20 Best Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS): Reviewed & Compared
We kicked off Q2 with a fresh round of tech tests for all the ATS systems in this guide. Some have switched up their prices, while others have launched some awesome product updates. Check out all the details below.
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An Applicant Tracking System (ATS) is software that automates the recruitment and hiring process. For companies that hire more than 20 employees a year, an ATS is an essential tool. On this page, you’ll find expert reviews and comparisons of the best ATS systems on the market.
We've been researching, reviewing and comparing ATSs since 2018 and update this article regularly. But we offer more than just research: Our writers have led recruiting operations and PeopleOps across industries. We combine our direct, hands-on experience with rigorous research, product demos, user reviews, and the input of impartial, third-party experts to provide consistent, reliable, and helpful advice. You can also book a free call with an HR tech expert who'll give you personalized help.
To create and update our list of the best ATSs we regularly participate in product demos, gather user and expert feedback, and leverage in-house knowledge. We assess each product's performance on core functions, including job post distribution, candidate screening, interview scheduling, and analytics/reporting. In our view, the three most essential components that best-in-class ATS software must score highly on are UX/UI, candidate experience, and integration/compatibility.
- UX/UI: Posting a job should take less than 30 seconds, syndicating this job to job boards should be a simple push of a button, and viewing applicants should be as intuitive as using platforms like Trello.
- Candidate Experience: Features like personalized communication, easy interview scheduling, and self-service portals for application status updates all enhance the candidate experience. Your talent acquisition team is also part of your public relations team, so it is critical to equip them with tech to ensure you maintain a strong reputation among all candidates, regardless of your hiring decision.
- Integration and Compatibility: We assess each platform’s ability to integrate with other tools in a typical HR ecosystem. Limited integrations can be a massive drag on ROI: manually entering data or downloading CSVs just to upload them to your ATS, for example, is suboptimal at best.
To address the needs of companies of any size, we've included a few all-in-one solutions. In our experience, many companies with lean HR/TA teams and fewer than 500 employees are better off with a platform that combines applicant tracking with other functions like CRM, HRIS, or payroll.
For more information on our methodology, read this article on how we evaluate HR tech vendors.
Greenhouse
Greenhouse is a feature-rich ATS best suited for midsize and large teams. In addition to advanced scheduling, workflow customization, and numerous seamless HRIS integrations, the platform also includes a well-liked onboarding feature.
PROS
- Onboarding module to ease the transition from candidate to new hire.
- 300+ integrations with third-party solutions for numerous people ops needs.
- Collaboration-enabling features distribute the hiring workload across multiple stakeholders.
- Customization options are plentiful, and template workflows are convenient.
- Greenhouse's onboarding feature is built and executed well. New hires transition smoothly from candidate to employee.
- iOS and Android apps work well for recruiters on the go. Users can review applications, schedule interviews, view candidates' profiles, and more.
- 450+ third-party integrations.
CONS
- Undisclosed prices, no free trial.
- The reporting feature can be challenging to navigate.
- Cost-prohibitive for budget-conscious teams.
- A full focus on ATS and onboarding means it lacks core HR features.
- Greenhouse’s pricing is undisclosed, and they do not offer a trial version.
- Some users note that reporting customization is quite limited and difficult to navigate.
- In-person/live support could be improved.
Our editorial team has always had good things to say about Greenhouse. Several of us have used it extensively as members and leaders of TA teams, and our sentiments align with most of the users who tested the product for us: it’s easy to use, and it saves time.
The dashboard is reflective of the product’s name: greenhouse. It’s visually appealing and offers a clear view of the collection of candidates that need attention. The whole hiring team can see the upcoming interviews, applications to review, and task status overviews.
In our most recent experience using an updated version, we were impressed with the developments in the “interview kit”. The standardization of the interview process is a massive help in combating bias. Clear-cut qualification criteria for each interview stage result in employee confidence in decision-making and valuable insights for process improvement.
We like the pre-built templates for creating and posting jobs. We found that even users with minimal familiarity can post a job in about one minute.
For experienced users who have created their own hiring workflow, this task is reduced to seconds. Even the process of creating custom workflows is a drag-and-drop, super-streamlined affair.
Our writers with professional experience using this tool report that once you’re familiar with it, it basically runs itself. That’s an exaggeration, of course, but the sentiment stands: Greenhouse is a popular ATS because the product meets the needs of actual recruiting teams (and writers who used to be recruiters!).
With more than 300 partners, chances are good that they can connect you with any tool or service you need, and with their well-established place among top HR tech tools, you can count on a smooth, well-supported integration. However, some businesses prefer the simplicity and security of an all-in-one platform, which Greenhouse is not. There’s no right or wrong choice here, but we encourage you to evaluate what is right for your team carefully.
HubSpot, DoorDash, Dropbox, Wayfair.
The starting price for Greenhouse is approximately $6,000 annually, based on information from our network. Standard contracts require a one-year prepayment, but discounted rates are available for those who prepay for two or three years.
Best For
Greenhouse is best for medium to large enterprises that emphasize collaborative hiring practices.
Greenhouse is an applicant tracking system (ATS). It allowed the business I worked with to track and store candidates for various positions. We were able to message candidates and structure the application process. The system also provided extensive data tracking throughout the recruiting process. While I understand that Greenhouse includes onboarding features, I did not use that functionality.
I like the intuitive features of Greenhouse. The analytics are helpful for tracking key metrics during the recruiting process. It also allows for collaboration among recruiters and makes it easy to communicate with candidates.
Greenhouse was a product used by one of my consulting clients. They had been using it for several years before I became involved in some of their recruiting projects. Their goal was to track applicants efficiently. Greenhouse integrated with their HRIS system and streamlined the process for their website. It was also easy for candidates to apply through the platform.
The platform is expensive. Once it is set up, there is limited customization available. The scheduling feature was not user-friendly for recruiters.
Greenhouse is very user-friendly compared to its competitors. It also integrates with several systems to ensure a seamless flow of information.
Organizations should consider how they intend to use the ATS and which features are most important to them. They should also evaluate the price point and ensure it aligns with their budget.
While I used it, I did not notice any significant changes or updates to Greenhouse.
Greenhouse is well-suited for mid to large organizations that regularly need to fill multiple positions. It is also beneficial for companies with multiple recruiters responsible for hiring and onboarding.
Greenhouse is relatively expensive, which may make it cost-prohibitive for smaller organizations. Additionally, the extensive data tracking features may be unnecessary for companies that do not require that level of detail. It may not be the best option for organizations looking for a simple, cost-effective ATS.
Pinpoint
Pinpoint has grown into a more powerful system than it was even a year ago. Its focus on workflow efficiency, candidate experience, and cross-team usability makes it a strong option for companies that want to streamline without losing control. It may not be ideal for every budget, but if you are running 30 or more hires a year, the time saved through automation alone could justify the investment.
PROS
- Workflow Automations let teams scale repeatable tasks org-wide, not job-by-job.
- Intuitive career site builder helps attract and convert candidates quickly.
- Highly customizable workflows and referral tools.
- Unlimited jobs and users across all pricing tiers.
- Strong customer support via chat, email, or phone.
- Pinpoint is an agile ATS that is highly customizable and values collaborative hiring.
- It’s got a simple and transparent pricing structure.
- Pinpoint offers unlimited jobs and team members in all of its plans.
- Their customer service team is highly praised by users.
- The career site builder is very robust, allowing teams to attract and convert the right talent.
- There are over 100 HR software integrations to choose from, and Pinpoint’s team is adding 3-5 every month.
CONS
- Employee onboarding comes at an additional cost.
- Lacks a free version or trial, making hands-on exploration harder.
- Bespoke integrations limited to Enterprise tier.
- Pricing may be steep for startups or very small teams.
- The employee onboarding module does cost extra.
- It isn’t the best fit if you’re looking for the cheapest ATS.
- There isn’t a free trial or free version at this time.
Pinpoint has become one of the more complete applicant tracking systems we’ve tested, especially for in-house recruiting teams that manage consistent or high-volume hiring. When we last reviewed the platform, its standout feature was the career site builder. That still holds true today. However, its recent product updates, particularly around workflow automation, have pushed it into a more scalable and strategic category.
The biggest change we noticed is the introduction of organization-level Workflow Automations. During our tests, we configured one automation for rejection emails and applied it across every open role.
Unlike older automation features that operated job by job, this system worked across the board. This made it faster to handle repetitive tasks and ensured that no step in the candidate journey was missed. Recruiters can now set up automations for interview invites, stage transitions, follow-ups, and even internal reminders. The real benefit is consistency. It reduced manual work without sacrificing personalization, especially when paired with custom templates.
We also tried out a few real-world use cases shared by their customer Article, including an automation that followed up with candidates who said they were open to relocation. Setting it up in our test environment was straightforward, and the logic held up when applied across multiple roles.
Another cool feature was the interview scheduling updates. You can now configure automatic email invites that send as soon as a candidate moves to the next stage. We liked that you can restrict these emails to send during working hours, which helped keep communication aligned with our team's time zones. It is the kind of quality-of-life feature that feels small but saves hours over time.
The career site builder is still one of the most intuitive we’ve used. One of our editors with no web development background was able to publish a branded careers page in under 30 minutes. The tool walks users through page creation step by step and includes prebuilt sections for open roles, culture messaging, and custom visuals. We also saw continued strength in the referral system. Internal employees can easily refer candidates and track their progress through a built-in dashboard.
Pinpoint has also added new integrations that support assessments and onboarding. For example, Outmatch brings candidate testing directly into the ATS, and Planday allows new hire data to sync for a smoother transition into operations. During our trial, these integrations worked as described, though setup required a quick consult with their support team.
The only notable drawback is that while automation and UX are best-in-class, Pinpoint doesn’t offer a free trial, and onboarding tools come at an added cost. We should also warn you that this is not the cheapest platform on the market, but we think the ROI is clear for mid-sized or scaling companies who want modern, repeatable hiring workflows.
CoinShares, Pathways Global, Grant Thornton, Icario, Pivot Energy
- Growth Plan: Starts at $345/month (billed annually). Includes unlimited jobs and users, career site builder, analytics, integrations, and standard automations.
- Enterprise Plan: Starts at $1,200/month. Adds multi-page career sites, multilingual support, bespoke integrations, onboarding features, and implementation support.
- Startup Discounts: Available for companies with fewer than 50 employees.
Best For
Pinpoint is best for mid-sized and scaling in-house recruiting teams, especially those hiring for 30+ roles a year and looking to streamline operations with flexible, organization-wide automations.
We use Pinpoint daily, it's an ATS, so it does the typical things an ATS does. This includes, creating career pages on our corporate website that explains some basics about Article, and allows a candidate to decide if they’d they feel they’d be aligned to working with us.
On the career site, all the open jobs are visible for potential candidates to see. They can then decide to apply, upload a resume and fill in some basic info. On our side of the ATS, we create the jobs that are posted - designing the interview flows, application questions, and scorecards, then advertising them to the selected job boards.
We use Pinpoint to evaluate the viability of applicants, referrals, and candidates we source, being a single point of truth. Once candidates are selected to proceed, we use Pinpoint to move through the interview process, giving the hiring manager visibility into the hiring process.
For candidates, we use Pinpoint to schedule and communicate with candidates, who are selected for this process, but also to reject those candidates who are not. There is a lot more of course but this is a basic walk-through, and I’d assume if you’re reading this, you have a good idea of what an ATS does.
They're an ATS that is ascending, and not coasting on reputation; they've continuing to evolve, with new useful features, and integrations quickly rolling out.
Overall, I’d argue that Pinpoint puts candidates first, with easy applications and great branded communication. Adding to this, candidate-centric design is the built-in self-scheduling for interviews, and including a candidate NPS score - this is key to letting my team and I understand the candidate experience.
The new automation feature they launched where you can create rejection emails based on application questions has saved my team a lot of time by not having to screen candidates who do not meet minimal requirements, currently, this is about 29% of applications. We have been creating custom rejection emails for each automation, this allows the candidate to know specifically why they were rejected, and if they answered the application incorrectly by mistake, allow them to reapply.
I’m also a fan of their pronoun feature, which allows candidates to share their preferred pronouns. Little touches can make a huge difference when building inclusive hiring practices.
They continue to have fantastic support and as a partner, they really care about my team and our success. Adding to this are the people they hire, who are really great and it makes interacting with them so much easier.
With less talk/hype and more substance, you can tell they focus on the product and customers, not on the hype marketing machine jumping on whatever the trendy topic is.
We have used Pinpoint for 2+ years now, with a TA team that was quickly growing (we’d have over 20 users at peak). As an organization, we had just started hyperscaling, and we end up growing over 3x in under 18 months.
As we started on this journey, I quickly found that the ATS we were using, couldn’t keep it up. It was, designed for SMBs and smaller recruitment teams. One of the biggest pain points was it lacked the ability to reject candidates through an anonymous email, instead, when candidates were rejected it came from each recruiter's email - given the volume of applicants, this solution was not feasible and would lead to a poor candidate experience.
Additionally, the previous ATS ecosystem was small and wasn’t growing quickly, and it lacked the ability to build a career site out of the box.
We also needed the ATS to be easy to use, not just for the recruiters, but also, for the number of new hiring managers who would quickly need to understand how to use the ATS. This made the case to look replace the old ATS clear, we made a scorecard and started to evaluate our ATS options, ultimately landing on Pinpoint.
- Some of the UI/UX could be improved, particularly when you're screening large volumes of candidates, minor but it would be helpful.
- Because it lacks a deep integration into LinkedIn, we need to use LinkedIn’s “job wrapping” feature.
- The newer automation feature is really powerful, however, setting them up requires too many clicks, it’s not a huge deal, but it could be made smoother.
Much easier application process than most ATSs, making it very candidate friendly. Overall, they nail the mid-market really well, with enough features, integrations, and reporting, but they’re not hard to use and overly cumbersome compared to big ‘enterprisey’ ATSs.
When selecting an ATS I’m a proponent of using the following ranking:
- Candidate experience, regardless of the market, the best talent will always have options, if the application experience and communication experience is poor, they’ll choose to work elsewhere
- Recruiter experience since they use the tool the most. If they don’t like it, or it’s overly complex they’re going to work around it, rather than through it
- Hiring manager experience, will they log in, and actually use it
- Support, if I have an issue will it get resolved?
- Ecosystem/ integrations, an ATS should not do everything, rather it’s the hub to connect point solutions with
- I'm a huge fan of how they rolled out candidate pronouns, allowing candidates to share their preferred pronouns when applying.
- Multiple new integrations have been launched.
- Much faster page loading response times from when we first rolled it out.
Mid-sized to enterprise organizations.
I'm not sure. Maybe small companies that don't have a dedicated HR team.
BambooHR
We love how this ATS operates within Bamboo’s larger HR Suite. We found seamless workflows between the applicant tracking software and other core HR features. The simplicity makes for ease of use, and helps ensure compliance.
PROS
- This is one of the few solutions that allow you to do month to month pricing, a nice option to have!
- Free 7-day trials are available (and you can definitely extend these another week or so if needed).
- The mobile app works well and offers built-in application review, communication, and collaboration features.
- They have a ridiculously fast response time on customer success queries, less than 2 minutes in our experience.
- Flexible packaging and custom pricing is the way they roll. You can pick out one or two packages and pick other modules as add-ons based on your needs.
- Very simple and straightforward tool, easy to use.
CONS
- If you go over your allotted time for customer support, you will pay extra.
- Customer support availability is restricted to U.S. business hours, potentially causing delays in addressing urgent concerns for international users.
- Certain modules like time tracking, performance management, and surveys are only accessible as add-ons, requiring additional investment if you want more HR functionality.
- Payroll is only available for US-based employees
- Customer support is only offered during US business hours.
- Some modules like time tracking, performance management, and surveys are only available as add-ons.
We’ve led TA teams, so we know the pressures growing orgs face. The fast pace can result in hasty decisions, which lead to problems down the road in terms of efficiency and compliance.
This ATS, built into the Bamboo suite, gets around the problem of siloed employee data. On top of this, we were also impressed with some specific features.
We used the app version on Android and iOS devices and found it easy to navigate workflows like posting jobs, viewing resumes, communicating with candidates and hiring managers, and scheduling. We know that if you’re a recruiter, your job probably has you on the run, so the well-built app is a big plus.
The cloud-based web version was also impressive. We were guided through each step of a standard hiring process without any confusion, and we found it easy to customize workflows when we tested the simplicity of creating our own. Ease of access to other elements of the suite highlights one of the biggest advantages: not only is it easier to be productive when all employee data is in one place, but it’s also much safer if you don’t have to move information across platforms manually. It’s more secure and less prone to human error.
Among the 30,000+ companies who use BambooHR are names like Quora, Universal Group, Reddit, Asana, Change.org, University of Maryland, Grammarly, Stance, Postmates, Wistia, the Jacksonville Jaguars, and ZipRecruiter.
BambooHR pricing starts at $3,000 and is based on a per-employee per-month model. We've seen companies pay as low as $8, but typically between $12 and $14 per employee per month if they use the full HRIS with a few other modules.
Best For
BambooHR works best for SMBs seeking an all-in-one ATS and HR suite that can take care of the entire employee lifecycle.
If I recall correctly, we intended to use BambooHR primarily as an ATS. However, the basic package did not include an ATS, so we added the ATS, Onboarding, and Employee Self-Service modules.
The ATS component was used almost daily to manage job postings and candidate pipelines. That said, the Employee Self-Service and Onboarding modules were underutilized, partly due to the variety of positions we hired for and differing needs across roles.
- The ATS system was easy to use and well-suited for a small business, with flexibility to manipulate information as needed.
- The increased visibility provided by BambooHR greatly improved our candidate pool and reduced time-to-fill metrics.
- The Employee Self-Service page was intuitive and straightforward to navigate.
As an HR Business Partner for a smaller company that relied entirely on manual processes, we sought a software solution to support hiring and employee records management. Major pain points included the lack of a proper ATS and an effective system for managing employee records.
At the time, individuals would physically drop off applications or apply through Indeed, limiting our talent reach significantly. Additionally, employee records were maintained as physical files, posing significant challenges for tracking and audits. This tool addressed these issues and helped streamline our processes.
- BambooHR was costly compared to other tools, considering its features and practicality for a small business.
- A better onboarding and training process for the team could have improved the use of the Employee Self-Service tools.
- For a company with both tech-savvy and labor employees, the tool could have been more agile to meet diverse needs effectively.
From a small business perspective, I would rate it a 7 out of 10. It is easy to use and allows for quick adjustments, but the cost is high for what it offers. While its user-friendliness is a plus, it may not be suitable for larger companies with complex requirements.
Cost is a crucial factor to consider. It is essential to evaluate whether employees and HR team members will use all the functionalities of the tool effectively. Assess the types of employees in your company, their technical skills, and their familiarity with workflows or self-service tools.
If you have a team that is technologically adept and values independent workflows, this tool could be a great fit. Additionally, for companies transitioning to more technologically enhanced processes, this tool can be beneficial if the cost aligns with your needs and expected usage.
Based on feedback I’ve heard, the tool has remained consistent with the features and functionality I experienced during my time using it.
This tool is ideal for smaller to mid-sized companies with independent, technologically proficient employees who value easy-to-use self-service and ATS tools. It also supports organizations looking to modernize their processes.
Larger companies with complex organizational structures may find this tool too basic for their needs. It is less suited for businesses requiring advanced functionalities or extensive customization.
Workable
If you're a fast-growing SMB with multiple roles to fill and want one platform for job distribution, candidate comms, and basic HR support, Workable brings real value. And unlike many competitors, you can test it for 15 days without a sales call.
PROS
- Offers native tools for sourcing, video interviews, assessments, and even Core HR, all under one roof.
- Excellent recruitment automation capabilities for emails, pre-assessments, disqualifications, and self-scheduling.
- AI job posting assistant supports tone adjustments, version control, and sentence-level edits.
- Multilingual candidate interface supports French, German, Greek, Spanish, and Portuguese.
- 290+ integrations and API access enable broader customization.
- You can post jobs with one click to over 200 sites. You also get access to access to Workable’s talent pool with over 400 million profiles.
- Workable has built-in cognitive and personality candidate assessment. The platform also has features for offer management, which means you can create offer letters and collect e-signatures without needing to use third-party tools
- You can reduce unconscious hiring bias with Workable’s anonymized screening feature. It helps you hide identifying candidate information from the sourced and applied stages of the hiring process.
CONS
- Employer-side dashboard is English-only, which limits backend accessibility for international teams.
- Higher starting price compared to SMB-friendly competitors like Manatal or Wellfound.
- Texting tool, video interviews, and assessments cost extra.
- No built-in candidate profile auto-merge.
- Workable doesn’t provide automated reference checking and onboarding features.
- Useful features such as candidate texting, video interviews, and assessments are not offered in any of Workable’’s plans and instead, sold separately.
- Several users complained about the reporting feature not being detailed or customizable enough, and that the candidate search function could use more filters.
We’ve followed Workable for years, but our latest hands-on test revealed a platform that has matured into one of the more thoughtful ATS options for fast-growing medium-sized businesses. Our demo began with the career site builder. The no-code builder felt intuitive and quick, and in under 10 minutes, we had a page that looked sharp and felt aligned with our brand, without needing design help.
Where Workable really started to stand out was in its automation engine. We tested templates for thank-you emails, interview scheduling, and rejections. Setting up the logic took less than five minutes, and the personalization tokens (such as candidate first name or role title) were easy to insert. The real win was that we didn’t need to handhold every communication; Workable just got it done.
Another standout was the AI job description assistant. We prompted it for a Customer Support Manager job, and it returned a structured draft in seconds. But what impressed us was the control: we could shift the tone from formal to casual, revert to earlier versions, or even regenerate just one clunky sentence. It felt less like using ChatGPT and more like collaborating with a content editor.
On the inclusion front, Workable’s Language Kit was better than expected. One of our editors, who’s fluent in Spanish, reviewed the full candidate flow and found the translations to be accurate and appropriately localized. The anonymization tool also worked well, instantly scrubbing names and images from profiles. If you're serious about mitigating bias, this is a rare out-of-the-box feature that requires no IT lift.
There are trade-offs, however. One is pricing. Starting at $299 per month can be hard to justify for teams that don’t need the full range of tools. We also encountered issues with duplicate applicants. There is no auto-merge, so users may have to reconcile histories manually – an oversight that could complicate high-volume hiring.
Another mixed bag is the built-in sourcing tool. Although the ATS surfaced a decent set of passive candidates during our trial (75 views included), it lacked the depth and granularity we’ve seen in dedicated sourcing platforms like Fetcher or Gem. So while it’s fine for occasional outbound efforts, we don’t think it can replace your sourcing stack if you hire aggressively.
Workable has been used by over 30,000 organizations, including Sephora, Forbes, Bevi, Moodle, and Navarro.
Workable pricing starts at $299 per month for its recruiting module, which includes applicant tracking system software, and $349 when bundled with HRIS.
Best For
Workable’s ATS is best suited for teams scaling fast or hiring internationally.
When Synergized was still using Workable, it was part of our daily workflow. My area of the company is Recruiting, so I appreciated the easy access and having all the tools readily available to find prospective candidates.
The key workflow involved job posting and sourcing. Being able to post across multiple platforms during high-volume periods helped significantly reduce time spent searching for applicants.
As mentioned, collaboration and feedback are important for all agencies but especially effective for small teams. This also helped reduce time spent on lengthy processes by allowing us to quickly see where candidates stood and how they were rated moving forward.
- Workable provides powerful analytics and reporting tools that supported hiring decisions.
- It facilitates team collaboration and communication with real-time feedback.
- It streamlines job postings across multiple boards, simplifying the process.
Synergized implemented Workable for candidate sourcing across multiple job boards such as LinkedIn, Indeed, and Glassdoor. After a year of use, it proved beneficial for building a customized hiring pipeline and facilitating team collaboration.
Synergized is a small team, so Workable was useful for tracking candidates through different stages while allowing team members to share feedback or leave comments on prospective hires.
Workable was also efficient in helping us review recruiting analytics and reports, so we could evaluate the effectiveness of our hiring process. This included reviewing sources of hire, time to hire, and other key metrics.
- Workable is expensive for smaller teams, which is ultimately why we switched platforms.
- The user interface could be simplified, as the large number of features can be overwhelming for smaller agencies.
- Although Workable posts across several platforms, its reach is still somewhat limited considering the cost.
Workable has strong sourcing features, but it’s harder to justify the price when other platforms offer more advanced features and integrations. Its effectiveness depends on your company’s size and specific needs. If you are primarily using the platform for job posting, it could be a good fit.
Choosing a user-friendly interface is important. If platforms are overloaded with features, they can become overwhelming. Finding an ATS that integrates with multiple boards and platforms will help streamline the hiring process efficiently.
While some companies may not need in-platform collaboration, having the ability to take notes and track applicant status is key for maintaining efficiency and consistent communication.
Workable has implemented automated resume screening and interview scheduling, which helps reduce the time it takes to hire a candidate. The platform is also expanding the number of interfaces it integrates with, which allows for more diverse candidate sourcing.
Workable is better suited for larger companies due to its price and extensive features. Larger organizations may benefit more from its communication tools and automated scheduling. It can significantly reduce the time required to complete recruitment tasks.
Smaller agencies may find it cost-ineffective and may not need all the features. These organizations often have more time to engage personally with applicants, so the platform's interface may not offer enough value for their hiring needs.
Trakstar Hire
Trakstar Hire is highly customizable. The ATS provides a single plan that includes all its features without limits, making it an excellent choice for mid-sized businesses.
PROS
- Highly customizable workflows that make navigating the hiring process easy.
- Unlimited job posts.
- Management must-haves are built-in, letting users create offer letters and collect e-signatures without integrating with other tools.
- Trakstar Hire’s recruitment workflows are highly customizable. You can edit them as needed to reflect your company’s hiring process.
- You can post as many jobs as needed with Trakstar Hire without any limitation.
- Trakstar Hire has offer management tools built-in. Users can create offer letters and collect e-signatures within Trakstar Hire without needing to integrate it with third-party tools.
CONS
- Limited integration options with third-party HRIS and payroll solutions.
- All-or-none plan: customers may pay for features they don’t use.
- No free trials. Undisclosed pricing.
- Trakstar Hire has limited integration options with third-party HRIS and payroll solutions.
- Several users have complained about being unable to sort candidates and search results in an order other than displayed.
- Trakstar Hire isn’t a scalable platform; they have a single plan, all features included, which means customers may end up paying for features that they don’t need.
- Trakstar doesn’t publically list their pricing nor allows visitors to create trial accounts directly from the website, which is unusual for a software solution aimed at mid-market companies.
Trakstar Hire (formally RecruiterBox) is a web-based ATS for midsize companies. Our experience navigating the platform was quite positive. The platform supports unlimited job posting on multiple job boards and social media sites. Users can sponsor those listings for maximum visibility and receive resumes through customizable application forms.
We especially liked that customizing the workflow takes just a few clicks. They’ve done a great job balancing ease of navigation with numerous features and configurations available.
Trakstar Hire’s automation stood out as we tested the tool. Once resumes are in, the platform parser automatically extracts candidates’ details and creates profiles in seconds.
The offer management feature is well-made. We especially liked the offer letter templates that were ready to send after just a few tweaks for personalization: end-to-end, we created a mock template in less than 5 minutes. It also manages e-signatures without third-party integration.
However, when the need arises to connect to a third party, Trakstar Hire’s integration abilities are a relative letdown.
They have covered some of the critical basics with the following apps: Namely, BambooHR, Slack, Checkr, QuickBooks, PandaDoc, G Suite, and Outlook/Office 365 Calendar, but we hope more integrations are in the works!
Makita, Couchsurfing, Lonely Planet, Untappd, Quality Ironworks.
Our sources indicate that Trakstar Hire has a starting price of $199 per month.
Best For
Trakstar Hire is best suited for medium-sized businesses that hire regularly.
With a large staff, I use this platform around 3 times a week. I typically add users, send passwords, and review and send performance reviews. Annually, the entire review language is reviewed, and I probably spend another 10-15 hours a year updating the framework of the reviews.
It is extremely adaptable, allowing for multiple different processes and rules. It has unique features and the ability to change language, save anything, and add dates that make sense for your organization. The support staff is helpful and accessible, ready for unique requests and retraining.
My organization purchased Trakstar Performance Management before I arrived. I took on the training, design, launch, and implementation of the tool. I developed processes and policies and distributed them to the staff of 30+. I used all functionalities in the performance management tool. Our team built this tool for our organization over the course of 3 months, rolled it out over another 3 months, and have been using it for about 2 years.
The titles of the functions are rather confusing, as "policy" and "review" are not what I expect them to be. Its high adaptability can make it challenging to build and maintain. The reports are simple, but I believe they are being developed further; I never got much value from them.
Trakstar stands out for having some of the best service I've experienced and the most practical adaptability I've seen.
When seeking a tool like this, consider cost per user, functionality/adaptability, system integration, and support available. This tool is especially useful if you have multiple existing processes to change over. It is easy to set up users, and it would be much more streamlined if personnel data came from recruitment and fed into learning and development paths using the additional platforms.
I'm unsure of all changes, but the reporting was advancing when I was using it more. Metrics were available for performance but not in minute detail from what I recall.
Our organization is a nonprofit with about 100 employees. However, we had high turnover, so user build-out was a frequent function. It's great for organizations looking for adaptable performance reviews, with the resources to afford and build out the platform package (hire, recruit, learn). There is more value in time and money with the additional areas. Once built, it's a breeze.
If an organization has high turnover and is unable to take advantage of the integrated systems, this can be cumbersome, and there may be a better option as an add-on to a payroll/benefit application.
AvaHR
AvaHR left a lasting impression on us with how much they care about making things easy for users and helping teams work together better. Their Pipeline Triggers take care of mundane tasks that come up during the hiring process, while the Shared Inbox keeps all the messages, questionnaires, and scorecards coming in safe and sound.
PROS
- Intuitive UXUI with Pipeline Triggers that automate repetitive actions based on a candidate's stage, such as sending thank-you emails or requesting hiring team feedback.
- Shared Inbox provides team access to incoming messages, questionnaires, and scorecards in one location.
- Data migration service is available at no additional cost.
- Transparent pricing, free trial available.
- Culture Profiles let you add videos, photos, and text to showcase your company's work environment.
- Pipeline Triggers automate repetitive actions based on a candidate's stage, such as sending thank-you emails or requesting hiring team feedback.
- Custom questionnaire builder for candidate pre-assessments.
- Data migration service is available at no additional cost.
- Transparent pricing, free trial available.
CONS
- A credit card is required to sign up for a free trial.
- Some of the classic ATS features like resume parsing, interview scheduling, and custom search are currently unavailable.
- Other features, like eSignatures and employee referrals, cost extra to use.
- No free plan, a free trial requires a credit card.
- Pricier than competitors like Loxo and Zoho Recruit.
- Additional charges for features like eSignatures and employee referrals.
- Interview scheduling feature is unavailable (still in development).
After testing AvaHR, we were struck by its thoughtfully designed interface and how easy it made every step of the hiring process. From the moment we logged in, we could tell the team behind this tool had put serious effort into crafting a user experience that’s intuitive yet powerful.
A standout feature right from the start was the Pipeline Triggers. Based on where an applicant is in the process, it can automate tasks like sending thank-you emails or requesting feedback from the team— to spare recruiters from the mundane, easy-to-miss details.
The design of the Candidates section is also really nice. It offers a bird' s-eye view of all applicants' key information, including their application dates, hiring stages, and contact details. During our tests, the filter function worked great for narrowing down candidates by job title, department, and other criteria. The only minus was that we couldn’t find any advanced options like Boolean searches.
On par with other robust ATS systems, AvaHR's candidate communication features let us send emails and SMS messages directly from the platform. For these workflows, you can use templates and bulk actions to make things fasyer. Our favorite, though, was the Shared Inbox. It kept all incoming messages, questionnaires, and scorecards, which made it much easier to manage candidate interactions and keep the team aligned.
However, we noticed that the interview scheduling feature was absent at the time of this review. Thankfully, it’s already on the vendor’s roadmap. We’ll keep you posted on how this feature plays out once it’s released.
We think AvaHR should also improve its integration capabilities a bit more since seven options are a modest number compared to other platforms we’ve evaluated.
And while the team offers free data imports if you’re migrating from another ATS (which we love), we can’t say the pricing is as competitive as some competitors like Zoho Recruit, considering there’s no free plan and some features, such as eSignatures and employee referrals, will come with extra fees.
1,000+ companies, including Redirect Health, BuzzRX, and State Farm.
AvaHR offers 3 pricing plans: Starter at $89 per month, Grow at $179 per month, and Pro at $279 per month (billed annually).
Best For
Avatar’s ATS software is best for US-based companies with more than 100 employees.
We use AvaHR almost daily as part of our ongoing recruitment efforts at Impression Foot and Ankle. It serves as our central hub for posting job ads, managing open roles, and screening applicants.
One of the most valuable workflows for us is the automated candidate communication, which keeps applicants informed and engaged without requiring manual follow-up. We also rely heavily on AvaHR’s customizable hiring stages, which help us move candidates through the pipeline smoothly and consistently.
The platform’s collaboration tools allow multiple team members to leave feedback and ratings, making it easier to make quick, informed hiring decisions. It has become an indispensable part of how we attract and evaluate top clinical and administrative talent.
- AvaHR’s automated candidate communication saves us hours each week by keeping applicants informed and engaged without manual effort.
- The customizable hiring pipelines make it easy to tailor workflows to different roles across our clinics.
- The user interface is clean and intuitive, enabling our team—from admins to hiring managers—to collaborate easily without extensive training.
- Their customer support is responsive and helpful, making implementation and ongoing use smooth and efficient.
At Impression Foot and Ankle, we were experiencing major inefficiencies in our hiring process, including disorganized applicant tracking and inconsistent communication with candidates.
We needed a solution that could streamline our recruiting workflow, help us present a more professional front to applicants, and reduce the time our team spent on manual follow-ups.
We chose AvaHR because of its user-friendly interface, strong automation features, and how well it adapts to the needs of a growing practice like ours. Since implementing it over a year ago, we’ve seen significant improvements in both the speed and quality of our hiring.
I’ve personally used AvaHR for about 14 months, and it has become an essential part of how we bring new talent into our clinics—organized, efficient, and stress-free.
- There’s a slight learning curve when setting up more advanced workflows, though the support team is quick to assist.
- We would like to see deeper integrations with some of the niche medical software tools used in our practice.
- The mobile experience could be more robust for better access on the go.
We’ve used BambooHR in the past, and while it is a solid all-in-one HR platform, AvaHR stands out by focusing specifically on the hiring experience.
AvaHR is more intuitive for building custom pipelines, automating communication, and facilitating team collaboration during the hiring process. It is lighter, faster, and easier to implement—especially for small to mid-sized businesses that want to move quickly without a steep learning curve.
Unlike BambooHR, which can feel generalized, AvaHR provides a more tailored and flexible approach to recruiting. We prefer AvaHR for its simplicity, focus, and adaptability to our specific hiring needs without unnecessary features.
When buying a hiring tool like AvaHR, consider how intuitive the platform is—your team should be able to adopt it quickly without extensive training. Look for customization options in the hiring pipeline so the system can support your process instead of imposing a rigid structure.
Automation features are essential, especially for communication and scheduling, as they save time and enhance the candidate experience. Also, check whether the tool integrates with your existing systems or offers flexible data exporting options.
Test the responsiveness of customer support early on, as it's a strong indicator of long-term success with the platform.
The application is continuously updated with new features that align with hiring needs. The addition of AI-powered tools—such as a job description writer and candidate scoring—has been especially helpful and reflects their commitment to innovation.
AvaHR is well-suited for small to mid-sized businesses that are growing quickly and need a streamlined, easy-to-use hiring system without the complexity of enterprise-level HR suites. It is ideal for organizations seeking to centralize recruiting, improve candidate communication, and enable collaboration without requiring internal HR tech expertise.
Teams with multiple locations or departments, such as medical practices, retail operations, or franchises, will benefit from its customizable pipelines and unlimited user access.
AvaHR works best for companies that prioritize a smooth, professional candidate experience and want to hire efficiently without sacrificing personalization.
AvaHR may not be ideal for very large enterprises that require a comprehensive all-in-one HRIS with extensive payroll, benefits administration, and compliance management.
Organizations with highly complex or heavily regulated hiring processes might find its customization options limited compared to more robust enterprise-level solutions.
ClearCompany
Launched in 2004, ClearCompany is an established platform that has kept pace with leading-edge HR tech. During our hands-on evaluation of the ATS, we found a comprehensive set of “talent management” features assembled into a logical and seamless workflow recruiting teams need.
PROS
- Multiple pricing options and add-on features.
- Intuitive UI across multiple HR modules.
- Numerous reports of a smooth implementation and attentive customer support.
- ClearCompany offers a host of HR solutions that work well with another. You can choose the solution you need or combine them all to have a comprehensive talent management platform in your stack.
- The majority of users find ClearCompany’s interface to be quite intuitive and easy to navigate.
- Many users have highly rated ClearCompany’s support team for speed and quality of response. Several users have also reported a smooth implementation experience.
CONS
- Undisclosed pricing, no free trials.
- Some users felt underwhelmed by the customization options of the reporting feature.
- The candidate search function is reported to be somewhat unreliable.
- No mobile apps.
- ClearCompany’s pricing is not readily available on their website. You also can’t create a trial account on your own from the website and have to go through the sales team for more info.
- Some users felt that the reporting feature is limited in customizations.
- According to a few users, the candidate search function doesn’t always bring up the correct candidate(s) and could use some improvement.
- ClearCompany doesn’t currently have a mobile app, but the platform is well optimized for mobile use both for hiring managers and candidates.
ClearCompany is a talent management suite with an ATS feature that can be purchased as a stand-alone product or as part of the comprehensive HR tech toolset. Numerous configurations and pricing options are available so companies can create a plan that meets their needs and suits their budget.
We review all types of HR tech, but our team has a lot to say about applicant tracking systems. In fact, during our in-house evaluation, we found that several of us had extensive professional experience using this platform in previous positions. The consensus: the ATS software works best within ClearCompany’s suite, but it is a super-solid ATS on its own.
Some standouts include the user interface, which is uniquely modern for a company founded in 2004. We were specifically impressed with the onboarding workflows, which transitioned candidates into new hires in just a few clicks.
Mitsubishi Electric, Chick-fil-A, Goodwill, Axiom Bank, Bios, FlixBrewHouse, and Halco.
ClearCompany pricing starts at $60 per user per month.
Best For
ClearCompany is among the top ATS platforms for mid-sized teams that only require an ATS, as well as large organizations that can afford the entire suite.
As a contractor, I manage about 10 requisitions. I primarily use the platform to publish job posts on the website, manage applicants within the ATS, advance candidates through the process based on hiring manager feedback, and extract applicant data and demographic information for analysis.
I focus on the recruiting workflow by reviewing applications, updating applicant statuses, and uploading documents such as updated resumes, portfolios, interview assessments, and hiring manager feedback.
I have also used the Prospects function to source passive and previous candidates by using Boolean string searches within the Candidates tab.
- If configured properly, the system can be customized based on an organization’s recruiting workflow, including the number of interview stages and required documents.
- Although the Prospects function may not be the most efficient sourcing method, it diversifies sourcing options and allows for candidate engagement.
- The system is intuitive. Prior to working with this client, I had never used ClearCompany, but it was easy to learn and navigate.
I am currently a contractor for a company that has been using ClearCompany for at least five years. They primarily use it as an ATS and have recently started using an additional function that allows for sourcing within the platform, aiming to reduce subscriptions to external sourcing platforms such as LinkedIn and Indeed.
It currently houses all active and previous requisitions, acts as a database for applicants, and is used to automate the entire recruiting lifecycle within the company.
Personally, I have used it for one year. My responsibilities include managing requisitions, ensuring that all candidate information is accurate and up to date, and sending status updates and automated emails within the system.
Most recently, I have used the "Prospects" function to reach out to previous candidates or those who submitted a general application through the company’s website.
The company mainly uses ClearCompany to centralize and automate its recruiting process.
- Sourcing within the ATS and Boolean string searches are not as reliable as other sourcing platforms. While there is potential, improvements are needed.
- Since ClearCompany is under ADP, switching between accounts occasionally causes glitches, though efforts have been made to improve system integration.
- Clear Insights is not very reliable for analyzing recruiting metrics. While it has potential, it requires manual programming to deliver meaningful insights, unlike more advanced systems.
Its integration with ADP helps compensate for ADP’s limited recruiting functionality. It is more intuitive than ADP’s recruiting features. However, other systems are more seamless, easier to use, and have more user-friendly interfaces.
Functionality should be the top priority. Identify the non-negotiable features and evaluate how well the tool integrates with existing systems. The client I work with already uses ADP for payroll and related services, so ClearCompany was a natural choice to ensure integration with onboarding and payroll systems.
Consider features such as insights, AI integration, and sourcing capabilities. A system is only effective if you can maximize its offerings based on what matters most in your organization's process.
I haven’t used ClearCompany long enough to comment on its full evolution, but recently it introduced a passive sourcing function. The company has started using this feature to help reduce expenses on external sourcing platform subscriptions.
It is suitable as a centralized applicant database and basic ATS. If it fits an organization’s current processes and system integrations, ClearCompany offers a better option than other legacy systems.
It may not be ideal for newer users or younger companies. Competitors at similar price points offer more variety and features. ClearCompany is more likely to appeal to organizations similar to SuccessFactors, Workday, and ADP.
Manatal
Manatal made our top ATS list because it's budget-friendly, AI-equipped, and offers transparent pricing—no need to call a sales rep just for a ballpark figure.
PROS
- Among the most affordable ATS options in the market. Offers a 14-day free trial.
- Easy to use with drag-and-drop enabled pipelines.
- Native AI-based recommendations feature.
- Web-based, so it works on multiple devices.
- Free data migration from your existing hiring software.
- Boolean Search and Advanced Search can now be used together.
- Manatal is quite affordable and offers a 15-day free trial for users to test it out before making commitments.
- Manatal is fairly easy to use. It features drag-and-drop enabled pipelines for candidate organization.
- Manatal’s AI-based recommendations feature can save hiring managers quite a bit of time. It’s able to scan job descriptions then search a users talent pool and bring up candidates most suited for the job.
CONS
- The AI recommendations feature only works well in English.
- There are no free plans.
- ADP and Zapier integrations are restricted to top-tier plans.
- The AI recommendations feature works best with resumes that are in English, and doesn’t work as accurately with other languages according to several users’ feedback. Several users have also complained about Manatal’s interface only being available in English and that career pages cannot be published in languages other than English and Spanish.
- Manatal doesn’t offer a free plan. We mention this as a con as several SMB-geared ATSs do offer a free-forever verison, and that puts Manatal slightly behind competition.
- Manatal doesn’t offer prebuilt integration modules. They do have an open API that allows users to plug in third-party products and custom tools, but that required a bit more time and technical knowledge to accomplish. It’s also worth mentioning that only Custom plan customers can access Manatal’s API and Zapier integration. Customers on the Professional and Enterprise plan cannot.
- Users can search for candidates via Boolean Search or Advanced Search, but cannot combine the two search methods together. E.g users cannot use the Boolean search operators (AND, OR and NOT) within Manatal’s Advanced Search tab.
As HR tech editors with years of working experience as recruiters and HR professionals, we understand the importance of finding the right talent efficiently, and Manatal has proven to be a valuable tool in this regard.
The first on our thumbs-up list is that it’s budget-friendly. We appreciate the transparency in pricing, as there is no need to contact sales just to get a ballpark figure. The platform offers a 14-day free trial.
Using Manatal was straightforward, thanks to its user-friendly interface and the convenience of drag-and-drop-enabled pipelines. The AI-based candidate recommendations feature is a time-saver. It compares job descriptions' language to skills listed by individuals in the talent pool.
Manatal is web-based, so it is compatible with multiple devices. The ability to migrate data from our existing hiring software was also a welcome feature that made for a smooth transition.
They have also begun offering free, live training webinars and introduced several product enhancements in the past year. A key feature update is the Advanced Search, which now supports a blend of Boolean and Semantic search, providing options for Required, Preferred, and Must Not criteria to enhance precision.
We encountered a few limitations during our evaluation. The AI recommendation feature does not operate well in languages other than English, and Manatal lacks a free version. Integration is limited, and ADP and Zapier integrations are restricted to top-tier plans.
Unilever, Coca-Cola, Panasonic, Ogilvy, Toyota.
Manatal pricing starts at $15 per user per month. More specifically:
- Professional: This plan costs $15 per user per month for up to 15 jobs per account and 10,000 candidates. Customers on this plan can add unlimited guests.
- Enterprise: This plan costs $35 per user per month for unlimited jobs per account and unlimited candidates and guests.
- Enterprise Plus: This plan costs $55 per user per month and includes all Enterprise features, user groups, open API access, SSO log-in, priority support, and access to Beta features.
- Custom: Pricing upon request.
Best For
Manatal is best for small businesses experiencing headcount growth due to its affordability and scalability.
I use Manatal daily for candidate and client sourcing, as well as applicant tracking. It serves as the primary ATS and CRM for my recruitment consulting company. I use it to post jobs to our career site, client websites, and job boards.
The platform also allows me to create client companies, assign client contacts, and manage candidate records. It’s a comprehensive tool that supports the full recruitment workflow.
- I really like the Chrome extension for sourcing candidates via LinkedIn.
- The ability to create folders for candidates is helpful for prospecting and organization.
- I appreciate the customizable interface, especially the option to change list views.
We purchased Manatal for use as a recruitment Applicant Tracking System. We needed a well-functioning product that was also user-friendly for candidate sourcing. Our goal was to find an ATS that also includes CRM capabilities.
The integration with LinkedIn via a Chrome extension was especially helpful for sourcing purposes. I have been using this product for about two years.
- I wish there were more advanced customization options available.
- Additional job board integrations would improve the platform’s reach.
- A more robust reporting system would be useful for showcasing recruitment activity to clients.
Manatal stands out from competitors because it is a more effective sourcing tool than many other ATS platforms. It simplifies the process of searching for and uploading client or candidate information directly from LinkedIn via the Chrome extension.
You should consider what the primary use of your ATS will be. This tool is better suited for users who already have experience working with applicant tracking systems. While Manatal offers several job board integrations, other platforms may have broader options in that area.
For recruitment agencies or consulting companies, this is a strong option due to its CRM and sourcing features.
Manatal has been a reasonably advanced platform since I began using it. Over the past couple of years, a few new features have been introduced to enhance usability.
Manatal is well-suited for recruiters or talent acquisition professionals who have prior experience using an ATS. It’s especially useful for small recruiting agencies or consultancies.
This platform is not ideal for organizations without a dedicated recruiter or for hiring managers with limited recruiting experience. It requires familiarity with ATS systems to be used effectively.
JazzHR
This platform is built with the small business in mind. When testing it, our writers were impressed at how easy it was to set up and use “out of the box,” which is a clear sign of its simplicity, attention to user experience, and understanding of the down-to-business mentality of most SMBs.
PROS
- Affordable pricing, no user limit, and a 21-day free trial.
- Built-in features for offer management, including templates and DIY options.
- Emphasis on automation for those in the pipeline shows dedication to candidate experience.
- JazzHR is quite affordable and doesn’t place any limits on the number of users added. It also offers free, 21-day trials that anyone can sign up for.
- JazzHR has built-in features for offer management. You can choose from existing offer letter templates or create your own and share them with successful candidates
- You can automate triggers for candidates to be automatically notified via email when their application has moved a stage further in the hiring process. Several other email responses can be automated.
CONS
- No free version for orgs with minimal needs.
- A few users thought reports could be more customizable and easier to create.
- No mobile apps.
- Some users reported a learning curve with JazzHR's UI and that it took them some time to get used to it
- For a product geared towards SMBs, it lacks a free plan. We mention this as a con since other SMB-geared recruiting products do offer free-forever versions, which puts JazzHR slightly behind the competition.
- Several users have mentioned that the reporting feature is difficult to use with very little room for report customizations.
- JazzHR currently lacks a mobile app, and the browser version isn’t well-optimized for mobile use.
We like how simple it is to post and syndicate jobs across portals, and we love the upfront pricing on the website. Many customers start with JazzHR’s lowest-cost plan, and as their needs expand beyond basic features, they often upgrade incrementally. Being able to select features as needed keeps spending under control.
Because they do not offer mobile apps, our product testing included a considerable amount of time with our phones in hand, navigating the mobile web environment. We were impressed with how well it could manage the tasks a recruiter does on the go, like sending out a quick reply in the 15 seconds you have before your next meeting.
However, at least among our in-house recruiter veterans, the consensus was that complex tasks should be saved for the desktop version.
One of our writers shared this real-world story from a former job with a tiny company: they signed up for a free payroll software trial before they were actually ready to buy. They used the software for a couple of weeks just to get a sense of the basics of how to run payroll; then, they ended their relationship with the company.
Of course, we don't recommend this - but we know how hard it is to run an SMB. So, along with JazzHR, which we DO recommend, we suggest getting creative with your professional development!
JazzHR is used by over 6,500 businesses, including the Seattle Seahawks, L'Occitane En Provence, TED Conferences LLC, and Chick-fil-A.
JazzHR has three plans. When paid annually:
- Hero costs $75 per month.
- Plus costs $269 per month.
- Pro costs $420 per month.
Best For
JazzHR is built for organizations with 5 to 500 employees and works exceptionally well for TA teams with little to no experience.
I used JazzHR daily for recruitment efforts. As a department of one, it was important to have a tool that allowed for easy resume review and job posting. I appreciated the reminders and notifications integrated into different workflows.
Since I worked closely with multiple hiring managers, it was essential to maintain transparency in the recruitment process. Transitioning from stagnant spreadsheets to a tool that offered greater visibility was extremely valuable, particularly given our size and budget constraints.
I liked that JazzHR was intuitive to use and required no in-depth training. The simple workflows were clear and helpful. I also appreciated the scalable pricing model as our organization grew.
We used JazzHR for three years at my previous organization. I was new to the company, and we had no documented hiring processes or systems to support our team’s growth. As a small startup, we did not have an applicant tracking system in place.
JazzHR was affordable and provided basic functionality that proved helpful as we scaled. The tool allowed me to easily post jobs, review resumes, and move candidates through interview stages.
We outgrew JazzHR when our recruitment strategy shifted to focus more on diversity. Managing multiple requisitions and automating the recruitment process at scale became difficult. The analytics were basic and only somewhat useful for informing my leadership team about our recruitment efforts.
JazzHR is a strong entry-level applicant tracking system. While it doesn't compare to platforms like Greenhouse, it was extremely useful when we were a small team in need of a solution that aligned with our developing processes.
- Search and Filter: We needed basic search capabilities to find candidates based on skills, experience, and qualifications.
- Workflow Automation: We required simple yet customizable recruitment workflows and automated communications.
- Job Board Integration: We wanted seamless posting to multiple job boards.
- Reporting and Analytics: We needed the ability to generate recruitment metrics and easily export data for external analysis.
JazzHR remains an accessible tool for small, growing organizations. Its integrations and automations have improved over time. While analytics have also improved, we found that more in-depth analysis capabilities were still necessary.
JazzHR is well suited for small, thoughtfully growing organizations.
JazzHR may not be ideal for scaling organizations with more than 10 requisitions or complex workflows that require automation.
Ashby
Ashby offers the entire TA tech stack: ATS, CRM/Sourcing, Scheduling, and Analytics—an excellent recruiting solution for fast-growing companies.
PROS
- Analytics dashboard with crucial statistics on all aspects of your hiring process.
- Flexibility and ability to customize across almost all aspects of the platform.
- Consolidated ATS, CRM, Scheduling, and Analytics.
- Fast data migrations, no setup fees.
- Your TA team can have one system that truly has best-in-class options for ATS, CRM, Scheduling, and Analytics.
- Flexibility and ability to customize across almost all aspects of the platform
- Their analytics dashboard is great to understand weaknesses in your hiring process, conducting capacity planning, or determining which teams are running suboptimal hiring processes.
CONS
- This is a powerful product, and understanding all the different features can take some time.
- No multi-lingual support.
- Your company must use G Suite in order to make the most of Ashby
- No multi-lingual support
- This is a powerful product, and it can take a bit of time to understand all the different features
Ashby is an all-in-one TA solution that combines your recruiting CRM, ATS, sourcing, scheduling, and analytics into one platform.
We recently met with Ashby’s to look at recent product developments, and what stood out is how easy they have made it to re-engage with former applicants. If our experience working in recruitment positions has taught us anything, it is that efficiency is essential.
We see it like this: you’re wasting time and effort if you don’t maintain a connection with former candidates because these folks are primed, familiar, and pre-vetted members of your talent pool.
Some are “silver medalists” or applicants who made it to the offer stage, and others may possess a unique skill or trait that your current team is lacking. Ashby can create custom attributes to filter your talent pool, so you’ll never lose touch with “good fit, bad timing” candidates.
We would recommend this ATS to TA teams seeking powerful reporting capabilities. Ashby’s reports are highly customizable, track all data points throughout your hiring process in real-time, and are easy on the eye.
We also noticed that Ashby has consistently worked hard to improve its product based on user feedback. Check out their blog page, and you’ll see that the ATS literally rolls out new features every month.
Regarding implementation, it takes SMBs a few days and larger organizations 6-8 weeks to get Ashby up and running. The ATS doesn’t charge for data migrations and system setup, and according to our research, Ashby’s customer support and success teams have been immensely helpful in making the switch a seamless experience.
1,000+ customers, including Quora, Deel, and Ramp.
Ashby costs between $300 and $900 per month for teams with no more than 100 employees.
Best For
Ashby works best for companies at the hyper-growth stage.
I use Ashby for candidate tracking and management, interview set up, feedback collection, and reporting. We use Ashby for all of our open roles. We also manage our job board through Ashby. I use Ashby's email collection tool when sourcing on LinkedIn, and we integrate with Hireflow for sourcing. We also integrate with Rippling for offer letters, background checks, and onboarding new hires.
I love the easy, intuitive UI. Their customer success team is very quick to respond and helpful. I also like the custom reporting features.
Price, easy UI, 2+ years
I think duplicating jobs and updating interview flows can get a little clunky. Same with integrating with Google Calendar.
Cheaper but does all of the same things, I'm an Ashby convert from Greenhouse!
Cost, reporting needs, easy UI and integration with other tools are all key features when evaluating any ATS tool. In my opinion, Ashby is a modern, clean, easy to use ATS that won't break the budget.
Since I've started using it, they've added a lot of features, especially with LinkedIn recruiter and importing candidate profiles. Scheduling and reporting have improved as well.
Startups/smaller companies
I don't know if it wouldn't necessarily be a good fit, but not sure how large of an organization they've ever supported.
Recruit CRM
Recruitee emphasizes user experience and collaboration, and we’ve seen firsthand how much impact these two factors can have on recruitment efficiency and effectiveness. Coupled with other solid product choices and month-to-month pricing, this platform is an excellent option for SMBs.
PROS
- Transparent, month-to-month pricing and unlimited seats.
- Features that control for bias in interviewing.
- Built-in AI to job descriptions to target ideal candidates.
- No extra fees required for basic data migration that includes importing Excel/CSV files with candidates & clients. During the implementation process of this software, the customer service personnel will help transfer your data for free.
- Great customer service. Their average response time is under two minutes.
- Powerful Linkedin Integration & Executive/Recruitment Report PDF Generator to save time
- Tons of resources made available to users including blogs and articles that give you all the information you need to know about how the software works, job description templates to help you get acquainted with all the possible job openings you will be looking to close, and a glossary that gives you the A-Z of recruitment practices.
CONS
- Price has gone up since our last review updates.
- No native features for skill assessments, onboarding, video interviewing, and e-signatures.
- Our user researchers ran into data accuracy issues with the reporting function.
- Some users noted Recruitee’s support team was hard to reach.
- Limited native integrations. Recruit CRM only integrates natively with LinkedIn, Zapier, Logic Melon, some email apps, and Google and Outlook calendars. If you want to run background checks, for example, using Checkr or other background verification platforms, you won’t be able to do that unless you use Zapier’s API extension.
If we were seeking potential candidates within our large internal talent database, we'd turn to Recruit CRM once again. This feature lets you combine text filters, Boolean, and radius search to get the best results. You can even mark unavailable talent (e.g., those currently hired by other clients) as “off limits” so your team won’t find them and communicate with them by mistake.
One common approach we see in most ATS to keep candidate data fresh and accurate is the use of Social Enrichment—the software auto-enriches candidate profiles with their available social media accounts. Recruit CRM does not offer such a feature. Yet, it allows users to bulk or individually email candidates to update their application info. Once candidates submit the form, the data is auto-pulled into the ATS. While this process may not be entirely automatic, it does simplify the work of maintaining talent data and, just as importantly, ensures GDPR compliance.
Recruit CRM knocked it out of the park on its recruitment agency tools. It lets you send certain candidate data to clients in a few clicks. Plus, the client portal is interactive—clients can choose between Kanban and list view, move stuff around, and give feedback on each profile—then all of which are logged into the system for tracking purposes.
Automation-wise, Recruit CRM offers GPT features for crafting job postings, emails, notes, and even call and candidate profile summaries. What particularly sticks out to us, though, is how this vendor partners with Workato to enable some real convenient 3rd-party automation for users. For example, your TAs get Slack notifications for every new candidate added to Recruit CRM. Additionally, the vendor will jump in to solve arising automation issues, so you don’t have to seek Workato’s support yourself.
Our primary issue with Recruit CRM is the limited number of in-system profiles matching the user ideal candidate it provides: 2 matches per candidate for Pro and 50 for Business and Enterprise. Lastly, designed with staffing firms in mind, this vendor doesn’t do employee referrals and is not ideal for corporate recruiters.
Recruit CRM’s clients include global staffing firms like Cooper Coleman, Zeren, and Avizio.
Recruit CRM has three plans: Pro is $85 per user per month, Business is $125 per user per month, and Enterprise is $165 per user per month when billed annually. A free trial is also available, no credit card is required.
Best For
Recruit CRM works best for recruiting firms and consulting agencies.
As a Manager of Talent Acquisition, I use Recruit CRM in various ways. It helps me track the number of employees in our pipeline accurately. I also create Candidate Lifecycle Reports for senior team review and decision-making. The tool assists in creating job listing pages, posting jobs, and managing online application procedures. This comprehensive functionality supports my workflow and enhances our recruitment process.
The professional user interface and advanced search features allow candidates to filter jobs by location, date, and interest. The pricing is favorable, making it accessible for smaller businesses. Integration with Google Meet and Microsoft Teams is straightforward, and the customizable email templates save time.
It has been three years since we started using Recruit CRM. Our company needed a solution to communicate with employees without relying on separate emails and to enhance our HR management capabilities. Recruit CRM has streamlined remote interviews, eliminating the need for physical offices. The integration with Google Meet and Microsoft Teams has made it easy to conduct 1:1 online meetings with candidates, interns, and employees. This tool has significantly improved my efficiency as a Human Resource professional.
Integrating with a custom email for sending emails from our job email requires knowledge of SMTP integration. The tool lacks Zoom and Webex integrations, which we often use, forcing us to switch to supported tools. Creating employee reports requires skill, as there are no templates available for this module.
Recruit CRM offers job listing, deal-making, online meeting integration, and document management at the same price, while competitors charge extra for these add-ons.
Consider the size of your HR needs and the team you will manage with this tool to ensure it remains cost-effective in the long run. Assess the tool’s features against your organization's requirements to determine its suitability.
While there haven't been many changes, new features like job listing and online interview modules have been added.
Recruit CRM is ideal for recruiting companies and Human Resource departments.
It may not be suitable for smaller businesses with few team members.
Recruitee
Recruitee emphasizes user experience and collaboration, and we’ve seen firsthand how much impact these two factors can have on recruitment efficiency and effectiveness. Coupled with other solid product choices and month-to-month pricing, this platform is an excellent option for SMBs.
PROS
- Transparent, month-to-month pricing and unlimited seats.
- Features that control for bias in interviewing.
- Built-in AI to job descriptions to target ideal candidates.
- Pro: Recruitee is highly rated by customers for its ease of use. The majority of them are able to implement and get on with the software without much hassle.
- Pro: Recruitee features a customizable, kanban-like recruiting pipeline. Companies can add as many stages as needed to the pipeline and move candidates easily as they progress through the stages.
- Pro: Recruitee incorporates some measures to reduce hiring bias. For example, you can adjust the permission level for your interviewers and prevent them from seeing the scores each of them are assigning to the same candidate. This way, they won’t be influenced by each other's evaluations.
CONS
- Recruitee relies on third-party integrations for some essential functions like skill assessments, onboarding, video interviewing, and e-signatures.
- Our user researchers ran into data accuracy issues with the reporting function.
- Some users noted Recruitee’s support team was hard to reach.
- Con: Several functions that are advertised on Recruitee’s feature list, including skill assessments, onboarding, video interviewing, and e-signatures are not actually built into Recruitee and are only possible through integration with third-party tools, which can be misleading to potential users, especially if it’s their first ATS.
- Con: Several users noted that the Recruitee’s reporting function is limited and at times, doesn’t retrieve data accurately.
- Con: Several users have complained about Recruitee’s support team being slow in responding, and at times, not able to solve issues.
- Con: For a product that’s geared towards SMBs, it lacks a free plan that businesses who are just getting started with ATSs can use for as long as they need, without any time constraints. We list this as a con as several solutions in this space do offer free-forever plans and similar feature sets as Recruitee, which puts it slightly behind the competition to users.
Recruitee knows SMBs and designed a tool for this market. The most apparent SMB/ bottom-line-focused elements are transparent pricing, month-to-month options, and unlimited seats. There is no mystery there: SMBs tend to be budget-conscious.
However, what might be less obvious is what a small TA team can accomplish with unlimited seats, user-focused design, and factors that facilitate collaboration. Recruitee’s feature set represents a clever strategic insight: if the tool is easy to use and designed to distribute the workload among everyone involved in the interview process, the result will be increased efficiency and effectiveness.
We’ve seen it firsthand (several writers here have backgrounds in SMB recruitment), and our user research has confirmed it.
When we test-drove the tool, we were disappointed to note the absence of some features we consider standard. Video interviews, skills assessment, offer management, and onboarding are ubiquitous in modern ATSs, but none are built into the platform.
Recrutiee leans into integrations with Recruitee Marketplace, a collection of preferred third-party tools prepped for ease of integration.
There’s no right or wrong when it comes to built-in vs. add-on. It’s a matter of personal preference and what works best for your business. For those who prefer add-ons, Recruitee is a great choice: you’ll find what you need, and the integration process will be seamless.
Vice, Greenpeace, Autodesk, Tide, Mollie
Recruitee pricing starts at $216 per month (used to be $199 during our last review update.)
Best For
Recruitee is best suited for teams with at least 20 employees.
We use Recruitee regularly to manage our recruitment process from start to finish. The tool's customizable workflows have allowed us to tailor our hiring process to our specific needs. We use it to track candidate progress, schedule interviews, and manage communication with candidates. We also appreciate the tool's collaboration features, which allow us to easily share candidate profiles with hiring managers and collect feedback. We use the reporting features to monitor our hiring metrics and identify areas for improvement. Overall, we use Recruitee daily to ensure that our recruitment process is efficient, effective, and meets the needs of both our organization and our candidates.
Recruitee is a cloud-based recruitment management and applicant tracking system designed to streamline the hiring process for companies of all sizes. It offers a wide range of features, including job postings, applicant tracking, talent sourcing, interview scheduling, team collaboration, and analytics.
Users appreciate the user-friendly interface and customizable workflow, which allows them to tailor the system to their specific hiring needs. The ability to post jobs to multiple job boards and social media platforms simultaneously also makes it easier to reach a wider pool of candidates. The system also allows for easy collaboration among hiring team members, with tools for sharing feedback and notes.
Recruitee's analytics capabilities, including tracking the effectiveness of job postings and candidate sources, can help organizations make data-driven decisions about their hiring strategies. The system also integrates with popular HR and productivity tools, such as Slack and Google Calendar.
Our organization bought Recruitee to streamline our recruitment process and improve our candidate experience. Prior to using Recruitee, we found ourselves manually reviewing resumes, scheduling interviews, and managing candidate communication through various channels, which was time-consuming and often disjointed. Recruitee has helped us to centralize all of our recruitment activities in one place, making it easier to manage our hiring pipeline and keep candidates informed. The tool's user-friendly interface, customizable workflows, and robust reporting capabilities have been particularly valuable to us. We have been using Recruitee for the past year, which has helped us significantly reduce the time and resources we previously spent on recruitment.
The system can be slow at times, especially when dealing with larger candidate pools or running reports. Others have noted that customer support can be slow to respond or may not provide the level of assistance needed.
Additionally, some users have found the pricing structure to be somewhat confusing or not flexible enough, particularly for smaller organizations or those with more limited hiring needs. There have also been some comments about the lack of certain features or integrations that are available in other recruitment management systems.
Despite these limitations, many users still find Recruitee to be a valuable tool for their hiring needs and appreciate the overall functionality and ease of use of the system.
Here are a few key features that differentiate Recruitee from other recruitment management systems:
- User-Friendly Interface: Recruitee has a modern, intuitive interface that is easy to use, even for those with little to no experience using applicant tracking systems. The dashboard is customizable, allowing users to tailor it to their specific needs.
- Customizable Workflow: Recruitee allows users to create and customize their own recruitment workflow, enabling them to build a hiring process that works best for their organization.
- Multi-Job Posting: Recruitee enables users to post jobs to multiple job boards and social media platforms simultaneously, making it easier to reach a wider pool of candidates.
- Collaboration Tools: Recruitee includes features for team collaboration, allowing hiring team members to share feedback and notes, and assign tasks to one another.
Here are a few key factors to consider:
- Ease of Use: Look for a tool that is user-friendly and intuitive, with a clean and easy-to-navigate interface.
- Customization: Consider how customizable the tool is, particularly in terms of the recruitment workflow. A tool that allows for customization can be tailored to your specific hiring needs.
- Job Posting: Check how many job boards and social media platforms the tool allows for posting jobs, and consider whether these are the channels that are most relevant for your target audience.
- Candidate Management: Consider how the tool manages candidates, particularly in terms of tracking, communication, and collaboration among the hiring team.
- Pricing: Consider the pricing structure of the tool, particularly in terms of whether it is flexible enough for your organization's needs.
Recruitee has evolved over time to meet the changing needs of its users.
- Expanded Integrations: Recruitee has added more integrations over time, such as with LinkedIn, Indeed, and Glassdoor, making it easier to post jobs and manage candidates across multiple platforms.
- Enhanced Analytics: Recruitee has improved its analytics capabilities over time, with features such as job posting effectiveness and source tracking, providing more insights into the recruitment process.
- Customizable Workflow: Recruitee has added more customization options for users, allowing them to build a workflow that is tailored to their specific hiring needs.
Recruitee is a user-friendly and powerful applicant tracking system (ATS) designed for small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) and hiring teams. It's a great fit for companies that want to streamline their recruitment processes and manage their entire hiring process from one platform.
Recruitee is particularly useful for organizations that value collaboration and transparency in their hiring process. It offers a variety of features that allow hiring teams to work together seamlessly, from posting job openings to tracking candidate progress and sharing feedback.
Recruitee may not be the best fit for larger organizations with more complex recruitment processes and extensive HR departments. These organizations may require more advanced features and integrations, which are not available on the Recruitee platform.
Additionally, Recruitee may not be the best choice for organizations that have strict compliance requirements or need to manage sensitive candidate data. The platform does offer security features such as two-factor authentication and data encryption, but it may not meet the strict security standards required by some industries.
Lastly, organizations with limited budgets may find Recruitee's pricing plans relatively expensive compared to other similar solutions in the market. Though Recruitee offers a free trial, the cost may not be affordable for some organizations.
iCIMS
iCIMS, is a massive, global presence serving large companies with high-volume talent managemt needs, so isurprise it operates in more than 70 languages. Still, we are impressed with the attention to user needs demonstrated by the massive toolset.
PROS
- A powerful recruiting solution that can handle high-volume hiring of up to 50,000 candidates.
- The reporting feature is robust and retrieves data accurately.
- iCIMS is constantly expanding its roster of integrations with third-party products. Currently, 300+ and rising, including Workday, SAP, SuccessFactors, ADP, Oracle, and UKG.
- iCIMS is a powerful recruiting solution that can handle high volume hiring of up to 50,000 candidates.
- The platform is constantly evolving through developments and acquisitions, giving users more features.
- The reporting feature is robust and retrieves data accurately.
- iCIMS has a growing marketplace of over 300 integrations with third-party products.
CONS
- The UI is complex and dated compared to other cloud-based recruiting products.
- Customer support is sometimes slow and only available by phone or ticket—no live chat support.
- Though packing many features, it lacks automated reference checking.
- No transparent pricing and no free trial.
- The cost of implementation and integration is relatively high compared to other recruiting solutions.
- A significant number of users complained about the UI’s complexity and that it looks dated compared to other cloud-based recruiting products.
- Customer support is slow at times and only available through phone and by creating a support ticket online - no live chat support yet
- The platform packs an overwhelming amount of features yet still lacks some useful capabilities such as automated reference checking.
- No transparent pricing or free trials, and according to several users, the cost of implementation as well as integrations is high compared to other recruiting solutions.
iCIMS ATS is feature-rich and well-suited for large, multilingual organizations and high-volume agencies. Users can create custom-branded career sites, employee-generated testimonial videos, and personalized email or text campaigns through the platform.
In addition to externally-focused features,iCIMS facilitates users in promoting existing employees through internal mobility programs. This is especially relevant in the context of enterprise scale, as is their global support and industry versatility. This platform is used by businesses operating in healthcare, manufacturing, technology, retail, and more.
The takeaway from our demo and hands-on testing is that although this tool offers an astonishing number of features, it’s somewhat difficult to operate. This is reflected in user reviews, too. Remember that our writers scrutinize HR tech all day, so we tend to be sticklers for good design and intuitive UI. However, for some, no sacrifice is represented using a tool that looks and feels a little clunky.
iCIMS has over 4,000 customers, including Ulta, Target, Microsoft, PwC, Uber, and UPS.
iCMS pricing typically starts at around $14,000 per year.
Best For
iCIMS is best for global enterprises and recruiting agencies with high-volume hiring needs.
My team uses iCIMS in a recruitment capacity for end-to-end hiring. We use it daily to process new applicants, screen candidates, submit to hiring managers, schedule interviews, and extend offers. The system is incredibly easy to navigate, and we receive few complaints from recruiters, hiring managers, or candidates about their experience.
We're able to manage very high volumes of candidates (5,000+) at any given time with ease. We also use the reporting features to track time-to-fill, number of hires, and other pipeline metrics from our candidate funnel.
Of all the ATSs I have used in the past, I find iCIMS to be the best. It's very user-friendly, and my new recruiters are able to learn it quickly. The process flow is well structured, with clearly defined buckets recruiters can use to manage candidates. It's an excellent system for handling a high volume of requisitions and applicants.
My organization does not purchase iCIMS, but as an RPO, many of our clients use this system. My current client has used iCIMS since 2022. They moved to this system because of its functionality and ability to handle high volumes of requisitions, as well as its reporting capabilities.
I have personally used iCIMS for three years, and I find it to be the best ATS I have used in my career. It is very user-friendly, easy to navigate, and straightforward.
It often freezes when performing bulk tasks such as dispositioning large volumes of candidates. It's difficult to see at a glance whether a candidate has applied to multiple jobs within the company. The reporting setup feels clunky; while strong reports can be built, the process is not intuitive or easy to use.
I never experience bugs or glitches when using iCIMS. It's very user-friendly, and my recruitment team is able to learn the workflows and navigate the system quickly. The process flow is straightforward and easy to follow. While it is more expensive than some alternatives, it offers the best experience for candidates, recruiters, and hiring managers.
Volume—iCIMS is better suited for organizations with high volumes of hiring, both in terms of requisitions and candidates.
Cost—this should be weighed carefully and compared to other systems. Integration—consider whether the system works well with your existing HRIS or sourcing tools like HireEz.
Reporting—evaluate whether the platform meets your talent acquisition team's data and reporting needs.
I find that iCIMS’ biannual updates are usually positive. I do wish they collected more user feedback and made more immediate improvements, but the incremental changes they implement often have a significant impact. The interface has not changed much in the time I’ve used it, so a more modern refresh could be beneficial.
iCIMS is well suited for enterprise-level companies due to its cost and its capabilities for high-volume recruitment. It's also beneficial for organizations that need customization in process flow and reporting. It works well for companies recruiting on a global scale.
iCIMS is not ideal for cost-conscious organizations. Small businesses or startups that do not plan to scale may find it too complex and expensive. Implementation often takes a long time, so it's not a fit for organizations with an urgent need to transition or launch.
Avature
We’re big fans of customized workflows and attention to user experience, and Avature’s platform is a blend of ATS and CRM that strikes the right balance between both.
PROS
- A full-fledged ATS with built-in video interviewing, management features, and onboarding solutions.
- It also has a CRM, allowing TA teams to increase candidate engagement and plan for future hiring.
- Avature leverages AI with talent matching and candidate ranking.
- The recruiter mobile app supports offline use.
- Avature’s solution is quite comprehensive. They have a full-fledged ATS with built-in video interviewing, offer management and onboarding solutions. They also have a CRM, allowing TA teams to amp up candidate engagement and plan for future hiring.
- Avature leverages artificial intelligence with features of automatic talent matching and candidate ranking.
- Avature comes with a recruiter mobile app that allows key stakeholders to perform several recruiting tasks while on the go. The app also supports offline use, and syncs with the system the next time it’s connected to the Internet.
CONS
- Undisclosed pricing. No free trials.
- The UI can be confusing and takes some time to get used to.
- The assessment feature is quite elemental compared to other similar platforms.
- It lacks a built-in reference-checking feature, so users must pay for and integrate third-party solutions.
- Avature’s pricing is not readily available on their website. They also do not offer a free trial.
- Several users noted that the UI isn’t intuitive and takes some time to get used to.
- Avature’s assessment feature is quite basic and isn’t built out enough compared to point solutions in that space. So if you want to test the skills and cultural fitness of candidates, you’d need a third-party solution.
- Avature doesn’t have an automated reference checking feature built-in. The platform does integrate with third-party solutions that facilitate reference checking, but you’ll have to purchase those solutions too separately.
The Avature platform allows users to customize dashboards set up automated workflows, and leverage the power of an all-in-one ATS + CRM.
We got some hands-on experience with the tool, so we asked our colleagues with the most recruiting experience to test the limits of its purported customizability.
The results? This tool is easy to tailor to your company’s processes and goals. During our test run, we quickly built unique recruiting workflows for individual roles or entire departments.
The platform operates through a no-code interface that allows non-technical users to modify the system (with lots of permissions in place). While this level of detail may be overkill for smaller organizations with simple needs,
This is a premium tool for large teams. Those that operate at a global enterprise scale will get the most out of Avature.
More than 6,500 companies use Avature. This includes Shell, Cisco, L'Oréal, Mondelez, Siemens, and KPMG.
Avature's pricing structure is tiered based on the number of employees and maximum recruitment users, starting at £60,500 per year for 1-2,500 employees and 20 recruitment users, and increasing up to £260,000+ per year for 20,000+ employees and 100+ recruitment users. These prices do not include implementation fees and are based on a minimum two-year contract. Educational institutions receive a 25% discount.
Best For
Avature best serves enterprise-scale companies, especially those that operate across international borders.
Applicant tracking and onboarding.
- All in one and easy-to-use ATS
- Seamless integration with other platforms.
- Great customer service.
When I worked for EY, we used it along with Taleo. Avature functioned well as a candidate repository and applicant tracking tool. Personally, the UI could be better (it took too many steps to complete a simple task).
- The UI makes it hard to navigate menu items. It takes too long to complete a simple onboarding.
- The system went down a lot causing delays and disruptions in workflow.
- Avature’s service offerings didn’t wow me like a Workday or SAP SuccessFactors
I didn’t notice much of a difference. The one thing that I really liked was it integrated with Taleo which EY used for onboarding candidates
- Functionality: can it be customized to optimize your workflow?
- Cost-effectiveness: is it worth all the additional bells and whistles?
Avature fits both an everyday recruiter/HR professional and its platform can be utilized by any sized business.
A mom-and-pop shop wouldn’t benefit from Avature.
Lever
We like Lever’s focus on engaging passive candidates. Candidate nurturing is a critical recruiting strategy that deserves the spotlight it’s been given with this platform. In addition to solid product decisions, the execution is excellent. Put more simply, Lever put together a collection of well-thought-out features, and they’ve succeeded in making them all work together.
PROS
- The simple interface is easy to use and requires little training or experience.
- A unified recruiting platform combines elements of ATS and CRM.
- Diverse external sourcing channels and low-friction internal referral process.
- According to most users, Lever's UI is very intuitive and easy to learn.
- Lever combines the capabilities of an ATS and a CRM into a single platform that not only supports your current hiring needs but allows you to actively engage and nurture prospective qualified candidates for future roles.
- Lever takes diversity hiring into consideration with Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) surveys that help you collect diversity data from applicants, sourced candidates, and referrals regardless of whether they applied to an open position or not.
- Lever provides role-based visual analytics with over 20 key TA metrics in its basic TRM package.
CONS
- Undisclosed pricing and no free plan or trial version.
- 3rd party integrations in place of features that could be built in.
- No mobile apps.
- Lever doesn't disclose their pricing on their website. Interested users are also not able to create trial accounts on their own.
- The platform doesn’t have features for background or reference checking but they do integrate with third-party solutions that specialize in those checks.
- Lever currently lacks a mobile app, but the platform is optimized for mobile use.
From our collective in-house experience, we know that the right approach to recruiting is full-cycle. Lever leans into the CRM mentality with functions that attend to potential candidates, current candidates, and (ideally) current employees who used to be candidates.
This may seem like an obvious strategy, but it’s genuinely (and surprisingly!) unique among ATS platforms.
Users can source candidates from multiple channels, including numerous career sites, social media, and internal referrals. Connecting with potential hires is streamlined with automated workflows that include the sophisticated nurture campaigns mentioned above. Regardless of where they end up in the hiring pipeline, these campaigns keep talent engaged with your company.
The video interview integration with Zoom stands out. In addition to synchronizing seamlessly with scheduling features, it allows for customization of interview type between live, structured, and asynchronous, or some mix of the two.
Another highlight is the range of industries and company sizes that Lever can serve. This platform works for any user with consistent hiring needs, whether a tiny but rapidly growing tech start-up or an established business in a field with high turnover rates (think retail or hospitality).
Our testers found some shortcomings in line with other reviews you might read: resume parsing, and report generation features could be improved.
Lever is used by over 5,000 companies, including Netflix, Shopify, Eventbrite, Cirque du Soliel, and Reddit.
Lever pricing can start anywhere at $6,000, depending on specific business cases.
Best For
Lever is best for companies with small to medium volume hiring needs.
Lever is the best Applicant tracking system which is very user-friendly and systematic. We use Lever to get the applications from candidates. According to the responses we get from candidates, Lever automatically scores the candidates and filters them using the search tool. We can post job descriptions universally, track candidates, and schedule interviews for candidates and panelists via the calendar feature on Lever. There are customizable templates and dashboards available for easy reference of analytics which can help track the entire funnel of the interview stages.
- The UI is user-friendly, easy to navigate, and very candidate-centric.
- The system is so systematic that we can track where the applicant is in which interview stage at one glance.
- The features help to make faster & better decisions with good quality hires.
My organization wanted to switch to another ATS from the current one for a better recruiting experience, hence, we bought the Lever tool. My organization wanted to bring out a structured way of interviewing candidates and get an easy overview to understand which stage the candidate is in and the progress of the interview process. We have used it for 4 years and we’re happy with how it helped both our org and the potential candidates with an elevated experience of hiring. The UI of the tool is also very good with easy navigation.
- Many times Lever cannot detect duplicate candidates, which is annoying.
- The initial setup on Lever is hard.
- The tool is a little pricey compared to its competitors in the market.
Yes I have used Zoho ATS in the past and Zoho is also a very good all-in-one tool. Lever can be integrated with other tools as well. It has great reporting & analytics features which sets it apart.
People should keep in mind that Lever is an effective tool for candidate experience while applying and also for recruiters to track candidates, capture feedback and create structured interviews and enhance the experiences of users.
Lever now has an additional CRM tool feature which adds another feather to the advantage cap. The candidate surveys and dashboards have also been improvised.
Lever is good to use for organizations with a large employee base where too many stages of interviews are there and a large pool of candidates need to be evaluated, filtered, and shortlisted.
Lever is not that good to use for organizations with less employees, they can opt for other simple ATS where hiring is less frequent.
VidCruiter
VidCruiter is known chiefly for video interviews, but the platform also offers a solid ATS solution and Quick Apply, a hit feature with both TA teams and candidates.
PROS
- VidCruiter can be fully customized to meet specific recruiting needs.
- Easy to use for both job seekers and recruiters.
- Works on all devices. No app installation is needed.
- Quick Apply feature lets candidates apply directly from Indeed and LinkedIn and auto-syncs the candidate's info to the user’s existing ATS.
- Dedicated client success manager, 24/7 applicant support, phone, email, and live chat.
- Scalable and customizable — users pay for what they need and can purchase more features as they grow.
- Robust pre-recorded and live video interviewing with advanced automation.
- Browser-based, so it works across devices without installing apps.
- Available for recruiters in eight languages and supports job seekers in dozens more.
- 24/7 live agent support, assigned account manager, and on-demand training.
CONS
- Some users reported that implementation was time-consuming.
- Advanced search and technical skills testing features within the assessment module leave room for improvement.
- There is no trial version, and no price is listed on their site.
- Because the product is feature-rich and highly customizable, the implementation phase can be time-consuming.
- Advanced search and technical skills testing features within the assessment module leave room for improvement.
- No free or trial version.
- Undisclosed pricing.
VidCruiter has been a significant player in the video interviewing software market for years, but the platform is less well-known for its ATS. However, our research proves the ATS is robust enough to be listed among other top vendors in the space.
The platform balances the needs of those on both sides of the interview pipeline. TA teams are well-equipped with highly customizable features like job posting, pre-screening, interview scheduling, and real-time reports, and applicants are met with a user experience that was clearly designed with them in mind.
For a glimpse of team culture, vision, and values, users can build a custom career site that delivers a branded digital experience to candidates. The site editor is simple to use, and in our in-house testing, we managed to set everything up without help from the IT or VidCruiter support team. One feature of note: when a candidate accesses a career page supported by VidCruiter, the platform automatically generates recommendations for jobs available near them.
Quick Apply benefits both employers and candidates. With this feature, TA teams can rev up the hiring process without implementing a new ATS, so it’s perfect for teams on a budget. It is also helpful for those counting down the hours left on an ATS contract they don’t plan to renew. The platform offers job seekers the convenience of applying directly from portals such as LinkedIn and Indeed.
VidCruiter is used by over 100,000 recruiters, including Lowe’s, Lionsgate, Samsung, Bears, US Foods, and the United Nations.
VidCruiter prices start at $1,000 annually, according to our sources.
Best For
VidCruiter is a perfect ATS for large companies (U.S.-based and otherwise) hiring 100+ people annually. At the same time, the VidCruiter Quick Apply tool is an excellent pick for smaller companies that want to streamline their hiring process without going separate ways with their current ATS.
We use VidCruiter daily to handle our hiring tasks. Setting up job postings within the platform is easy, helping us get our openings out quickly. Once we start receiving applications, we use the pre-recorded video interviews to screen candidates and gauge their suitability. For standout candidates, we schedule live video interviews through VidCruiter. It keeps everything organized and saves us from the hassle of scheduling. VidCruiter's integrated reference checking allows us to verify a candidate's background without extra effort. Overall, it's become our go-to for managing the entire hiring process, ensuring we find the right people without the usual headaches. It's been a real game-changer for us.
VidCruiter's video interview features save us time and allow us to quickly assess candidates' communication skills. The integrated reference checking simplifies our vetting process and provides reliable insights into candidates' backgrounds, which is crucial in our industry. The platform's user-friendly interface makes it easy for our team to collaborate and manage candidates throughout the hiring process.
Choosing VidCruiter was a no-brainer for us in the jewelry industry because it addressed our urgent need for a more efficient hiring process. We appreciated that VidCruiter offers both pre-recorded and live video interviews, which helped us assess candidates thoroughly right from the start. One feature we found particularly useful was their referencing service—they handle it seamlessly as part of the platform. In our line of work, where reputation matters a lot, having reliable references is crucial. It's been about a year since we started using VidCruiter, and this feature has definitely made our hiring decisions more confident.
Sometimes the platform can feel overwhelming with all its features, and it took us a while to get fully comfortable with everything. Occasionally, we've experienced minor glitches in the scheduling feature, which can disrupt our interview processes. While the customer support is generally good, response times could be quicker.
Compared to other similar tools we've tried, VidCruiter stands out in several ways. One main difference is its comprehensive approach to video interviewing, offering both pre-recorded and live options seamlessly integrated into one platform. This flexibility allows us to efficiently screen candidates while saving time on scheduling. Additionally, VidCruiter's integrated referencing service is a significant advantage in our industry, streamlining the background check process and providing deeper insights into candidates' qualifications and character. The platform's intuitive interface and customizable workflows make it easier for our team to collaborate and manage the entire hiring process effectively.
Ensure the tool offers the specific features you need and fits your company's size and industry requirements. Test the platform for user-friendliness to ensure it is intuitive for your team to navigate without extensive training. Look for demos or trials. Consider how well the tool integrates with your existing systems. Compare pricing plans and consider the value the tool brings versus its cost. Factor in scalability if your team or hiring needs are expected to grow.
VidCruiter has added more features like automated workflows, enhanced customization options, and improved integrations. They have also slightly improved the user interface, and customer support has gotten better.
- Medium to large organizations
- HR departments focused on streamlining recruitment processes
- Industries requiring thorough candidate screening
- Teams managing high volumes of applicants
- Small organizations with limited hiring needs
- Companies not prioritizing video-based candidate evaluations
- Industries where face-to-face interactions are essential for initial assessments
- Organizations with strict budget constraints
Teamtailor
Teamtailor blends ease of use with flexible branding and candidate experience features. We were especially impressed by their quick-to-launch career pages, anonymous hiring options, and a new onboarding module that helps streamline post-offer workflows.
PROS
- Intuitive drag-and-drop career site builder, no code needed.
- Responsive, human customer support across channels.
- New onboarding module includes templates, task assignments, and progress tracking.
- Supports DEI via anonymous recruitment, EEO surveys, and internal referrals.
- Free trial and unlimited job posts, users, and candidate records.
- Teamtailor’s ATS comes with a robust career site builder that’s also easy to use. It works with drag and drop - no coding knowledge necessary.
- Teamtailor backs several features that support diversity, equality and inclusion (DEI), including anonymous hiring, equal employment opportunity (EEO) surveys, etc..
- Teamtailor is highly rated for their ease-of-use. It’s quite simple to post and promote jobs through their platform.
- There is really in-depth and intuitive help documentation for this solution
CONS
- Analytics customization remains limited.
- Onboarding and job offer approvals come at additional cost.
- Customization can be considered limited for enterprise users.
- Teamtailor’s analytics are good, but enterprise clients need to use BI Connectors to build the reporting they need. Right now, you can’t sport data from the system. This is particularly important for companies with 500+ employees, or those who have many different locations or franchises.
- Analytics doesn’t allow recruiters to see their cost per hire, which is a really impactful metric
- While they offer integrations with HRIS, onboarding, etc - they have focused on just being a really good ATS now.
- There are predefined user access levels, but you cannot define your own user access levels which is important, especially for the largest companies.
Teamtailor continues to impress us with its ability to make small teams feel like big brands. We’ve always loved its elegant approach to employer branding, especially the customizable career sites and nurturing tools, but the latest updates make it even more competitive as a full-funnel recruiting platform.
We demoed the new onboarding module and found it refreshingly straightforward. You can create pre-set templates with custom tasks, messages, forms, and documents, then apply those by department or role when a new hire accepts their offer. The onboarding dashboard widget gives your HR or hiring team a real-time view of progress, and it’s all centralized.
For hiring managers juggling multiple candidates, Teamtailor now has an improved comparison window. You can view interview notes, co-pilot screening criteria, application dates, and current stages side-by-side. It’s a small UX tweak, but one that really speeds up decision-making in high-volume pipelines.
Another useful feature we explored is Restricted Access, which allows admins to limit specific stages to specific users. For example, an IT lead could be looped in only during the hardware setup stage of onboarding. It’s a nice control layer if you involve multiple departments in hiring.
Despite these wins, Teamtailor still lacks broader HRIS tie-ins and the advanced analytics power that some talent teams might want. Plus, the new onboarding tools and offer approval features come as paid add-ons, which may push pricing above what very early-stage startups can afford.
Still, for companies who want an ATS that scales with them and makes them look good while doing it, Teamtailor remains a top pick.
Kry, Goodbye Kansas, Vitamin Well, Ponsse, Daniel Wellington
Teamtailor’s pricing starts at $1,200 annually, according to our sources.
Best For
Teamtailor works best for startups and SMBs (50-400 employees) that need a straightforward ATS coupled with strong employer branding functions.
TeamTailor is our applicant tracking system (ATS) or recruiting system. It hosts all our current job openings and feeds them to public job boards like Indeed. We use TeamTailor to screen candidate resumes and communicate with candidates when scheduling phone, video, and in-person interviews. All communication is kept in the candidate's profile, making it easily accessible at all times. Offers and salary negotiations are also completed within the system, including offer letter signatures and the distribution of any benefit-related offer information.
The automatic integration and feed into public job boards of our choosing, like Indeed or ZipRecruiter. We can manage all aspects of the job posting and candidate flow within TeamTailor, eliminating the need to manage each job board site individually. TeamTailor offers a wide range of one-click analytics, including time to fill, candidate flow time, and DEI measurements. The system keeps all applicants organized within buckets for each job, making it easy for hiring managers to know exactly who they are talking to and what stage of the interview process the candidate is in.
Before TeamTailor, my organization handled all recruitment functions through our internal CRM system, Dayforce. However, that solution did not offer a seamless candidate application experience, lacked text/SMS functionality, and did not have the robust analytics that our leadership team sought. TeamTailor easily integrates with our current systems, such as Microsoft Outlook and Teams. It also offers analytic dashboards that review applicant traffic, time to fill, and the amount of time spent in each stage of the hiring process. We have been using TeamTailor since March 2024.
There have been instances where attached or uploaded files are not sent to candidates and need to be resent separately outside of the system. We currently do not have access to interview templates, which would be helpful for hiring managers who may not be actively interviewing. A minor dislike is that we cannot change the color of their logo. Our organization relies heavily on uniform branding, so including their logo on presentations and communications is visually unappealing.
TeamTailor has built-in text/SMS capabilities that other ATSs only offer as upgraded features. This makes it easy to communicate with candidates quickly. The messages are received within the TeamTailor platform, so the hiring manager or recruiter does not have to provide their personal phone numbers. TeamTailor also integrates seamlessly with our organization's current tech stack of Microsoft products, making interview coordination with calendars easy.
If organizations want a system that acts as a one-stop shop for all things recruiting, this is it. Applicant screening, centralized job posting management, interviews, offers, and reporting are all in one place.
TeamTailor regularly releases software updates that include bug fixes or enhanced capabilities for their current features. A recent example is the ability to further customize analytic dashboard views.
We are a medium-sized luxury retail organization that prioritizes candidate experience from application to offer. Organizations like ours would benefit and see an ROI with TeamTailor.
TeamTailor is not good for rganizations that are not tech-savvy.
SmartRecruiters
Encompassing solutions beyond the standard candidate sourcing, assessment, and engagement features, SmartRecruiter is an enterprise-grade talent acquisition suite that provides native collaboration and AI-driven functionality.
PROS
- Candidate assessment, skill testing, and offer management are built-in, so need for add-ons or integrations.
- Enables easy posting to multiple job boards, integrating social media tools, and facilitating internal recruits.
- Friendly with mobile devices.
- SmartRecruiters has a built-in candidate assessment and skill testing module that allows you to predict cultural fit, future performance and retention, without needing to integrate third-party solutions.
- SmartRecruiters provides features for offer management. You can create offer letter templates, share them with successful applicants, and collect their e-signatures from any device using SmartRecruiters’ DocuSign integration.
- Speaking of integrations, SmartRecruiters has pre-built integrations with over 500 HR solutions and job boards. You can also ask SmartRecruiters’ team to build additional integrations for you if it doesn’t integrate with products in your tech stack.
CONS
- Undisclosed pricing.
- No free trials.
- Users have reported a steep learning curve and that the UI takes time to get used to.
- Features like candidate filtering, report customizations, and KPI tracking are limited.
- SmartRecruiters’ pricing isn’t transparent. Interested users have to go through the sales team to receive a quote. Users are also not able to create trial accounts on their own.
- Users have reported a steep learning curve and that the UI takes time to get used to. Some users have also reported that the system can be slow and glitches at times.
- The reporting feature doesn’t always retrieve data accurately. Some users have also complained that report customizations and KPI tracking capabilities are limited.
- Candidate filtering is quite limited. As it stands, only basic options such as degree, location, gender etc are provided.
SmartRecruiters ATS is built to serve mid-size and large businesses. The platform allows you to cast a wide net with customizable career pages, targeted ad campaigns, and job post distribution to multiple job boards. It also provides features for candidate assessment and offer management.
One unique fact our evaluation uncovered is that SmartRecruiters encourages customer feedback and rapidly integrates suggestions into the product. That’s an excellent reputation to have, and it’s in keeping with a key element of their business model: SmartRecruiters aims to enable their customers to attract talent. It follows that they would want direct feedback from their users on how to do that best.
The downside of this platform applies mostly to smaller businesses. It’s not cheap, and the scope of its feature set means that it’s complex to set up and use. These factors are less relevant to larger businesses, which are more likely to use all the features and have time and money to spare for integration and implementation.
More than 5,000 companies, including Ikea, Visa, LinkedIn, Equinox, and Skechers
The annual cost for SmartRecruiters ATS begins at $10,000 and can exceed $50,000.
Best For
SmartRecruiters works best for medium and large-sized businesses.
I implemented and used SmartRecruiters daily for over one year. We used SmartRecruiters for ATS, CRM, sourcing, talent pipeline development, marketing and campaigns for pipeline development, data and reporting, and onboarding.
The sourcing features were exceptional, and the ability to connect existing sourcing tools was easy. The interview kits and star rankings were most helpful in creating unbiased feedback for candidate interviews.
We were able to bring together recruitment and HR in an HRSS environment, making onboarding a smooth and easy experience for our new hires.
Ease of use; usability and collaboration across teams are simple. Personalized workflows and integration with our existing systems (e.g., LinkedIn Recruiter, calendar sync for scheduling, DocuSign, HRIS).
The reporting features are solid; we were able to align SmartRecruiters metrics with the Board of Directors’ preferred reporting formats easily.
We didn't have an ATS and selected SmartRecruiters to streamline our hiring process, improve collaboration among hiring teams and HR, and enhance the candidate experience. Before implementing the platform, we faced challenges with poor communication, inefficient workflows, and a lack of centralized reporting on recruitment metrics.
SmartRecruiters provided a user-friendly interface, automation capabilities, and seamless integration with other HR tools, allowing us to scale our hiring efforts effectively and improve the candidate experience.
The platform’s ability to customize workflows (including HR/onboarding), source candidates more quickly, manage talent pools, and gather collaborative candidate feedback has significantly improved our efficiency.
I have personally used SmartRecruiters for three years and value its features for sourcing top talent, tracking applicants, and maintaining a smooth recruitment process from start to finish.
The self-scheduling tool for candidates was glitchy. The notifications section is noisy; it needs cleanup or filter options. The reporting features could be more robust and customizable.
SmartRecruiters is more focused on AI and automation, global hiring, and the SmartRecruiters Marketplace (integrated vendors). Its AI features are forward-looking but should never replace the human aspect of recruitment.
Their automation is ahead of the curve. I appreciate SmartRecruiters' ability to incorporate recruitment laws from across the world, making it a strong platform for global hiring. The Marketplace is useful, incorporating over 300 vendors into the platform.
If you are hiring on a global scale, SmartRecruiters is a great platform for international recruitment. If you're looking for an end-to-end solution, SmartRecruiters works well for HRSS environments and streamlining recruiting and onboarding. It is best suited for mid to large companies, not for small businesses or start-ups unless you plan to scale quickly.
I appreciate that the platform is consistently evolving and seems to take user feedback into account. I wish they would address smaller issues (e.g., self-scheduling, notifications) before focusing heavily on AI features.
SmartRecruiters is a good fit for mid to large-sized companies. It offers the functionality needed for organizations planning to scale or hire globally.
SmartRecruiters is not ideal for start-ups or small businesses unless there are plans for rapid scaling.
Rippling
Rippling is known for its uniformly solid platform, so after test-driving their newly updated ATS module, we weren’t surprised to discover it’s intuitive to use, intelligently built, and succinctly integrated with their HRIS environment.
PROS
- The transition from candidate to employee is nearly seamless, with minimal manual data transfer.
- Mobile app for recruiters on the move.
- Candidate-friendly with no account creation required.
- Intuitive UI and intelligent workflows.
- Job board integration.
- All-in-one platform for employee management + PEO services offered, and even a suite of other IT products
- With 500 integrations, it’s very likely that they integrate with other key tools from your tech stack.
- Operates globally with any currency
- Workflow automation
- Analytics opportunities
- Provides a holistic view of company outflows—headcount costs included
CONS
- Not offered as a standalone product
- US-centric but globally focused-updates are in the pipeline.
- Users report occasional issues with the mobile apps.
- Some users report that customization options are limited.
- Total buy-in to Rippling is essential
- Very SMB-oriented, in case you’re a larger company.
- New features tend to be buggy in ways that tech teams are not accustomed to fixing
Ripplings ATS offers intelligent, intuitive workflows built into dozens of features and automation.
Typically, when an HRIS adds an ATS to their suite, it’s a half-hearted afterthought. Many are perfunctory, underpowered, and easily out-classed, even by mediocre standalone ATS platforms.
But Rippling has built a reputation based on solid product choices, and this one is no exception.
Their ATS is fully built out and offers a feature set that would be a viable standalone product if it weren’t so nicely intertwined with the rest of the Rippling platform.
Based on what’s included, it is clear that they’ve considered the candidate's experience. Little touches, like text messages to connect with candidates, show they know that personal preferences matter.
Another nod to the candidate experience (and what you can learn from it) is the abundant, customizable, anonymous surveys. Rippling recognizes the connection between their public reputation and their candidate experience.
Even with all these candidate-focused features, Rippling hasn’t lost touch with the needs of the people who will use their product most: busy TA/HR teams hiring for SMBs and startups.
Though demand generation is still on the roadmap, elements of their recruiting feature are laudable. It automatically integrates job boards like LinkedIn, Monster, and Zip Recruiter.
Finally, mobile access is a nice touch for busy recruiters, and their open API partnerships with vendors outside their platform leave little to be desired.
For years, companies have had to choose between the superior performance of standalone ATS solutions and the efficiency and security of all-in-one platforms. With Rippling’s ATS, companies who chose the all-in-one solution no longer have to rely on an external ATS.
Bank of America, Motorola, Citigroup, Inc., Dwell, Superhuman, Expensify, Checkr
Rippling pricing starts at $8 per user per month for HR Unity, but the ATS is made available on a higher tier plan (HR Cloud) with undisclosed pricing.
Best For
Rippling’s ATS module is used most by companies with 25 to 150 employees.
We used Rippling to input new hires and manage current employees. Employee information was stored on the platform. We used it to enroll employees in benefits and provide the team with an easy way to enroll in their plans or download their plan summaries. We also used it for payroll and to process yearly bonuses. Additionally, we relied on Rippling for compliance purposes. Their team would provide advice on compliance issues, HR support, and updates on new laws applicable to us.
I love the ease of use and the way it's laid out. I appreciate that there’s one place for all information. I also like that they have many useful tools, so as the company grows, they can adapt other features within their system (like performance evaluations, tracking, and learning management trainings).
Our company needed an HRIS system that would allow us to handle payroll, administer benefits, and provide compliance advice. We used Rippling for one year. The key benefit Rippling provided was a one-stop shop where everything could be tracked and kept together in one place, rather than having to visit different sites for various tasks (e.g., payroll, compliance, etc.). We were originally using an Excel file to track employee data. We switched to Rippling to store this data on their platform in a more secure and user-friendly way.
We used it as a PEO, and the health plans offered weren’t as competitively priced as if we had brought benefits in-house. Additionally, the benefit rates increased during open enrollment. I also dislike the $65 per employee, per month fee, which I find a bit steep.
Rippling is very comparable to other PEOs. What sets it apart is that they allow you to continue using their HRIS platform for HR, employee data tracking, and payroll even if your company decides to leave the PEO and bring benefits in-house. This flexibility is helpful, as it allows you to start with them as a PEO and transition to their standalone platform without searching for a new system, making the process easier.
The fees per employee per year are important to consider. If you’re in a period of rapid growth, make sure to account for expected new hires in your budget. You’ll also want to decide which features you’ll actually use. For example, we didn’t use their recruitment feature because we had a different system for that, but Rippling does offer a recruitment tool. The more features you use, the higher the cost, so be mindful of that.
I think their customer service improved from the time we started using them until we stopped. Initially, they didn’t have a designated rep for companies, so you had to go through their experts and didn’t always get the same person helping you, which could be frustrating. By the end of the year, we noticed improvements in their customer service, which was a positive development.
Rippling is great for any company with more than 10 employees. It’s ideal for small companies using a PEO, especially if employees are spread across multiple states. For larger companies that want to stop using a PEO and bring benefits in-house, Rippling is still very effective as an HRIS system for data tracking.
Rippling may not be worth the cost for companies with fewer than 10 employees. In that case, it might be better to avoid the PEO fees. If all employees are in one state, I would recommend using a broker for insurance and managing employee data and recruitment in-house instead.
Spark Hire
Spark Hire has packed a massive analytics framework into a program that looks very simple. The ATS product, Spark Hire Recruit, is easy to navigate and appeals to hiring managers with scarce time and attention.
PROS
- Data analysis dashboard and features are top-tier.
- Efficiency-focused elements, like one-way video interviews, are great for busy TA teams.
- Collaboration is enabled by features that offer pipeline transparency to multiple stakeholders.
- Data analysis dashboard and features are top-tier.
- Efficiency-focused elements, like one-way video interviews, are great for busy TA teams.
- Collaboration is enabled by features that offer pipeline transparency to multiple stakeholders.
CONS
- Starting in 2025, the price will increase to $399 per month.
- Some users require more customization than what is offered.
- No caption or translation features in video limits access for some candidates
- No free trial version.
- Some users require more customization than what is offered.
- No caption or translation features in video limits access for some candidates
Spark Hire Recruit enables truly collaborative hiring, and that's no easy task. All top-tier ATSs are equal parts powerful and pleasant to use. Spark Hire goes beyond that by providing features that appeal to the entire hiring team, encouraging collaboration across roles, and, ultimately, better hires.
One feature that demonstrates this is the interviewing interface, which provides an impressive amount of context at a glance. Without shuffling papers or trying to manage a dozen open tabs, the candidate’s information, including their position in the pipeline, is organized thoughtfully in a single dashboard. The interviewers can directly add their thoughts and impressions to the platform in real time.
We asked our colleagues with the most recruiting experience to weigh in, and they were most impressed with the analytics dashboard. Spark Hire stands out, with notable strengths in data quantity and quality. For example, if a candidate withdraws from the process, it records the point on the pipeline at which they dropped out. This may seem obvious, but it’s a rare find.
Recruiting empowerment was also emphasized during our demo. Our writers are all familiar with the relentless dedication it takes for TA teams to keep their heads above water, so we know the value of seamless automation. This applicant tracking software knows where digital assistance can help and where a human touch is needed.
7,000+ including Fiverr, Monday.com, Sodastream, Vimeo, and KPMG.
Spark Hire Recruit’s pricing starts at $399 per month. They also provide a free trial, but it requires you to schedule a demo with their team.
Best For
Spark Hire Recruit works best for small and medium-sized companies (5-500 employees).
Anytime we have a hiring process open for a vacancy, we use Spark Hire. Depending on the type of evaluation we want on the candidates, we set some questions and ask candidates to do one-way video interviews, where they record the answers, which helps us quickly screen many applicants. We watch these videos to decide who to move forward with. For those who make it to the next round, we set up live video interviews through Spark Hire, which is easy to manage. We also share these videos with our team to get everyone's feedback.
I like Spark Hire because it saves us time by allowing candidates to complete one-way video interviews at their convenience. The platform's ability to share and review interviews with our team makes collaborative decision-making easy. Additionally, the user-friendly interface ensures a smooth experience for both recruiters and candidates. I have used it as a recruiter and a candidate as well.
Our organization bought Spark Hire to make our hiring process faster and easier. Before, we struggled with scheduling interviews and coordinating between different time zones, which slowed us down and made us miss out on great candidates. We've been using Spark Hire for over two years now, and it has helped a lot. The one-way video interviews let candidates record their answers when it suits them, and we can watch them anytime, which saves us a lot of time. We can also share these videos with our team to get their input without needing everyone to be available at the same time. Spark Hire has made hiring quicker and smoother for us.
For new users, it might be a little challenging when you first get introduced to it. For some small companies, the cost might be prohibitive. Lastly, more automation of the integration process could benefit users by reducing manual data entry and ensuring seamless data flow between systems.
Spark Hire is different from other similar tools because it lets you do both one-way and live video interviews. It also has good tools for working together as a team and making candidates feel comfortable. I've used similar tools, but Spark Hire's simple setup and features make it my favorite for hiring new people.
When buying a tool like Spark Hire, they should check if it's easy to use and if it works well with their current systems. Also, see what features it has, like different kinds of interviews and tools for teamwork. Checking the price and if it can grow with their company is important too. Lastly, they should see what other people say about it to make sure it's reliable and people like using it.
Based on user feedback and industry trends, Spark Hire has continuously added new features and improved existing ones. The platform has likely invested in technology advancements to improve performance and user interface.
Spark Hire is great for all kinds of companies that want to hire people quickly and work together well. It's especially good for big companies or those hiring a lot of people. If your team is spread out or if you have many people involved in hiring, Spark Hire can help you all work together easily. It's simple to use and can handle a lot of candidates, making it a good choice for companies of any size.
Spark Hire may not be the best fit for very small organizations with extremely limited hiring needs or those that prefer traditional recruitment methods without much emphasis on technology.
Benefits of ATS Software
The primary benefit of an applicant tracking system is that it increases the efficiency of your talent acquisition team through streamlined, automated workflows. These tools can also be quite impactful: 94% of recruiters believe using applicant tracking software has positively impacted their company's hiring processes.
Other benefits include improved employer branding, access to detailed analytics, and seamless engagement of managers and employees outside of HR and TA teams.
- Customized workflows: An ATS system that can customize and automate tasks like application processing, screening, and collecting feedback can dramatically improve hiring efficiency. This benefit is especially significant to organizations hiring from very different candidate pools. If, for example, your team is hiring both truck drivers and software engineers, you can bet these workflows won’t be interchangeable.
- Improved employer branding: Candidate tracking systems will help your organization create and manage a custom career site, helping your company stand out. Showcasing your best features will make it easier to attract top talent. With integrations to networks like LinkedIn, reaching a wide audience is easy.
- Better quality talent pools: The best ATS software can save time and money by maintaining already-sourced candidates. If you maintain occasional contact with a pool of qualified candidates, your recruiting process doesn’t start from zero each time you open a new role.
- Wider internal engagement: Rather than relying exclusively on your HR or TA teams for recruiting, the best ATS software will also involve your hiring managers and employees as part of the process. Employee referrals, feedback on job candidates, and social media can all be leveraged to fill open positions.
- Streamlined hiring and onboarding: An ATS can do more than streamline recruiting; it can work wonders for onboarding. A good first impression sets the stage for employee engagement and, ultimately, retention, so it’s critical to make the onboarding process employee-focused, timely, and effective.
- More effective recruitment strategies: An effective hiring process is data-driven. Any good ATS software dashboard will put recruiter productivity, cost per hire, cost of job boards, cost of paid media, time to hire, and other key data at your fingertips.
How To Choose an ATS
Any business choosing an ATS should aim to get the maximum functionality for its price point (while ensuring key functions for its specific business are best-in-class), focus on potential long-term benefits rather than short-term costs, and understand the software vendor's product roadmap.
- What do you want to achieve with the ATS?: Depending on your business, you can have one person or multiple teams across your company branches interacting with the ATS day-to-day. Each may have a different pain point they want the recruitment tool to tackle. Knowing the center goals of these stakeholders and the importance of each can help you create a list of features ranked from most to least desired.
- What can you afford?: An ATS that can schedule interviews, manage employee referrals, and parse resumes will lighten the load on your HR/TA team, leading to increased efficiency. That said, investing in a feature-rich ATS could mean more complexity, steeper learning curves, and higher costs to the system. So, besides the feature list, you’d need to note down your allowed budget and the human resources involved in onboarding and maintaining the ATS system.
- Focus on individual features during your vendor research: Evaluate precisely what you need. The feature list and resource note that you have prepared in the earlier steps will help you stay focused on options that truly matter.
- Think long-term: Trying to anticipate the future is critical given how hard these tools are to replace over time (migrating tons of candidate data, different workflows for different types of jobs, etc.). Beyond the platform's capacity to scale up as you grow, pay attention to how this growth will affect product pricing and, therefore, the ATS ROI.
- Understand the roadmap: A tool with no future plan for improvements may cause trouble for future software updates, but a vendor with an ambitious list of feature enhancements, yet a very humble track record of delivery, is not any better. Ask the sales rep specific questions relevant to your business needs, and review content published on the company's channels for more information.
ATS Pricing Models and Cost Estimates
ATS companies commonly use the following pricing structures:
- Flat rate: This pricing model offers a fixed monthly or annual fee for unlimited use of the ATS, making it ideal for large enterprises that prefer long-term contracts.
- Pay per user: This model is best suited for small teams with limited recruiter usage, like ours! It charges a monthly fee for each active user of the ATS.
- Pay per vacancy: Designed for small businesses with low hiring volumes, pay-per-vacancy charges a fee for each job you post using the ATS.
- Pay per module: This model is suitable for companies with an existing HR platform that includes ATS as an add-on. It allows companies to pay for only the ATS module they need, rather than the entire platform.
Keep in mind that:
- Additional costs may apply for selective integrations, premium support, and advanced features.
- Prices can be negotiable: Some ATSs offer discounts for early-stage startups, non-profits, and buyers willing to sign multi-year contracts.
Here are some guidelines on ATS pricing based on company headcount. This information is intended to help you get a general sense of ATS pricing. Keep in mind that ATS software comes in all shapes and sizes. Here we provide mid-range samples for reference.
- Small business (<100 employees): $250 up to $12,000 USD per year.
- Medium-sized business (100-500 employees): $3,000 to $25,000 per year.
- Large business (501-5,000 employees): $15,000 to $50,000+ annually.
- Enterprise (5,000+ employees): From $125,000 per year.
ATS Key Features
The best ATS features include automated resume parsing, reliable data security, and great analytics.
- Third-party integrations: Almost without exception, the top ATSs are built with robust integration capabilities and a substantial network within their partner ecosystem. You should aim for seamless ATS integrations, meaning the ATS should be ready to interface (connect to, plug in to, work well with) whatever software you use for hiring.
- Talent sourcing: The best applicant tracking systems include dynamic features, such as Google Chrome extensions, that allow you to source candidates directly from the web. You’ll also find databases of job seekers that you can query for specific skills and outreach tools that will enable you to build sequences that engage candidates through email and texting.
- AI recruiting assistant: It’s hard to find an applicant tracking system that doesn’t offer at least one form of AI-powered recruiting feature nowadays. So the more valuable question now is whether an ATS has a legally and ethically helpful AI feature. For example, many offer job description generators, but few allow for tone adjustments the way Workable does. Similarly, when a candidate deletes their data, Pinpoint is one of the few that also automatically deletes their email history to prevent compliance issues for customers.
- Candidate relationship management (CRM): A recruiting CRM nurtures your relationship with your entire job seeker ecosystem, whether active or passive. It helps your TA keep leads warm by setting reminders to ping individual candidates (“silver medalists”) or to check in periodically with larger candidate pools. Structured communications and automated workflows help maintain good relationships and free up your TA team’s time.
- Blind screening: This is an effective method for controlling hiring bias, a foundational element of all diversity and inclusion (D&I) initiatives. ATSs with a blind screening feature obscure the candidates' names, photos, addresses, and other demographic identifiers to prevent assessments based on non-relevant characteristics.
- Employer branding and career site: Modern applicant tracking systems are built with the candidate experience in mind. Making a good first impression is critical, so top ATSs include no-code features that recruiters and hiring managers can use to build and maintain a professional, bespoke career site without needing to involve marketers and developers.
- Data and analytics: Any ATS worth its salt has a basic analytics dashboard. The best (and often the most expensive) ATS also incorporates a powerful analytics engine to make light work of your heaviest statistical loads.
- Interview scheduling: ATS software that is focused on recruitment process automation will include scheduling for everything from phone screens to final-round interviews. Some enterprise options, such as SparkHire and VidCruiter, even have a video interview tool built in so you don’t have to rely on a third-party app for such use.
- Offer letters: Automated distribution of offer letters is a standard ATS feature. Most platforms offer templates that can be easily customized for each offer presented to a new hire.
- Onboarding: A smooth onboarding process helps ensure that the transition from candidate to colleague is as smooth as possible. It’s not surprising to see that most applicant tracking platforms now offer some form of this capability, either natively or via integrations with third-party employee onboarding tools.
The above features are highly specific and designed to help buyers and decision-makers make quick, informed decisions. However, some critical aspects of ATS performance and functionality can’t be summed up so easily.
Our guest expert, Zach Larson, suggests buyers consider the following three basic elements:
- First, consider how well the product will respond to market challenges.
- Second, estimate the quality of candidates based on the ATS's sourcing methods.
- Last but not least, involve your TA team in the process. Your internal stakeholders must be on board with your choice.
Other Factors Worth Considering
Beyond key features and pricing, user experience (UX) and user interface (UI), scalability, and customization are also critical factors when selecting an applicant tracking system to support your organization's growth and operational needs.
- User Experience and Interface: When looking at well-known platforms like Greenhouse, BambooHR, and Pinpoint, it’s easy to see that a well-designed interface partly contributes to higher adoption rates and, consequently, the growing popularity of these platforms. A great UX/UI enhances user satisfaction, reduces training time, and improves recruitment processes. It also benefits job applicants, as a smooth and intuitive application process helps improve the candidate experience and increase the likelihood of successful hires.
- Customization and Scalability: An applicant tracking system that seems ideal for your 20-person team today may become inadequate if it cannot support your international hiring needs as your team scales globally. Be sure to assess how customizable the system is (e.g., branding options, workflow customization, automation tools) to meet both your current and long-term needs. Oftentimes, seeking advice from HR tech experts results in faster and more accurate ATS shortlists, as they provide candid insights that a vendor’s sales team might not disclose.
Questions to Ask on Demos
The questions should all be about your specific requirements for an ATS, but the following can offer some ideas and inspiration on what to ask during your ATS vendor demo.
- Is there a bi-directional API to share information between this system and my HRIS?
- How does this ATS help my recruiting efforts beyond capturing candidate information? For example, will it allow me to pipeline candidates, source new ones, boost referrals, etc.?
- How does this system improve the candidate experience?
- What is your partner strategy, and do I have to pay to integrate my other recruiting tools?
- What metrics do you focus on to prove the effectiveness of this solution, and where can I see these in my analytics dashboard?
- Can I speak to my future customer service rep about implementation and how exactly your organization will be involved?
- Walk me through the candidate experience.
- Can I store candidate profiles in this system in a way that is searchable for future candidate sourcing?
- Walk me through how recruiters post jobs, vet applicants, and leave feedback.
- How do employees outside of HR interact with this ATS?
- Do you have social recruiting capabilities?
- We use {{XYZ indispensable recruiting tool}}, do you integrate with it? If yes, how?
- What is the onboarding process after we buy this solution? Ask for specific steps and who in your org needs to be involved.
For those wondering what the right number of questions to bring to a demo, here is a piece of advice: ask as many as you can. If a vendor doesn’t have time to help you understand their product from the ground up, they are probably the wrong vendor.
FAQs
What is ATS?
ATS stands for applicant tracking system, a type of recruitment software designed to make it easier for companies to find, organize, and track applicants for jobs.
Read more: What Is an Applicant Tracking System (ATS)
How do applicant tracking systems work?
Applicant tracking systems serve as a liaison between employers and applicants. Once an application is submitted, the ATS extracts and stores the candidate’s work experience, education, and contact information in a database. HR teams use the database to review applications, communicate with applicants, schedule interviews, and sometimes administer skills tests.
What is the difference between an ATS and an HRIS?
An ATS (applicant tracking system) is the core operating software for your recruiting team, handling hiring records. In contrast, your HRIS (Human Resource Information System) is the core operating system for your human resources team, handling employee records.
What is the difference between ATS and CRM?
ATS focuses on streamlining application logistics, while CRM (candidate relationship management system) builds relationships with potential candidates early on through engagement activities. ATS is used in the later hiring stages, and CRM is used in the early stages of candidate attraction and engagement.
Why is ATS software used in recruitment?
An ATS is used in recruitment to make the end-to-end hiring process easier. ATSs were initially designed for large corporations managing thousands of job applications every week. The use of software dedicated to specific purposes has become part of our everyday lives, and so has the ubiquity of the ATS in small and medium businesses. Teams of all sizes, with various hiring needs, can benefit from a tool that increases efficiency by streamlining tasks.
Is there a free applicant tracking system?
Yes, there are. Some of the best applicant tracking systems we've tested that offer free editions are Manatal, which offers a free trial; Dover, which has a free plan that lasts forever; and Recooty, which is free for one user. Check out our free ATS buyer guide for more options.
What is the best ATS for startups and SMBs?
Startups and small businesses often have a tight budget for recruitment technology, so the above free ATS could be a good starting point for these companies. Additionally, Workable, Zoho Recruit, and Recruit CRM are among the other top SMB-focused ATS systems we tested, which offer a good range of features at an affordable price.
What is the best ATS for recruitment and staffing agencies?
Recruit CRM, Manatal, and Zoho Recruit provide comprehensive features tailored to the needs of smaller agencies. On the other hand, larger firms with increased volume and complex recruitment processes may find Bullhorn and Avionté to be more suitable.
Final Advice on Buying an ATS
- Know your needs: Get clear on the specific needs your ATS must satisfy. Meet with vendors and watch demos only after you are absolutely sure of your current ATS requirements and confident of your future forecast. Don’t agree to anything less (or more) than exactly what you need.
- Two-for-one ROI analysis: Being CFO-ready with an ATS ROI calculation will refine your thoughts on why and how an ATS is a necessary purchase for your team, leading to greater clarity on which features to prioritize.
- Consider the context: As ATS platforms have become more sophisticated, their cost has decreased. This means capabilities like sourcing, recruitment CRM, talent re-discovery, and even top-rate analytics are readily available to most.
Watch this video for insights from our experts on selecting the right applicant tracking software for your needs.
About the Author
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