Indeed
Indeed lets a small team advertise jobs, then track, message and interview applicants in one place. Posting is free for up to three jobs a month in 12 countries. Paid reach is billed per started application. Under its standard terms, Indeed may end your access and may use your applicants’ data to train its AI. If you need uptime and export promises in writing, keep Indeed for job ads and track hiring elsewhere.
Indeed can run a simple hiring process, but its terms favour Indeed
Indeed is a job site with built-in tools to track applicants. A small hiring process can run there at low cost. Its terms leave Indeed free to change or end your service.
You hire a few roles at a time and want one place to advertise and track. You are happy to pay only when applicants start applying. You will keep a person deciding on every candidate.
You need export terms in writing that cover every candidate record. You need an uptime promise in writing. Your lawyers will not accept terms that let Indeed train its AI on your applicants’ data.
Up to 3 job posts a month are free in 12 countries. Sponsored Jobs have no fixed price, because the minimum depends on factors such as the job seekers available. Smart Sourcing Professional costs $520 a month or $4,992 a year in the US.
What you get once someone applies through Indeed
You may know Indeed as a place to advertise jobs. For a hiring system, what matters is what happens after someone applies. That is where you decide who you keep. Indeed is both a job search engine and an all-in-one hiring platform. An employer manages open jobs, updates their status and filters applications in one place. Employers can track, message, invite and interview applicants without other apps.
Each applicant moves through simple statuses. Reviewed means you looked at the resume. Interested saves it for a second look. Contacting means you are in touch or setting up interviews. Rejected means you are not moving forward, and the applicant is told. Hired marks the person you chose. You can switch on a rejection email. It goes out from a no-reply address three days after a status changes to Rejected. Once it is on, it applies to all your jobs. It also reaches applicants that required screener questions rejected automatically. Indeed will also automatically decline the applicants you do not mark as of interest. Ask Indeed when and how that happens on your account.
To book an interview, you send an invite. The applicant confirms it and you get a calendar file. After the interview you can add notes that the applicant does not see. Users with an advanced role can add hiring managers and interviewers as collaborators. You can also message many applicants from a template. Indeed sends the message by text to applicants who have text messaging turned on.
Indeed also works alongside a hiring system you already use. Changes made on either side do not show on the other unless you have set up Indeed’s status sync. Indeed calls it the disposition sync API. Ask your system’s vendor whether it supports this before you rely on both.
Smart Screening is Indeed’s AI tool for sorting applications. It scores each application against the criteria you set. It gives a Smart Fit Score as soon as someone submits, and it writes a summary. It can also ask applicants AI-written follow-up questions, answered by video, audio or text. Indeed calls that feature AI Recruiter.
Smart Sourcing is the paid product for finding people who have not applied. Indeed uses AI to show you job seekers who chose to share their profiles and might match your job. The Sourcing Assistant builds a pipeline continuously and handles early outreach, within limits you set. You can assign up to three jobs to it at once. Its applications reach your applicant tracking system only when Indeed Apply sync is enabled. Otherwise, sourced candidates are delivered on Indeed only. We cover that product separately in our guide to Indeed Smart Sourcing. For how the rest of this market compares, read our guide to applicant tracking systems.
Where Indeed helps a team that wants to start hiring quickly
Indeed helps most when you want to start hiring this week without a long buying process. Here is what works in your favour.
You can post jobs at no cost
You can start hiring without a budget. An employer can post up to 3 free jobs a month in 12 countries. They are the US, Canada, UK, Germany, France, Italy, Ireland, Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland. Each free job stays live in search results for up to 30 days. All locations under one parent company share that limit. Agencies are not eligible for free accounts. Screening questions are included on the Free plan. Check that your hiring country is on the list.
Sponsored Jobs have no long-term contract
You can pay for reach without a long commitment. You can start and stop sponsoring a job at any time. You set a budget and pay only when candidates engage with the post. The charge comes when a job seeker starts an application, not when they click. Plan your spend around started applications, not clicks.
It works with a hiring system or without one
You do not have to choose between Indeed and a hiring system on day one. Indeed integrates with more than 300 applicant tracking systems worldwide. Employers without one get built-in candidate tools. A new Oracle integration syncs job posts automatically and has Indeed Apply built in. If you already own a system, ask whether it is one of the 300.
Indeed reports faster hiring from its AI tools
These figures are Indeed’s own claims, so ask for the same numbers from customers like you. Indeed reports that it takes 26% fewer applications to make a hire with Smart Screening. It reports that 97% of recruiters surveyed were satisfied with the candidate summaries. With Interview Automation, Indeed reports that employers move applications to interviews 42% faster. Indeed also reports a result for the Sourcing Assistant. Candidates discovered via it are 2.9 times more likely to be hired than those from other sources. Candidates engaged through it are hired 31% faster than those sourced through other channels. Brandi Acheson, a recruiter at Principal Senior Living, reports that pre-screened and scored applicants arrive in her hiring system, HiringThing.
Independent security checks and support response targets exist
Independent checks give your security review something to work with. Indeed holds an ISO/IEC 27001 certification, accredited by Schellman Compliance, LLC on 24 October 2024. Indeed also has a SOC 2 Type 2 report, an independent report on its day-to-day operations. On its UK G-Cloud listing, Indeed gives support response times. They are 4, 6 and 8 business hours for Urgent, Elevated and Normal issues. Ask whether the same targets apply to your account.
Where Indeed stops and what its terms leave to you
Under Indeed’s standard terms, you carry most of the risk as the employer. If something goes wrong, the cost is yours. These are the points that should slow a purchase down.
Indeed can end your access at any time
Your hiring process would rest on terms that Indeed can change or end. Under Indeed’s terms, Indeed may terminate any agreement or insertion order at any time for any reason. An insertion order is the order form you sign. Indeed may also change, suspend or discontinue Smart Screening, any feature or an employer’s access at any time without liability. Indeed offers no formal uptime promise for its paid software and commits to no uptime percentage. If something goes wrong, its total liability is capped. The cap is what you paid or owed in the 12 months before the incident. Ask for a notice period and an uptime figure on your own order form.
You carry the risk of every automated rejection
If you switch on an automatic rejection, the responsibility under Indeed’s terms is yours. Under those terms, the employer alone is responsible for actions it decides to automate. Examples are actions based on an application score or on answers to deal-breaker questions. Under Indeed’s terms, you must treat scores, summaries and AI Recruiter answers as only one of several factors. You must also keep meaningful human involvement in all employment decisions. Indeed warns that Smart Screening may not always generate accurate, complete or reliable content. Indeed labels Smart Screening as Beta, offered in limited quantities and locations and as is. As is means you take it in its present state. Ask how an automatic rejection fits the human involvement you must keep.
Your applicants’ data can train Indeed’s AI
Under the Smart Screening terms, Indeed may reuse what your applicants send you to improve its own AI. Indeed may use client personal data to improve its services, including by training AI and machine learning models. More widely, under Indeed’s terms, Indeed may use activity data, user content and AI-generated content. It may use them to develop and train its models without compensation. Indeed may also use your data from job ads, resumes, applications, interviews and messages for analysis and quality control. It may store that data whether or not a vacancy is filled. AI-generated content may come in whole or in part from third-party providers such as OpenAI. If your lawyers object, ask for an opt-out in writing and ask whether it covers data Indeed already holds.
Phone and video answers pass through Indeed
Applicants’ spoken and recorded answers go through Indeed, so you need to know what Indeed keeps. In an automated phone screen, the job seeker gets a number to call and answers your questions. Under Indeed’s terms, Indeed forwards you the recording. It also listens to and analyses the recording under its privacy policy. Indeed may keep interview recordings under its video retention policy and is not obliged to store them. For Smart Screening, Indeed is not obliged to store applicant video, audio or text responses, except as the law requires. If you need a record of those answers, ask how you will get one.
Exporting your candidate records has limits
Leaving is easier if you plan for it now. You can export candidate details as a CSV file from the Candidates tab. Export needs a minimum spend over the past 12 full calendar months for the market, among other conditions. It covers only candidates less than three months old, and no more than 1,000 at once. Exporting is not yet enabled for Smart Sourcing. Those limits come from Indeed’s help centre. Indeed’s UK G-Cloud listing gives a different picture, so ask which terms apply to your account. Under Indeed’s terms, Indeed does not store employment records on an employer’s behalf. It may let an employer delete candidate data, and deletion may be irreversible.
Equal opportunity and accommodation duties stay with you
Indeed may offer some tools for fairness and accessibility, but the duties stay with the employer. Under Indeed’s terms, Indeed may offer functionality to request demographic information from applicants. Compliance with government record-keeping remains the employer’s sole responsibility. Indeed may offer job seekers alternative screening methods when they need an accommodation. The employer is solely responsible for handling accommodation requests directed to it. Indeed’s position is that none of its offerings in New York City is an automated employment decision tool. That is the kind of hiring tool covered by the city’s Local Law 144. Your lawyers should check that position against the way you plan to use it.
Indeed decides where your data sits
The country where applicants’ data sits may matter to your policy. It may matter to a works council, if you have one. Amazon Web Services hosts the Indeed platform. Indeed stores and processes data in the United Kingdom, the EEA and other locations. The customer has no control over the location. If your policy requires a set country, ask before you sign.
Ask how staff cuts at its parent affect support
You are buying support as well as software, so the parent company’s staff cuts are worth a question. Indeed is a key subsidiary of Recruit Group. In July 2025 Reuters reported that Recruit Holdings would cut around 1,300 jobs across Indeed and Glassdoor. Reuters reported that the cuts are about 6% of the HR technology segment workforce, mostly in the US. Ask your account contact how that affects support and product plans.
What Indeed costs and how to leave
Indeed has no single price, because you pay for three different things. Reach brings applicants in. Sourcing finds people who have not applied. Screening sorts the ones who did. Each is billed in its own way, and what drives the bill differs.
Reach is billed by what applicants do. Posting up to three jobs a month is free in 12 countries. For Sponsored Jobs you pay when a job seeker starts an application. Indeed’s minimum price for a Sponsored Job depends on several factors, including the job seekers available in the market. Premium Sponsored Jobs are priced above Standard ones, and have a daily limit on Matched Candidate contacts. Indeed’s UK public-sector price list has a line called Sponsored Jobs advertising value at £100.00 per unit. Ask Indeed what one unit buys for your account, because reach is billed by what applicants do. A Digital Service Fee of 1.75% appears as a separate invoice line.
Your hiring system can also add to the reach bill. Jobs that reach Indeed from a career site, a data feed or a hiring system may need sponsoring. From 31 March 2026, some jobs sent by data feed no longer appear for free. That happens when a hiring system that works with Indeed Apply could send the same jobs. The feed in question is a single-source XML feed, which is a data file that sends jobs to Indeed. If your hiring system pushes jobs to Indeed, ask which of them will need a budget.
Sourcing is billed as a monthly or annual plan, plus extra contacts. In the US, Smart Sourcing Professional costs $520 a month or $4,992 a year. Extra contacts cost $5.20 each. On Indeed’s UK G-Cloud price list, Standard costs £101.75 a month or £976.80 a year. Professional costs £330.69 a month or £3,174.60 a year. A pack of 100 extra contacts costs £407.00 on Standard and £325.60 on Professional. Contacts expire, so buy what you will use. On annual plans paid upfront they last 12 months after being added. Each monthly batch on an annual plan billed monthly lasts 6 months. Eligible employers can start a free 14-day trial of Professional.
Screening is the one to watch, because its price is open. Under its terms, Indeed allows free use of Smart Screening. Those terms also refer to buying a Smart Screening subscription for all of an employer’s job ads. Indeed may, at its sole discretion, end free use of Smart Screening and begin to charge for it. Ask which applies to your account, and what a charge would be, before you build your process on it.
The date you cancel controls what you pay, because refunds are at Indeed’s discretion. Subscriptions renew automatically until cancelled. Indeed may offer refunds for services only for four months from purchase, at its sole discretion. There are no refunds for partially used billing cycles of a subscription plan. Prepaid unused billing cycles may get a prorated refund at Indeed’s sole discretion.
To stop new charges, close your job postings, pause or cancel Smart Sourcing and settle the balance. You do not need to close the account. You can cancel Smart Screening at any time by notifying your Indeed contact named in the insertion order. The cancellation takes effect on the first day of the next calendar month. To delete your Indeed data and close the account, you submit a personal data deletion request form. Under its Data Processing Agreement, Indeed deletes client personal data after services end, under its retention schedule.
Getting your data out depends on which of Indeed’s documents applies. Its help centre limits export to candidates less than three months old, and only above a minimum spend. Its UK service description gives a different picture. Customers own their data and can download it in CSV, JSON and PDF. Indeed provides a dedicated period, usually 30 to 60 days, to extract it. Custom exports or data reshaping may cost extra. Indeed then deletes all data, removes backups and provides a deletion certificate. That happens once you confirm receipt of your data, or the exit period ends. Ask Indeed which terms apply to your account.
You could also run hiring steps with agents built on your own systems. We have mapped what that looks like. The HR Agent Map
Nine questions to put to Indeed before you sign
Under Indeed’s standard terms, a lot stays open. These questions settle the gaps in writing, before you sign. A weak answer to any of them is a reason to wait.
- Which Smart Screening settings are on by default for our account? Who on our side can change each one? Good answer: A written list of every setting and who can change it, with each change recorded.
- Which applicants does a deal-breaker reject automatically on our instruction, and how do we check them? Good answer: A report of every rejected application that our team can review at any time.
- How does an automatic deal-breaker rejection fit the meaningful human involvement your terms ask of us? Good answer: A clear written answer that our lawyers accept before we switch the feature on.
- Will you remove the right to train your AI on our applicants’ data, or let us opt out? Good answer: Yes, written into our order form, and for data you already hold.
- What uptime figure will you put in our contract, and what do you do if you miss it? Good answer: A written uptime figure and a remedy on our own order form.
- How much notice will you give before you suspend our access or remove a feature? Good answer: A written notice period that applies to our account.
- Which candidate records can we export when we leave, in what format, and on what terms? Good answer: Every record, in a named file format, on written terms with no spend or age limit.
- If you start to charge for Smart Screening, what will it cost us? Good answer: A written price that holds for the length of our contract.
- Which of your offerings count as automated hiring tools under rules like New York City’s Local Law 144? Good answer: A list by country that our lawyers can check.
Alternatives to Indeed
If Indeed is not the right system, look at Workable, Breezy HR, JazzHR, Greenhouse or SmartRecruiters. The other option is to buy nothing beyond Indeed’s free posts.
The real choice is whether one product should do two jobs. Indeed brings applicants in, and it also tracks them. You can keep Indeed for the first job and run the second in a dedicated hiring system. Indeed integrates with more than 300 of them. Ask any system you shortlist whether it sends jobs to Indeed and takes status changes back.
A written uptime promise is one reason to move the tracking elsewhere. Under its terms, JazzHR commits to commercially reasonable efforts to keep platform uptime at 99.9% or more. Workable commits to 99.8% or greater monthly uptime in its service level agreement. SmartRecruiters has a service level agreement with a 99.9% annual availability figure. Greenhouse has a service level agreement for Greenhouse Recruiting. Indeed commits to no uptime percentage for its paid software.
Records you can take with you are another reason. A Workable full data export is a .zip file with a CSV for each data area. Ask any system you shortlist for its export terms in writing, and compare them with Indeed’s.
You can also test before you pay. Breezy HR offers a 14-day free trial with all features, and no payment card is needed. JazzHR offers a 14-day free trial with unlimited users and no payment card. Indeed offers eligible employers a free 14-day trial of Smart Sourcing Professional.
Buying nothing is the last option. Three free jobs a month can carry a small hiring plan in the 12 countries where free posts apply. Built-in tools let you track, message and interview applicants. Move tracking to a dedicated system when you want uptime and export terms in your own contract. Our comparison of the researched products sets them side by side.
https://www.indeed.com/employers · Indeed for employers · read 2 Nov 2026
https://in.indeed.com/hire/pricing · Indeed pricing, India · read 2 Nov 2026
https://ca.indeed.com/hire/pricing · Indeed pricing, Canada · read 2 Nov 2026
https://www.indeed.com/employers/whats-new · Indeed what’s new for employers · read 2 Nov 2026
https://www.indeed.com/employers/solutions/smart-screening · Indeed Smart Screening · read 2 Nov 2026
https://www.indeed.com/employers/solutions/smart-sourcing · Indeed Smart Sourcing · read 2 Nov 2026
https://www.indeed.com/legal · Indeed terms and legal documents · read 2 Nov 2026
https://www.indeed.com/legal/http-indeed-com-legal-aiandaedtfaq · Indeed AI and automated employment decision tools FAQ · read 2 Nov 2026
https://www.indeed.com/help/employers/articles/free-job-post-limit · Indeed help centre, free job post limit · read 2 Nov 2026
https://www.indeed.com/help/employers/articles/faqs-free-job-post-policy · Indeed help centre, free job post policy · read 2 Nov 2026
https://www.indeed.com/help/employers/articles/single-source-feed-policy-effective-march-31-2026 · Indeed help centre, single-source feed policy · read 2 Nov 2026
https://www.indeed.com/help/employers/articles/how-to-update-a-candidate-s-application-status · Indeed help centre, candidate statuses · read 2 Nov 2026
https://www.indeed.com/help/employers/articles/how-to-use-the-indeed-scheduling-tool-to-schedule-interviews · Indeed help centre, scheduling interviews · read 2 Nov 2026
https://www.indeed.com/help/employers/articles/users-and-permissions-overview · Indeed help centre, users and permissions · read 2 Nov 2026
https://www.indeed.com/help/employers/articles/115005660163 · Indeed help centre, rejection email · read 2 Nov 2026
https://www.indeed.com/help/employers/articles/360025911932 · Indeed help centre, messaging candidates · read 2 Nov 2026
https://www.indeed.com/help/employers/articles/pay-per-started-application-ppsa-overview · Indeed help centre, pay per started application · read 2 Nov 2026
https://www.indeed.com/help/employers/articles/360015770072 · Indeed help centre, Smart Sourcing contacts · read 2 Nov 2026
https://www.indeed.com/help/employers/articles/how-to-export-candidates · Indeed help centre, exporting candidates · read 2 Nov 2026
https://www.indeed.com/help/employers/articles/208198176 · Indeed help centre, closing an account and deleting data · read 2 Nov 2026
https://www.indeed.com/help/employers/articles/trust-and-compliance · Indeed help centre, trust and compliance · read 2 Nov 2026
https://www.applytosupply.digitalmarketplace.service.gov.uk/g-cloud/services/448907798308806 · UK G-Cloud service description for Indeed · read 2 Nov 2026
https://assets.applytosupply.digitalmarketplace.service.gov.uk/g-cloud-15/documents/724196/448907798308806-pricing-document-2026-01-30-1208.pdf · UK G-Cloud 15 price list for Indeed · read 2 Nov 2026
https://recruit-holdings.com/en/about/group/ · Recruit Group, about the group · read 2 Nov 2026
https://www.thestar.com.my/tech/tech-news/2025/07/11/indeed-glassdoor-to-cut-1300-jobs-amid-ai-integration-memo-shows · Reuters via The Star, Indeed and Glassdoor job cuts, 11 July 2025 · read 2 Nov 2026
https://www.jazzhr.com/terms-of-service · JazzHR terms of service · read 2 Nov 2026
https://www.jazzhr.com/free-trial · JazzHR free trial · read 2 Nov 2026
https://breezy.hr/pricing · Breezy HR pricing · read 2 Nov 2026
https://www.greenhouse.com/service-level-agreement · Greenhouse service level agreement · read 2 Nov 2026
https://www.smartrecruiters.com/legal/service-level-agreement/ · SmartRecruiters service level agreement · read 2 Nov 2026
https://www.workable.com/legal/additional-terms · Workable additional terms, service level agreement · read 2 Nov 2026
https://help.workable.com/hc/en-us/articles/115014887828-How-do-I-export-candidate-data · Workable help centre, exporting candidate data · read 2 Nov 2026