How to start a job board for free (2023)
In this guide we're going to cover different ways you can start a job board with little to no money. We'll look at using WordPress, open source software, building from scratch, and no-code solutions.
WordPress Job Manager plugin
If you’re familiar with WordPress or want to add a job board to an existing WordPress website, WP Job Manager is a free job board plugin from Automattic — the creators of WordPress.
The plugin claims to power over 100,000+ job websites and will get you started with the essentials to create your own job board without writing any code.
WP Job Manager also has a paid add-on for when you’re ready to add more features and functionality for $159 per site.
The only costs in this scenario will be hosting — read more about free WordPress hosting — and the cost of purchasing a domain.
Open Source job board software
If you have some coding experience, you might want to check out some dedicated open source job board software. With an open source job board, your main costs will be renting servers and domain fees.
Golang Cafe job board
A popular and well maintained project is the golang-cafe/job-board project that’s used to run the popular Golang.cafe job board. As you might have guessed, it’s written in Golang and is under the BSD 3-Clause License.
The project includes a companies directory, stats on salaries, developer community and profiles, and mailing list.
Rails Devs reverse job board
Another well maintained open source job board is railsdevs by Joe Masilotti. railsdevs is a reverse job board where developers create a profile for companies to approach them. It’s written in Ruby on Rails and is under the MIT licence.
The project includes developer profiles, payments for companies to access developers, and even an affiliate program. Railsdevs.com operates as an open startup so you can even view how much this reverse job board makes and view their web analytics.
Building a job board from scratch
Building a job board from scratch is another option if you have time to spare. With an open source coding language, your main costs will be renting servers, domain name fees, and time spent coding.
Here’s a brief list of things to consider when building a custom job board:
Design
Logo, fonts, colors
User experience
Mobile responsive
Build
Database
Forms, validation, and file uploads
Searching & filtering
Authentication & administration
Approval & spam detection
Payments
SEO
Accessibility
Mailing list subscriptions
Deployment
Web & database servers
CDNs (content delivery networks)
Domain names & DNS
Email inbox
Transactional email
Mailing list provider
Seed with jobs
Finding jobs to seed your job board
Automating the process
Ongoing improvements
Bug fixes & software updates
Server maintenance
Marketing & promotion
No-code job boards
No-code platforms come in many shapes and sizes from all-in-one solutions to build any kind of website to ready-made SaaS job boards that specialise in creating job board websites.
Webflow
Webflow is a no-code CMS platform for building any kind of website. You won’t need to write a single line of code or worry about managing servers. Webflow provides a point and click interface to build you job board website and templates are available if you don’t want to start from scratch.
There’s a free plan that allows up to 50 database records — which in our case would be 50 job posts — 50 form submissions, and 1 GB of bandwidth per month.
If you reach these limits, the next tier up comes in at $29 per month for 2000 total database records.
Mighty Boards
Mighty boards is a ready-made job board software-as-a-service platform that specialises in starting and managing job board websites.
The free plan offers unlimited jobs per month, a free subdomain, free hosting, custom logo, custom colors, and is fully mobile responsive.
The next tier up comes with:
Custom domains
Search & filtering
Additional design options
Mailing list subscriptions
Featured posts
Payments with Stripe
Spam prevention
Dashboard to manage your board
The paid plans starts at $36 per month with 2-months free if you choose the annual plan.
Join the waiting list to get notified when we're accepting the next round of customers.
Conclusion
Time, skills, and future budget will all play a part in deciding which option is best for your situation.
If you're limited on time, Mighty Boards is the quickest option with zero upfront costs. If you have the time and skills, open source or building from scratch would be a good options. And if you have the time but don't want to write code, Webflow or WordPress could be a good alternative.