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Indeed is a job board with massive reach, as it garners over 250 million monthly unique site views. But you’ll have to pay to make your listing stand out from the thousands of other job posts, and its pay-per-click billing model lacks transparency.
Indeed allows you to create, post and edit your job posting. You can either redirect each candidate to your website, or applicants can apply directly through Indeed.
Here’s a snapshot of its unique features:
It’s free to post a job on Indeed. Your job posting will show up in general search results, and you can manage applicants from your account and accept mobile applications.
However, paying to sponsor your job posting will boost visibility, landing it higher in search results. Basically, more candidates will see your job posting more often if you decide to pay.
Indeed promotes sponsored job posts to potential candidates through desktop and mobile alerts, and in email blasts. Sponsored jobs are 3.5 times more likely to result in a hire, according to data from Indeed. You can set a budget as low as $5, though Indeed will give you a recommended daily budget based on your job title.
Indeed’s pricing model for sponsored posts is complicated. You set a budget and it charges you each time someone clicks on your post. Once you reach your budget, Indeed stops sponsoring your post, which means it will fall further back in search results over time, so fewer people will see it.
Indeed is a job aggregator. So when a candidate uses it to look for a job, it searches thousands of other sources around the web, including recruiter listings and company career sites — in addition to its own listings — to gather results according to the keywords in each query. This means if you don’t pay to sponsor your posting, there’s a good chance it’ll get lost in the crowd.
Most clicks on Indeed cost between $0.25 to $1.50, according to a third-party recruiter. However, Indeed doesn’t provide a straightforward answer to this question.
Instead, it states that “the cost of individual clicks is managed by a tool called Bid Optimizer,” which “responds to fluctuating jobseeker traffic throughout the day to increase the amount you pay for clicks when interest from candidates is at its highest.”
Simply put, you won’t know how much it charges you for each click upfront.
If you’re in charge of hiring for a company with its own career page or applicant tracking system (ATS), you can work with Indeed to create a custom hiring campaign that sponsors jobs directly from your website.
Indeed also has two subscriptions available, which partner you with a recruiter in charge of sending candidates your way. Here’s what you have to choose from:
| Standard | Professional | |
|---|---|---|
| Cost | $100 monthly | $250 monthly |
| Candidates | 30 monthly | 100 monthly |
| Includes |
| All features of Standard, and:
|
Indeed doesn’t require a long-term contract or monthly subscription, which means you can get started with little financial risk and can cancel anytime without paying a fee. That said, customer service isn’t available during the weekends, which may be frustrating for small business owners juggling a busy weekday schedule.
No — Indeed only posts to other job boards if you pay to sponsor your posting.
Indeed doesn’t say which job boards it posts to — but its partner sites across the web include Bloomberg, USNews and AARP. It also partners with Dotdash, which owns The Balance, Investopedia, ThoughtCo and more.
See how Indeed stacks up against the competition:
| Base price | Free trial | Resume search | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Indeed | Unlimited free postings | No |
| |
| Monster | $249 for 1 job posting | Yes — 7 days |
| |
| ZipRecruiter | $249 for 1 job posting | Yes — 4 days |
| |
| Complicated pay-per-click model | No |
|
Indeed has an A+ rating with the Better Business Bureau (BBB), where it has been accredited since 2017. However, over 50 reviews average out to just 1 out of 5 stars. Over a dozen reviewers report billing mistakes, where Indeed charged them much more than they expected. People also report issues with upselling, scammers and difficulty reaching a representative to resolve their issues.
On Trustpilot, Indeed fares a bit better, with a 3.3 out of 5 star Average rating compiled from more than 2,540 reviews. Some employers report frustration dealing with a slow verification process, where it took three days or even a month to verify their account. Others report that their account was disabled, though they aren’t sure why.
Still, Indeed has replied to most complaints on both the BBB and Trustpilot, urging users to contact the customer support team to resolve issues.
To post a job on Indeed, start by creating an account:
Next, Indeed walks you through the steps for posting your first job. You’ll need to provide information like:
After you create a job posting, the final step requires you to verify your identity. You can do this using:
Once your identity has been verified, Indeed will review your job post. This typically takes between three to five hours, and you’re notified when it goes live.
Indeed is an employment website based in Austin, Texas and Stamford, Connecticut. It was founded in 2004 and is available in 60 countries and 28 languages. Employers can post jobs for free or on a pay-per-click basis.
Indeed’s customer service team is available weekdays from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. ET. To contact Indeed as a business owner, head to the help center. From there you can get in touch via:
You can also reach out via Twitter, by tweeting or sending a DM to @IndeedSupport.
It’s relatively low risk to post a free job with Indeed, since the only investment is your time and energy — though paying to sponsor your post will likely result in receiving higher quality applications more quickly.
For more strategies to help grow and manage your business in the digital age, browse our collection of resources for entrepreneurs.
