Where the cost actually comes from on most job boards
"Cheap" and "free" on a job board usually hide a second number. Indeed's Sponsored Jobs run on a cost-per-click auction with a $25-per-day minimum spend enforced since mid-2025 — a listing can look inexpensive on day one and run into the hundreds of dollars by the time it's filled. LinkedIn's free tier is genuinely free, but limited to one listing at a time with no promotion; a promoted post or a Job Slot runs $7 a day and up. The pattern across most of these platforms is the same: the entry price is low, and the real cost shows up once you want visibility.
A flat per-post price sidesteps that entirely. You know the number before you post, and it doesn't change based on how competitive your role turns out to be.
Do the math for your actual hiring volume
A subscription is only cheap if you use it enough. Workable at roughly $169 a month works out to about $2,000 a year whether you fill one role or fifteen. If you make three hires a year, that's over $600 per hire in software before you've interviewed anyone. At $9 a post, three hires a year costs $27 total — and a quiet year where you hire nobody costs nothing, instead of twelve months of a bill you can't pause.
What "cheap" should not mean
The risk with the cheapest option is that it's cheap because it does less. A form with no resume field, a listing platform with no way to track who you've already screened, or a free tier that caps you at ten submissions a month all save you money in a way that costs you time later. ApplyHere's $9 covers the full application flow and dashboard — the price is low because the workflow is narrow by design, not because features are gated behind a higher tier.
