Lisa Gonzalez
August 27, 2026
Posting a job on LinkedIn costs nothing if you only need one listing at a time. The moment you want more reach, or more than one open role, you're into promoted posts which run on a pay-per-click auction with a $7–$10 minimum daily budget and clicks that land between $1.50 and $4.50 depending on the role and the market.
That's the short version. The longer version matters, because the sticker price on a promoted post is rarely what you end up spending per hire. Below is what each option costs, how LinkedIn decides your rate, and where the money quietly leaks.
For scale: LinkedIn now has 1.3 billion members and 71 million companies across more than 200 countries, and its members submit roughly 10,000 job applications every minute. That's the audience you're bidding for.
One thing worth sorting out before you spend anything: where candidates land after they click. Jobspage gives you a free careers page and a free applicant tracking system, so the traffic you pay LinkedIn for doesn't dead-end in an inbox.
Two averages worth holding onto: $2.83 per applicant in the US, and roughly 57 applicants per hire — which puts LinkedIn ad spend around $161 per hire before anyone on your team has spent a minute reviewing a résumé.
LinkedIn job posting lets recruiters and employers advertise open roles on the world's largest professional network. Because LinkedIn profiles are built around professional and academic history, the platform is strong for talent sourcing, especially white-collar, technical, and leadership roles.
It's weaker for hourly and trade positions, where Indeed's sheer volume usually wins on cost per applicant.
With Jobspage you can build a flexible, customizable careers page and professional job listings in less than 5 minutes, and all for free.
It also works as a complete Applicant Tracking System (ATS), so you start building a talent pool instead of losing candidates between tools.
Three practical reasons:
You can post one job for free. It shows up in search results and reaches your connections, but it won't sit at the top of results, and you're capped at a single active free listing. Free posts also pause after a limited run, and they don't include the screening features LinkedIn has moved behind the paywall — presorted applicants, AI candidate summaries, and daily candidate recommendations.
For a single role with a decent existing network, free is a genuine starting point. For anything beyond one opening, it stops being viable fast.
If you want better reach and higher placement in search results, you promote the post. There are two ways to cap what you spend:
According to LinkedIn, promoted posts reach 3x more qualified applicants than free listings. They also come with additional alerts and notifications, and they feature in the Job Recommendations of job seekers.
A worked example: $10/day for 30 days caps you at $300 for one role. Five roles on the same setting is $1,500. That's a planning figure rather than a rate card. What you actually get depends on the auction.
If you're hiring continuously, Job Slots keep a position posted without per-click charges, and you rotate a slot between roles as they close and open. LinkedIn doesn't publish the price; buyer-reported figures put slots at $200–$1,000 per slot per month on 12-month contracts, with most mid-market buyers landing in the $200–$450 range. They're typically sold alongside Recruiter Corporate seats.
Slots start beating promoted posts once you have roughly five or more roles open at any given time.
Promoted job posts are displayed to viable candidates in a number of different ways.
1. Instant mobile notifications sent to candidates who are a good match.
2. Top of search results - for any good matches and anyone searching for your job post on LinkedIn.
3. Emails - relevant candidates receive emails that recommend job posts to apply to.
4. LinkedIn feed - your job post is visible to relevant candidates as a recommended job when they scroll.
5. Jobs tab - relevant candidates see your job post in the “Recommended for you” section.
There are two options for using promoted job posts on LinkedIn: the Self-Serve option or the Contract option.
With the self-serve option, you take day-to-day control of your job postings, your job adverts are charged on a cost-per-click (CPC) basis, and you can monitor your daily accrued charges in your account.
The cost is determined algorithmically, based on variables such as where your job is located and how many competing, similarly titled posts have been created in that market.
The cost of each click (clicks and views are one and the same) is determined by dividing the total spend amount by the number of views the job has received.
If you do not want to advertise using the self-serve model, you can opt for a 6–12 month contract with the option to accrue charges per qualified click.
Whether or not a click is qualified is based on the targeting criteria set by you, which you have the option to amend throughout the duration of your contract.
As mentioned earlier, LinkedIn treats clicks and views as one and the same for promoted job posts, which can sometimes create discrepancies between the number of clicks and the final charges. However, LinkedIn ensures fair billing by excluding:
Role and seniority. Engineering, sales, and senior roles sit at the top of the $1.50–$4.50 range. Entry-level and operations roles sit at the bottom.
Location. This is the biggest lever most employers overlook. US roles average around $2.71 per applicant. The same engineering role targeted at candidates in India averages about $0.07. The UK runs near $1.52, Germany around $1.45, and Brazil about $0.83.
Competition. More employers posting the same title in the same market means a higher rate. There is no fixed price to look up.
Everything that isn't ad spend. At roughly $161 in LinkedIn spend per hire, the ad bill is the small line item. Screening time, interviews, and coordination push real cost per hire past $1,200 for most teams. If you want to model your own numbers, we built a free cost per hire calculator.
There's no single winner. Most teams that hire across role types run more than one channel and let the role decide where the budget goes. If you're weighing up the wider tool stack, we've compared the best recruiting solutions and the best ATS options for small businesses.
One job post is free, limited to a single active listing with limited visibility. Promoted posts start at a $7–$10 minimum daily budget on a pay-per-click model, with clicks running $1.50–$4.50. Job Slots run $200–$1,000 per slot per month on annual contracts.
Yes, for one listing at a time. What you give up is top placement in search results, the ability to run several free posts at once, and LinkedIn's paid screening features.
One active free listing at a time. To run a second role simultaneously, you need to promote one of them.
About $2.83 in the US, within a $1–$8 range. At roughly 57 applicants per hire, LinkedIn ad spend works out near $161 per hire.
LinkedIn reports that promoted posts reach 3x more qualified applicants than free listings. For a role you've struggled to fill, or when you have several openings at once, that's usually worth the spend. For one easy-to-fill role with a strong network, start free.
Promoted posts are pay-per-click with variable pricing. Job Slots are a flat monthly fee per slot on a 12-month contract, keeping roles posted continuously with no per-click charge. Slots tend to win above about five concurrently open roles.
Auction pricing. Competitive titles, senior roles, and expensive metros all push your cost per click toward the top of the range, and LinkedIn counts clicks as views.
No. Your own views, repeat views from one user, views from LinkedIn employees, and clicks from signed-out users are all excluded from billing.
Free LinkedIn posts work for one role at a time. Promoted posts buy real reach, 3x the qualified applicants, by LinkedIn's own numbers. At $7–$10/day minimum and $1.50–$4.50 per click, priced by an auction you don't control. Job Slots make sense once you're hiring continuously. Whichever route you take, the ad spend is a fraction of your true cost per hire.
The cheapest improvement usually isn't a bigger LinkedIn budget. It's making sure every candidate who clicks ends up somewhere you own. Jobspage gives you a professional careers page and applicant tracking system in minutes, free.
Start building your Jobspage and keep the candidates you're already paying for.
