Indeed Just Changed Its Pricing Model—And Small Businesses Are Getting Crushed By The New Per-Application Fees
In October 2025, Indeed rolled out a major change to its job posting pricing model. The change affects small and mid-size businesses most severely—and many are just now realizing how expensive Indeed has become.
The old model: Pay a daily budget (e.g., $10/day) for job visibility. Indeed shows your post to candidates and you pay per click, similar to Google Ads.
The new model: Pay per application received, with prices varying by role and location. Instead of controlling spend with daily budgets, you're charged each time someone applies.
For small businesses hiring infrequently, this pricing change is devastating.
What Actually Changed (And When)
Indeed began testing per-application pricing in select markets in early 2025. In October 2025, it rolled out globally as the default pricing model.
How it works now:
- Post a job (free to post)
- Indeed sets a per-application price based on role, location, and competition (you don't control this price)
- You get charged each time someone applies (whether the candidate is qualified or not)
- You can pause the job posting to stop receiving applications (and charges)
Example:
You post a "Marketing Manager" role in Denver, CO.
- Indeed sets the per-application price at $25
- You receive 80 applications in the first week
- You're charged $2,000 (80 applications × $25)
- 60 of those applications are unqualified (wrong experience, spam, etc.)
- You still pay $2,000
The old pricing (for comparison):
- You set a daily budget of $15/day
- Indeed shows your job to candidates
- You pay per click (typically $0.50-$1.50 per click)
- If 200 people click, you pay $300 for the week
- You control maximum spend with your daily budget
Why This Hurts Small Businesses Disproportionately
Large companies with dedicated recruiting budgets can absorb per-application costs. Small businesses hiring 1-5 people per year are getting crushed.
Example: Small retail business (12 employees)
Before the pricing change:
- Posted a job for a retail associate
- Daily budget: $5/day
- Total spend over 14 days: $70
- Received 25 applications
- Hired 1 candidate
After the pricing change:
- Posted the same retail associate role
- Indeed set per-application price: $3.50
- Received 85 applications in 7 days (Indeed pushes higher application volume)
- Total spend: $297.50 (85 × $3.50)
- Paused the job after realizing cost
- Hired 1 candidate
Cost increased from $70 to $297.50 for the same outcome.
Small businesses report Indeed costs increasing by 200-400% under the new pricing model.
Why Indeed Made This Change
Translation: Indeed makes more money.
The business logic:
Under the old pay-per-click model, Indeed's revenue was limited by advertiser-controlled budgets. If you set a $10/day budget, Indeed could only make $300/month from you.
Under the new per-application model, Indeed controls pricing and application volume. If Indeed pushes 100 applications at $5 each, you pay $500—regardless of your intended budget.
Job boards like Indeed face increasing competition from LinkedIn, Google for Jobs, and social media recruiting. Raising prices is one way to maintain revenue growth as market share declines.
How Businesses Are Responding
Small businesses are reacting to the pricing change in three ways:
1. Switching To Alternative Job Boards
ZipRecruiter:
Offers flat-rate pricing starting at $249/month for unlimited job postings. Saw a 40% increase in small business customers in Q4 2025.
LinkedIn:
Job postings start at $495 for 30 days, with predictable pricing. Small business job postings on LinkedIn increased by 32% in October-November 2025.
Free options (Craigslist, Facebook Jobs):
Small businesses report shifting to free job boards despite lower-quality candidates.
2. Using Indeed Strategically (And Sparingly)
Some businesses still use Indeed but pause jobs frequently to control costs.
Strategy:
- Post the job on Indeed
- Let it run for 24-48 hours
- Pause the job once you have 10-15 applications
- Review applications
- Reactivate if you need more candidates
This limits cost but also limits application volume.
3. Building Direct Sourcing Channels
What's working:
- Employee referral bonuses: $500-$1,000 for successful hires (cheaper than Indeed per-application fees for many roles)
- Company career pages with SEO: Direct applicants = free
- Local community posting: Facebook groups, neighborhood boards, community colleges
What Large Companies Are Doing
Enterprise customers with Indeed contracts aren't experiencing the same pain.
Indeed offers custom pricing to large enterprise clients. Many Fortune 500 companies have negotiated contracts that cap per-application costs or provide bulk discounts.
Example: Large retail chain (5,000+ employees)
- Hires 500 retail associates per year
- Negotiated Indeed contract: $2/application (lower than standard pricing)
- Receives 10,000 applications annually
- Total cost: $20,000/year
- Cost per hire: $40
For enterprises, this is acceptable. For small businesses hiring 3-5 people per year, it's prohibitively expensive.
What Indeed Says
Indeed points to data showing employers receive 30% more qualified applications under the new model.
Indeed's perspective:
- Employers were wasting money on clicks from uninterested candidates
- Per-application pricing means you only pay when someone takes action
- Application quality is higher because Indeed optimizes for applications, not clicks
Small business perspective:
- We can't control or predict costs anymore
- "More applications" doesn't mean "better applications"—we're paying for spam
- We'd rather control our budget and accept fewer applications
What Recruiters Should Do
1. Audit your Indeed spend
Check how much you're spending per application under the new model. If it's significantly higher than before, consider alternatives.
2. Test alternative job boards
ZipRecruiter, LinkedIn, and niche job boards may offer better ROI.
3. Invest in direct sourcing
Building your own candidate pipelines reduces dependency on expensive job boards.
4. Negotiate if you're enterprise
If you hire at scale, negotiate custom Indeed pricing. Standard per-application pricing is negotiable for large customers.
5. Use Indeed selectively
For hard-to-fill roles where Indeed has unique reach, it might still be worth it. For easier-to-fill roles, cheaper alternatives work fine.
The Bigger Picture: Job Board Market Shift
Indeed's pricing change reflects broader job board industry challenges.
What's happening:
- Google for Jobs is eating market share (free, aggregates jobs from all sources)
- LinkedIn is growing in SMB (small business job postings up 32% year-over-year)
- Social media recruiting is rising (companies recruiting directly via Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook)
The Bottom Line
What changed:
- You no longer control costs with daily budgets
- Indeed sets per-application prices ($3-$75+ per application)
- Small businesses are seeing 200-400% cost increases
What to do:
- Audit your Indeed spend
- Test alternative job boards (ZipRecruiter, LinkedIn, niche boards)
- Build direct sourcing channels (employee referrals, career pages)
- Use Indeed strategically for hard-to-fill roles only
Indeed is still the largest job board globally, but it's no longer the obvious default for small business recruiting.
The companies that adapt fastest—diversifying their recruiting channels—will maintain hiring velocity without budget overruns.
Those that don't will either overspend on Indeed or struggle to fill roles.
Sources:
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