Looking for a Lightcast alternative?
A Lightcast alternative for job postings in Canada and the US: jobs straight from employer career sites, with search, change feeds and a free trial.
Updated
The short answer
If you need job postings for Canada and the US, The Jobs API is an alternative to Lightcast. It collects jobs only from employer career sites and hiring systems, and gives you search, full job details and new, modified and expired feeds. It is built for labour market analysis and research. We are built for apps and job boards that need live job records.
What is Lightcast?
Labour market analytics built on deduplicated, coded job postings. Where its jobs come from: more than 220,000 sites: career sites, job boards and aggregators.
Why look for a Lightcast alternative?
- You need live job records for an app or job board, not statistics.
- You want self-serve access at a small-team price.
How the two compare
Checked October 20, 2026 from Lightcast’s public pages.
| The Jobs API | Lightcast | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | A job postings API for Canada and the United States | Labour market analytics built on deduplicated, coded job postings |
| Where jobs come from | Employer career sites and their hiring systems (ATS) only | More than 220,000 sites: career sites, job boards and aggregators |
| LinkedIn or Indeed data | No. We do not collect LinkedIn, Indeed or other job boards | Includes job boards and aggregators |
| Canada and French | A core focus: every province and territory, English and French posts | Has a dedicated Canada job postings product |
| How you get the data | REST API, change feeds, MCP server, Apify | API, skills taxonomy, data shares, AWS Marketplace |
| Change feeds | Ordered changes on every plan; expired-ID feed from 20k, modified feed from 50k | Analytics refreshes |
| Starting price | $50 a month for 20,000 jobs, or $0.50 per 1,000 jobs on Apify | Not published; enterprise contracts |
| Free trial | 7 days, 500 jobs, 50 requests, no card | Not published |
When to stay with Lightcast
- You need skills and occupation taxonomies and labour market statistics.
- You need policy-grade methods and long history.
How to switch
- Start the free trial and create an API key.
- Run the same searches you run today with /v1/jobs: title, place, remote and source filters.
- Load a starting set with /v1/active-ats?time_frame=6m, then poll the new, modified and expired feeds.
- Map our fields to yours. Missing facts stay empty: we never invent pay or other fields.
Questions people ask
Is The Jobs API cheaper than Lightcast?
It depends on your volume and what you need. Our plans start at $50 a month for 20,000 jobs, and our Apify listings charge $0.50 per 1,000 jobs. Some providers charge less per record for job-board data.
Which countries do you cover?
Canada and the United States, with Canadian coverage in English and French.
Can I try it for free?
The free trial lasts 7 days and includes 500 jobs and 50 API requests. You do not need a card.