India job board data compared: IIMJobs, Hirist, Foundit and Instahyre as APIs
India has no single job board. Recruiters post management roles on IIMJobs, software roles on Hirist, mass-market and syndicated roles on foundit (formerly Monster India) and product-company tech roles on Instahyre, and none of the four offers a public API. This guide compares the four boards as data sources: what each one covers, which fields it exposes, how fresh the postings are and what it costs to pull them through the Daemon Data APIs on Apify. All counts were measured on 18 to 21 October 2026 with the APIs themselves.
Coverage, measured
| Board | What it lists | Size signal (Oct 2026) | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| IIMJobs | Management, consulting, finance, CA/CFA, sales, marketing, HR and MBA-track roles, 2 to 25 years of experience | product manager matched 4,097 open listings; investment banking 652 |
Senior and mid-management hiring, salary benchmarks, who-is-hiring signals |
| Hirist | Software, data, DevOps and product-tech roles at IT companies and startups | data engineer 3,420 open jobs (239 posted in the last 7 days); python developer 1,884 |
Tech recruiting, skills demand, tech salary bands |
| foundit | Every function and level: IT, sales, BPO, nursing, accounting, operations, freshers; many postings syndicated from employers' career sites | about 223,000 open listings and 2,900 new postings a day; data analyst 1,192 |
Volume, freshers, non-tech roles, employer apply links |
| Instahyre | Engineering, data, product and design roles at Indian product companies and startups, curated by the platform | 12,743 open jobs: 6,764 in Bangalore, 1,700 Gurgaon, 1,228 Hyderabad, 1,095 work from home; python 4,300 |
Startup hiring signals, company-size filters, remote tech roles |
Fields: what each board gives you
| Field | IIMJobs | Hirist | foundit | Instahyre |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Full job description (HTML and text) | yes | yes | yes | yes |
| Salary band | when the recruiter discloses it (INR LPA) | when disclosed | when disclosed; salaryHidden flag |
not published by the site |
| Applicant and view counts | yes | yes | yes | not published |
| Experience range | yes | yes | yes | yes (from the job page) |
| Company profile | AmbitionBox profile when one exists | AmbitionBox profile | name, logo, employer vs staffing agency, GPTW flag | name, tagline, founding year, headcount, size band, website, logo |
| Skills tags | yes | yes | yes, with the site's normalised IT-skill tags | yes |
| Recruiter contact | not output (privacy) | not output | not output | not output |
| Posting date | exact timestamp | exact timestamp | exact timestamp; reposts refresh it | day precision; jobs stay open for months |
| Apply link | board page | board page | employer's own site for syndicated jobs | board page |
Freshness and feeds
IIMJobs, Hirist and foundit let the API ask the site for postings from the last N days, so a daily feed is cheap: a postedWithinDays: 1 run only touches new jobs. Instahyre's search has no date filter, so the API reads the posting date from each job page; in practice you run it in only-new mode, where the API remembers the job ids it has already delivered (in a key-value store in your own Apify account) and later runs return only what is new on the site. All four APIs share that only-new mode, the skipJobIds field and the same queries / locations input, so one pipeline can read all four boards.
Start an IIMJobs feed with a total cap
Use a distinct stateName for each saved search. This input delivers at most 50 jobs across all keywords, including the first run:
{
"queries": ["product manager"],
"postedWithinDays": 3,
"onlyNewSinceLastRun": true,
"stateName": "product-manager-daily",
"maxJobsPerQuery": 50,
"maxJobs": 50
}
At the FREE-tier list price, a 50-job run with descriptions costs at most $0.20 through 1 November 2026, then $0.101 including the start fee from 2 November. Later runs skip jobs already delivered; they may still return unseen jobs from the three-day window that exceeded a previous run's cap. A quiet search can return zero rows successfully.
Verified 22 October 2026: two consecutive runs on IIMJobs build 0.2.11, using this input shape with both caps reduced to 3, returned six distinct jobs. The second run reported three previously delivered jobs skipped. This verifies de-duplication, not a promise of three new postings between calls.
For code, use the Python and Node only-new-jobs examples or the n8n workflow for Google Sheets and Slack. For Console setup, save the input as a task and choose your timezone explicitly when adding a schedule.
Price per 1,000 jobs (FREE-plan list prices, October 2026)
| Board | Price |
|---|---|
| IIMJobs | $2 per 1,000 jobs plus $2 per 1,000 descriptions until 1 November 2026; from 2 November 2026 $2 per 1,000 jobs with the description included, plus $0.001 per run |
| Hirist | same as IIMJobs |
| foundit | $0.80 per 1,000 jobs, description included, plus $0.001 per run |
| Instahyre | $0.80 per 1,000 jobs, description included, plus $0.001 per run |
A 50-job daily feed therefore costs between about $1.25 and $6 a month depending on the board. Jobs skipped by only-new mode or by your filters are never charged.
Which board for which question
- "Which companies are hiring finance or product leaders in India this week?" IIMJobs; filter on experience and read the applicant counts to see which mandates are crowded.
- "What skills do Indian tech employers ask for, and what do they pay?" Hirist, which carries disclosed salary bands and skill tags on most rows; add Instahyre for startup roles with company headcount.
- "Fresher or non-tech roles, or the largest possible volume." foundit, with its 2,900 new postings a day and fresher filters by experience band.
- "Startups and product companies hiring engineers, by company size or remote." Instahyre, the only board here that publishes employer headcount and founding year and lets you filter by company size.
Questions and answers
Is there an official API for IIMJobs, Hirist, foundit or Instahyre?
No. None of the four publishes a public API. The Daemon Data APIs read the JSON endpoints and public pages the boards' own websites load, and expose them as Apify Actors with schedules, webhooks and only-new runs.
Can I get the same fields from all four boards in one pipeline?
Mostly. All four return id, title, company.name, locations, skills, postedAt, url and a description, and accept the same queries, locations, onlyNewSinceLastRun and skipJobIds input. Salary and applicant counts exist on IIMJobs, Hirist and foundit but not on Instahyre; company headcount exists on Instahyre and on Hirist/IIMJobs through AmbitionBox.
How fresh is the data?
As fresh as the run: each run reads the live site. The job-board APIs finish a 50-job run in well under a minute. IIMJobs, Hirist and foundit filter by posting date on the server; Instahyre needs only-new mode or a per-job date check.
Why are recruiter names missing?
The APIs leave out recruiter names and phone numbers on purpose, even where a board exposes them, and keep the recruiter's designation only where the board shows it to every visitor.
Related data APIs
- IIMJobs jobs: India MBA, finance, consulting and management jobs with full descriptions ($4.00 per 1,000 with default options)
- Hirist jobs: India IT and tech jobs with full descriptions, skills, salary when disclosed ($4.00 per 1,000 with default options)
- Foundit jobs: foundit.in jobs by keyword, city, experience and freshness, full descriptions included ($0.80 per 1,000 with default options)
- Instahyre jobs: India tech jobs from product companies and startups by skill, city, experience and company size, full descriptions included ($0.80 per 1,000 with default options)