ZipRecruiter vs Indeed: Price, Features & What’s Best in 2022
Charlette has over 10 years of experience in accounting and finance and 2 years of partnering with HR leaders on freelance projects. She uses this extensive experience to answer your questions about payroll.
Robie has more than five years of content writing experience and specializes in writing about payroll and human resources software for small businesses.
This article is part of a larger series on Hiring.
ZipRecruiter and Indeed are two of the most popular job boards employers use to find top talent. Both platforms are well-reviewed by job seekers and employers, with many finding them user-friendly and efficient in bridging the gap between potential employers and a large number of job-seeking professionals.
Although they have similar job posting and recruiting tools, there are still some differences in functionalities that may help you in choosing between ZipRecruiter vs Indeed. Here’s a quick look at our recommendations before we dive into our reasoning:
- ZipRecruiter: Best for growing businesses with plans to scale and hire regularly
- Indeed: Best for free job postings and recommended for companies with small recruiting budgets needing to hire quickly
ZipRecruiter vs Indeed At-a-Glance
 |  | |
Free Plan | X | Free job postings |
Multiple Job Posting Packages | ✔ | X |
Pricing | Usage plans cost $16 and $24 per job post daily; Monthly plans start at $299 for one reusable slot | Pay-per-click “Sponsored Jobs” with a daily budget of $5–$499 per job post |
Unlimited Candidate Applications | ✔ | ✔ |
Job Description Templates | Customizable | Standard |
Screening Questions | ✔ | ✔ |
Resume Database | 32M+ | 200M+ |
Smart Search Tools | ✔ | ✔ |
Candidate Contact Views | Included in the Premium Usage and monthly plans (except the basic tier) | Costs extra |
Online Skills Assessment | X | ✔ |
Company Page | X | ✔ |
Employer Dashboard | ✔ | ✔ |
Mobile Recruiting App | ✔ | ✔ |
When to Choose ZipRecruiter
When comparing ZipRecruiter vs Indeed, we found both to be excellent recruitment software choices for employers and recruiters. However, we recommend ZipRecruiter for companies that are planning to scale and hire regularly since it gives you a fixed number of reusable job slots. To expand your search, it posts your jobs to over 100 other job sites and proactively invites potential candidates that best match your open roles to apply, which saves time and makes hiring move quickly. Unlike Indeed, ZipRecruiter offers employers and recruiters a monthly plan. For these reasons, it’s a better option for companies that have a more robust budget and need to hire regularly.
When to Choose Indeed
Indeed, which is our top-recommended free job posting site, is the best choice if you have a small recruiting budget and do not hire regularly. It lets you post as many jobs as necessary, as little or often as needed, at no cost. Indeed is also a good choice if you need to post a large volume of jobs without committing to a monthly plan. If you want to attract more quality job seekers, you may invest in its sponsored job listings to get better visibility and higher chances of hiring the right talent.
Need help advertising your open position? Check out our guide on how to post a job ad.
Best for Affordability: Indeed
| | |
Multiple Job Posting Plans | ✔ | X |
Pricing | Usage plans cost $16 and $24 per job post daily; Monthly plans start at $299 for one reusable slot | Free job postings |
Sponsored Jobs | “TrafficBoost” credits included in premium monthly plans | Pay-per-click “Sponsored Jobs” with a daily budget of $5–$499 per job post |
User Seats | Up to 8 | 1 |
Monthly Candidate Contact View Credits | Starts at 25* | 30 or 100 (costs $100 or $250 monthly) |
*The number of candidate contact credits vary depending on the plan selected. However, this feature isn’t available in the basic Usage and Monthly plans.
With Indeed, small business owners can make unlimited job posts in its general search results for free. The free option lets employers accept hundreds of applications and manage potential candidates using their Indeed accounts. However, these free job posts will fall out of search results as they become less relevant unless employers get its pay-per-click “Sponsored Jobs” option.
Employers and recruiters can set a budget as low as $5 per day (max of $499 daily), making Indeed a flexible and affordable option for those with a tight recruitment budget. Sponsored postings can be viewed by job seekers on desktop, mobile, and job alerts, and you only pay when a candidate clicks on your listing. You can also create a hiring campaign with a custom budget. Plus, you are granted access to Instant Match, which lets you view resumes of qualified candidates and invite them to apply.
ZipRecruiter Pricing
Unlike Indeed, ZipRecruiter does not offer free job postings. It has two plans: Monthly and Usage that follows a pay-per-job post pricing scheme.
Simple (One Reusable Job Slot) | |||
|---|---|---|---|
Standard | Premium | Pro | |
Monthly Pricing | $299 | $419 | $719 |
User Seats | 1 | 2 | 8 |
Unlimited Candidates | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
Resume Database Access | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
Candidate Contact View Credits | 0 | 25 | 200 |
“TrafficBoost” Credits* | 0 | 0 | 3 |
*These credits promote your job post to the top job boards for 30 days.
If you want to learn more about ZipRecruiter’s pricing, check out our ZipRecruiter Review.
Best for Job Postings: ZipRecruiter
| | |
One-Click Job Postings | ✔ | ✔ |
Job Description Templates | Customizable templates | Examples included |
Job Post Visibility | Depends on selected plan; with Standard to Pro levels | Free job listings appear prominently for the first 2–3 days after posting |
Job Ads Promotion | “TrafficBoost” credits included in highest tier | “Sponsored Jobs” with add-on PPC pricing |
When comparing ZipRecruiter vs Indeed for job postings, they have several similar features like one-click job postings that send your ads to its network of partner job boards and sites. However, ZipRecruiter has a few functionalities that are slightly more robust than those of Indeed. It even topped our list of best job posting sites.
When it comes to job postings, ZipRecruiter provides access to 500+ customizable templates that make it easy for you to write the position’s details, including the job description. Templates are available for a variety of industries and roles, so you are more likely to find content that matches your job postings. You can also add time-saving screening questions to weed out unqualified applicants into your job description. Once submitted, it will be instantly posted to leading job boards, social networks, and veteran job sites.
Job slots are also reusable. If you fill one of the jobs you are posting, you can take that post out, save it in drafts, and post a completely unique position in its place to run the remainder of the 30-days or end of billing.
With ZipRecruiter, you can use more than 500 customizable templates that will make it easy for you to write your job description, including screening questions. (Source: ZipRecruiter)
When to Consider Indeed for Job Postings
Those with limited recruiting budgets can upload unlimited job posts in Indeed’s general search results for free. It advertises the ad to millions of job seekers and enables employers to accept hundreds of applications. While it also has job description templates that you can use when creating job ads, it isn’t customizable like ZipRecruiter. Plus, as the job posts get older and less relevant, the ads will fall to the bottom of Indeed’s search results. You can improve job posting reach and visibility by having your ads sponsored (daily PPC costs range from $5 to $499 per job post).
When sponsoring a job ad, Indeed recommends a daily budget for your job posting. (Source: Indeed)
Best Recruitment Features: Indeed
| | |
Number of Job Seekers | 10M | 250M |
Number of Resumes | 32M+ | 200M+ |
Unlimited Monthly Resume Views | ✔ | Paid add-on |
Resume Parsing | ✔ | ✔ |
Search Filters | ✔ | ✔ |
Instant Resume Matches | ✔ | With paid option |
View Candidate Contact Information | Included in non-starter Usage and Monthly plans | Included in paid add-on |
Candidate Management Tools | ✔ | ✔ |
Applicant Tracking System (ATS) Integrations | 45 | 101 |
Company Page | X | ✔ |
Background Screening | ✔ | X |
While Indeed and ZipRecruiter both have resume parsing, search filters, candidate management, and artificial intelligence (AI) tools to help you find qualified applicants who best fit your job hiring requirements, Indeed has a better set of recruiting features. It is mainly because of its extensive resume bank (over 200 million vs ZipRecruiter’s 32+ million), large marketplace of job seekers (10 million vs 250 million), and robust ATS integrations.
Business owners can also use Indeed to create a free company page with information about the company, photos and videos, and basic performance metrics. This can help you promote your employer brand to job seekers, allowing them to know more about your business’ corporate culture and work environment.
When to Consider ZipRecruiter for Recruitment Features
Unlike Indeed, which requires you to purchase its resume solution in order to view and search through candidate profiles, ZipRecruiter lets you search its resume bank at no extra cost. The platform offers unlimited previews that show you the resume details without the applicant’s contact information. If you subscribe to its non-starter Usage and Monthly plans, you get candidate contact view credits that start at 25 per month.
Best for Ease of Use & Customer Support: ZipRecruiter
| | |
Ease of Use | Good | Good |
Phone, Email, and Chat Support | ✔ | ✔ |
24/7 Customer Service | ✔ | Weekdays only |
Online Help Center with How-to Articles | ✔ | ✔ |
When comparing ZipRecruiter vs Indeed for customer support, only ZipRecruiter provides customer service that’s available 24/7. However, we found that both have extensive libraries of how-to articles that you can access online. Both also offer phone, chat, and email support.
Both also have user-friendly platforms—employers and job seekers reported that they make the job posting and application processes more efficient. Users also like that they proactively filter resumes and send interview invites to highly qualified candidates, saving them time.
How We Evaluated ZipRecruiter vs Indeed
We evaluated ZipRecruiter and Indeed using their pricing structures, job posting tools, and capabilities. We also considered both providers’ reputations among job seekers, including customer reviews. Their customer support was also a major consideration since a lot of small business owners may need assistance in navigating through their systems.
Bottom Line
ZipRecruiter and Indeed offer robust tools for recruiters and job seekers. Both have helped countless employers find highly-qualified candidates that were perfect for their jobs. Hence, choosing either of them could be difficult for a business owner since they both ranked high in many reviews.
Before you choose, consider your budget and the number of postings you need each month. For companies with a larger budget, ZipRecruiter’s job posting and recruiting tools may be worth the extra cost. Alternatively, companies with a smaller budget may be better served by Indeed’s pricing structure—plus, you can post jobs for free.
