French Remote Job Board: Market Analysis & Bootstrapper’s Build Playbook

1. The Thesis — Why This Works and Why Now

Three facts that make this a €15K–€40K/month solo business:

1. RemoteOK proves a solo operator can do $3.4M/year with a job board. Pieter Levels runs RemoteOK alone. Zero employees. $599–$4,143 per listing. Dynamic pricing. 600K–800K monthly visitors. Built on a simple stack. The entire “remote job board” business model has been validated in English. Nobody has done it properly in French.
2. French companies can’t reach remote candidates efficiently. WTTJ charges annual subscriptions (€5K+/year minimum). Indeed is a firehose. LinkedIn is expensive (€10/day minimum, poor signal-to-noise). HelloWork charges €895/listing but is generalist. A company hiring a remote French developer has nowhere good to post. They’ll happily pay €199–€499 for a listing on a board where every visitor specifically wants a remote job.
3. Remote work in France has stabilized — this is now permanent infrastructure. 22% of French private sector employees work remotely (1.9 days/week average). 71% of employers made no policy changes in 2025 — the hybrid model is locked in. 14.5% are fully remote. This isn’t a COVID trend. It’s structural. The demand for a French remote job board will only grow.

2. Remote Work in France — The Numbers

Adoption data (2025)

Developer-specific data

WTTJ candidate behavior

• 59% of WTTJ candidates prioritize remote-friendly offers when searching
• 16% actively use the remote filter in their search
• WTTJ has dedicated pages: /fr/pages/emploi-full-remote and /fr/pages/emploi-teletravail

Translation: Roughly 1 in 6 job seekers on France’s biggest tech job board explicitly filters for remote. On a board with 2M+ monthly candidates, that’s 300K+ people actively looking for remote work every month. And they’re being served by one filter option on a generalist platform. That’s the gap.

3. Every Player Mapped — Job Boards, Platforms, Freelance Marketplaces

The big generalists

Niche tech boards

Freelance platforms

Key insight: Freelance platforms (Malt, Comet) are different from job boards. They’re marketplaces for project-based work with commission models. A remote job board for CDI/CDD positions doesn’t compete with them — it complements them. Many people on Malt would also browse a remote CDI board if one existed.

4. French Remote-Specific Boards — The Direct Competitors

RemoteFR (remotefr.com)

Your only real direct competitor. Study them obsessively.

RemoteFR pricing

RemoteFR’s weakness: Small audience (4,500 newsletter subs, ~19K monthly page views). They’ve been running since 2021 and haven’t scaled past this. Their pricing is low (€200–400) which suggests low demand or low confidence. They haven’t built a strong content/SEO moat. They proved demand exists. They haven’t captured the market.

JeRemote (dead)

• Founded 2020, during COVID. French-speaking 100% remote jobs.
• Shut down. Homepage reads: “Je Remote.com, c’est fini.”
• Failed because: pure job board with no distribution engine (no newsletter, no content, no community).

JobInABottle

• Covers half-remote and full-remote across all contract types.
• Small, low visibility. Not a serious competitor.

Bottom line: Your direct competition is RemoteFR (small but alive) and the ghost of JeRemote (dead but instructive). That’s it. The market is wide open.

5. English-Language Benchmarks — What $3.4M/Year Looks Like

Monetization models used by English remote boards

The Pieter Levels model in detail: RemoteOK uses dynamic pricing that starts at $599 and rises based on how many jobs are currently posted (more listings = higher price for the next one). No sales team. No invoicing headaches. Stripe checkout. The entire business runs on SEO, brand recognition, and a simple UI. Pieter also runs Nomad List ($1M+/year) which cross-promotes RemoteOK. The lesson: a job board is not a standalone product. It’s part of an ecosystem (job board + community + content).

6. French Remote Communities & Media

Newsletters

Blogs and media

• Passion Télétravail (passionteletravail.fr) — Maintains a list of full-remote French companies. Blog + Instagram. The most useful resource for French remote workers today.
• Les Nouveaux Travailleurs (lesnouveauxtravailleurs.fr) — Interviews with remote workers since 2017. Good content, modest audience.
• Welcome to the Jungle Media — Extensive editorial on remote work, but as part of their broader employer branding content. Not independent.

Podcasts

• Génération Remote (RemoteFR) — Digital nomad interviews
• Devenir Digital Nomad — Claire & Marius, French couple working remotely while traveling

Communities

There is no large French-language Slack or Discord for remote workers. Existing options: Nomads Talk (Slack, international with small French channels), Nomads.com Chat (Telegram, France channel). This is a massive gap. Whoever builds the French remote job board should also build the community — they reinforce each other.

7. Pricing Intelligence — What Every Board Charges

Your pricing sweet spot: €149–€499. Below the generalist boards (€870+), above RemoteFR (€200–400), and justified by the niche focus. A company paying €149 for a listing that reaches 100% remote-seeking candidates gets better ROI than paying €895 on HelloWork where 90% of viewers want office jobs.

8. Legal Framework — French Remote Work Law You Must Know

You need to understand this because (a) it’s content for your SEO strategy and (b) employers ask about it.

Remote work regulations (ANI 2020)

• Remote work is voluntary. An employer cannot force it; an employee cannot be fired for refusing it.
• Can be established via: collective agreement, employer charter (with CSE consultation), or simple mutual agreement (email/letter).
• Once established: can only be ended by mutual agreement. The employer can’t unilaterally revoke remote work.
• Employer obligations: must cover costs related to remote work (equipment, internet, electricity). In practice: télétravail indemnity.

Télétravail indemnity

These amounts are tax-exempt for the employee and deductible for the employer.

Portage salarial (for freelancers)

A uniquely French framework: freelancers work independently but are technically employed by a portage company (CDI or CDD status). They get employee benefits (mutuelle, chômage, retraite) while choosing their own clients and rates. Convention collective since 2017. Mandatory mutuelle since 2016. Minimum salary thresholds: 70–85% of Plafond Sécurité Sociale depending on seniority.

Key portage companies: Jump, ABC Portage, 2i Portage, OpenWork, RH Solutions, Human Portage.

Why this matters for your job board: Many “remote” positions can be filled via portage salarial. A job board that explains and integrates portage as an option differentiates from every competitor. No existing board does this well.

9. Why JeRemote Failed — And What to Learn From It

JeRemote launched in 2020, during peak COVID remote work hype. It shut down. The homepage now says “c’est fini.” Here’s what likely went wrong and what it teaches you:

1. They built a job board without a distribution engine. A job board is a two-sided marketplace. Chicken-and-egg problem: employers won’t pay to post if there are no candidates. Candidates won’t visit if there are no jobs. JeRemote tried to solve this by being a job board. That’s not enough. You need distribution first, job board second. That means: newsletter, content, community, SEO — things that attract candidates independently of the job listings.
2. They launched during a hype cycle and died when it normalized. COVID remote work enthusiasm peaked in 2020–2021. By 2022–2023, “return to office” headlines dominated. JeRemote didn’t survive the trough. But by 2025–2026, remote work has stabilized at a permanent baseline. You’re launching on solid ground, not on hype.
3. They probably couldn’t monetize at small scale. With low traffic, you can’t charge meaningful listing fees. With no revenue, you can’t invest in growth. Death spiral. Solution: monetize through newsletter sponsorships first (which work at much smaller audiences than job listing fees), then add job listings as revenue once you have traffic.

The lesson: Don’t build a job board. Build a newsletter about remote work in France that happens to have a job board attached. The newsletter is the growth engine. The job board is the monetization layer.

10. 8 Market Gaps & Opportunities

11. The Winning Strategy — Newsletter-First Job Board

JeRemote built a job board and tried to find an audience. You do the opposite.

Phase 1: Newsletter (Months 1–3)

Launch a free weekly newsletter: “The best remote jobs in France, every Tuesday.” Curate 10–15 remote jobs from across the internet (WTTJ, Indeed, LinkedIn, company career pages). Add 2–3 articles about remote work in France (legal tips, company spotlights, salary data). You don’t need employers to pay you yet. You’re aggregating free listings and adding editorial value.

• Growth target: 3,000–5,000 subscribers by Month 3
• Revenue: €0 from job listings. Start selling newsletter sponsorships at Month 2 (€200–400/send).
• Time investment: 3–4 hours/week

Phase 2: Website + free listings (Months 3–6)

Build a simple job board website. Let employers post for free or for €49–99 (launch pricing). Every job posted goes in the newsletter automatically. Employers are paying for newsletter distribution, not a web listing. The website is the SEO engine. The newsletter is the value proposition to employers.

• Growth target: 5,000–10,000 newsletter subscribers. 5,000+ monthly website visitors.
• Revenue: €1,000–€3,000/month (mix of newsletter sponsors + early job listings)

Phase 3: Paid listings + premium features (Months 6–12)

Raise listing prices to €149–499. Add premium options (featured listing, newsletter highlight, social media boost). Add content: salary reports, company profiles, legal guides. Build SEO authority. Add a “remote-first company directory” as a free resource that drives traffic and backlinks.

• Growth target: 10,000–20,000 newsletter subscribers. 15,000+ monthly website visitors.
• Revenue: €5,000–€15,000/month

Phase 4: Ecosystem (Month 12+)

Add community (Slack or Discord, free or €9/month premium tier). Add events (virtual meetups, sponsor-funded webinars). Add a podcast. Cross-promote everything. You’re now the “remote work in France” brand.

Why newsletter-first beats job-board-first

12. What to Build on Day 1 — The Minimum Viable Job Board

Week 1 deliverable: just the newsletter

Seriously. Don’t build a website yet. Your Day 1 product is:

1. A Beehiiv or Substack publication with a landing page
2. A name and simple logo
3. 3 pre-written “archive” editions (so it doesn’t look empty)
4. Your first real edition, curating 10–15 remote jobs from other sources

Month 2 deliverable: simple website

When you have 1,000+ subscribers, build the website. Keep it dead simple:

• Job listing page: title, company, salary range, location (full remote / hybrid), tags, link to apply
• Company profile pages (for SEO): name, description, remote policy, open positions
• “Post a job” page with Stripe checkout
• Blog/guides section (for SEO)
• Newsletter signup on every page

What you do NOT build

• No user accounts (for job seekers). No login. No profiles. No resume uploads. That’s WTTJ’s problem to solve, not yours.
• No ATS (applicant tracking). Jobs link out to the company’s application page. You are a listing board, not a recruitment platform.
• No complex search/filtering on Day 1. Category tags + a search box is enough.
• No mobile app. Responsive web is fine.

The rule: if RemoteOK doesn’t have it, you don’t need it. Pieter Levels makes $3.4M/year with a simple listing page. No user accounts. No ATS. No resume database. Jobs go up, people click through to apply on the company’s site. That’s it.

13. How to Get 100 Listings Without Cold Calling

Tactic 1: Aggregate first, monetize later

For the first 3 months, manually curate remote job listings from other sources. Go to WTTJ, filter for “full remote.” Go to Indeed France, filter for “télétravail complet.” Go to LinkedIn. Go to company career pages (Doctolib, Qonto, Alan, BlaBlaCar, Datadog, OVHcloud — all have remote positions). List them on your site for free. Link to the original listing. You’re aggregating, not stealing. RemoteOK started this way.

Tactic 2: The “I featured your job” DM

After you list a company’s remote job on your site, DM the hiring manager or talent acquisition person on LinkedIn:

“Salut [name], j’ai vu votre offre remote pour [role] — je l’ai ajoutée sur [your site], notre plateforme dédiée aux emplois 100% remote en France ([X] visiteurs/mois, [X] abonnés newsletter). Si vous recrutez régulièrement en remote, on a un placement premium qui inclut notre newsletter ([X] abonnés). Voici un exemple: [link to sample edition].”

You’re not cold-selling. You’re telling them you already featured them for free and offering an upgrade. Conversion rate on this approach: 10–20% will respond, 5–10% will buy a paid listing.

Tactic 3: Scrape WTTJ’s remote filter

WTTJ’s “full remote” page is public. Every company posting a remote job on WTTJ is a potential customer for you. They’re already paying for remote hiring. Your pitch: “You’re on WTTJ paying €5K+/year for general reach. For €299, your job reaches our 100%-remote-focused audience.” Complementary, not competitive.

Tactic 4: Partner with portage salarial companies

Jump, ABC Portage, OpenWork — they all have client companies that hire remote freelancers. Propose a partnership: they send you job listings from their clients, you give them a referral link. When someone signs up for portage salarial through your site, you get a referral fee (€100–500 per conversion is typical in portage). They get distribution. You get listings and a new revenue stream.

Tactic 5: The “remote-first company directory” Trojan horse

Build a free, searchable directory of remote-first companies in France (Passion Télétravail has a blog post list; you build an actual database). Reach out to companies for inclusion: “We’re building a directory of remote-first companies in France. Can I add [Company]? Also, if you have open positions, I can feature them on our job board.” The directory is the foot in the door. The job listing is the upsell.

Listing volume targets

14. Your Pricing Strategy — Exact Tiers and Why

Additional revenue streams

Pricing philosophy

• Start lower than your target. Launch at €99/€199/€349. Raise prices every quarter as your audience grows. Your first 20 employers pay launch prices. They become your testimonials.
• Never go below €99. Below €99, you attract job posters who aren’t serious. They post garbage listings, dilute your quality, and never convert to repeat customers.
• Anchor on generalist pricing. When a company asks “why should I pay €299?” the answer is: “HelloWork charges €895 and 90% of their visitors want office jobs. We charge €299 and 100% of our visitors want remote jobs. Better ROI per euro.”
• Sell quarterly packs. 4 listings for €999 (instead of €1,196 at €299 each). Companies hiring multiple remote roles get a discount. You get predictable revenue.

15. Growth Playbook — 0 to 10K Monthly Visitors in 6 Months

Channel 1: LinkedIn (primary growth engine)

French professional LinkedIn is incredibly active for remote work content. Post 3–5 times/week:

• Monday: “5 entreprises qui recrutent en full remote cette semaine” (with company names and links)
• Wednesday: One insight about remote work in France (“22% des salariés français télétravaillent. Voici ce que ça signifie pour les recruteurs...”)
• Friday: “Le job remote de la semaine” — highlight one amazing listing with full details
• Every post ends with: “Chaque mardi, je partage les meilleurs jobs remote en France dans ma newsletter. Lien en commentaire.”

Channel 2: SEO content (long-term growth engine)

Target these exact keywords (all have search volume, low competition for a specialized board):

Channel 3: Cross-promotion with French newsletters

Reach out to existing French newsletters and offer a swap: you mention them, they mention you. Targets: La Missive (80K subs), BDM (70K subs), Snowball (70K subs), Génération IA (23K), Le Ticket (7K). Even a 0.5% conversion from an 80K newsletter mention = 400 new subscribers.

Channel 4: French tech communities

• Reddit: r/france, r/devfr, r/vosfinances (for remote salary discussions)
• French tech Slack/Discord: Paris.js, Jamstack Paris, various meetup communities
• French developer forums: dev.to (French-language posts), Stack Overflow (French)
• Facebook groups: many French developer and freelance groups still active on Facebook

Channel 5: PR and media

When you hit 5,000 newsletter subscribers or 100 paid job listings, pitch to French tech press: Maddyness, FrenchWeb, L’Usine Digitale, BDM. Story angle: “This solo operator built the RemoteOK of France.” French tech press loves covering French alternatives to US products.

Growth targets

16. Monetization Math — Road to €15K/Month

Month 3 (newsletter only + early listings)

Month 6

Month 12

Costs at Month 12

Margin: 98%+. At €15K/month revenue with €175/month costs, your profit is €14,825/month. €177,900/year net. Solo. No employees. No office. No investors. No product to build beyond a simple website and a newsletter.

17. Tech Stack — Ship in a Weekend

Newsletter-only phase (Week 1)

Website phase (Month 2+)

The RemoteOK-minimal approach

If you’re a developer, here’s the absolute minimum viable tech:

• One HTML page with job listings (server-rendered or static-generated from a JSON file or database)
• One “Post a Job” form that collects data and processes Stripe payment
• JSON-LD markup for Google Jobs on each listing
• Beehiiv for the newsletter (separate from the website)
• A cron job that auto-expires listings after 30 days

That’s it. You can build this in a weekend. Pieter Levels famously built RemoteOK in a similar minimalist fashion. Don’t overengineer. The product is the audience, not the software.

18. SEO Playbook — Own “emploi remote France”

The current SERP landscape

Right now, searches for French remote job keywords return a mix of WTTJ pages, generic blog posts (cvcrea.fr, aventuredentrepreneur.com), Indeed, and LinkedIn. No dedicated remote-first job board dominates. This is unusual — in most job search categories, a specialized board outranks generalists because of relevance signals and focused content.

Your SEO weapons

1. Job listing pages with structured data

Every job listing should include JobPosting JSON-LD schema with: title, description, datePosted, validThrough, hiringOrganization, jobLocation (set to “TELECOMMUTE”), baseSalary, employmentType. Google surfaces these in the “Google for Jobs” widget that appears at the top of job-related searches. This is free organic traffic from Google. Most French remote job listings on other sites don’t have proper schema markup.

2. Category/tag pages

Create dedicated pages for each category: /jobs/developpeur-remote, /jobs/product-manager-remote, /jobs/designer-remote, /jobs/marketing-remote. Each page targets a specific keyword cluster. These compound over time as you add more listings to each category.

3. Company profile pages

/entreprises/alan, /entreprises/qonto, /entreprises/doctolib. Each page: company name, remote policy, open positions, employee count, stack, benefits. Target: “[company name] remote” and “[company name] télétravail.” People Google this when they’re applying. Your page answers their question and drives them to your job listings.

4. Content pillars (long-form guides)

• “Guide complet du télétravail en France (2026)” — 5,000+ word guide covering legal, practical, and career aspects
• “Annuaire des entreprises full remote en France” — the directory, optimized as a pillar page
• “Salaires remote en France: le rapport 2026” — original data, updated quarterly
• “Portage salarial et télétravail: le guide” — unique angle nobody covers
• “Indemnité télétravail 2026: montants et règles” — reference page, updated yearly

5. Programmatic SEO

Auto-generate pages from your job data: “Remote [role] jobs in France” for every role in your database. “Remote jobs at [company]” for every company. “Remote [tech stack] jobs” for every tech stack. These pages are thin individually but collectively capture thousands of long-tail searches. RemoteOK does this aggressively.

19. 10 Mistakes That Will Kill This (JeRemote Made #3, #5, and #7)

1. Building the website before the audience. You spend 3 months building a beautiful job board. You launch to zero visitors. You have no newsletter subscribers, no LinkedIn following, no SEO content. Employers see zero traffic and won’t pay. Audience first. Product second.
2. Trying to compete with WTTJ on features. WTTJ has 700 employees, $114M in funding, and 5,000+ clients. You cannot out-feature them. You beat them by being 100% focused on remote. That’s your entire moat. Don’t build user profiles, ATS integrations, employer branding tools, or AI matching. Build a listing board with a newsletter.
3. No distribution engine. (JeRemote’s fatal mistake.) A job board without a newsletter, without content, without SEO, without community is a listing page that nobody visits. The newsletter IS the product. The job board is the monetization layer on top.
4. Charging too little (€50/listing) to seem competitive. Low prices attract low-quality employers posting garbage. They also signal “we have no audience.” If RemoteFR charges €200, you charge €149–€299 and deliver better distribution. Never race to the bottom.
5. Not curating quality. (JeRemote likely had this problem.) If you list every “remote” job including hybrid-2-days-in-Paris positions, you lose trust. Be strict: 100% remote or “remote-first with optional office” only. Reject listings that aren’t genuinely remote. Quality is your brand.
6. Ignoring Google Jobs structured data. This is free traffic. If your listings don’t have JobPosting JSON-LD schema, you’re leaving thousands of monthly visitors on the table. Implement this on Day 1.
7. No content beyond job listings. (JeRemote’s other mistake.) Job listings alone don’t build SEO authority, don’t give people a reason to return weekly, and don’t create shareability. You need: guides, salary data, company profiles, legal explainers. Content makes you the authority. Listings make you money.
8. Allowing non-French companies without a French hiring entity. If you list US startups “hiring remote in France” but they don’t have a French entity and expect contractors, you’ll get complaints from job seekers who want CDI stability. Be clear about contract types (CDI, CDD, freelance, portage salarial) on every listing.
9. Not publishing consistently. The newsletter goes out every Tuesday at 8h00. Not “sometimes.” Not “when there are enough jobs.” If it’s a light week, curate fewer jobs and add more editorial content. Never skip an edition.
10. Giving up before Month 6. Month 1–3: slow growth, minimal revenue, self-doubt. Month 4–6: inflection point. SEO starts compounding. Newsletter grows through word-of-mouth. Employers return after seeing results from first listing. JeRemote likely gave up during the trough. The businesses that survive the trough are the ones that reach the inflection.

20. Your Week 1 Action Plan — Launch by Friday

Monday (3 hours)

1. Pick a name. 15 minutes, not 3 days. Ideas: RemoteFrance, TravailRemote, FullRemote.fr, BoulotRemote, JobRemote.fr. Check domain availability. Buy it (€10–15).
2. Create Beehiiv account. Scale plan. Set up publication: name, description, logo (emoji is fine for now).
3. Set up Feedly. Add 30+ feeds: WTTJ blog, Indeed France (remote filter RSS), Maddyness, FrenchWeb, Les Nouveaux Travailleurs, Passion Télétravail, Remote.co blog, Remotive blog.

Tuesday (3 hours)

1. Curate your first edition. Go to WTTJ, Indeed, LinkedIn — find 12–15 genuinely remote French jobs. Write a one-line description for each. Group by category (Dev, Product, Design, Marketing, Ops). Add a 3-paragraph intro explaining what this newsletter is and why you’re starting it.
2. Publish it as your first archive edition on Beehiiv. Backdate it to look like you’ve been publishing.

Wednesday (3 hours)

1. Write your second edition. Same process. Faster this time.
2. Write a short guide: “Les 10 meilleures entreprises full remote en France (2026).” Research Passion Télétravail’s list, verify, add your own research. This becomes your first piece of content marketing.

Thursday (2 hours)

1. Write your third archive edition. 3 editions in the archive now.
2. Draft your LinkedIn launch post. In French. Personal story: why you’re building this. The problem: “762,000 professionnels du numérique en France, des milliers de jobs remote, et aucune newsletter dédiée sérieuse.” The solution: your newsletter. Save as draft.
3. Draft 30 personalized LinkedIn DMs. Target: French tech workers who post about remote work. Template: “Salut [name], je lance [newsletter] — une newsletter hebdo des meilleurs jobs remote en France. Premières éditions en ligne: [link]. J’aimerais ton avis!”

Friday (2 hours)

1. Write your “real” first edition. The one that goes to actual subscribers. Make it great. 12–15 remote jobs + your guide about remote companies + a personal note.
2. Publish your LinkedIn post.
3. Send 15 DMs.
4. Post in 2–3 French communities (r/devfr, a French tech Slack, a Facebook group). Not a promo — share your “10 best remote companies” guide with a link to the newsletter at the end.
5. Schedule your first newsletter for next Tuesday at 8h00.

Weekend

1. Send the remaining 15 DMs.
2. Check subscriber count. Target: 50–150 subscribers before your first scheduled send.
3. Start planning next week’s edition.

You are now a newsletter operator. Total investment: 13 hours of work and €110 (Beehiiv + domain). Next Tuesday at 8h00, your first edition goes out to real subscribers. Do this every week for 6 months and you’ll have a business.

Sources

• Welcome to the Jungle Reaches Breakeven in France — AIM Group
• Welcome to the Jungle Grabs $54M — TechCrunch
• RemoteOK Revenue Data — GetLatka
• Qui télétravaille en France en 2025 — HelloWorkplace
• Télétravail et présentiel: travail hybride — INSEE
• RemoteFR — Offres d’emploi 100% en télétravail
• RemoteFR — Sponsoriser: Offres & Tarifs
• Wonder Remote Newsletter — Substack
• Comparatif des prix des annonces sur les jobboards — Flatchr
• ANI du 26 novembre 2020 — Légifrance
• Télétravail dans le secteur privé — Service Public
• Convention Collective Portage Salarial — Jump
• Malt Scores €80M Round — Sifted
• Développeurs 2025: salaires et tendances — Free-Work
• Salaires développeurs France 2025 — Blog du Modérateur
• Marché de l’emploi numérique — France Travail
• Entreprises full remote en France — Passion Télétravail
• Trouver un travail en remote — Les Nouveaux Travailleurs