Newsletters
Job board software for newsletters
A newsletter with a defined audience already has the hard half of a job board: readers who trust it and businesses who pay to reach them. What it does not have is inventory it can sell more than once. A sponsorship slot is sold, sent and gone. A job listing stays up for thirty days, appears in every issue it runs in, and brings readers to a page you own.
From $79/month · 14-day free trial · No setup feesKardow gives the newsletter a jobs section on its own domain, filled with relevant jobs from day one, that sponsors can post to and pay for without you in the loop. You keep writing the newsletter where you write it today, and Kardow takes 0% of your job sales.
How the money works
Sell the send and the listing together
The listing on its own is the weakest version. What sells is the bundle: a job post on the board plus a mention in the next issue, priced as one product. Sponsors understand it immediately because it maps to what they already buy from you, and it is worth more than either half.
The second product is the hiring package, for companies that hire from your readership all the time: a set number of posts and issue mentions every month or quarter, sold as a subscription on Pro and above. Lumpy job revenue becomes something you can forecast.
Underneath both sits the free inventory. Imported jobs from companies in your niche or your town fill the board, so the jobs block in each issue is never thin and a sponsor can see what they are buying into.
The question that decides it
“I write on beehiiv or Substack. How do the jobs get into the issue?”
Kardow does not send your newsletter and does not replace the tool you write in. Every board publishes an RSS feed of its newest jobs at /rss.xml, and that feed is the bridge.
On beehiiv, add an RSS block to your post template and point it at the board's feed; with "refresh feed on send" turned on, each issue pulls the latest jobs as it goes out. beehiiv keeps external RSS feeds for its higher plans, so check yours. Mailchimp, Kit and other tools with RSS-to-email do the same. Substack has no RSS or HTML block inside a post, so there the jobs section is a short list of links you paste in, or one button pointing at the board.
The board also grows the list you already have. Job alert sign-ups sit on every job page, and those subscribers export as a CSV for your email tool.
A board of this shape
Lenny's Jobs
The best-known example of a newsletter extending into jobs. It is free for job seekers and built to strengthen the newsletter rather than to sell single posts, which is a different trade-off from a sponsor-funded board. Worth studying for how tightly the board and the newsletter are tied together, and for what it chooses to charge for. Lenny's Jobs Opens lennysjobs.com in a new tab
Look at Lenny's Jobs
Named as a reference point, not as a Kardow customer. It does not run on Kardow and we
have no relationship with it.
What maps to your workflow
The parts of Kardow that do this job
01
Jobs in every issue
An RSS feed of the newest jobs, ready for an RSS block in beehiiv or an RSS-to-email campaign elsewhere, so the jobs section of each issue fills itself. 02
Bundles your sponsors already understand
Sell single posts, packs of posts and monthly hiring plans from one catalogue, with featured placement for the posts that pay more. Packs and subscriptions are on Pro and above. 03
Backfill so the board is never empty
Scheduled imports pull roles matching your niche or your town from careers sites and feeds, so the board has inventory from day one and a sponsor sees a live product rather than an empty template. 04
Job alerts that grow the list
Readers subscribe to alerts by keyword, category or location, which builds a segmented list of people who are actively looking and gives you a second send that writes itself. 05
On your domain, in your brand
jobs.yournewsletter.com or a path on your own site, in your colours, and without Kardow branding on Pro. The jobs widget can also put the live jobs inside a page you already have. Guides for newsletters
How to add a paid job board to your newsletter Setup, pricing, and getting the jobs into every issue on beehiiv, Substack and the rest. How much to charge for a job post in your newsletter Real prices from $25 to $250, a starting price by list size, and bundle math. How to sell job ads to businesses that already sponsor you An example rate card, bundles, and a script for the first conversation. How news publishers make money from job listings What happened to job classifieds, and the revenue models that work for a publisher today. Run your own jobs section or join a job network? What a network gives a publisher for free, and what running your own gives back. Job board software for publishers outside the US Languages, currencies, and getting paid by employers who pay by invoice. 21 newsletters and publishers that run job boards What each charges, who reads it, and the software underneath. Checked every quarter. Why newsletter job boards fail, and which ones last What Pallet's shutdown and The Pragmatic Engineer's numbers teach, and a checklist for your own list.
The honest limit
Where Kardow is the wrong answer here
Kardow does not send your newsletter, and it does not sync subscribers to your email provider on its own. It sends job alerts and captures subscribers, and you can export that list as a CSV for beehiiv, Kit, Ghost or whatever you run today, but the main send stays there. If you were hoping to consolidate the newsletter and the board into one tool, this is not that. Not sure which side you are on? Ask us.
Questions
What people ask before they build one.
- How many subscribers do you need before a job board is worth it?
- Audience definition matters much more than audience size. A newsletter with three thousand subscribers who all do one job in one industry, or all live in one town, can charge real money for a listing, because there is nowhere else to reach those people. A newsletter with a hundred thousand general readers cannot, because a sponsor can buy that audience anywhere. The question to answer first is whether an employer could reach your readers by any other route.
- Can I sell a job post and a newsletter mention as one product?
- Yes. Create a plan that describes both, for example "Job post plus a mention in the next issue", and set its price. The post goes live on the board when it is paid; the mention you add to the issue yourself, since Kardow does not send the newsletter. Every sale appears in one payments list, so none are missed when you write the issue.
- Should the board be on a subdomain or a subfolder?
- A subfolder on your main domain if you can, because the board inherits the authority your site has already built and every board page contributes back to it. A subdomain works and is simpler to set up, but starts closer to zero in search. Kardow supports both on every plan. A subfolder needs a routing rule on your existing site, and we help you set it up.
- What should we charge for a listing?
- Anchor to your sponsorship rate rather than to other job boards. If a sponsored slot costs $500, a listing plus a mention is not $50. The package matters more than the single price, since a company that hires from your readers repeatedly is worth several single-listing buyers. Our guide to selling job ads to your sponsors has an example rate card.
Build it and see whether it works
Every plan includes a 14-day trial and there is no setup fee, so the cost of finding out is one month. Kardow starts at $79 a month. Closest to this one
All use cases Publishers A jobs section for a news site, local newsletter or trade publication, sold to the advertisers you already have. Communities Revenue that members welcome instead of tolerate, because the thing you are selling is access to them and they benefit from it. Regional job boards A board covering one place properly, which is the one thing national boards are structurally bad at.