Free job posting sites, and the limits each one sets
Free job posting sites let employers list an open role without paying, but each sets its own limits. In the US, Indeed allows up to 3 free jobs per calendar month and LinkedIn allows 1 free post at a time. Wellfound, Handshake, state job banks and your own careers page, read by Google, cost nothing to post on.
Free job posting sites for employers, at a glance
These 8 free job posting websites for employers were checked on each site's own help and pricing pages on 19 Sep 2026. Limits are stated for the US.
| Site | What you can post free | The limit, in the site's own terms | Suits |
|---|---|---|---|
| Indeed | Up to 3 free jobs per calendar month | Each free job shows for up to 30 days. Job sites, staffing agencies and some job types are excluded at Indeed's discretion. | High-volume general hiring |
| 1 free job post active at a time | Active up to 14 days, then paused. An applicant limit that typically ranges from 10 to 30, after which it is hidden from search. | Professional roles and your own network | |
| Your careers page, read by Google | As many jobs as you publish | Needs JobPosting structured data and a working way to apply. Google's documentation lists no fee for this. | Every employer |
| Wellfound | Unlimited listings and unlimited applicants | Wellfound says posting is free and direct applicants cost nothing, but a free listing must include compensation. | Startup and tech roles |
| Handshake | Free job posts on the Basic plan | Handshake states the Basic plan is available to all employers at no cost, with 10 messages per month and a simple company presence. | Students and recent graduates |
| State job banks | Posting at no charge in your state | CareerOneStop says employers post at no charge, but both sides must register and policies including wait times vary by state. | Local and hourly roles, US only |
| Hubstaff Talent | Free job posts | The site states no fees, no markups and no middlemen for employers. | Remote freelancers and agencies |
| PostJobFree | Free posting, distributed onward | The site says it distributes your jobs to popular job search sites. | Extra reach for general roles |
Free job posting portals change their terms often. Open each site's own help page before you rely on a limit here.
How this list was checked
Every limit above comes from that free job posting platform's own help or pricing page, read on 19 Sep 2026. Boards whose terms we could not confirm were left out, and no prices are quoted because they change.
What does free job posting actually mean?
Free job posting A listing a board publishes without charging the employer. It comes in 3 forms: a standing free tier with limits, a free trial of a paid product, and a free listing whose visibility you then pay to keep.
Indeed and LinkedIn run limited free tiers. ZipRecruiter's offer is a trial for new employers. On both Indeed and LinkedIn, free job postings slide down search results as newer jobs arrive, in each company's own words.
How to post a job for free on Indeed
You need an employer account and a role that meets Indeed's quality standards. The free offer excludes job sites, staffing agencies and certain other jobs at Indeed's discretion.
- Create an employer account Sign up on Indeed's employer side with a work email address and your company details. Accounts linked under the same parent company share one free job limit.
- Click Post a Job and fill in the basics Add the job title, the location and the description. Write the title the way a candidate would search for it, not the way your org chart writes it. "Warehouse Supervisor, Day Shift" rather than "Operations Associate II".
- Answer the settings and screening prompts Set pay, schedule and how you want applications delivered. Add screening questions only where a wrong answer would genuinely rule someone out.
- Review and confirm the post Check the description renders cleanly and the apply route works. Indeed says jobs that do not meet its requirements may receive limited or no visibility in search results.
- At the sponsor screen, continue without sponsoring This is where indeed post job free stops or becomes paid. Choose the free option: the post counts as 1 of your 3 free jobs this calendar month and shows for up to 30 days.
Indeed and LinkedIn free job posting limits, side by side
| What you get free | Indeed (US) | |
|---|---|---|
| How many free posts | Up to 3 per calendar month, shared across all accounts under the same parent company. The count resets on the 1st. | 1 free post active at a time, plus a limited number of free posts within any 30-day period. |
| How long it runs | Each free job shows for up to 30 days in search results. | Active up to 14 days, then paused. It closes automatically at 30 days if it is not promoted. |
| Applicant cap | None stated in Indeed's free job post policy. | An application limit that typically ranges from 10 to 30 depending on the role. |
| Visibility over time | A free posting falls back in job seeker search results as new jobs are posted. | Free job posts become less visible over time so newer posts can be seen. |
| What the free tier will not take | Job sites, all staffing agencies and certain other jobs at Indeed's discretion. | A repost with the same title and company as a previous one, within 7 days. That one must be promoted. |
| Posting through an ATS | Jobs posted through an applicant tracking system are not affected by the monthly limit. | Not covered in LinkedIn's free job post article. Check LinkedIn Help for your setup. |
| What paying changes | You can pay to sponsor a job when you hit the monthly limit or the time limit. | Promoted jobs run on a daily or total budget that you set. |
Sources: Indeed's free job post policy and LinkedIn Help, both read on 19 Sep 2026.
LinkedIn free job posting, step by step
Yes, you can post jobs for free on LinkedIn, 1 at a time. Free job advertising on LinkedIn works best for roles your own network already touches.
- Open the Jobs icon and start a post From your LinkedIn home, choose the Jobs icon and select the option to post a job. LinkedIn will offer a free post and a promoted post.
- Enter the job title, company and location Use the title candidates would search for rather than an internal grade, and confirm the company page the job will sit under.
- Write or edit the description You can draft it yourself or edit a generated draft. Put the work itself in the opening lines, ahead of the boilerplate about the company.
- Set the job settings Add screening questions and choose how applications reach you. Qualification questions are worth setting here because the applicant limit is low.
- Choose free rather than promoted The free post stays visible in search and among your connections. It runs up to 14 days, then pauses, and reposting the same title and company within 7 days is not free.
Free job advertising you own: your careers page and Google
There is no form to post a job on Google itself. Google reads jobs from pages that carry JobPosting structured data, and from job sites and ATS providers that already integrate with the job search experience. Google's own documentation lists no fee for either route, so a careers page you already run can become a free job advertising channel with markup alone.
A job on your own site has no applicant cap, does not pause after 14 days and costs nothing to keep up. Most ATS careers pages add the markup for you, so check what yours already emits before anyone builds anything. Among free job advert sites, this is the one you control, and the only route that needs no board account.
What Google needs from a job page
From Google's JobPosting structured data documentation. The first 5 are required properties; the rest are content policy.
- A title field that holds the job title alone, with no location or codes
- The full description, in HTML, matching what is on the page
- datePosted, as the date the job went live
- hiringOrganization, naming the employer rather than an agency brand
- jobLocation, or the remote markup when the role is remote
- A working way to apply on the page itself
- Never require payment from applicants, which Google does not allow
- Remove the page or set validThrough in the past when the job closes
- Ask your developer about Google's Indexing API for faster updates
Where to post jobs for free, by the role you are filling
Where to post jobs online for free depends on who you need, not on which list ranks highest. Match the hiring situation, then confirm the limit before you write the post.
One or two open roles a month, broad applicant pool, no recruiting budget this quarter.
Indeed plus LinkedIn covers most of the searching audience, and both have a standing free tier rather than a trial.
Indeed allows 3 free jobs per calendar month; LinkedIn allows 1 free post at a time.
An early engineering or go-to-market hire at a company most candidates have not heard of yet.
Wellfound carries unlimited listings and unlimited direct applicants at no charge, with an audience that expects startup roles.
A free Wellfound listing must include compensation, in salary or equity.
A summer internship or a first-job opening you want in front of students at specific schools.
Handshake is an early-career network, and its Basic plan is available to all employers at no cost with free job posts.
Basic includes 10 messages per month, so save direct messages for shortlisted students.
Shift work, trades or service roles where candidates live within a few miles of the site.
State job banks take employer posts at no charge and are indexed locally. CareerOneStop lists every state's bank in one place.
Among free job posting portals in the USA these are the local ones. Registration is required and wait times vary by state.
Entry-level, trade or service work where word of mouth in a local area does real work.
Meta announced Facebook Local Jobs in October 2025 for US entry-level, trade and service roles, posted from Marketplace, a Page or Business Suite.
Meta's announcement lists no fee. Confirm current terms in Meta's Business Help Centre.
Contract or project work you want done remotely, without an agency layer in the middle.
Hubstaff Talent takes free job posts from employers and states it charges no fees, markups or middlemen.
It is a remote and freelance audience, so expect contractors rather than employees.
You are a recruitment agency posting roles on behalf of clients, not hiring for yourself.
Indeed's free offer does not apply to staffing agencies, so the free routes left are LinkedIn's single post, your own site with structured data, and sourcing directly.
Read Indeed's footnote before you plan around a free agency post.
Sites often listed as free that are trials or paid
Most rankings of the best free job boards include at least one of these. Here is what each site says about itself, with nothing added.
| Site or offer | What it actually is | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| ZipRecruiter | A free trial for new employers. After the trial, the selected plan continues unless you cancel from the dashboard. | Diarise the trial end date the day you start it. |
| Glassdoor | Its post-a-job page sends employers to Indeed, and it says jobs you pay to post on Indeed also appear on Glassdoor. | Treat it as Indeed reach. Claim and fill in your employer profile separately. |
| SimplyHired | Posting is handled through Indeed, so it is the Indeed free post under Indeed's limits rather than a second free channel. | Count it inside your 3 free Indeed jobs, not on top of them. |
| Craigslist | Job categories in the US and parts of California carry a posting fee that varies by area. | Check the fee for your area on Craigslist's own posting fees page. |
| "Post to 100+ boards free" offers | Usually a time-limited trial of paid ATS software. The destination boards still apply their own free posting limits. | Read what happens on day 16 before you migrate a pipeline into it. |
Each claim above was read on that company's own site on 19 Sep 2026.
How to make a free job post work
Do
- Use the plain job title candidates actually search for, not an internal grade
- State pay and location in the post, since both drive whether people apply
- Post early in the month on Indeed, so a reset is never far away
- Share the link yourself the week it goes live, because free posts fade
- Close the job the day it is filled, and set validThrough on your own page
Do not
- Posting the same job across several locations on Indeed and expecting it to stay free
- Reposting the same title and company on LinkedIn within 7 days
- Using a confidential or generic company name, which Indeed may require sponsorship for
- Wording that prefers an age group, sex or other protected class, which the EEOC says is illegal
What a free job post actually costs you
The posting fee says zero. The cost moves into recruiter time, slower replies and applicants scattered across dashboards. Here is where it hides, and the number that exposes it.
| What looks free | Where the cost moves | What it looks like that week | What to track |
|---|---|---|---|
| No posting fee | Manual posting time | Copying the same role into several forms and fixing the formatting each time | Minutes spent posting per role |
| Free applicant flow | Uneven fit | Plenty of resumes, few people who meet the must-haves | Qualified applicants by source |
| No paid campaign | Slow replies | Candidates wait while applications sit in 4 different inboxes and dashboards | Hours from application to first reply |
| No extra tool | Duplicates | The same person applies through 2 boards with slightly different emails | Duplicate rate by source |
| Free reposting | Expiry admin | Someone has to remember when each post pauses or closes, and repost it | Live posts and their end dates |
A free post with no owner tends to cost more in recruiter hours than it saves in fees.
How to post jobs for free without losing applicants
A small, managed set of free channels beats posting everywhere on day 1. The work is mostly deciding where applications land and who answers them.
- Pick 3 to 5 channels, not 11 One general board, one niche or community source, your own careers page, and a student or state board if the role fits. Add more only if a week passes with no qualified applicants.
- Name one owner One person knows which posts are live, when each one pauses or expires, and who needs a reply today.
- Send every applicant to one queue Your ATS if you have one, or a shared sheet with name, contact, source, date applied, status and next action. No applicant should live only inside a board's dashboard.
- Tag the source on day 1 Tagging 80 applicants after the fact is detective work. The useful number is qualified applicants per source, not applicant count.
- Set a reply deadline before you post Aim to answer within 24 to 48 hours. If you cannot, you posted wider than your team can manage, so cut a channel.
- Review after 7 days For each source, ask 2 things: did it send qualified people, and did you reply fast enough to judge it fairly? If both answers are no, stop reposting there.
A free job post template you can paste into any board
Keep it short, because boards truncate. Our free website tools /generate-job-post and /generate-jd will draft the first version for you.
TITLE: [plain job title] [, shift or level if it matters] ONE-LINE PITCH [What the person will own, and for whom, in 1 sentence.] WHAT YOU WILL DO - [Task that fills most of the week] - [Task that fills the rest] - [Who they work with day to day] - [What success looks like by month 3] MUST-HAVES (be honest, 3 only) - [Skill or licence the job cannot run without] - [Experience level you will genuinely hold out for] - [Practical requirement: shift, travel, right to work] NICE-TO-HAVES - [Skill you would train] - [Background that would help] PAY AND SCHEDULE [Range and basis] / [hours, shift pattern, start date] LOCATION [City and state, or remote and the time zones you accept] HOW TO APPLY [Where to click or what to send]. You will hear back by [day], and the next step is [screen, interview].
When free job boards are not enough
A free post reaches the people who search that board in the weeks it is live, and no one else. Both Indeed and LinkedIn say in their own words that a free listing loses visibility as newer jobs arrive. For common roles with a deep local market, free job boards for employers still fill the seat, and there is no reason to pay.
Scarce skills work differently. The person you want is usually employed, not searching, and will never see the post whatever you spend on it. That leaves 2 honest options: pay to sponsor or promote the listing so it stays in front of the people who are searching, or go and find the people who are not.
4 signs you have reached that point: qualified applicants wait more than 48 hours for a reply, nobody can name the source that sends the best people, the hiring manager no longer trusts the batch, or the role needs someone who is not looking. Fix the post, the screening questions and the queue first. If the right people still do not appear, posting more will not help.
Find the people who never saw your post
A 1-line brief becomes a ranked search, with filters about the person and about their employer.
The Cognitive does not post jobs. It works the other side of the problem: describe the hire in 1 line and it searches ~900M profiles, judging every person against your must-haves, so anyone who misses one drops below the people who meet them.
Free job posting, in 5 points
- Indeed: up to 3 free jobs per calendar month in the US, each showing up to 30 days
- LinkedIn: 1 free post at a time, active 14 days, applicant limit typically 10 to 30
- Your careers page plus JobPosting structured data is the free channel you control
- A free trial of paid software is not a free job board, whatever the headline says
- The best free job posting sites in 2026 are the ones whose limits you checked yourself, not the ones ranked highest
Related hiring resources
Free job posting generator · Job description generator · Job description templates · Indeed alternatives · What candidate sourcing is · Boolean search generator
Frequently asked questions
How can I post a job for free?
Pick a board with a standing free tier, such as Indeed, LinkedIn, Wellfound, Handshake or your state job bank. Create an employer account, publish the role, and decline the paid promotion step at the end. Then publish the same job on your own careers page with JobPosting structured data so Google can read it. That last route has no limit and no expiry.
How do I post a job for free on Indeed?
Create an employer account, click Post a Job, add the title, location and description, answer the settings prompts, confirm, then continue without sponsoring at the final screen. In the US, Indeed allows up to 3 free jobs per calendar month and each shows for up to 30 days. The free offer excludes job sites, staffing agencies and certain other jobs. Check Indeed's free job post policy before you plan around it.
Can you post jobs for free on LinkedIn?
Yes, 1 free job post at a time, plus a limited number within any 30-day period. It stays active for up to 14 days, then pauses, and closes at 30 days if you do not promote it. Free posts also carry an application limit that typically ranges from 10 to 30. A post with the same title and company as a previous one is not free again within 7 days.
How do I post a job for free online without a job board?
Publish the job on your own site and add JobPosting structured data, including datePosted, description, hiringOrganization, jobLocation and title, plus a working way to apply. Google reads jobs from pages that carry that markup, and its documentation lists no fee. Then share the link from your own social profiles. Where to post jobs for free online with no board account starts and ends here.
Where can I post jobs for free in the USA?
Indeed and LinkedIn within their free limits, Wellfound for startup roles, Handshake for students on its Basic plan, and your state job bank. CareerOneStop lists every state's bank and says employers can post at no charge, though both sides must register and wait times vary by state. Free job posting websites in the USA change their terms often, so confirm on each site before you plan around one.
Are there free job posting sites without registration?
Not among the boards we checked. Indeed, LinkedIn, Wellfound and Handshake all require an employer account, and state job banks require employers to register too. The only route with no board account is your own careers page with structured data, plus sharing the link from profiles you already hold. Anything advertising posting with no signup at all is worth reading closely before you use it.
Is ZipRecruiter free for employers?
ZipRecruiter offers new employers a free trial, and its own page says that after the trial your selected plan continues unless you cancel from the dashboard. So it is a trial of a paid product rather than a free job board. The same pattern applies to ATS offers that promise posting to 100 plus boards free. Check the current terms and pricing on the vendor's own page.
Is posting a job for free really free?
The listing is free, but the work around it is not. Someone has to post the role on each board, track when each post pauses or expires, merge duplicate applicants and reply before good candidates move on. Keep it cheap by using 3 to 5 channels, sending every applicant to one queue, tagging the source on day 1 and replying within 24 to 48 hours.
Are free job boards enough to fill a role?
For common roles with a deep local market, often yes. When a post stays quiet, the choice is paying to sponsor it or going to find people directly. The Cognitive takes the second route: a 1-line brief becomes a ranked search, and from Sourcing Pro up email and SMS sequences go out from platform mailboxes and stop when a candidate replies. Signup is self-serve with a free trial, so you can start free and test one role.
Explore: Indeed alternatives · Free job posting generator · What candidate sourcing is · Hiring software for small business · AI sourcing tool · Best job posting sites for employers · What a LinkedIn job post costs · ZipRecruiter pricing · Free recruitment software