A Complete Guide to LinkedIn Job Posting Cost and Process

In fact, LinkedIn is one of the most popular job boards as it attracts over 850 million users from 200+ countries. You can post a job ad on LinkedIn for free, but if you want to reach more candidates and get the best applications, you’ll need to promote it for $5+ a day. The platform also offers premium accounts for recruiters that come with many useful hiring tools. In this article, we’ll dig deeper into the LinkedIn job posting cost and the job posting process, as well as show how the platform compares to other major job boards.

Overview—How Does LinkedIn Job Posting Work?

The most significant competitive advantage of LinkedIn as a job board is that it’s primarily a social network. As over 85% of all vacancies get filled from networking, it’s clear why LinkedIn is so frequently used for hiring purposes. You can create an employer brand by having an engaging company page and getting your employees to share job posts with their connections.

LinkedIn allows you to post a free job post on its platform, but it has certain limitations. You can have only one free job ad active lasting 30 days, after which LinkedIn shuts it down automatically. If you want to keep the ad going or advertise more vacancies, you’ll need to promote your post. 

A promoted post helps you reach more relevant candidates through targeted promotion and charges you $5+ per day, depending on your budget.
The premium profile is a separate feature whose price starts at $170 per month. It is designed primarily with larger companies in mind, and startups and smaller businesses tend to struggle with this cost and mostly opt for sponsoring individual ads.

Most recruiters are happy with LinkedIn’s additional functionalities, such as advanced search filters, candidate search alerts, and analytics reports.

Still, they had several complaints about the candidate-searching tool, specifically its reported lack of complexity. For instance, it doesn’t point out inactive profiles, it can’t add special skills that are not in the LinkedIn database, and the platform doesn’t show you out-of-network candidates.

LinkedIn also prominently lacks a resume database recruiters can search through, which many other job boards possess.

LinkedIn Job Posting—Highlights and Features

Here’s a brief recap of all the features and highlights LinkedIn offers regarding job postings:

LinkedIn Job Posting Pricing

If you want to promote your job post on LinkedIn, you can choose how much you’re willing to spend on it—the minimum daily budget is $5. You can select:

• Daily budget—Determine how much LinkedIn spends each day and cancel the promotion once you’re satisfied with the results (or reach your intended limit)
• Total budget—Determine how much you’re willing to spend overall. LinkedIn will then calculate how many days the promotion will be active

If you already have a free job post active and want to increase its visibility, you can edit the post and promote it. To do so, you need to:

• Select the Jobs tab on your LinkedIn homepage
• Click on Manage job posts on the left side of the page

• Navigate to the job your want to promote
• Click the settings menu (three dots) and select Manage job to edit your listing

• Click on one of the Edit icons displayed
• Press the Continue button to skip editing other details until you reach the job promotion page
• Enter your budget information

• Click on Promote job
• Enter your billing information

Free LinkedIn Job Posting vs. Sponsored Posting

A free job post is limited in time (30 days) and the number of applications it can receive (depending on the niche). When you hit 30 days or the application limit, LinkedIn will automatically change your job post status to Paused, and you’ll need to promote it to make it active again.

A sponsored post also allows you to target relevant candidates and make your job post appear in their “Jobs You May Be Interested In” feed. It also shows up among the first posts in the search results, with free job posts listed after them.

Check out what you get with a free post as compared to a sponsored post:

LinkedIn Recruiter Job Posting Cost—Premium Profiles

LinkedIn has premium accounts for professionals that want to make the most out of the network. They have different types of premium profiles devoted to:

• Career (for employees)
• Business (for companies)
• Sales
• Hiring (for recruiters)

When it comes to recruiter profiles, there are three types with different functionalities and limitations, as shown in the table below:

How To Post a Job for Free on LinkedIn

If you don’t want to pay for a promoted post and want to source candidates for free on LinkedIn, here is a step-by-step guide on how to do it:

• Log in to your LinkedIn account (or sign up)
• Select the Jobs tab in the top menu
• Press the Post a free job button (if you have one of the premium Recruiter accounts, you’ll have different contract options to choose from. In that case, click Continue next to the LinkedIn Job Posting button)

• Enter the following information about the job vacancy you’re trying to fill:
  • Job title (LinkedIn will suggest you a title once you start typing)
  • Company name
  • Workplace type (on-site, remote, or hybrid)
  • Job location
  • Employment type

• Click Get started for free
• Add a job description—LinkedIn will provide a template, but you should avoid using it if you want to attract top talents
• Add skills—You can add up to 10 skills to help you reach suitable candidates. These skills will match the skills potential applicants have added to their profiles
• You can Preview the job ad or press Continue when you’re ready

• In the next section of the process, you’ll need to add the following information:
  • Email for receiving applications (or an external website)
  • Add screening questions (LinkedIn recommends you use at least three screening questions to get to know the applicant before you invite them for the next selection phase)
  • Qualification settings (choose whether or not you want LinkedIn to automatically reject and filter out candidates that don’t meet the requirements from the screening questions)
• You can Preview the job ad or press Post job for free when you’re ready

• Choose your plan—If you want to post a free job ad, press the Select free button

How To Post a Job on LinkedIn for Free Using Other Devices

You can use your mobile device or a tablet to create a free job post on LinkedIn, regardless of whether it’s supported by an Android or iOS operating system. Here are the steps you need to take:

1. Tap the Jobs icon
2. Tap Post job for free (for Android devices) or Post a Job (for iOS devices)
3. Select the company name for which you’re posting the job
4. Tap Create new job
5. Enter:
   1. Job title
   2. Company name
   3. Workplace type
   4. Job location
   5. Job type
   6. Description
   7. Screening questions (optional)
6. Tap Post job for free

If you want to repost an older job ad, you don’t have to create it from scratch. When you get to the fourth step (tapping the Create new job button), you can:

1. Select a previously posted job
2. Paste the job link in the What do you want to talk about? field

How LinkedIn Compares to Other Job Boards

While LinkedIn is arguably the most popular job board, you can use hundreds of similar websites to source candidates. Some offer different functionalities from LinkedIn, and some charge you for posting a vacancy but give you exposure to a curated, niche audience.

We’ve compared LinkedIn to the following major job boards:

1. Indeed
2. Facebook
3. Dice

LinkedIn vs. Indeed

Indeed is perhaps the largest job board besides LinkedIn and is the most widely-used one in the United States. It also offers free job posts, but their visibility is lower than their LinkedIn counterparts’. If you want to get a substantial number of applications, you’ll need to sponsor the post for a heftier fee than you would on LinkedIn—sponsored posts start from $10 per application. Indeed also has a resume search feature which LinkedIn prominently lacks.

Check out how the two platforms compare:

LinkedIn vs. Facebook

While not primarily used for job hunting, Facebook allows companies to utilize its vast worldwide popularity and post jobs and source candidates through its platform. With Facebook, you can easily find a top candidate among the passive talent, especially if you have a developed business page with a substantial following. Facebook has a vast number of monthly visits, but it’s impossible to say how many of those are work-related. Find more information in the table below:

LinkedIn vs. Dice

Unlike LinkedIn, Dice is a niche job board that caters primarily to the IT and tech sectors. Although it can’t compete with LinkedIn regarding userbase size, Dice offers a highly curated pool of experienced and qualified jobseekers for the particular position you’re trying to fill or for the industry you’re operating in.

Dice also has a resume database you can search to reach out to the perfect candidate, and it distributes your job post on social media. Note that you’ll need to shell out almost $500 to create a job ad.

Take a look at the table below to learn how LinkedIn and Dice compare:

Posting a Job on LinkedIn—Frequently Asked Questions

Check out the answers to some of the most frequently asked questions users have about job postings on LinkedIn.

Does LinkedIn Charge You To Post Job Openings?

No, you can post a job ad for free, but if you want to reach more relevant candidates and receive more worthwhile applications, you’ll need to promote the post. The pricing starts at $5 a day.

Do You Have To Pay To Be a Member To Post Jobs on LinkedIn?

No. You can create an account for free, and everyone is allowed to make a job post for free as well. The limitations are lowered visibility, duration of the post (30 days), and the number of free posts you can have at the same time (only one) is allowed.

How Many Free Job Posts Can You Have on LinkedIn?

You can have only one free job post open at the same time. If you want to have more than one, you’ll need to promote at least one of them.

How To Manage Your LinkedIn Job Posting

If you’re looking for further info and tutorials about managing your company’s job posting on LinkedIn, check out our other guides:

• How to post a job on a LinkedIn company page
• LinkedIn job posting examples
• How to remove a job posting from LinkedIn
• Best time to post jobs on LinkedIn
• How to write a job posting on LinkedIn
• How to share a job posting on LinkedIn

What Are Some Alternatives to LinkedIn?

While LinkedIn is perhaps the most popular job-sourcing website, it attracts a broad pool, and you may end up with thousands of applications from unqualified candidates. If you want to reach non-LinkedIn users or target a specific niche of applicants, check out the following job boards:

• Monster
• Mashable
• CareerBuilder
• Juju
• Careerjet
• Ladders
• Google for Jobs
• Craigslist
• ZipRecruiter
• Snagajob