: wealth, finance and investing, entrepreneurs and founders, technology, leadership, consumer businesses and lifestyle, according to Forbes's standards page. Journalists cover stories rather than people, so the question is never "how do I get into Forbes?" but "what do I know or have that a Forbes reporter needs this month?"

What journalists say they want

Muck Rack's State of Journalism 2026 surveyed nearly 1,100 journalists. As summarised by the University of Minnesota's communications team:

• 86% said at least some of their work began with a PR pitch, so pitching does work.
• 43% said it was rare to get pitches relevant to their beat.
• They valued clear relevance to their beat (70%), access to the right people for interview (58%), original data or research (40%) and high-resolution images (37%).
• 62% preferred a one-to-one email, 69% preferred pitches under 200 words, and 78% preferred them before noon.

How to do it

1. Find the right person. Search forbes.com for your topic and filter to staff bylines. Read their last ten stories. If you cannot say why your story fits their beat in one sentence, keep looking.
2. Lead with the news, not the company. A funding round with an angle, a number nobody else has, a trend you can prove with your own data, or a customer story with stakes.
3. Write under 200 words. Subject line that states the story, two short paragraphs, who is available to talk, and what data or images you can share.
4. Send it one to one, in the morning, and follow up once a few days later. Then stop.
5. Offer it first. An exclusive or an early look gives a journalist a reason to move quickly.

Forbes also publishes a general address for story ideas and news, tips@forbes.com, on its standards page. A targeted email to the right reporter usually does better than a general inbox, but for genuinely newsworthy information the tips address exists for that purpose.

If you would rather pay someone to pitch, a PR agency or freelance publicist will do it on retainer. You are paying for the work, not for the outcome, and the journalist still decides. Our guide to getting featured in a magazine covers pitching in more detail.

Route 2: get quoted or profiled by a contributor

Most of what appears on forbes.com is written by contributors: outside writers who publish under the Forbes name on a subject they know. Wikipedia's article on Forbes reports that contributors are paid based on traffic, and that by 2019 around 3,000 outside contributors were producing about 100 articles a day. That volume is your opportunity. Contributors need sources, examples and fresh angles constantly.

Pitch a contributor the way you would pitch a staff journalist, only narrower. Contributors write about very specific subjects, so a pitch that fits exactly what they cover, with a useful example or a number, is often welcome. Check their author page and recent posts for how they prefer to be contacted.

Route 3: apply for 30 Under 30 and other lists

Forbes's lists are editorial projects, and they are free to enter. In its own explainer on how the 30 Under 30 list is made, Forbes says there are no fees to apply and that nobody can pay their way onto the list. The same piece says:

• Its public nominations portal brings in more than 20,000 nominations on average across the US, Asia and Europe lists, and every one is read.
• Anyone can nominate themselves or someone else, and self-nominations get the same consideration.
• The number of nominations does not matter. What matters is what the nomination tells the editors: numbers, impact and how you plan to scale.
• Candidates must be 29 or under. Each category is judged by four industry leaders, finalists go through background checks, and nobody finds out until the list is published.

Forbes is blunt about what it looks for: scale, impact and potential, and, since it is Forbes, money. Funding from credible investors or fast revenue growth help. If you are eligible, a clear, specific nomination costs only your time. Anyone charging to "get you on" a Forbes list can sell you, at most, help writing that nomination.

Route 4: join Forbes Councils

Forbes Councils is a paid, invitation-only membership for executives, run by Forbes Councils, LLC under licence. Members can submit their own articles of about 700 to 800 words, which go live on forbes.com in roughly four to six weeks, and short answers to monthly Expert Panel questions. Its dues page lists Standard membership at $2,800 a year plus a one-time $600 initiation fee, and Premium, with three articles written for you, at $6,800 a year.

You need to qualify (most councils ask for over $1 million in revenue or funding; the Business Council asks for $500,000) and be accepted. Every post is labelled "Council Post | Membership (fee-based)". It is a legitimate way to publish your own thinking under the Forbes name. It is not Forbes writing about you. Our guide to what Forbes Councils costs and whether it is worth it covers the plans, the terms and the trade-offs.

Route 5: BrandVoice and other paid programmes run by Forbes

BrandVoice is Forbes's own paid content programme. Forbes's Content & Design Studio calls it its "flagship offering". A company pays Forbes's commercial team and gets its own section on forbes.com, labelled "BrandVoice | Paid Program", where it publishes content produced with Forbes's studio or republishes its own.

It is priced like advertising, because it is advertising. Forbes does not publish a rate card. In 2014, Nieman Lab reported that BrandVoice advertisers were paying between $50,000 and $75,000 a month. Treat that as an old benchmark, not a quote; the point is that this route is built for large brands with large budgets.

For a founder who wants one credible article, BrandVoice is usually the wrong tool at the wrong price. Our guide to what a Forbes feature costs puts every route's price side by side.

What to avoid: "guaranteed Forbes feature" offers

Search this topic and you will find sellers offering a guaranteed Forbes feature for a flat fee. Given Forbes's rules on staff and contributors, no third party can sell you staff editorial. A guaranteed offer is therefore one of three things: a Council Post or other member content, labelled sponsored content, or a page on a different website, such as a country edition, a licensed site or a lookalike domain.

Before you pay anyone, get these answers in writing:

• The exact domain and section the piece will run on, and two or three live examples from the past month.
• Whether the page will carry a label, and what it will say.
• Whether links will be marked rel="sponsored" or rel="nofollow". Google's spam policies say paid articles with links that pass ranking credit break its rules unless the links are marked this way.
• What happens if the piece is removed.

And describe whatever you get accurately. The FTC's guidance on native advertising says an ad should not suggest it is anything other than an ad. "Forbes Business Council member" is accurate for a member; "featured in Forbes" implies an editor chose you.

The routes into Forbes compared with a feature elsewhere

How the options compare, if the aim is a credible article that people find when they search your name:

Forbes figures are from Forbes Councils' dues and publishing pages and Nieman Lab's 2014 report. To be clear once more: Blue Leopard Media does not sell placements on Forbes. What we sell is a different product, published on the publications listed on our media page.

If Forbes is the goal, take the free routes first: find the two or three journalists and contributors who cover your field and pitch them properly, and nominate yourself for the right list if you are eligible. If what you need now is an accurate, well-written article about you that ranks for your name, without waiting months, our founder and executive PR service publishes one within 24 hours of your approval, from $249. See PR pricing or contact us below.