ZipRecruiter vs LinkedIn: Price, Features & What’s Best for Your Business
This article is part of a larger series on Hiring.
ZipRecruiter and LinkedIn are both recruitment platforms that hiring teams can use to find, hire, and connect with candidates. ZipRecruiter is ideal for the mass posting of any job, while LinkedIn is a professional networking platform that makes it easy to connect with high-quality candidates and those who are a good fit for white-collar positions.
In this guide, we compared LinkedIn vs ZipRecruiter in-depth to help you determine which recruitment platform is best suited for your business. If you’re looking to find the right hiring solution quickly, consider our recommendations:
- ZipRecruiter: Best for growing companies planning to scale and needing a wide job posting reach to hire quickly
- LinkedIn: Best for businesses wanting access to a large network of qualified professionals and a way to boost their brand
When Neither Is a Good Fit
If you’re looking for recruitment software that lets you post unlimited jobs for free, then you may want to consider an alternative platform. With Indeed, you can post job listings and search resumes for free. It also offers reasonably priced job advertising tools, enabling you to widen your job posting reach and quickly find qualified candidates for your open roles.
- Indeed: Best for budget-conscious companies hiring for common positions that they need to fill quickly
ZipRecruiter vs LinkedIn Side-by-Side Comparison
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Pricing |
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Free Listing | X | ✔ |
Free Trial | Four days; requires credit card | One month; requires credit card |
Job Postings | Included in monthly fees (pay-per-post pricing) | Creating job posts that appear on your LinkedIn company page is free; advertising jobs require separate fees |
Job Ads Advertising | Available in premium tiers | Follows PPC pricing |
Job Post Aggregation | Automatic (with one click); aggregates to more than 100+ job boards | N/A |
Candidate Matching Tools | ✔ | ✔ |
Applicant Management | ✔ | ✔ |
Resume Searches | Unlimited | Limited candidate search features with Recruiter Lite; robust search tools available in premium solutions |
Resume Database Access | Included in higher tiers; available as a paid add-on for the basic plan | Free to access LinkedIn’s searchable user profiles that contain basic candidate information typically found in resumes |
Real-time Alerts | ✔ | X |
Company Page | X | ✔ |
Support | Phone, live chat, email | Live chat |
Integrations | 40+ | 500+ |
Takeaway: As recruitment platforms, both ZipRecruiter and LinkedIn provide efficient solutions for sourcing candidates. For businesses looking to hire employees quickly, ZipRecruiter is an excellent choice. Aside from letting you post and advertise your open roles on its site, it distributes your job ads to more than 100 job boards. It also provides access to a database of over 25 million resumes.
Meanwhile, LinkedIn has several solutions for sourcing talent. This includes Job Posts, where you can post one free job at a time and set a daily budget for promoting it. Job Slots and Recruiter solutions have more advanced features to get new hires including candidate engagement and applicant management tools.
If you’re interested in seeing how Indeed compares against ZipRecruiter, check our ZipRecruiter vs Indeed guide. Similar to LinkedIn, Indeed also offers enhanced employer branding and basic job posting tools. However, Indeed is more reasonably priced, plus you can search unlimited resumes and post unlimited job listings for free.
When To Use ZipRecruiter vs When To Use LinkedIn
Best for Job Seekers: Tied
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Price | Free | Free but has paid options |
Mobile app | ✔ | ✔ |
Easy sign up | ✔ | ✔ |
Job alerts | ✔ | ✔ |
Remote jobs | ✔ | ✔ |
Easy application | ✔ | ✔ |
For job seekers, both ZipRecruiter and LinkedIn offer online tools that allow them to look for job opportunities based on their professional interests and location. LinkedIn’s professional networking feature and social feed on current issues in and outside of the workplace makes it great for highly qualified professional jobs, while ZipRecruiter’s niche job posting partners makes finding more specialized jobs quick.
Both platforms each have job alerts and one-click apply buttons for faster job applications, including mobile apps (for iOS and Android devices) that enable users to search for jobs and apply to open roles while on the go.
Job seekers can access premium job search tools to help them get hired quickly by signing up for LinkedIn’s paid Career plan. For $29.99 per month (when billed annually), job seekers can check who viewed their profile in the last 90 days, see jobs where they are a top applicant, and directly message recruiters and job posters (up to three per month). In addition, job seekers also get interview preparation tools, applicant insights comparing their skills to other candidates, and online video courses that feature in-demand business, creative, and technology skills.
Best in Pricing: LinkedIn
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Free job listing | ✔ | X |
Free trial period | 30 days | 4 days |
Plan options and pricing |
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Sponsored post | Pay-per-click | Purchase TrafficBoost credits |
We choose LinkedIn to be best in pricing because of its more affordable plans. However, what’s best for you will ultimately depend on your hiring needs (specifically the types of positions for which you’re hiring). For some, LinkedIn’s free option may work, while others may need to set a daily budget for postings. This allows you to spend as little or as much as you want, depending on the number of hires you need. However, if your recruiting needs increase or you’re hiring regularly, ZipRecruiter’s solutions may be more suitable.
To help you find employees with ease, LinkedIn offers several custom-priced talent solutions—from job posting and hiring tools to dynamic job ads and a company page. Under its hiring tools are the full-featured Linked Recruiter solution and its basic version, Recruiter Lite. While you have to contact LinkedIn to request a quote for its Recruiter solution, the fees for Recruiter Lite are published on its website. Its monthly- and annual-billed plans are priced at $140 per month and $1,440 per year, respectively.
With LinkedIn’s job posting solution, LinkedIn Jobs, you can post one job at a time for free. This job post is searchable on LinkedIn and appears in search results. As soon as your job posting receives a certain number of applications, it is automatically paused and removed from the search results. You must promote it to unpause the job.
LinkedIn Jobs also has advertising tools that follow PPC pricing and a daily PPC budget. In addition, it has an ATS (named LinkedIn Talent Hub) that features both of the provider’s job posting and recruiting solutions to help you efficiently manage hiring processes.
ZipRecruiter offers three monthly plans (Standard, Premium, and Pro) for small and midsize businesses (SMBs), wherein pricing is based on the level of job ad distribution and the number of reusable job slots you need. It has fees that start at $299 per month for a Standard tier with one reusable job post and offers subscription options that are priced on a daily per-usage basis. The fees vary depending on the plan type, wherein standard subscribers are charged $16 per job post daily, while premium subscribers pay $24 per job post daily.
Neither provider offers free plans, though they do have free trials. ZipRecruiter has a four-day free trial, whereas LinkedIn gives a one-month free trial for its Recruiter Lite solution. Note, however, that both require a credit card. Not all of ZipRecruiter and LinkedIn’s pricing information are published on their websites, but you can contact their respective sales teams to ask for a quote.
For step-by-step help on posting jobs on the platform, check out our guide on how to post a job on LinkedIn.
Best Company Page Features: LinkedIn
ZipRecruiter doesn’t have a company page builder, while LinkedIn has LinkedIn Career Pages, which allows employers to share their open jobs, including information about their business and workplace culture. Available as a separate paid solution, this tool aims to attract and engage qualified candidates to apply to your job posts.
You can add photos and videos on your LinkedIn page to show business clients and potential candidates what’s unique about your company.
You can add photos and videos on your LinkedIn page to show business clients and potential candidates what’s unique about your company.
With ZipRecruiter, you don’t get a company page where you can showcase your employment brand. Its platform is focused mainly on creating and sharing job posts, including managing candidates.
Best Job Posting & Advertising Tools: ZipRecruiter
While both ZipRecruiter and LinkedIn offer job posting and job advertising tools, the former has a wider job ad reach. With a single click, it distributes your open positions to more than 100 job boards (such as Recruit.net, Better Jobs, LiveCareer, JobHero, Adzuna, Hireable, and FlexJobs) and social media platforms. Plus, subscribing to one of its higher tiers provides you with either premium or maximum job ad placements.
Meanwhile, LinkedIn lets you advertise job posts on your company page for free but requires you to pay PPC fees to promote them across its platform, in emails, and as mobile push notifications to 600+ million LinkedIn members. What’s great about its job advertising tool, though, is that you can set daily budgets for your campaigns. With ZipRecruiter, you only get that option if you subscribe to its enterprise plan for large businesses.
With LinkedIn, you can use its recommended daily PPC budget or set your own amount for promoting job posts.
If you need help learning how to advertise your open position, check out our guide on how to post a job ad.
Best Job Description Templates & Resume Search: ZipRecruiter
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Job description templates | 500+ | 130+ |
Resume search |
| No resume bank; provides access to viewing user profiles |
Resume database | 32 million+ | N/A but has 700 million+ active members |
Customizable job templates | 500+ | 130+ |
ZipRecruiter offers more than 500 customizable job descriptions. With this many templates to choose from, employers and recruiters can easily create job postings for their open roles.
ZipRecruiter’s job templates are available for a variety of industries and roles, so employers are more likely to find content that works for them.
In terms of resume search, ZipRecruiter provides unlimited resume searches and previews. However, you have to subscribe to one of its premium plans to access its resume database of over 25 million resumes. If you have a Standard plan, you have to buy resume access credits (starts at $20 per month for 20 views).
As for LinkedIn, it technically doesn’t have a resume bank, but you can view a potential candidate’s professional background through the platform’s user profiles. These profiles contain information about the LinkedIn member’s work experience, professional skills, and educational background.
You can also use the platform’s search tools to find potential applicants, and then reach out to qualified candidates through its “InMail” messaging solution—provided that you subscribe to one of LinkedIn’s hiring solutions.
Best Candidate Matching & Screening Questions: Tied
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Add screening questions | ✔ | ✔ |
AI candidate matching | ✔ | ✔ |
Other features |
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Screening questions make it easier for you to assess whether or not applicants who applied to your job posts meet your basic hiring requirements. Both ZipRecruiter and LinkedIn allow you to add screening questions to your job ads. LinkedIn even lets you incorporate skills assessments into job postings, while ZipRecruiter has a “deal-breaker question” feature, wherein it automatically hides candidates who didn’t answer the question or gave an incorrect response.
Both ZipRecruiter and LinkedIn have smart applicant matching tools that recommend qualified candidates who meet your job post’s criteria. The two platforms also learn from your candidate ratings. LinkedIn recommends your job post to professionals within networks that have work credentials matching those of the candidates you rated. ZipRecruiter, on the other hand, sends a pre-written message asking candidates who match your open position to apply for the job.
Best for Applicant Management: Tied
Both platforms provide online tools to help you manage and track applicants as they move through the recruitment pipeline. Each offers a dashboard where you can sort, review, and rate candidates.
You can also integrate third-party ATSes to both LinkedIn and ZipRecruiter. Here are some of the two providers’ partner systems:
- ZipRecruiter: Bullhorn, Apploi, Pereless Systems, Greenhouse, ApplicantPro, Breezy, MightyRecruiter, JazzHR, Zoho Recruit, ClearCompany, and JobScore
- LinkedIn: Bullhorn, ClearCompany, Greenhouse, JobScore, iCIMS, JazzHR, JobDiva, SmartRecruiters, Workable, Avature, Dynamics ATS, ADP, and Workday
Best in Ease of Use & Customer Support: ZipRecruiter
ZipRecruiter and LinkedIn both have platforms that are generally easy to use. They offer smart hiring tools that make posting jobs and finding qualified candidates easier tasks for employers and recruiters.
However, in terms of customer support, ZipRecruiter has an edge over LinkedIn since clients can contact customer service via live chat, phone, and email message through its website. It also has a knowledge base that contains FAQs and how-to guides.
LinkedIn, on the other hand, only offers live chat support and a help center where you can either access useful guides or submit online queries. If you want to ask other LinkedIn clients questions about the platform, then you can visit its help forum.
User Reviews
- ZipRecruiter: Job seekers and employers who posted online reviews on third-party sites (such as G2 and Capterra) like its user-friendly interface, adding that it enables them to efficiently find jobs and track applicants. On the other hand, some reviewers said that it is a bit pricier compared to similar solutions.
- LinkedIn: Most of the online feedback for LinkedIn’s talent solutions are positive, wherein users highlighted its candidate search tools and the quality of its talent network as its best features. Meanwhile, others complained about having experienced occasional system bugs and site crashes.
How We Evaluated LinkedIn vs ZipRecruiter
We evaluated ZipRecruiter vs LinkedIn based on these criteria:
- Price: We compared pricing structures to check whether or not each provider has transparent fees, free options, and reasonably priced plans for small businesses.
- Ease of use: Apart from offering online tools that are simple to learn, the best recruiting and job posting sites should be intuitive—making it easy for job seekers and employers to use.
- Job posting: We looked at both providers’ job posting functionalities, including their job advertising tools and reach.
- Job seekers: Having access to a platform that can attract job seekers is helpful. In addition to job posting tools, we looked at each providers’ pricing for job seekers, job search tools, mobile accessibility, easy sign up, and application to evaluate how appealing both are to candidates.
- User reviews: We evaluated customer reviews to find the best option for recruiters and job seekers alike.
Bottom Line
As with any company looking for efficient recruitment software to use, business owners have to consider several factors, such as budget, hiring needs, and talent acquisition strategies. For most employers, ZipRecruiter will work well; it’s a general job board that can post ads to more than 100 job sites (some niche options). While its fees may not be the cheapest in the market, it offers several plans—some of which include pay-per-post options. It also has a free trial.
If you’re certain you will be hiring for more highly-qualified positions and need to build your employer brand, we recommend LinkedIn. It has a range of hiring and recruiting solutions plus you can post a single job for free. It also has a solid “InMail” messaging tool that lets you contact passive candidates whose professional skills and work experience fit your hiring requirements, giving you access to top talent you wouldn’t otherwise be able to connect with.
