Monetizing Your Board

How to make money from your job board. Covers the four models WP Career Board supports, when each one is the right call, and the mechanics of setting each up.

Free vs Pro. WP Career Board Free supports one monetization model: free postings. Every paid model below - pay-per-post, credit packages, and subscriptions - requires WP Career Board Pro. Pro ships the credit ledger (the wcb_credit_ledger table) and the Wbcom Credits SDK, which provides the WooCommerce, WooCommerce Subscriptions, WooCommerce Memberships, Paid Memberships Pro, and MemberPress adapters. The credit fields you see in Free’s job form (cost, balance, Buy Credits link) are filter-driven stubs that default to free/zero until Pro fills them in. The admin screens this page mentions for credits, mappings, and the ledger are Pro screens.

The four models

Model	What employers pay for	When it fits	Setup complexity
Free	Nothing - postings are free	Niche communities, employer-branding boards, sites where the goal is engagement not revenue	Trivial
Pay-per-post	A flat fee per job listing	Small to medium boards with predictable per-job value	Low
Credits / packages	Bundles of postings purchased upfront	Recruiters or agencies who post multiple times per month - cheaper per-post when bought in bulk	Medium
Subscriptions	Recurring monthly / annual access for unlimited (or N) postings	High-volume employers, boards positioned as “Indeed for niche X”	Medium

You can also combine: free for one type of role (e.g. internships), paid for premium roles, with optional “featured” upgrades on top.

Model 1 - Free postings

The simplest model. Employers register and post without paying. You fund the board through:

• Sponsorships - a banner ad slot on the home page (your theme), sponsored by a company that wants exposure.
• Affiliate / commission - Career Board doesn’t track placements; for affiliate, integrate manually or use a third-party tool.
• Adjacent product / service - a paid plugin, a course, a recruiting service, etc. The job board drives traffic; you sell something else.

Setup

1. WP Admin → Career Board → Settings → Job Listings.
2. Posting cost: Free is the default - there is no per-post cost in the Free plugin, so there is nothing to set. (Per-post credit cost is a Pro feature.)
3. Moderation: the Auto-Publish Jobs toggle controls this. It is OFF by default, so new postings sit at Pending Review until an admin approves them. For free boards keep it off - spammers love free boards. Turn it on only if you trust your posters.

When this is right

• You have an existing audience (community, newsletter, etc.) and the board is a service for them, not a product itself.
• Your goal is reach, not revenue.
• Spam is manageable through moderation.

When this is wrong

• You need cash flow from the board.
• You don’t have time to moderate a high-volume free queue.

Model 2 - Pay-per-post (Pro, WooCommerce-backed)

Each new job posting requires payment. This requires Pro and a checkout layer; WooCommerce is the most common choice.

Setup

1. Install WooCommerce. Run its setup wizard. Configure payment gateways (Stripe / PayPal / etc.).
2. Install Pro. Pay-per-post needs Pro’s credit ledger and the Wbcom Credits SDK. (The license drives updates only; the credit feature works once Pro is installed.)
3. Create a “Job Posting” WooCommerce product.
   • Type: Simple product.
   • Price: $29, $49, $99 - whatever your market bears.
   • Title: “Single Job Posting (30 days).”
4. Map the product to a credit grant in the Pro Credits admin tab (WP Admin → Career Board → Settings → Credits → Credit Mappings).
   • Adapter: WooCommerce.
   • Product: the one you just created.
   • Credits granted: 1.
5. Set a Credits Purchase URL in the same Credits tab, pointing at the WooCommerce product. The Buy Credits button only appears once both the mapping and the purchase URL are set.
6. Set the per-board posting cost. Credit cost is configured per board (opt-in since Pro 1.3.0). Give the board employers post to a cost of 1 credit. Employers now need 1 credit to post a job there.

Flow from the employer’s perspective

1. Employer clicks Post a Job.
2. Form shows: “You have 0 credits. Buy 1 credit to continue.”
3. They click Buy Credits, get redirected to WooCommerce checkout.
4. After payment, credit lands on their account (via the ledger).
5. Back on the form, the credit auto-deducts and the job posts.

When this is right

• You want predictable per-job pricing.
• Most employers post 1-3 jobs per year (one-off pricing makes sense).
• You’re early days and want to gauge demand before bundling.

Variations

• Featured upgrade - separate WooCommerce product priced higher ($99 instead of $29). Map it to “Featured upgrade” consumer in Career Board. Employers can buy it during the post flow.
• Tiered pricing - different products per category. Senior / executive postings cost more than entry-level. Map each to a different category at the credit-mapping level.

Model 3 - Credit packages (Pro)

Bulk pricing: employers buy 5 or 10 postings upfront at a discount.

Setup

1. WooCommerce + Pro (same as Model 2).
2. Create multiple WooCommerce products:
   • “1 Job Posting” - $49 - grants 1 credit.
   • “5 Job Postings” - $199 ($40/each) - grants 5 credits.
   • “10 Job Postings” - $349 ($35/each) - grants 10 credits.
3. Map each to its credit grant in Settings → Credits → Credit Mappings.

Flow from the employer’s perspective

1. The employer sees their credit balance on the dashboard overview (and the Pro Credit Balance block) and clicks Buy Credits on the job form when their balance is too low.
2. They see the packages you mapped.
3. Pick a package, check out via WooCommerce.
4. Credits land on their account. They post normally; each post on a paid board holds, then deducts, the board’s credit cost.

When this is right

• You have repeat employers (recruiters, agencies, staffing firms).
• Volume discount is a real selling point.
• You want a stable balance sheet - money upfront, postings spread over months.

Model 4 - Subscriptions (Pro)

Employers pay monthly or annually for unlimited (or capped) postings.

Setup options

The Wbcom Credits SDK bundled in Pro ships adapters for these membership / subscription back-ends:

Plugin	Best for	Setup
WooCommerce	One-off product purchases	Pro + WooCommerce adapter
WooCommerce Subscriptions	Mature ecosystem, lots of payment-gateway support	Pro + WooCommerce Subscriptions adapter
WooCommerce Memberships	Membership tiers on top of WooCommerce	Pro + WooCommerce Memberships adapter
Paid Memberships Pro	Community + content-gating + jobs in one plan	Pro + PMPro adapter
MemberPress	More polished membership UX, but per-feature pricing adds up	Pro + MemberPress adapter

(There is no Restrict Content Pro adapter; pick one of the back-ends above.)

Setup (PMPro example)

1. Install PMPro. Configure your gateway.
2. Create membership levels:
   • Starter - $49/month - 3 postings.
   • Pro - $199/month - unlimited postings.
   • Annual Pro - $1,990/year - unlimited postings (10-month pricing).
3. In Settings → Credits → Credit Mappings, map each PMPro level to a credit grant:
   • Starter level → 3 credits per billing cycle.
   • Pro level → 999 credits per billing cycle (effectively unlimited).
4. Credits auto-grant on subscription payment (via the PMPro adapter).

Flow from the employer’s perspective

1. Employer registers, picks a plan, completes subscription checkout.
2. Credits land on their account immediately.
3. Each billing cycle, credits refresh (subject to your “carry over unused?” policy - set this in the adapter mapping).
4. Cancellation: subscription stops, no new credits, existing credits remain until expired or used.

When this is right

• Your board has high-volume repeat employers.
• You want recurring revenue, not one-time.
• You’re competing with general job boards on volume and need a business model that scales.

Combining models

Most real boards run a hybrid. Examples:

• Free for non-profits, paid for everyone else. Filter the post-a-job form based on the user’s role / membership level.
• Free postings + paid Featured upgrade. Volume comes free, you monetize the employers who want visibility.
• Free first posting as a trial, paid thereafter. Career Board doesn’t ship this out of the box - you’d need a tiny custom plugin that grants 1 credit on first registration.

Pricing - what to actually charge

There’s no universal right number, but anchors:

Board type	Typical per-post price
Local / city-specific	$10-$30
Niche tech (remote-friendly)	$50-$200
Executive / specialty	$200-$500
Internship / academic	$0-$30 (often free)
Healthcare / regulated industry	$100-$400

Featured upgrades typically cost 2-3× the standard price. Bundle discounts typically save 20-40% over individual purchase. Annual subscriptions typically price at 10× monthly (give 2 months free).

Start with the low end of the range. You can always raise later; lowering looks bad.

How the credit ledger handles refunds and disputes (Pro)

Pro’s credit ledger is append-only. Every credit movement writes a row - top-up, hold, deduct, refund. Rows are never edited or deleted.

Refund flow:

1. WooCommerce / PMPro / MemberPress issues the refund through its own checkout flow.
2. The adapter detects the refund event and writes a refund ledger row.
3. The employer’s credit balance reduces by the refunded amount.
4. If the employer already posted jobs against those refunded credits, the job posts stay live; the balance just reflects the refund.
5. For disputes that don’t go through the checkout (e.g. a bank chargeback handled externally), use the manual adjustment card at the bottom of Settings → Credits to write an offsetting row. There is no per-employer “Adjust” button and no separate ledger report screen - adjustments all happen from that one card.

Tracking revenue and renewals

• WooCommerce → Reports for order revenue.
• PMPro → Reports for subscription metrics (MRR, churn).
• Career Board → Settings → Credits (Pro) shows the manual adjustment card with a user’s current balance; the ledger itself is the append-only record behind the balance.
• For deeper analytics, query the credit ledger table or your checkout plugin’s reports - Career Board does not ship a built-in revenue dashboard.

Common monetization mistakes

• Charging too much too early. A new board with no traffic gets zero postings if pricing matches Indeed. Start cheap, build a base, raise as you fill listings.
• Hiding the price. Employers should see what postings cost before they register. A clear pricing page beats a maze.
• No free option for testers. Many employers want to “try one posting” before committing to a package. Either offer a free first posting or a 7-day money-back guarantee.
• Auto-cancelling paid jobs on subscription expiry. Confusing for both employers and candidates. Keep posted jobs live until their natural deadline; just stop new postings on expired subscriptions.
• Not testing the buy flow. Always run a real $1 product end-to-end before going live. The ledger, the email, the credit grant, the post flow - they all need to land.

Where to go next

• Pro’s credit-system docs (credit-system/01-overview.md in the Pro docs) - full credit system, mappings, and refund reference.
• 02-employer-end-to-end.md - the employer flow you’re enabling.