Job board spend is $1,000-$3,000 per engineering hire. This guide compares pricing, cost-per-application, and ROI across the top platforms so you can allocate your budget intelligently.
| Platform | Model | Monthly Budget | Cost / Application | Quality | Best For |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| LinkedIn Jobs | Pay-per-click + flat post | $300 – $1,200 | $8 – $25 | High | All levels — best for passive candidates |
| Indeed | Free organic + pay-per-click | $150 – $600 | $3 – $15 | Medium-High | Mid-level and volume hiring |
| Dice | Monthly subscription | $395 – $800 | $10 – $35 | High | Technical and senior roles |
| Stack Overflow Jobs | Flat fee per posting | $400 – $900 | $15 – $50 | Very High | Developer community roles |
| Wellfound (AngelList) | Free + premium tiers | $0 – $299 | $5 – $20 | High | Startups and equity-motivated engineers |
| Hired.com | Success fee on placement | 0 upfront | $0 + 15% on placement | Very High | Senior technical roles |
Highest quality applicants but highest cost. Essential for senior and passive candidate sourcing. LinkedIn Recruiter Lite ($170/mo) sufficient for smaller teams.
Highest applicant volume. Free tier available but performs 30-40% worse. Best for junior/mid roles where volume matters more than passive sourcing.
Tech-specialist platform with higher signal-to-noise ratio than general boards. Smaller pool but stronger technical filters. Worth it for backend, cloud, and infrastructure roles.
Low volume but very high quality. Stack Overflow users are active practitioners who value transparency. Salary data is required — treat this as a feature.
Best free-tier ROI in the market. Equity-motivated candidates self-select, reducing cultural mismatch. Essential for pre-Series B companies.
Candidates apply to you — reducing irrelevant applications to near zero. Success-fee model means no upfront cost. Good option to supplement agency search without fixed budget commitment.
Prioritise Wellfound for equity-motivated candidates. Supplement with LinkedIn for passive sourcing.
Track cost-per-qualified-application, not just cost-per-application. Run A/B tests on job post copy.
Invest in programmatic job advertising to automate spend across 30+ boards simultaneously and optimise bids in real time.