How much does it cost to post a job on LinkedIn in 2026?

A LinkedIn job costs nothing if it's your only open role and the free version is enough. Once you promote it, you pay per click against a budget you choose.

• LinkedIn's own example: a $10 daily budget running for 30 days comes to $300 or less.

What you actually spend depends on where the job is, how many similar jobs are competing for the same people, and whether you set a daily or total budget. This guide covers each piece, including when the charge reaches your card.

If you'd rather keep LinkedIn without leaning on it, AvaHR connects to LinkedIn on every plan and sends the same job to 100+ job boards beyond it. Applicants from every source land in one list, screened by questions you set once.

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LinkedIn job posting costs at a glance

Based on LinkedIn's pricing and help pages as of October 2026.

What a free LinkedIn job gets you, and where it stops

The free version isn't a stripped-down demo. Your job shows up in LinkedIn search and to people in your network, LinkedIn can draft the description for you, and you get one screening question to filter applicants.

The limits are what shape your plans:

• One at a time. A second free job can't go live while the first is still open.
• 14 active days. After that, the job pauses.
• An applicant allowance. Once a free job collects its share of applications, typically 10 to 30 depending on the role, it can stop showing in search before the 14 days are up.
• A 30-day ceiling. LinkedIn also limits how many free jobs you can open within any 30-day period.
• One screening question. Adding a second means promoting the job.

Why can't I post a job for free on LinkedIn? You've most likely hit one of these limits: a free job is already open, you've opened as many free jobs as LinkedIn allows in the past 30 days, or the job used up its free applicant allowance. Depending on which one, you can close the open job, wait, or promote.

How promoted job pricing works

Promoting a job switches on pay-per-click pricing. Each time a signed-in candidate opens your job, that's a click, and LinkedIn counts clicks and views as the same thing.

What sets the price. There's no flat rate. An algorithm sets the cost of each click based on where the job is located and how many similarly titled jobs are competing in that market. The same title can cost different amounts in two different cities.

What you're not charged for. Views of your own job, repeat views from the same person, views from people who aren't signed in, and views from LinkedIn employees.

Daily or total budget. With a daily budget, LinkedIn's example is $10 a day for 30 days, which costs $300 or less depending on reach. With a total budget, you set one number, say $300, and promotion pauses on its own once it's spent. LinkedIn suggests an amount based on the title, location, and market activity, but the final number is yours.

More budget, more placements. A bigger budget lets LinkedIn show the job in more places across the site. It buys more chances to be seen, not better applicants.

Trying it first. Eligible first-time customers can promote a job free for 3 days, and paid promotion begins if the job stays promoted afterward. LinkedIn no longer sells discounted job credits in advance, so self-serve promotion is paid as you go.

What you get when you pay

Promotion buys more than placement. Here's what changes between a free job and a promoted one, in plain terms:

Whether those extras earn their cost depends on volume. If a free job brings in a handful of applicants, you can read every one yourself. If a promoted job brings in a long list, sorting and summaries start to save real time.

How LinkedIn bills you

Knowing when the charge lands is as useful as knowing the amount.

On the self-serve option, charges build up weekly. Your card is charged at whichever of these comes first:

• Within 48 hours of closing the job
• 30 days after the job went live, if it's still open
• As soon as your balance reaches $500

You're only billed for views from candidates, so the view count on your job may not match the views you paid for. Bills arrive by email, and past receipts sit on your billing history page.

If you sign a longer-term contract instead, LinkedIn sets a job budget up front, and you can pay it all at once, quarterly, or monthly.

If you're watching cash flow, the $500 mark is the one to remember. A job attracting a lot of clicks can reach it well before 30 days.

Why cost-per-click estimates online don't match

Search for LinkedIn's cost per click, and you'll find confident numbers that disagree with each other. The reason is simple: LinkedIn doesn't publish one. The price is set job by job and market by market, and it moves from day to day.

So a per-click figure from someone else's job tells you very little about yours. Two practical ways around it:

• Start from a total you can afford. Decide what this hire is worth spending on job ads, and set that as a total budget. Spending stops there.
• Check your own numbers after a few days. LinkedIn arrives at your cost per click by dividing what you've spent by the views your job received, so you can work out your real figure from your own spend and views.

How to set a LinkedIn budget you won't regret

• Run the free job first when you can. For a single opening, see what the free version brings in before you pay for anything.
• Give it at least 5 days. LinkedIn's own advice is to keep a job open at least 5 days so enough qualified people see it.
• Cap it with a total budget. A daily budget keeps spending for as long as the job stays promoted. A total budget can't overshoot.
• Do the math before you start. $10 a day for 14 days is at most $140. $25 a day for 30 days is at most $750. Pick a number you'd be comfortable spending even if the hire ends up coming from somewhere else.
• Judge by people you'd interview, not clicks. A job with plenty of views and nobody worth calling isn't working, whatever each click cost.
• Treat the suggested budget as a starting point. LinkedIn recommends an amount based on the role and market. You still have the final say.

Is posting a job on LinkedIn worth it?

It depends on who you're trying to reach. LinkedIn does its best work when the right candidate keeps a professional profile and may not be job hunting: experienced managers, specialists, and office roles. Paying to promote those jobs puts them in front of people who might never search for them.

The case is weaker for hourly, shift, or local roles, where your candidates may spend little time on LinkedIn. Broader job boards often make more sense there. Our ZipRecruiter vs LinkedIn comparison and Indeed vs LinkedIn cover the trade-offs, and LinkedIn alternatives for hiring sorts other options by the kind of role you're filling.

Getting more from LinkedIn without a bigger budget

Before raising your budget, try the levers that cost nothing:

• Share the job from your company page. People who follow your company already know who you are.
• Make the job easy to say yes or no to. A clear title, the pay range, and the real schedule help the right people click, and the wrong ones skip, which matters when every click is billed.
• Ask the questions that matter. One free screening question rarely covers a license, a schedule, and a location at the same time.

That last point is where AvaHR comes in. The LinkedIn integration is part of every plan: save your LinkedIn Company ID in AvaHR, and your open jobs appear on LinkedIn, usually within two business days, while the same jobs go out to 100+ job boards. On Plus, Premium, and Max, you can also share each opening to your company's LinkedIn page, as well as Facebook and X, in a couple of taps.

Screening questionnaires come with every plan, so the questions you need are built into your application. And because applicants from LinkedIn and everywhere else arrive in the same list, it's easier to tell whether your LinkedIn spend is bringing in people you'd actually interview. You'll never hire alone. Compare plans and pricing.

When you're hiring all the time: Job Slots, Recruiter Lite, and Recruiter

Pay-per-click promotion suits occasional hiring. For steady hiring, LinkedIn points you toward other products:

• Job Slots are LinkedIn's contract option for hiring at scale, arranged through a sales consultant.
• Recruiter Lite adds candidate search and messaging for small teams. It bills monthly or annually and renews automatically, so note the renewal date.
• Recruiter is LinkedIn's full sourcing platform, sold on contracts of a year or more.

None of these list prices publicly, so expect a sales conversation. Before signing anything that renews, compare it with what each hire costs you today.

The bottom line on LinkedIn job costs

LinkedIn is free for one job at a time and pay-per-click after that, with a budget you control. Set a total, give the job at least 5 days, and judge it by the people worth interviewing rather than the clicks.

If LinkedIn is one channel among several, AvaHR keeps it connected and brings every applicant into one place. The hiring platform for growing businesses.

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