TL;DR: Notion works for game jams and prototypes where press coverage isn't a factor. For anything else, the hidden costs stack up: no custom domain (without $96-120/year), no analytics on free tier, SEO builds Notion's authority not yours, inconsistent social sharing previews. Press Kitty or presskit.gg give you more for the same price (free).
Key Takeaways
- Notion press kit URLs contain workspace names, page titles, and random hashes, which is functional but not professional
- Custom domains require a paid Notion plan ($10+/month) plus a $10/month add-on, totaling $96-120/year just for the privilege
- Free tier has no analytics; you have no idea who visits or what they look at
- Every backlink to your Notion page builds notion.site authority, not your domain
- The "temporary" trap: every developer says it's temporary, few migrate before launch when it actually matters
Notion is tempting. You probably already use it for game design documents, task management, or team wikis. The editor is clean. The blocks are flexible. Publishing a page to the web takes two clicks. And the price is right: free.
So when it's time to create a press kit, the thought process goes something like: "I'll just make a Notion page. It looks nice. It's fast. I'll deal with a 'real' press kit later." That's a perfectly reasonable instinct, and for a narrow set of situations, it's even the right call. But the hidden costs stack up faster than you'd expect, and "later" has a way of becoming "never." For a wider look at how press kit tools compare across the board, see our indie game marketing tools guide. And if you're also considering a Google Drive folder, we covered that comparison separately.
Why Notion Feels Like the Right Answer
The appeal is genuine. Let's give it full credit.
You already know the tool. If you're using Notion for project management, you can build a press kit page in the same workspace where your game design doc lives. No new account. No new interface. No new learning curve.
The visual output is decent. Notion pages, when published as Notion Sites, look clean. Good typography. Responsive layout. Image galleries work. Toggle blocks let you organize sections. It's not beautiful, but it's competent. Compared to a janky HTML page or a raw Google Drive folder, a Notion press kit page looks like you tried.
Publishing is instant. Share menu, Publish tab, click Publish. Your page is live on the web. You can share the link immediately. Changes you make in Notion appear on the published page automatically. The feedback loop between editing and publishing is zero.
It's free to publish. Notion's free plan supports unlimited published Notion Sites with search engine indexing enabled. You don't pay anything for basic publishing.
Structure is flexible. You can build a press kit layout using Notion's block system: header images, callout blocks for factsheets, image galleries for screenshots, embedded YouTube videos for trailers, toggle lists for additional information, download buttons linking to hosted files. The blocks map reasonably well to press kit sections.
A solo developer shipping their first game, running out of time, with no website and no budget, could build a Notion press kit in an hour and have something functional by dinner. That's not nothing. In practice, developers who start with Notion often find it adequate for the first few press pitches, but the limitations become painful once real coverage starts happening.
The Hidden Costs
Here's where "free and easy" starts getting expensive in ways that don't show up on an invoice.
No custom domain (without paying extra)
Your Notion press kit URL looks like this:
your-workspace.notion.site/Your-Game-Press-Kit-a1b2c3d4e5f6
That's your public press kit URL. It contains "notion.site" (marking it as a Notion page), a workspace name you may not have chosen carefully, your page title, and a random hash of characters. It's functional. It's not professional.
Notion does offer custom domains as a paid add-on. But it requires a paid Notion plan first (Plus, Business, or Enterprise), and then the custom domain add-on costs an additional $10/month ($8/month on annual billing). That's $96-120/year just for the privilege of having your press kit on your own domain, hosted on Notion's infrastructure.
For context, presskit.gg's free tier on your own WordPress hosting puts your press kit on your domain for $0 (assuming you already have hosting). Press Kitty's Plus tier offers custom domains too, bundled with other features. Notion's custom domain pricing is steep for what you get.
SEO is limited and slow
Notion Sites can be indexed by search engines. The free plan even allows you to enable "Discoverable on the web." But Notion's own help documentation states that sites "can take up to four weeks to be indexed and appear in search results."
More importantly, even when indexed, your press kit page builds SEO authority for notion.site, not for your own domain. Every backlink from a press article pointing to your-workspace.notion.site/Your-Game strengthens Notion's domain, not yours. If you're a new studio trying to build web presence, this is like leveling up someone else's character while yours stays at level one.
The paid plan adds SEO customization (editable link titles and descriptions), but the fundamental domain authority problem remains unless you spring for the custom domain add-on.
No meaningful analytics
Notion's free plan includes no analytics whatsoever. You have no idea how many people visit your press kit, where they come from, what they look at, or how long they stay.
Paid plans allow Google Analytics integration with Notion Sites. That's a real feature. But it requires a paid Notion plan. If you're paying for Notion Plus ($10/user/month) primarily to get Analytics on your press kit, the math gets questionable fast.
With a press kit on your own WordPress site, Google Analytics integration is free and takes five minutes. You could also use Plausible, Fathom, or any other analytics tool. On Notion's free tier, you get nothing.
Social sharing previews are hit-or-miss
Notion Sites support OpenGraph metadata on paid plans for SEO customization. On the free plan, sharing your press kit link on Twitter, Discord, or Slack generates a preview that may or may not look good. The page title shows up. A description might appear. An image might be pulled. The results are inconsistent and not directly controllable on the free tier.
A proper press kit page on your own domain lets you control exactly what appears when someone shares the link. The right screenshot. The right description. The right branding. First impressions in a Discord server or a journalist's Slack channel matter.
No game-specific structure
Notion is a general-purpose tool. It doesn't know what a press kit is. It doesn't know that indie game press kits need a factsheet with genre, platforms, release date, and player count. It doesn't auto-generate sections for screenshots, trailers, logos, and key art. It doesn't support structured data for press contacts or game metadata.
You can build all of this manually using Notion's blocks. But you're inventing the wheel every time. Tools like presskit.gg and Press Kitty provide game-specific templates with pre-built sections because they're designed for exactly this purpose. Notion is designed for everything, which means it's optimized for nothing.
File hosting limitations
Notion pages can embed images and files, but Notion isn't a file hosting service. Large asset packs, high-resolution screenshots in bulk, PSD source files, and B-roll video clips don't belong on a Notion page. You'll end up linking to external file hosting (Google Drive, Dropbox) anyway, which means your Notion page is just a fancy link aggregator.
Press-specific tools often include built-in asset hosting with zip download functionality, so journalists can grab everything in one click without leaving the page.
The "temporary" trap
This is the most insidious cost. Every developer who sets up a Notion press kit says "this is temporary." Few of them migrate to something better before their press kit actually matters. What tends to happen in practice is that launch week arrives, you're drowning in tasks, and the "temporary" Notion page becomes permanent by default. Launch week arrives, emails go out with the Notion link, journalists bookmark it, articles link to it. Now migrating means changing URLs, breaking bookmarks, and losing whatever tiny SEO value accumulated.
The temporary solution becomes permanent by inertia. And by the time you realize you need analytics, custom branding, or a professional domain, you're stuck with a migration headache you could have avoided.
When Notion Actually Works
Despite the costs, there are situations where a Notion press kit is the right call:
Game jams. You have 48 hours. You're not building SEO. You're not expecting sustained press coverage. You need a page with screenshots, a description, and a download link. Notion is fine. Perfect, even.
Very early prototypes. You're showing your game at a local meetup or posting in a Discord community. Nobody's writing articles about your prototype. A Notion page with some GIFs and a description is sufficient for the audience.
Internal press kit drafts. Using Notion to draft and organize your press kit content before migrating it to a proper tool is smart. Notion is excellent for collaborative editing and content organization. Write everything in Notion, then copy it to your actual press kit tool when it's ready.
You genuinely can't afford anything else and have zero technical skills. If a Notion page is the difference between having a press kit and not having one, choose the Notion page. A basic but existing press kit beats a perfect but hypothetical one. Just know what you're trading away.
Real Examples and What They Show
Search for indie game press kits on Notion and you'll find them. Some look quite good at first glance. Clean typography, organized sections, embedded trailers. The initial impression can be favorable.
Look closer, though. The URLs are long and ugly. The pages load with Notion's full UI chrome (header, breadcrumbs, workspace elements). There's no favicon. No brand-specific design. The page screams "this is a Notion document" rather than "this is a professional studio's press kit."
Compare that to press kit pages on studio domains or even on Press Kitty's platform. The game-specific tools produce pages that look like they were designed for press kits, because they were.
