How to make money from a job board

A job board earns when employers pay to reach the people it gathers. Job seekers come for free, and their attention is what you sell. This post covers what to sell, how to win the first employers, how to set prices, and how employers pay you on JobClay. Where a model is one JobClay does not support, we say so.

What employers pay for

Employers pay for one thing: their opening in front of the right candidates. A niche board's pitch is that its visitors are the right candidates. Everything you sell is a way of packaging that reach:

A job post. One job, live for a set number of days.
A featured post. The same job, shown above the others.
A package. Several posts or features bought at once, usually for less per post.
A free allowance. A few free posts a month, to get employers in the habit of using your board.

Boards also sell other things, such as recurring employer subscriptions, access to a database of candidates, and advertising. Those are covered at the end, with what JobClay does and does not support.

Paid job posts

The paid post is the base product, and the one most employers expect. Three choices shape it:

How long a post runs. Match it to how long hiring takes in your niche. A role that fills in a week does not need the same run as a senior one that takes months.
How candidates apply. On your board, at the company's own address, or by email. Offering all three lowers the reasons an employer has to say no.
Whether you check posts first. Approval protects a niche board from off-topic or spam jobs, at the cost of a little of your time.

On JobClay, a package holds job post credits, and you set how many days each post runs. An employer spends one credit when they publish a job, and a company's team shares its credits. Each job can take applications on your board, at the company's own address or by email. On Approvals you can make new employers, or each job's first publication, wait for you before going live.

Featured posts

A featured post is the easiest upsell a board has. The employer has already decided to post; featuring costs them one more decision, not a new one.

Sell it in two ways: as an add-on for a job that is already live, when applications are slow, and inside a package, so a bigger order comes with a few features. The add-on answers a problem the employer has right now, which makes it an easy yes.

On JobClay, featured jobs sit above the rest of your listings for as many days as the package says. They also come first in job alert emails, and your home page can show a featured jobs section. A package can hold featured credits alone, so you can sell an upgrade for jobs already live.

Packages

Packages turn a one-off sale into a stock of credits the employer comes back to spend. They suit agencies and companies that hire all year, and they mean a hiring manager does not need a new purchase approved for every opening.

Three packages are enough to start, and they are easy to compare:

One post. For the employer trying you for the first time.
A pack of posts with a feature or two. Priced so the cost per post is clearly lower than buying singles. This is the one you want most employers to buy.
A featured upgrade. For a job already on the board.

On JobClay you create each package with a name, a price in your board's currency, a description, the number of job posts and featured upgrades it holds, how many days each runs, and how long its credits stay valid after payment. You set the order employers see them in, hide one to stop selling it, and change one without touching orders already placed. Employers see your packages at /employer/packages/ on your board. The Get paid guide walks through each field.

A free allowance to win the first employers

A new board has a chicken-and-egg problem: employers pay for visitors, and visitors come for jobs. Fill the board with jobs first, from the places companies already publish them (our post on filling a new job board covers how). Then win employers before you charge them.

Free posting is the usual tool. An employer who has posted once, and seen applications arrive, is easier to sell a package to than one who has never heard of your board.

JobClay gives you three settings for Free posting, on the Packages page:

Unlimited: employers post free whenever they like. A new board starts here, and credits an employer bought are still used first.
Monthly allowance: each company gets the number of free posts you choose every calendar month, in your board's time zone.
Off: every job needs a credit.

A sensible path is to start on Unlimited while you invite your first employers, move to a small monthly allowance once some of them come back, and turn it off, or keep a one-post allowance as a taster, when the board has traffic employers will pay for. Free posts count toward your plan's live jobs; jobs employers pay for are not held back by that limit.

Two more ways to win the first employers:

Post their jobs for them. For a company with no employer account, you can post a job on its behalf from the console, so the board shows real openings from employers you want.
Invite them to claim their page. When a company reaches your board through a job source and no employer account runs it, an employer can ask to claim it, and you decide in the console. "Your jobs are already on our board; claim the page and post the next one yourself" is an easy first email to send.

Setting your first prices

There is no correct price for a job post, only one that fits your niche. Work it out rather than guess:

Start from what your employers already pay. Look at what the boards your employers use charge for one post, both the general ones and any niche boards. Your board offers a narrower audience, so it does not need to be the cheapest.
Make the middle package the obvious buy. The single post sets the reference price; the pack should save enough per post that buying singles looks like a mistake.
Price the feature as a small step up. It should be an easy yes for an employer who already paid for the post.
Give credits a long life. If credits expire quickly, a pack feels like a gamble. A validity of many months lets an employer buy ahead with confidence.
Decide on tax before you publish prices. Say whether your prices include tax, and set the rate your accountant gives you.
Raise prices as traffic grows. On JobClay, changing a package changes what new orders buy; orders already placed keep what they bought.

Getting paid on JobClay

Employers pay you, not JobClay, and JobClay adds nothing to what they pay. Stripe's own fees apply to card payments. You can offer cards, bank transfer, or both:

Cards, into your own Stripe account. You connect your Stripe account from the console, using Stripe's own sign-up. Employers pay on Stripe's checkout page, the money goes to your account, and card details never reach JobClay. When Stripe confirms a payment, the credits are added and the invoice is issued, with nothing for you to do.
Bank transfer. You write your bank details and instructions, and employers place an order. When the money arrives you mark the order paid; the credits are added and the invoice is issued. This matters where cards are hard: Stripe India, for example, is by invitation only, and a bank transfer always works.
Invoices, credit notes and tax. Every paid order gets a numbered invoice as a PDF, with your legal name and address, an optional tax number and one tax line with its name and rate. A refund or a reversed order gets a numbered credit note, and the credits the employer has not used are taken back. JobClay prints the tax you set; it does not work out what you owe.

Employers cannot buy until your legal name and address are filled in, because every invoice prints them. More detail is on the payments feature page.

Other ways job boards earn

Some boards add other income. These are the common ones, and where JobClay stands:

Employer subscriptions. A monthly fee for a set number of posts. JobClay sells packages, which are one-off purchases with credits that stay valid for the time you set, not recurring subscriptions.
Access to candidates. Charging employers to search a database of resumes. JobClay has no resume database, so this is not something a JobClay board can sell.
Advertising and sponsorship. Selling space to companies that want your audience's attention, such as a sponsor of your newsletter or events. This is a deal you make and deliver yourself; JobClay does not sell or serve ads.
Services around the board. A recruiter who runs a niche board can also earn from placing the candidates it brings in. The board brings both sides of the market to them.

If one of these is central to your plan, read our comparison of job board software, which notes which platforms list subscriptions, talent pools and resume tools.

A first month, as an example

Fill the board with jobs from job sources, so it is worth visiting on day one.
Fill in your legal details and tax on Payments, then connect Stripe, offer bank transfer, or both.
Create three packages: one post, a pack, and a featured upgrade.
Leave free posting on Unlimited, and write to the companies whose jobs are already on the board, inviting them to claim their page.
When employers start coming back, move to a monthly allowance and point them to your packages.

The guide to creating a job board covers the rest of the setup, and the Free plan lets you build all of this before you pay for anything.