Talent Access Paywall

Charging employers for talent access

Talent access plans let you monetize the candidate side of your marketplace without charging candidates. Employers pay to browse profiles, unlock redacted resumes, or contact candidates from your talent directory.

This works best when your board has a meaningful candidate pool: completed profiles, clear job-search status, useful experience history, and enough niche relevance that employers would rather search your board than a generic database.

Prerequisites

• Stripe connected
• Candidate profiles enabled
• Employer accounts enabled
• Talent directory enabled
• At least a few candidate profiles visible in the directory

If either candidate profiles or employer accounts are disabled, talent access plans are hidden from the public board because employers would not have a valid account path or candidate pool to buy.

Choose the access model

Before adding the first talent access plan, choose how employers pay:

Paid messaging: employers browse full profiles and use credits to contact candidates. Use this when you want an open resume database but paid outreach.

Paid unlocks and messaging: employers see redacted profiles until they unlock them, then use a separate credit to contact candidates. Use this when profile access itself is the paid product.

You can change models later after deleting or archiving current talent access plans. Keeping one model active at a time prevents contradictory plans on the same board.

Create a talent access plan

1. Go to Board settings > Monetization
2. Find Talent access plans
3. Click Add plan
4. Choose the access model if this is your first talent access plan
5. Enter the plan name, description, price, and billing type
6. Set the profile unlock and candidate contact credits
7. Save the plan

Plans can be recurring subscriptions or one-time packs. One-time packs are useful for selling a small bundle of unlocks and contacts without a renewal.

Configure credits

For Paid messaging, profile views are unlimited. Configure only how many candidates the employer can contact.

For Paid unlocks and messaging, configure both:

• Profile unlocks: how many redacted candidate profiles the employer can reveal
• Candidate contacts: how many candidates the employer can start a conversation with

Candidate contacts are initial outreach credits. Once a conversation exists, the employer and candidate can continue that thread without spending another credit.

What employers experience

On the public Employers page, talent access plans appear beside job post plans. Employers choose a plan and pay through Stripe checkout.

With paid messaging, employers can browse full profiles. If they are logged out and click Message, they are sent to employer sign-up. After they have an employer account and credits, they can contact candidates from profile pages.

With paid unlocks and messaging, the talent directory and profile pages show redacted candidate details. Employers buy a plan, unlock a profile, then use a contact credit to message that candidate.

When credits are exhausted, employers see the next available plan or an out-of-credits state. Subscription credits refresh on the billing period. One-time credits are spent down until the pack is empty.

Customize the public copy

Talent access copy is editable in the visual editor:

• Open the Employers page to edit plan-section headings, plan bullets, and button labels
• Open the Talent profile page to edit the redacted-profile paywall, unlock card, and messaging copy
• Open the Talent directory page to edit directory-gate copy for restricted audiences

Use the editor preview states to check logged-out, out-of-credits, unlock-needed, and messaging states before publishing.

Combine with other revenue streams

Talent access works alongside paid job posts and employer subscriptions. A common setup is:

• Paid job post plans for employers who want inbound applicants
• Talent access plans for employers who want proactive sourcing
• Discount codes for launch offers or partner campaigns
• Display advertising for supplemental traffic revenue

Avoid charging for talent access too early if your candidate pool is still thin. The product becomes easier to sell once employers can see enough relevant candidates in your niche.

Troubleshooting

If talent access plans do not appear, check that candidate profiles, employer accounts, the talent directory, and Stripe are enabled.

If profile redaction is not appearing, confirm the board is using Paid unlocks and messaging and has at least one active talent access plan. Paid messaging intentionally leaves profiles visible and only meters candidate contact.

If checkout fails, confirm the plan is active, Stripe onboarding is complete, and the employer is connected to an approved company on the board.

If employers cannot message after purchasing, check whether they have candidate contact credits remaining and whether the candidate is open to messages.