LinkedIn Job Posting Cost Overview in 2024 [+10 Examples]

In the USA, there are 5.6+ millions online job offers in the LinkedIn Jobs section.

How to stand out from the crowd?

In this article, we will see what a sponsored LinkedIn job offer is, and how much it costs.

What is a LinkedIn Job Post?

A LinkedIn Job Post is a job offer posted directly on the LinkedIn job offer platform, LinkedIn Jobs.

It includes, like any job board, the following usual elements:

1. Company Name
2. Job
3. Contract option
4. Salary
5. Industry
6. Company size
7. Job Description

In addition, unlike other competing platforms, we will also find attendance information: number of applicants, level of diploma of the candidates, etc.

Useful to know the level of competition on a given post.

Which sometimes creates understandable anxiety.

But please, no self-censorship.

How to post a Linkedin Job?

To post a LinkedIn Job, start by creating a company page. You will be recruiting an employee under your company's name.

Then do the following:

1. Go to the LinkedIn company page.
2. Click on the "+ Create" button in the top right corner.
3. Click on "Post a free job".

Here, fill in the main elements of your job offer:

1. Job title
2. Workplace type — remote, on-site, hybrid
3. Job location
4. Job type — full time, part time…

You will then need to fill out the body content of your job offer.

Want to save time? Click "Write with AI"!

Your complete ad is written in 1 minute, with the body of the description, and the required skills.

Superb time saving, and quality of content is there.

Magic.

Complete the last steps, add screening questions, specify your payment method, and voilà, your job offer is propelled around the world.

Is it possible to publish a LinkedIn Job for free?

Yes, but it is limited.

You can publish for free 1 job offer on LinkedIn at a time.

Do you have several job offers to fill?

You will need to publish them one after the other, ensuring that the first job is filled so that the second advert is published.

If you try anyway, LinkedIn will invite you to promote your job.

So, is it really worth it?

Free vs. Paid LinkedIn Job Post

When you post a job offer on LinkedIn, you will broadcast this job offer on the professional network.

Sponsoring job offers makes it possible to:

1. Post as many job offers as possible vs. 1 free job offer
2. Receive as many applications as possible vs. 50 applications with the free offer

You can use LinkedIn's applicant tracking system for any type of job posting, whether free or sponsored.

The candidate filtering system is useful.

The main difference between a free LinkedIn job posting and a sponsored LinkedIn job posting is that the sponsored job posting is promoted through more channels:

1. Instant mobile notifications
2. Top of Search Results
3. Emails
4. LinkedIn Feed
5. Jobs Tab

Instant mobile notifications

Promoted LinkedIn Job Listings are pushed directly to job seekers, via targeted push notifications.

Only relevant candidates are affected.

Top of Search Results

Paid LinkedIn Job Ads are the first search results displayed, when the job matches the search.

Each job is made more apparent with a "Promoted" flag.

Emails

LinkedIn members whose profile matches the offer receive the proposal directly by email.

In the box.

LinkedIn Feed

As soon as a potential candidate connects to LinkedIn, they will see a list of recommended jobs appear in their feed.

Impossible to miss.

Jobs Tab

In the Job Search section of LinkedIn, paid job posts appear in the "Recommended for you" section.

The job recommendations are only shown to relevant candidates.

What are the advantages of a Paid LinkedIn Job Post?

Paid LinkedIn Job Posts are distributed through additional channels, including mobile notifications, emails, and the LinkedIn feed, compared to free job postings.

According to LinkedIn, the Paid LinkedIn Job Post allows reach 3x more qualified candidates.

So, sales argument or reality?

For this we did publish two new job posts, with exactly the same title and the same conditions:

1. Python Developer
2. Full Remote
3. United States
4. AI-generated description

One free, one promoted job post. For what result?

The sponsored post attracted 30x more candidates than the free post.

In 22 hours, here are the results obtained, with a budget of €38 per day:

1. Free: 53 candidates for 155 views
2. Sponsored: 1751 candidates for 3136 views

Impressive.

But, how much does a paid LinkedIn Job Post cost?

LinkedIn Job Posting Cost

Your first sponsored job offer is free.

LinkedIn offers you a free trial:

1. Free
2. For 3 days
3. $40 per day

Nice.

After that?

Price of a Paid LinkedIn Job Post by type of profession in the United States

In the United States, it will cost you on average $2.83 per candidate, with a price ranging from $1.46 to $4.45.

How were these figures obtained?

We took the list of the 10 most in-demand professions on LinkedIn in 2020:

1. Software Engineer
2. Customer Service Representative
3. Financial Analyst
4. Mechanical Engineer
5. Accountant
6. Nurse
7. Project Manager
8. Salesperson
9. Restaurant Specialist
10. Truck Driver

And we went to find the price per candidate suggested by the LinkedIn Jobs suggestion tool, for a position in the United States, full-time.

And here are the results.

The lowest cost per candidate is for nurses, with $1.45 per applicant, while the highest cost goes to truck drivers with $4.45 per applicant.

What if we change countries?

Price of a Paid LinkedIn Job Post by country for a Remote Software Engineer

We recovered in the same way the price per candidate suggested by the LinkedIn Job Post price tool, for a software engineer remote, in the following 10 countries:

1. United States
2. Canada
3. Germany
4. Japan
5. South Korea
6. France
7. United Kingdom
8. Inside
9. Brazil
10. Italy

The result:

It will cost you an average of $1.33 per candidate for a remote software engineer job.

But disparities are strong between countries: from $0.07 per candidate in India, to $2.71 per candidate in the United States.

A difference of 1 to 40.

If you are looking for a developer for the MVP of your SaaS, it may therefore be interesting to post a sponsored full remote offer in India.

This is also what is recommended Rohan Sawant, in this X/Twitter post:

But how can we explain such price disparities between job types and between countries?

How to explain the price differences of a LinkedIn Job Posting?

Price differences of a LinkedIn Job Posting by job title

Unfortunately, LinkedIn does not provide public information on this subject: the origin of the cost per suggested candidate is neither given on the dedicated page, nor elsewhere.

However, we found a simple main reason: the law of supply and demand.

1. Many offers and few candidates: high price per candidate
2. Few offers and many candidates: low price per candidate

In other words, the fewer candidates there are and the more your candidates are in demand, the more expensive it will be to promote your job offer.

Market rules.

But how to prove it?

We went to retrieve 2 pieces of information from LinkedIn:

1. Number of potential candidates
2. Number of job openings

On the first page of LinkedIn Job Posting, we recovered the number of candidates.

And at the level of the LinkedIn Jobs search engine, we retrieved the number of available job offers.

We then compared the relationship between:

1. Offers available
2. Number of potential candidates
3. Cost per candidate

And the result is convincing.

Supply and demand dictate the price of a job post on LinkedIn.

This is also what an article from Forbes, published here, without any source mentioned:

However, with $0.07 per candidate for a software engineer in India and an offer-to-candidate ratio close to 0.1, the market law hypothesis does not hold.

How to explain the difference in cost per candidate depending on the country?

Price differences for LinkedIn Job Posting by country

Recruiting a software engineer on LinkedIn in the United States costs 40x more than in India.

How can we explain such a disparity, which the market does not reflect?

What is at stake here is salary by country.

We compared the GDP per capita and the cost per candidate on LinkedIn, and the result is convincing.

The higher the salary in a country, the more expensive it is to find a candidate.

If you have a limited budget, it may therefore be interesting, especially for remote-friendly positions, to look for a candidate in a country with a lower cost of living.

How much does it cost to hire on LinkedIn?

The price of a candidate is $2.83 on average in the United States.

Moreover, according to CareerPlug, in 2022, it is necessary to count on average 57 applicants to get 1 hire, with figures that vary depending on the industry.

The price of hiring on LinkedIn is therefore on average $161.

This assumes the recruitment was done using sponsored LinkedIn job postings. This cost must be adjusted depending on the country, industry, and job.

How does billing for a LinkedIn Paid Job Post work?

You assign a daily budget to each of your job offers.

Then you are billed at three possible times:

1. 30 days after the date of first publication of the job offer
2. $500 they budget was consumed
3. 48 hours after closing des Job Posts

The higher the budget, the more the job will be distributed in spaces dedicated to sponsored posts: mobile notifications, emails, recommendations on the site.

The budget is consumed on a sponsored pay-per-view basis.

This means you pay each time the post is viewed in a sponsored space: mobile notifications, emails, or the LinkedIn feed. You pay for a sponsored number of views.

Views through the search engine, where both paid and free posts appear, do not incur a fee.

Finally, you can decide that your budget is consumed in 2 different ways:

1. Daily budget
2. Total budget

For example, if you go with a daily budget of $10, for 30 days, your total cost will be $300 or less, depending on reach.

On the contrary, if you start with a total budget of $300, the sponsored job will be broadcast on the sponsored spaces, until the budget is used up.

LinkedIn never charges you more than the total budget submitted.

How to Contact Hundreds of Potential Candidates Without Paying a LinkedIn Job Post?

As we have seen, the paid LinkedIn Job Post allows you to quickly reach thousands of candidates.

However, the price — $2.83 per candidate on average in the United States — can be prohibitive.

How to reach right candidates while spending less money?

You can for this send emails directly to the professional email of targeted candidates.

First, from LinkedIn Sales Navigator, retrieve professional emails from your candidate pool.

Go to Sales Navigator, filter the candidates of your choice, and retrieve the URL from your browser.

Then go to lobstr.io, and launch our powerful Sales Navigator Leads Scraper.

You will recover:

1. 100 profiles per minute
2. 45+ attribute par lead
3. Valid business email included

The $50 per month plan includes 3000 valid business emails.

Finally, with lemlist, directly send programmatic email sequences to your potential recruits.

The $30 per month plan includes unlimited email sending from one mailbox.

With $80, therefore send up to 3000 emails per month, i.e. $0.02 per email sent.

An ultra competitive price, on an underused channel.

Stand out from your competitors.

FAQ

Does it cost money to post a job on LinkedIn?

No, the first job post is free. However, starting from the second post, you need to pay to advertise your job.

How much does it cost to sponsor a job posting on LinkedIn?

In the USA, $2.83 per applicant on average. Costs vary by country, industry, and job type.

What is the cost per hire on LinkedIn?

In the USA, $161 per hire on average. The cost depends on the country, industry, and job type.

Is there a limit to free job posting on LinkedIn?

Yes, you can only post 1 free job.

What happens when I post a job on LinkedIn?

The job appears in the LinkedIn Jobs section. If sponsored, it's also promoted in mobile notifications, emails, and the LinkedIn feed.