How Much Does a SEEK Job Ad Cost?
TL:DR:
- There isn’t one price. SEEK uses dynamic pricing, so what you pay changes with the role, the location and the market at the time you post.
- In our recent experience, the minimum you’d expect to pay is $450 for a basic ad, and the higher ad types can climb towards $3,000 once add-ons are layered on.
- The harder a role is to fill, the more SEEK charges you to advertise it. Entry-level and metro-based roles sit at the lower end, high competition and regional at the top.
- A basic ad is just a listing. No personalised targeting and no candidate invitations, so it can’t go looking for anyone on your behalf.
- Discounts only come through prepaid bundles of 8 to 10 ads a year, which most small businesses will never use.
- Whatever you pay, you’re paying to advertise the job, not to fill it. No hire, no refund, and you pay again to run it a second time.
- The ad is the cheap part. Screening is where the time goes, and a single admin role can pull 50 applications in two days.
- With Recruit Shop, it’s one fixed fee of $2,995+GST, your SEEK ad is included, every applicant screened, and $1,000 back if you don’t hire in 28 days.
If you’re hiring once or twice a year and trying to work out what a SEEK ad will cost, you’ve probably noticed nobody gives you a straight number. That’s because there isn’t one to give. SEEK prices every ad individually, so what you pay depends on the role, where it is, and what the market is doing the week you post.
I post on SEEK for small businesses every day, so here’s what we actually see, what moves the price, and whether it’s worth it when you’re not hiring at volume.
Table of Contents
How much does it cost to advertise on SEEK?
How SEEK works out your job ad price
Can I get a discount for SEEK ads?
What a SEEK ad price doesn’t cover
How to bring your SEEK ad costs down
A fixed fee you know before you start
Where to check current SEEK prices
How Much Does it Cost to Advertise on SEEK?
In our recent experience, the minimum you’d expect to pay is $450. That’s for a basic ad with no additional spend on top. Move up to the higher ad types and add branding or other extras, and it can climb towards $3,000.
We’re posting on SEEK daily, and I still can’t tell you exactly what your ad will cost, because the pricing is completely dynamic.
Why there’s no SEEK price list
SEEK moved off a single flat rate a long time ago. What’s there now is dynamic pricing, set by an AI tool inside the platform.
It wasn’t always like this. When I started, we were paying around $20 an ad. It crept up over the years, and at one point the price simply doubled from one day to the next. SEEK holds the largest share of the job board market in Australia and New Zealand, and if you want to reach active candidates it’s the strongest platform going, so there isn’t a lot you can do except pay.
How SEEK Works Out Your Job Ad Price
It works in two steps. First it takes the details of your ad, the role title, the classification and the location. Then it weighs those against market factors: the average salary for similar roles, how competitive the role is, and how likely the role is to result in a successful hire on SEEK. In SEEK’s own words, that produces “a fair price based on the value of advertising on SEEK”.
The pattern is fairly predictable once you know what it’s weighing up. The easier a role is to fill, the less you’ll pay. An entry-level position in a metro area, in a category with plenty of people looking, sits at the lower end. A role with high competition for candidates, in a rural or regional location, is where you’ll see the top of the range. So the roles you find hardest to fill are the ones SEEK charges you the most to advertise.
On top of that base price sits your choice of ad type, and then any optional extras like branding.
Basic
A basic ad is a listing. It goes up, it appears in standard search results, and it waits for the right person to come along.
There’s no personalised targeting and no candidate invitations, so there’s no way to reach out to anyone who hasn’t applied. You’re relying on the right person happening to be looking on the right day. SEEK’s AI shortlisting tools are included but capped, with a handful of pre-screens and a single reference check. Branding is an optional extra.
If you’re picking on price alone, this is the one you’ll land on, and it’s the one that does the least work to find you candidates.
Advanced
Advanced adds the features that go out and find people rather than waiting for them.
Your ad is promoted rather than shown in standard search, you get personalised targeting, and you get a set number of candidate invitations so you can approach people who haven’t applied. Your ad also gets sent to candidates SEEK identifies as a strong fit, and promoted alongside similar ads. The AI shortlisting and reference check allowances step up. Branding is still an optional extra.
Premium
Premium prioritises your ad in search, gives you the largest allocation of candidate invitations, and keeps other employers’ ads off your candidates while yours is running.
Branding is included rather than optional, and the AI pre-screening and reference checks are uncapped. This is the tier where the price gets up towards that $3,000 mark.
Add-ons that push the price up
Branding is the common one. On basic and advanced ads it’s an optional extra rather than something included in the price.
SEEK also offers Concierge, which sits above premium. A job writing expert helps you create and optimise your ad, and they post it for you. That’s an additional cost on top of the premium price.
Worth mentioning that having someone write and post your ad for you is already part of what you pay with Recruit Shop.
Do SEEK Ad Costs Change Through the Year?
They do. If you’re advertising a seasonal role, or your industry is in high demand at that moment, you’ll pay more for exactly the same ad you posted last time. Honestly, every time I go to post I still get a small shock at what comes up.
Can I Get a Discount for SEEK Ads?
You can, but only by buying in bulk, which rules out most small businesses.
SEEK’s discounts come through prepaid ad budgets. The entry tier is built for occasional hiring, which SEEK puts at 8 to 10 job ads a year, and it costs $3,700. You’re buying a prepaid line of credit with a volume discount built in, and you’re not locked into one ad type. You can spend it across basic, advanced or premium depending on how hard each role is to fill, and the rate is held for 12 months.
Buying those 8 to 10 ads one at a time would usually run to around $4,200, so you’re ahead by about $500.
The catch is the volume. Most businesses we work with hire once or twice a year, not eight to ten times. Unless you know you’re going to market with at least eight roles in the next 12 months, you’d be paying $3,700 upfront to save $500 you were never going to spend.
What a SEEK Ad Price Doesn’t Cover
A SEEK ad covers the advertising. It doesn’t cover anyone doing the work to land the hire.
People sometimes push back on our fee because it’s paid upfront. But so is a SEEK ad, and with SEEK there’s nobody working on it. You’ve written the ad yourself, you’ve posted it, and you’re hoping for the best. There’s no guarantee anyone suitable applies at all.
To be fair to SEEK, the platform has come a long way. It now rates and ranks applicants and points you towards the stronger ones, and they’ve added AI tools that help write the ad and pre-screen candidates. That’s more than you used to get. But it’s an algorithm doing it, not a person, and if you want actual recruitment support from someone who knows your business and can pick up the phone, that isn’t part of what you’ve paid for.
Then there’s the screening, which is the part people underestimate. It’s not like it was years ago when any role would pull 300 applications in a few days, but the volume is still real. I had a finance admin role recently that had 50 applications in two days. If you’re the owner, you’re not sitting down at 9pm to work through 50 CVs properly. You skim them, and you hope you didn’t miss the good one.
The Cost of an Ad that Doesn’t Work
The ad runs, it doesn’t land, and you’re back where you started with less in the bank. There’s no refund, and there’s no cover if the person you did hire doesn’t work out. If you want another go, you post again and you pay again at whatever the price is that week.
What a Bad Hire Costs a Small Business
A wrong hire costs a small business around 26% of that person’s salary, or roughly $20,000. That figure is SEEK’s own, from a survey they commissioned of 955 small businesses across Australia and New Zealand.
Set that against what you saved by stripping your ad back to basic, and the maths stops looking clever.
How to Bring Your SEEK Ad Costs Down
Drop the add-ons and stick with a basic ad, and you’ll pay less. If it’s a straightforward role in a decent market and you expect good applicant flow, a basic ad may well be all you need. If it’s a role you already know is hard to fill, stripping it back is the wrong place to save money. You’d be paying the top of the range and removing every feature that would go and find people.
The other thing worth knowing is how candidates actually browse. Candidates will often search only “new” ads if they’re actively job seeking. A stale ad stops being seen very quickly, so keeping your advertising fresh matters more than most people realise. As part of our campaign, we often repost the roles to maximise exposure.
A Fixed Fee You Know Before You Start
With us it’s one fee, and you know it before you start. No surprise when you go to post.
That fee includes your SEEK ad, so you’re not choosing between us and SEEK. You get the SEEK ad, along with all major job boards, social media and our own candidate database, which means you’re reaching people who aren’t actively scrolling as well as those who are. SEEK reaches active jobseekers. The person you want may not be looking yet, but they’ll listen if someone taps them on the shoulder.
You also get a consultant. A person who screens and shortlists every applicant, keeps you updated every three to four days, and hands you a shortlist of suitable people ready to interview.
And if you don’t hire within 28 days, you get $1,000 back or another month of service. That’s not something a job ad can offer you.
Fill your next role with Recruit Shop.
SEEK job Ad Cost FAQs
How much does it cost to advertise on SEEK?
In our experience, the minimum cost is $450 for a basic job ad. That’s a simple listing only, and it doesn’t include any candidate outreach.
Does SEEK give you your money back if you don’t hire?
No. You’re paying for the advertising, not the outcome. If the ad runs and nobody suitable applies, the money is spent and you start again.
Why does the same SEEK ad cost more some months than others?
SEEK prices each ad dynamically, so the cost moves with demand. A seasonal role, or a role in a category that’s competitive at the time you post, will cost more than the same ad at a quieter point in the year.
What’s the cheapest way to advertise a job on SEEK?
A basic ad with no add-ons. This tier doesn’t include any candidate invitations and no personalised targeting, so the ad can’t go looking for anyone. It only works if the right person happens to be searching while it’s live.
Where to Check Current SEEK Prices
You can check the price of your specific role before you commit using SEEK’s ad price lookup tool in your employer account. It’s the only way to get a number for your role, in your location, at that moment.
