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    Indeed caps free job posts at 30 days and 3 per month

    Pukar Khanal

    By Pukar Khanal, Product Lead at ResumeAI

    10 min readPublished

    Pukar Khanal leads product at ResumeAI, working on AI resume parsing, ATS scoring, and semantic job matching. He writes about how applicant tracking systems read resumes and how job seekers get past them.

    Indeed doesn't delete free job postings, but in 2026 it buries them. Per Indeed's own employer documentation, a free post stays live for only 30 days and falls back in search results as newer jobs appear, while Sponsored Jobs "appear more often and for longer." As a job seeker, you lose sight of the roles an employer didn't pay to promote.

    Key takeaways

    • Hidden, not deleted. Indeed keeps free posts in its database but ranks them below sponsored jobs and expires them after 30 days.
    • The free cap. 3 free jobs per employer per calendar month, each live up to 30 days in the US, Canada, UK, Germany and the Netherlands.
    • A vanished role may still be open. It may have aged out or sunk below the sponsored feed, not been filled.
    • The fix. Go direct to the company ATS (Greenhouse, Lever, Ashby, Workday) and use a relevance-ranked feed instead of sponsored-first search.
    Search visibility over time: free vs sponsored Indeed postA sponsored Indeed job stays highly visible in search for as long as the budget runs. A free job starts visible, falls back as newer jobs are posted, and expires at day 30 in the US, Canada, UK, Germany, and the Netherlands.HighLowSearch visibilityDay 0Day 30Day 60SponsoredFreeexpires (day 30)
    A sponsored Indeed post holds its place in search. A free post falls back as newer jobs post and expires at day 30 in the five major markets. ResumeAI ranks roles by relevance to your resume, so a role's position doesn't depend on the employer's ad budget.

    Does Indeed actually hide free job postings, or just rank them lower?

    It ranks them lower and expires them. From a job seeker's seat, that amounts to hiding. Indeed doesn't remove a free post from its index. Per Indeed's own Free vs Sponsored documentation, "posting a job for free falls back in job seeker search results as new jobs are posted," and "Sponsored Jobs appear more often and for longer in search results than non-sponsored jobs."

    The two mechanics compound. A free post sinks in the ranking as soon as newer jobs arrive, then expires entirely after its 30-day window. A role can be live in the database and still unreachable in practice, sitting behind everything an employer is paying to promote.

    How long do free Indeed postings last, and how many can an employer run?

    Employers posting directly on Indeed can post up to three free jobs per calendar month, each live for up to 30 days. That limit applies in the United States, Canada, Great Britain, Germany and the Netherlands, per Indeed's Free vs Sponsored Jobs page. In a list of other countries (the Philippines, Mexico, India, Japan, and roughly twenty more), free posts stay visible for up to 120 days. The 30-day squeeze is specific to the largest English-speaking and Western European markets.

    Most job seekers never see the per-employer cap. A company hiring for ten roles, or across several locations, burns through three free posts almost at once. It then pays to sponsor the rest or leaves them off Indeed. The free tier fits the occasional single hire, not the volume of roles that exist.

    What is Indeed's "Healthy Marketplace" initiative, and why did free visibility shrink?

    The 30-day, three-post limit is the visible edge of a larger shift. Indeed announced it in April 2024 as its "Healthy Marketplace" initiative. Recruitment analysts at LANDED and Workology report that it deprioritized organic (free) listings in favor of sponsored ones. On 1 October 2024, Indeed ended organic traffic on jobs posted directly on the platform by employers who already feed indexed jobs to Indeed from a career site or applicant tracking system.

    The same reporting notes a carve-out. Jobs Indeed indexes from a company's own career site or ATS keep their organic visibility. The roles squeezed hardest are the ones an employer types straight into Indeed's free form. The roles that still surface organically live on the company's own ATS. As a candidate, that is a strong reason to go to the source.

    Why do Indeed jobs disappear, and are the ones I see still open?

    A role vanishing from your Indeed results doesn't reliably mean it was filled. Two non-hiring reasons explain most disappearances. The free post hit its 30-day expiry, or it fell so far behind newer and sponsored jobs that it's effectively unfindable.

    It cuts the other way too. A free post can sit in your results for weeks after the employer stopped reviewing applicants, because nothing forces them to take it down inside the window. Sponsored roles skew current because money is on the line. Free roles skew uncertain, and Indeed's search alone can't tell you which is which.

    Free vs sponsored Indeed jobs: what's the difference for a job seeker?

    The two listing types behave differently in search, and that gap decides whether you ever see a role. The table compares them on the dimensions that affect you, not the employer's billing.

    DimensionFree postSponsored post
    How long it stays in Indeed search
    Up to 30 days (US, CA, UK, DE, NL)
    While the budget runs
    Position in results over time
    Falls back as newer jobs post
    Appears more often, for longer
    Per-employer posting cap
    3 per calendar month
    No cap
    Still searchable after day 30 (no action)
    No
    Yes
    Cost to the employer
    $0
    Pay-per-click (~$5/day · $150/mo)
    Ranked above the other in search
    No
    Yes
    Yes
    No

    How do I find the jobs Indeed's sponsored-first search buries?

    Apply where the listing can't expire out from under you: the company's own career page. It almost always runs on an applicant tracking system like Greenhouse, Lever, Ashby or Workday. Those listings stay up for the full hiring window and route your resume straight to the employer. Per the Healthy Marketplace carve-out above, they are also the ones Indeed still indexes organically.

    Searching a company's name plus "careers" often gets you there faster than scrolling Indeed's sponsored feed.

    Next, stop using one sponsored-ranked feed as your map of the market. Much of the real demand never shows up prominently on Indeed. It is the same dynamic behind the hidden job market, where many roles are never publicly advertised. A feed ranked by how well roles fit your resume, not by who paid to promote them, surfaces the matches a sponsored-first search pushes down.

    Is Indeed still worth using as a job seeker in 2026?

    Yes, as one channel among several. Indeed still aggregates more listings than anywhere else, and its sponsored roles are usually current because an employer is paying for them. The mistake is treating Indeed's search page as a complete view of what's open.

    Free and expired roles are underweighted by design, so the page you see tilts toward ad spend. Use Indeed for breadth, confirm each role on the company's ATS, and add a relevance-ranked feed so the roles it buries still reach you.

    How does ResumeAI surface roles a sponsored-first feed buries?

    Indeed, LinkedIn Jobs and a relevance-ranked matcher answer different questions. Indeed orders results partly by who is paying to promote them. LinkedIn Jobs blends sponsored and profile-match signals.

    ResumeAI is a free resume and job-matching platform that runs on the same kind of semantic engine recruiters use to search candidate pools. It ranks a daily-refreshed feed of live listings by how well each matches the structured fields of your resume. The pool is rolling and auto-expires stale roles, so you aren't shown jobs that have already closed.

    The ranking signal is the difference. When position depends on ad spend, you see first the roles an employer paid to surface. When position depends on relevance, you see first the roles that fit you. ResumeAI's AI job matching shows how a relevance-ranked feed changes which roles reach the top, and why a sponsored-first page like Indeed's isn't a complete one.

    How we sourced this and what we cited

    Pukar Khanal, Product Lead at ResumeAI, wrote this article and last reviewed it on . ResumeAI is a free resume and job-matching platform built on the same kind of engine recruiters use to search candidate pools, so how listings get ranked and surfaced is the system we work in every day.

    The Indeed mechanics here come from Indeed's own employer documentation, cited below. That covers the 30-day free window, the three-post monthly cap, the markets it applies to, and the statement that sponsored jobs appear more often and for longer.

    Primary and secondary sources

    Indeed doesn't publish the exact pay-per-click auction price or the weighting between sponsored bid and relevance in its default ordering. We attribute those numbers ($5/day · $150/month) to the third-party analyses that report them, and describe the ranking direction in Indeed's own words.

    Frequently asked questions

    Does Indeed hide free job postings from candidates?

    Indeed does not delete free job postings, but it does deprioritize them. Per Indeed's own employer documentation, a free post stays live for up to 30 days in the US, Canada, Great Britain, Germany, and the Netherlands, and it "falls back in job seeker search results as new jobs are posted," while Sponsored Jobs "appear more often and for longer." The practical effect for a job seeker is that roles an employer didn't pay to promote sink down the results and expire out of view.

    Does an employer have to pay for their Indeed job to be seen?

    Not always, but increasingly yes for visibility. An employer can post up to three free jobs per calendar month, each live for up to 30 days. Beyond that cap, or to stay near the top of search, the job must be sponsored. Indeed's 2024 "Healthy Marketplace" changes went further: as reported by industry analysts, employers who already feed indexed jobs to Indeed (from a career site or ATS) now need to sponsor a job they post directly on Indeed for it to be visible at all.

    How long does a free job posting stay visible on Indeed?

    A free job posted directly on Indeed stays live for up to 30 days in the US, Canada, Great Britain, Germany, and the Netherlands. In a list of other countries (including the Philippines, Mexico, India, Japan, and others), free posts remain visible for up to 120 days. After the window closes, the free post is no longer shown in search unless the employer renews or sponsors it.

    How many free jobs can an employer post on Indeed each month?

    Employers posting directly on Indeed can post up to three free jobs per calendar month. Additional postings within the same month must be sponsored. This is a per-employer cap, not per-account, so multi-location and high-volume employers hit it quickly and move most of their roles to sponsored.

    Do sponsored jobs rank above free jobs on Indeed?

    Yes. In Indeed's own words, Sponsored Jobs "appear more often and for longer in search results than non-sponsored jobs," and a free post "falls back in job seeker search results as new jobs are posted." So in a results page, the roles you see first are weighted toward the ones an employer is paying to promote, and the unsponsored roles drift down and eventually out.

    Why do jobs I saw on Indeed disappear?

    Two mechanics explain it. First, free posts expire after 30 days in the major English-speaking and European markets, so a role you saw three weeks ago can simply age out. Second, even before expiry, a free post falls back in search results as newer jobs are posted, so it can become effectively unfindable without disappearing from the database. A role vanishing from your search does not reliably mean it was filled.

    Should I apply on Indeed or go directly to the company's career page?

    For roles you care about, go to the company's own career page or applicant tracking system (Greenhouse, Lever, Ashby, or Workday) where you can. Those systems keep the listing live for the full hiring window and route your resume straight to the employer, whereas an Indeed free post may have already expired or been buried. Indeed is still useful for discovery — just treat the company's ATS as the source of truth for whether a role is open.

    Is Indeed still worth using as a job seeker in 2026?

    Yes, as one channel of several — not as your only one. Indeed still has the largest volume of listings and sponsored roles are usually current because the employer is actively paying for them. The risk is treating Indeed search as a complete picture: free and expired roles are underweighted, so pairing it with direct ATS applications and a relevance-ranked feed gives you the roles its sponsored-first ordering buries.

    What to ask next

    Common follow-ups, each linked to the ResumeAI guide that answers it.

    See the roles a sponsored-first feed buries

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