10 Best Applicant Tracking Systems for Small Business (2024)
The best ATS for small business, as per our expert HR tech researchers. Get key features, pros & cons, pricing, and ROI tips below.
An applicant tracking system (ATS) is essential to attract top candidates and track their progress throughout the pipeline. If you manage recruitment at a small business and are struggling with hiring, it’s probably time for an ATS.
For small businesses, there’s a fine line between bootstrapping your budget and shooting yourself in the foot, and our experience tells us that the ROI on the right ATS software will make you wonder why you spent so long making do with Excel.
Your need for automation and efficiency probably led you to this guide, so let’s take it a step further by finding the right product to meet your needs.
The contributors to this guide represent decades of experience and perspective. We called on Stefanie Sher (Director of Talent Acquisition, Replicated), Tracie Marie (Founder, Hire Incentive), Zachary Larson (People Operations leader with 10+ years experience), SSR writer and editor Huda Idris (B2B Software Advisor, HR tech expert), and SSR HR tech researcher Anh Nguyen to help you find the right tool for your team.
Best Applicant Tracking Systems for Small Businesses
To find the best applicant tracking systems for small businesses, we evaluated the performance of more than 30 products in the following critical functions: resume parsing and analytics, job posting, pipeline management/user experience, and integration capacity.
- Resume Parsing and Analytics: The ability to reliably parse resumes and provide meaningful analytics are core functions for any ATS, but for a small business, it’s especially critical. To gauge this, we ran simulations where we sent sample resumes through each software’s application pipeline.
- Job Posting: We looked at the number and quality of job boards and assessed each tool’s attentiveness to factors like inclusive language. We also examined their ability to create and maintain a comprehensive audit trail.
- Pipeline Management and User Experience: Pipeline management supports automation and efficiency, the foundation of candidate experience. Good ATS software design is crucial because it reflects your company's image. We ran candidate simulations through each pipeline to test for intuitiveness, accessibility, and cohesive visual design. We assessed the performance from both the candidate's and recruiter's perspectives.
- Integration: Compatibility with other software is essential because the candidate pipeline at small businesses weaves through multiple internal data points and systems, such as calendars for scheduling, onboarding, and background checks. To ensure each ATS would work with most HR ecosystems, our researchers checked for compatibility with dozens of the top HR tools used by small businesses.
Workable
Recooty
Pinpoint
JazzHR
Zoho Recruit
Recruitee
Trakstar Hire
BambooHR
Teamtailor
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Workable
Workable really works for small orgs. This platform is best known for its ability to support large teams, but it can also meet the needs of small and growing companies.
PROS
- Workable’s pricing plans are quite straightforward.
- It offers 15-day free trials with no card info required.
- It supports one-click job posting to over 200 sites and lets you access its talent pool with over 400 million profiles.
- You can conduct cognitive and personality assessments within Wordable, without needing third-party tools.
- The anonymized screening feature can help reduce unconscious hiring bias.
- 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
- No automated reference checking and onboarding features.
- Features like candidate texting, video interviews, and assessments are not included in plans but must be bought separately.
- Workable could do better with duplicate candidate merging since one person will have numerous candidate records on the ATS if they apply for multiple positions.
- The reporting feature needs to be more detailed and customizable.
- The candidate search function could have more filters.
- 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.
Workable is a powerful applicant tracking system suitable for businesses of all sizes. This adaptability is a stand-out feature: most ATSs perform best in a particular size environment, but Workable is highly flexible and scales easily.
Users can expect standard ATS features like job posting and scheduling, as well as AI-driven parsing and candidate suggestions. Some sought-after features, like video interviews, are not included. However, its integration abilities are top-notch, allowing users to easily introduce 3rd party vendors to their ATS environment.
Workable enables a structured and unbiased hiring process by providing anonymized screening, interview kits, and scorecards in all their plans.
Workable has been used by over 20,000 organizations, including Sephora, Forbes, Bevi, Moodle, and Navarro.
Workable has three plans:
- Paygo costs $129 per job per month.
- Standard costs $299 per month.
- Premier costs $599 per month.
- Add-on pricing starts at $59 per month.
Best For
Workable is a good choice for companies of all sizes. It's great for SMBs because it scales well, meaning that users can count on it to handle everything from humble beginnings to rapid growth.
We use Workable to track candidates in our pipeline from sourcing to the hiring stage. In addition, Workable allows users to add comments and leave reviews for the candidate. We also utilize Workable to share job descriptions with the public. It has robust functionality for that and we have easily double or triple the amount of inbound candidates compared to using Greenhouse.
I love the design and ease of use of the website. The automation tools as you move candidates between stages are really powerful. The reach of workable when you upload a JD is very extensive and I get a significant number of inbound candidates.
We purchased Workable to replace Greenhouse as we felt Greenhouse was too bulky for our needs. We have been using it for about a month so far. While it functions very well as an ATS, I appreciate its automation features and ease of use/navigation. It has a clean and understandable UI. It also has a great support team which has helped with the import of our candidate data from Greenhouse.
- The automation sometimes has a few issues, such as moving a candidate out of the pipeline without sending them an email is a little tricky.
- The scorecard symbols aren't customizable and there are only 3 of them (love, like, no).
- The AI candidate search tool, while neat, isn't too helpful usually.
Compared to Greenhouse, I like it much more. It's easier to use, capable of the same things, and much cheaper. The inbound capabilities are better and creating a JD is less complicated.
Criteria 1: Does your team need a robust pool of inbound candidates? If so, Workable is great at providing that quantity.
Criteria 2: Will other non-talent employees be scoring candidates? Greenhouse is a little bit better at sending interview packages, but Workable is much easier to navigate.
Criteria 3: Is cost an issue considering the size of our team? For a smaller team of a few people <10, Workable is much more affordable.
We haven't used it long enough for this to come into play, but the support team has been helpful in setting things up.
It's great for organizations with a smaller talent team that needs a lot of power for a low price point.
If you need to send robust interview packages often, then Greenhouse may be better.
Recooty
Recooty offers a free-forever plan that allows users to post jobs on multiple platforms. The platform’s paid plans pack a handful of recruitment essentials at conservative prices, making it a great ATS option for SMBs.
PROS
- Recooty is easy to use. The software is designed to be user-friendly, with a simple interface that makes it easy to find and use the features you need.
- Recooty is priced competitively, making it accessible for small businesses.
- You can opt for a free trial to try Recooty before you commit to a subscription.
- In addition to job posting and candidate tracking, Recooty also offers features for interview scheduling, candidate assessment, offer management, and onboarding.
- The ability to post a job on multiple platforms makes it efficient – a “one-click job posting solution”, according to one user.
- Supports 8 languages: German, English, French, Hindi, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, and Vietnamese.
- One user liked the usability of the software, stating that it is 'easy and self-explanatory.'
- The ability to post a job on multiple platforms makes it efficient, as per one user who labels Recooty a 'one-click job posting solution.'
- The company offers a cheap subscription, making it affordable for small businesses.
CONS
- No mobile apps.
- Doesn’t have a Chrome Extension to import candidates from websites like LinkedIn.
- Can only integrate with Slack and LinkedIn.
- Recooty is more suitable for small and medium businesses and may not be ideal for large enterprises with more job postings and locations.
- The company does not have a mobile application, as stated by many software users.
- Recooty has limited features i.e., unlike its competitors, it doesn’t support employee referrals and one-on-one interviews.
- Recooty offers only two integrations from their dashboard; for Slack and LinkedIn.
- Recooty is more suitable for small and medium businesses and may not be ideal for large enterprises with more job postings and locations.
Recooty is great for SMBs looking for an easy-to-use, affordable, and efficient applicant tracking system. However, if you're looking for a more robust solution with more features, you may want to consider a different ATS.
Our in-house assessment showed that Recooty is a plug-and-play tool. It is easy to set up and easy to navigate. Users can post jobs to multiple boards, track applicants, and set up automated email notifications with just a few clicks. It’s not an exaggeration to say Recooty is a self-explanatory ATS.
Another thing we like about Recooty is its affordability. The software is priced competitively, and you can even start with the free plan. Though it’s limited to one active job at a time, it offers some good features like branded career pages, multiple job boards, and unlimited applications.
Recooty supports not only English but seven additional languages. However, Recooty lacks a mobile app, despite pressure from users over the years. Recooty isn’t a good call for recruitment teams that need a Chrome extension to support their candidate search on websites like LinkedIn.
The level of customization is lacking compared to higher-priced ATSs in the space, and resume parsing is accessible for only the two highest-priced plans. Integration options also leave something to be desired, as you can only connect the ATS with your LinkedIn and Slack.
Sendlane, Airtable, Uber, Rack Bank, American Hospital, Trello.
The company offers four pricing plans:
- Free plan - Limited to one active job slot, one user, and one location.
- Pro Plan - the plan goes for $49/month with 10 Active job slots, 10 slots, and 3 locations.
- Ultra Plan - goes for $ 99/month with 25 active job slots, 50 users, 10 locations, and all features under the Pro plan.
- Max Plan- goes for $ 199/month while offering 75 active job slots, 100 users, and 20 locations and all features under the Ultra plan.
- All the plans come with a 14-day trial period in which you can test the service without providing your credit card details. After the trial period ends, you will need to update your card to continue using the services.
Best For
Recooty is an excellent tool for small businesses that want to post jobs on multiple platforms without spending money.
Pinpoint
Pinpoint is growing teams’ favorite ATS that shines with talent CRM, integrations, and automation workflows built-in. The platform also enables users to create content-rich career sites with neat designs without needing help from IT.
PROS
- Pinpoint’s ATS is highly customizable and values collaborative hiring.
- Pinpoint offers unlimited active jobs, team members, external recruiters, training, and support for all users regardless of their plans.
- The customer support team is helpful and responsive to customers’ requests.
- The pricing is transparent. Startups with under 50 people can benefit from its discounted pricing.
- It’s got a robust career site builder you can easily customize without the help of IT.
- It provides over 100 third-party integrations. Also offers custom integrations (but only for Enterprise plan).
- 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
- Pinpoint offers its employee onboarding module with additional fees.
- It can be expensive for budget-minded teams.
- Doesn’t offer a free trial or free version.
- Multilingual support is only available for the Enterprise plan.
- 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's ATS is highly regarded by users for its intuitive interface, neat automation workflows, and robust career site builder. We love how easy it is for candidates to apply through the career site. Here’s an example of what going the extra mile looks like: if your candidates are not ready to apply, they can opt into a talent community to stay in touch with your company. After testing a few dozen vendors, we can confirm this is something you can’t find in most other ATSs.
We were also impressed by Pinpoint’s customer service. Regardless of the plan you opt for, you will get a dedicated success manager, concierge onboarding, and unlimited support via phone, email, and live chat. There really isn’t anything we dislike about it.
Just a few things to keep in mind. There’s no free trial or free plan to try before buying. And when compared with other solutions, Pinpoint might be on the pricier side — the cheapest plan cost $600 per month. If you’d like to use its onboarding module, you need to purchase it separately. While having a considerable number of standard integration options, requesting bespoke integrations is only for Pinpoint’s Enterprise plan users (having 150 headcounts or more).
CoinShares, Pathways Global, Grant Thornton, Icario, Pivot Energy.
Pinpoint has two plans:
- Growth: starts at $600 monthly when billed annually.
- Enterprise: From $1,200/month when billed annually.
- Available startup program for startups with fewer than 50 headcounts.
Best For
Pinpoint is a wonderful ATS for in-house recruitment at companies that are growing fast.
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.
JazzHR
Purposely built for teams with less than 500 employees, JazzHR provides almost every key feature of an ATS, like career pages, employer branding, candidate sourcing, and talent CRM, at a transparent and affordable price. Free trials are also available.
PROS
- JazzHR is quite affordable and doesn’t place any limits on the number of users added. It also offers a free, 21-day trial that anyone can sign up for.
- It’s got 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.
- 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
- Some users reported a learning curve with JazzHR's UI and that it took them some time to get used to it.
- Although a product geared towards SMBs, it lacks a free plan. We mention this as a con since other SMB-geared recruiting products often 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.
- 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.
JazzHR’s ATS was designed with SMBs in mind. The platform allows for unlimited users across all plans, making it easier for businesses to communicate and collaborate during the hiring process. In addition to its collaboration and affordability features, we also like how JazzHR makes it easy and quick to share your job openings across multiple job boards.
You can start with their lowest-priced plan (Hero) that includes essential features like posting up to three job openings and then upgrade to higher plans as your company grows, ensuring you don’t pay for features you don't need. The other two plans (Plus and Pro) have more advanced features for automating, customizing, and analyzing the hiring process.
JazzHR has been used by over 10,000 businesses to date, including TED, Fox Dealer, Clearly, Massaro, and Heath Ceramics.
JazzHR has three plans. When billed annually, these plans cost as follows:
- Hero: $49 per month for unlimited users and 3 open jobs.
- Plus: $239 per month for unlimited users, unlimited open jobs, ATS, interviews, and assessments.
- Pro: $359 per month for everything from Plus, along with offers and e-signatures, reporting, and all-access support.
Best For
JazzHR is specifically built for teams at organizations with 5 to 500 employees, regardless of industry or recruiting maturity.
I use JazzHR daily. We utilize it as an applicant tracking system. We are able to post a job and have it posted to multiple job boards. We also communicate with candidates via the platform. In addition, we set up workflows/automation to move candidates through the pipeline.
- Simple design/easy to use.
- Multiple integrations.
- Low cost
We began to offer recruiting services at our agency and needed an Applicant Tracking system that was simple and efficient but could also be easy to use for the client once we had filled the role.
- Inability to log into multiple clients' accounts at the same time.
- No video screening integration.
- Candidate’s email replies are not easy to see/notifications
I prefer that JazzHR is easy to follow compared to other ATSs’ whose dashboard views are overwhelming and difficult to navigate.
They should consider the integrations they want to use. JazzHR has great workflows and integrations but the setup is very manual and somewhat limited compared to other competitors. They should also consider the number of users needing access as this can be limited depending on the plan chosen
JazzHR has continued to add new integrations such as Calendly.
All organizations
I don't feel this applies-would be good for all
Zoho Recruit
As with most Zoho products, Zoho Recruit is quite robust and feature-rich. The ATS also has a free plan and supports 26 different languages, allowing recruiters to cast a wide net.
PROS
- Combines ATS and candidate CRM in one platform.
- Scalable plans with free trials and a free version.
- 24/5 support.
- 45-day money-back guarantee.
- ATS + CRM in one platform
- Backed by a company like Zoho, notable for reliability and good customer service.
- 24/5 support
- Priced quite modestly after the free version
- Certain features like video interviews are available as optional add-ons.
CONS
- The free plan has limited storage — 256MB.
- Features like the client portal, mass email, workflow alerts, and API are paid features.
- Integrations at times don’t work properly, requiring disconnecting and reconnecting.
- The career site is not fully customizable until past a certain paid plan.
- The free plan only allows 256MB of storage.
- Additional features, such as the client portal, mass email, workflow alerts, and API calls cost extra.
- Some users have complained about the quality of some of the integrations.
- The career site is not fully customizable until past a certain paid plan.
We couldn’t miss this opportunity to try Zoho’s free plan. It covers the essentials for managing candidates, emails, and interview scheduling. While the customization options are somewhat limited, we were glad to see the ability to post jobs on both free and paid job boards, including the niche ones. The integration with Google applications and support for 26 languages are definite pluses, making connecting with applicants from different backgrounds easier. Another time-saving feature is the availability of five customizable email templates, which can be a real help. However, the biggest con of the free plan is you only get one active job at a time. The storage limit is also on the smaller side, set at 256MB.
On the bright side, creating a career page with customizable templates is straightforward, though it might not be the most visually stunning option out there. Another cool feature we came across is Zia, the AI-based chatbot. It automatically responds to applicants’ FAQs and keeps them updated on job availability and application statuses. Plus, there's a handy automated candidate matching feature: you create a new job and specify the desired skills, and Zoho Recruit will rank the candidates based on how well their resumes meet set requirements.
However, besides a limited free version, the solution lacks features for skill assessments and anti-cheating. We also heard some users mention occasional connectivity issues with connected HR tools. Lastly, additional features like the client portal, mass email, and workflow alerts come with extra costs.
Bosch, Deloitte, Saint-Gobain, PWC, Allianz.
Zoho Recruit provides a range of paid plans alongside the free version:
- Standard plan is priced at $30/user/month, offering features such as a document library, analytics, and customizations.
- Professional plan priced at $60/user/month, which includes assessments and social recruiting capabilities.
- Enterprise plan priced at $90/user/month, providing a comprehensive set of features (doesn’t include add-ons).
- Add-ons available include the client portal and video interview modules. Zoho Recruit also offers a 15-day free trial for users to explore the platform's capabilities.
Best For
Recruiting and staffing agencies already using other Zoho products will appreciate Zoho Recruit as a valuable addition to their hiring toolkit. Additionally, large firms seeking an all-in-one solution for niche job recruitment will find Zoho Recruit a suitable choice.
Zoho Recruit is used on a nearly daily basis in our organization. We use numerous workflows to reduce wasted time in the recruiting cycle. We have workflows set up to cue each person in the process when it’s their turn to take action. This eliminated having to monitor systems constantly, freeing up personnel to accomplish other tasks or work on other applicants.
- It has helped us find many high quality applicants.
- The filters it’s got help us work through applicants.
- We can customize many workflows through it.
My organization needed to be able to sort through and source very specific types of applicants. With other software we used such as Indeed, Monster or LinkedIn, filtering through the loads of applications was a struggle. And even when we had a big number of applicants to sort through we struggled to find those perfect fits. Zoho solved these issues and made it easier to sort through and find multiple perfect fits.
- Sometimes we get flooded with candidates and if you're not careful when sorting, it can get overwhelming. For example, the last job I posted had an application feeding right to Zoho and I received over 1300 applications in one day.
- Sometimes we don’t find someone to meet all needs. Although this is rare, I would say maybe one out of 20 jobs we may come up empty. We can lower our standards with some of the jobs but then that's when we get overwhelmed with applications.
- There is a bit of a learning curve when bringing on new users.
I feel like zoho stacks up very well and the cost can be significantly better than their main competitor Linkedin Recruiting.
What type of people they are looking for. Do they need advance searches for specific qualifications
I believe Zoho Recruit can meet the needs of most organizations no matter how big or small. If they have higher than entry level positions, then this tool can bring a lot of value.
Entry level searches or companies that do not do a lot of hiring
Recruitee
Recruitee is highly recommended for SMBs due to its user-friendliness and robust collaboration features. Companies also find the ATS’ permission adjustment functionality helpful in reducing biased hiring. What’s more? There’s a free trial that won’t require your payment info.
PROS
- Recruitee now offers users an AI-powered tool working as a job description builder.
- Recruitee’s permission adjustment features enable businesses to reduce hiring bias.
- Recruitee pricing is transparent. You can also opt for Recruitee’s free trial to explore the tool.
- Recruitee puts no limits on the number of users for all of its plans.
- Recruitee has a mobile app where users can receive notifications of candidate interactions and perform several tasks on their Android/iOS devices.
- 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
- The platform lacks built-in functions for skill assessments, onboarding, video interviewing, and e-signatures, requiring users to use third-party integrations to be able to use such features.
- The reporting feature, at times, doesn't retrieve data accurately.
- Recruitee has increased its pricing (although it corresponds to an addition of features in each plan).
- 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 is a great pick for SMBs looking for a collaborative and user-friendly ATS. We had a great experience navigating the platform. It has a nice UI and a Kanban-like recruiting pipeline where we can customize every stage of the process and move candidates by dragging and dropping the cards. The people behind Recruitee also did a great job in developing the overdue candidate reminder tool: when a candidate sits for too long in your pipeline without getting any updates, it will send a friendly reminder to you.
Another thing we like about Recruitee is its collaboration capability. The platform says: you can have as many users as you need in Recruitee, no matter which plans you have opted for, and it doesn’t cost you an extra penny — and it means it. This, combined with the permission adjustment feature, makes it easier to deliver collaborative and unbiased hiring.
Semrush, Mark and Spencer, Transcom, Taco Bell, Toyota, Asus, Livestorm, Rakuten.
Recruitee offers custom plans based on the number of active jobs and other particular needs. The ATS has three pricing plans:
- Launch starts at $269 per month
- Scale starts at $479 per month
- Lead has custom pricing.
Best For
Recruitee is a good bet for small and medium-sized businesses looking for an easy-to-use ATS with robust features for collaborative hiring.
I use Recruitee every day. I know how to use most of its features, such as creating job postings, scheduling interviews, moving candidates through the hiring process, having technical and hiring meetings, rejecting or advancing candidates, making offer letters, and communicating with my team. I also use it to evaluate candidates after a phone screening and add resumes. I also connect Recruitee to other job websites.
I like Recruitee because it is very easy to use. It has a user-friendly interface that allows me to perform all workflows efficiently. I can quickly post jobs and move candidates to different stages, saving me much time. The platform is designed to make it simple and quick to use, which is a big plus. I also appreciate that it's very straightforward to use all the workflows, so I can spend little time figuring out how to do something. Overall, Recruitee has made my recruitment process much more efficient and streamlined, which is why I continue to use it.
My organization was searching for an applicant tracking system (ATS) that could connect to multiple job portals, especially in Europe. In addition, the ATS they wanted should have a user-friendly interface so that both hiring managers and other team members can easily use it and be easy to set up.
The organization needed help with its previous ATS system. Connecting to job portals, especially those targeting European markets, was a significant pain point. Hiring managers and other team members needed help connecting to their google calendar, adding to the frustrations. The user interface of the previous ATS could have been better, making the overall experience negative.
To overcome these issues, the organization decided to switch to Recruitee in August 2022. Recruitee has provided numerous benefits to the organization and effectively solved the pain points they faced with their previous ATS system. With the ability to connect to over 20+ job portals, including regional portals for specific countries, the organization can now reach a broader range of job seekers. The user-friendly interface of Recruitee has made it easier for hiring managers and team members to navigate and use the system, improving their overall experience. Additionally, connecting the google calendar to Recruitee was a breeze, making scheduling and organizing interviews much simpler.
Since August 2022, the organization has been using Recruitee and has found it to be a reliable and efficient solution to their recruitment needs. The ability to create a complete job workflow within the system has made the recruitment process smoother and more organized. The support team of Recruitee is also a plus, providing quick and helpful assistance when needed.
One thing I dislike about Recruitee is the lack of an option for directly promoting jobs on LinkedIn. Currently, Recruitee doesn't have this feature, which can be a drawback for those who rely on LinkedIn for their recruitment process. Not being able to promote jobs directly on LinkedIn adds an extra step to the process and can be time-consuming. I hope that Recruitee will add this feature to enhance the user experience and make the recruitment process more efficient.
Recruitee is different from other applicant tracking systems (ATS) because they have good after-sales service. They listen to customer feedback and make changes based on it. They also have a close relationship with their customers and understand their problems. Other ATS that I have used do not have these features.
When buying an applicant tracking system (ATS), people should consider the following criteria:
- Ability to connect to local job portals
- User-friendly interface
- Ease of creating workflows
- Capability to process offer letters
- Integration with calendars to schedule meetings.
As I have yet to study Recruitee's history in depth, I can only speak about my experience with the company over the past six months. In that time, I have found Recruitee to be highly responsive to their customers' needs. They have been able to integrate the solutions we requested and are in the process of adding new features, such as background check capabilities. They have also recently added more portals to better match the needs of their users. Overall, it is clear that Recruitee is dedicated to making their customers happy and understanding their real-time problems. They go above and beyond to ensure that their users are satisfied with their products and services.
Recruitee is a user-friendly tool suitable for organizations in various industries, including IT, healthcare, e-commerce, and startups. Its user-friendly interface makes it accessible to anyone with basic computer knowledge, while advanced features are ideal for HR professionals. This versatility makes Recruitee a good option for organizations of all sizes and types.
Recruitee is a user-friendly tool suitable for organizations in various industries, including IT, healthcare, e-commerce, and startups. Its user-friendly interface makes it accessible to anyone with basic computer knowledge, while advanced features are ideal for HR professionals. This versatility makes Recruitee a good option for organizations of all sizes and types.
Trakstar Hire
Trakstar Hire outperforms the typical ATS with features like unlimited job posting, resume duplication detection, and advanced customization capabilities. Trakstar Hire is a favorite pick for SMBs as its undisclosed pricing is negotiable based on customers’ annual number of job openings.
PROS
- Recruitment workflow is highly customizable.
- Native, in-platform collaboration hiring features allow users to delegate tasks, collect evaluations, and schedule interviews without third-party tool integrations.
- Users can create unlimited job posts and add as many hiring managers as they need without added cost.
- Offer management is built into the product, so users can create, send, and store offer letters directly through the platform. They even do e-signatures!
- 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.
- No mobile apps.
- As Trakstar Hire offers only one plan with all features included, some businesses looking for a basic ATS may need more time to find it.
- No free trial or free plans. Trakstar’s pricing is all-or-one and undisclosed.
- 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 ATS (formerly Recruiterbox) is ideal for midsize companies. Still, the platform does work out deals for small businesses as they have room for negotiation based on how many job openings they have annually.
Rather than offering a feature-light product, Trakstar Hire ATS carries nearly everything you can ask for in a modern application tracking system: resume management, candidate sourcing, interview scheduling, offer management, collaborative hiring, reports, and careers site management.
Does the company overdo it? Based on our experience with Trakstar, the answer is yes and no.
It’s challenging to master many things simultaneously, but Trakstar Hire makes learning their tool manageable by presenting users with a well-made set of core products. We’ll start with job posting.
When a job is added to the platform, it is automatically distributed to LinkedIn, Facebook, Google, careers pages, job boards, and search engines. There is no limit to the number of jobs you can post, which is helpful for teams who hire frequently.
We love a smooth, customized workflow, and Trakstar Hire delivers in the “tailored experience” department. Users can customize literally every step of the way, making their hiring experience stand out against the rest but also fold into the best operational flow for the business.
We are also big fans of products with built-in features like offer management. No plug-in is necessary! Creating, sending, and storing offer letters all in one place makes sense.
There’s no such thing as a perfect tool, and we’d be remiss if we didn’t point out some aspects of the platform that cause us concern.
A free trial was available when they were still Recruiterbox in 2021. In 2023, there’s no more free trial, and the pricing is now undisclosed.
We’ve already touched on the lack of integrations, but it’s worth restating. Though it’s a very capable ATS, being unable to integrate with standard HR tools is a significant drawback.
Makita, Couchsurfing, Lonely Planet, Untappd, Quality Ironworks.
Trakstar Hire has one plan that includes all of its features without any limits. The pricing is custom depending on headcount.
Best For
Trakstar Hire is a powerful ATS for SMBs assessing one hundred or more candidates annually.
BambooHR
BambooHR is among the top ATS options for SMBs, thanks to its ease of use and full-stack features built-in. The platform also offers flexible plans, which means businesses can benefit from having custom offerings based on their needs.
PROS
- Flexible and tailored pricing, allowing you to choose and scale up features based on your specific needs.
- Free 7-day trials are offered, providing an opportunity to explore and evaluate the ATS functionalities before making a financial commitment.
- Well-performing mobile app, which facilitates application review, communication, and collaboration features on the go.
- User-friendly interface and intuitive design.
- 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
- Payroll capabilities are limited to U.S.-based employees, which may be a drawback for companies with an international workforce.
- Customer support is available only during U.S. business hours, potentially causing delays in resolving urgent inquiries for users in different time zones.
- Modules like time tracking, performance management, and surveys are offered as add-ons, requiring additional investment to access these functionalities.
- 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.
BambooHR's ATS is a good fit for small businesses. Having looked at many such tools, we find it impressive that it packs most of the essential recruiting features into a modestly-priced package. For example, you can customize application forms and share job postings across several job boards and social media platforms. The system organizes candidate applications for easy reference throughout every stage of the hiring process, from initial application to final e-signature. Users can also create new hire packets that provide information on what to expect, who to meet, and which tasks to tackle on their first day.
Users we've talked to quite like BambooHR’s mobile app for hiring. Through it, they’re able to post jobs, review resumes, communicate with candidates, coordinate with other hiring team members, and perform several related functions on the go.
Among the 20,000+ 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 is custom, but they offer a free trial. Before coming up with a quote, they are also likely to extend your free trial upon request or give you a free demo of the advanced features.
Best For
BambooHR is a good choice for organizations seeking a cost-friendly ATS tool that can help them get started with recruiting.
BambooHR is an essential part of our workflow at the office. We use BambooHR on a daily basis for reducing manual paperwork and quickly tracking employee information. BambooHR helps to ensure that our manager and team members are up-to-date on records such as shift changes, vacation requests, and job roles. This helps make hiring and onboarding new employees easy, fast, and efficient. BambooHR also allows us to easily track employee performance reviews and keep tabs on employee attendance. Its comprehensive search capabilities enable us to quickly find important documents when needed. BambooHR has been an invaluable tool for improving overall workplace organization and productivity, helping us run our business with fewer manual processes efficiently and effectively.
- BambooHR is an incredibly user-friendly HR platform that has made it easier than ever to manage employee data.
- it makes onboarding new employees a breeze, allowing us to quickly and accurately collect important documents with just a few clicks.
- The powerful analytics BambooHR provides are also great for keeping tabs on performance, compensation, and attendance.
We chose BambooHR as our Human Resources software because of its expansive, easy-to-use capabilities. We wanted to automate HR processes and initially used Zoho but we found a problem integrating Zoho to meet our expectations since Zoho requires knowledge of IT. BambooHR allows us to easily manage employee timesheets, track new hire onboarding processes, create interactive checklists, and track performance goals with ease. We have been using BambooHR for almost two years now and have seen a great ROI. BambooHR has moved our HR processes into the 21st century and enabled us to make changes quickly while keeping track of valuable data that would have taken us significantly longer to include manually.
- BambooHR does not offer a significant number of options when it comes to customizing your dashboard or user profiles.
- BambooHR lacks many advanced reporting features.
- BambooHR does not currently offer the ability to track vacation hours for individual employees.
Its strong suite of features make it stand out from similar tools. BambooHR simplifies the onboarding process by helping to manage employee data, providing an effective way to track hours and attendance, or designing custom workflows for tasks like vacation requests. What I particularly appreciate about BambooHR is its ability to create employee reports that are fast, intuitive, and easy to use. BambooHR also integrates seamlessly with other software such as payroll, benefits management, and mailing services. Overall in comparison to other HR tools available today, BambooHR stands above many of them. Its intuitive design and robust functionality make it my preferred choice for managing my HR processes; it gives me everything I need in one place without any hassle.
When considering BambooHR as the right software solution for your business, there are several key criteria to consider. Thoughtful evaluation of factors such as cost and implementation time frame should be taken into account to make BambooHR fits into your business plans and operations. Additionally, it’s important to understand BambooHR's functionality and its capacity for automation to guarantee you’re getting the most out of the software in terms of streamlining tasks and increasing efficiency.
By consistently listening to customer feedback, BambooHR continues to evolve and grow along with its users' needs. BambooHR now provides software solutions that allow companies to streamline their mundane, yet essential HR processes like record-keeping, onboarding, and more. BambooHR has also added more robust analytics and reporting functionality to offer real-time visibility into human capital metrics.
BambooHR is an incredibly valuable tool for businesses of all sizes looking to streamline their HR processes. It makes it simple to store employee information, set access permissions, and track important past and present data. From small independent businesses just getting started with their HR needs, to large organizations that have much more complicated paperwork requirements. because the software offers a high range of features and prices that can fit any type of business.
BambooHR may not be suitable for certain users and organizations due to its specialization in Human Resources. BambooHR’s core focus is streamlining the payroll, hiring, performance reviews, and goals-tracking processes for medium-sized businesses. As such, BambooHR may not be the ideal choice for companies that prioritize a large range of features outside of conventional HR setup or are unwilling to invest time into learning the platform’s unique services. BambooHR also does not have an international presence, so global organizations looking for a comprehensive HR system may need to look elsewhere.
Teamtailor
Teamtailor’s biggest selling feature is their career pag — well built out yet easy to navigate. The platform also has features that ingrain diversity, equality, and inclusion in the hiring process. Trials are available and they don’t require your credit card details.
PROS
- Teamtailor is a straightforward ATS that is mobile-friendly.
- Drag-and-drop career site builders.
- Built-in tools to support diversity, equality, and inclusion DEI initiatives.
- Customer support and the help center are notably good.
- Offers one simple plan with unlimited job postings, candidates, and users.
- Free trials are available; no credit card is required.
- 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
- Their analytics module isn’t very easy to adjust.
- No offerings for other core HR tools
- Features for customization and video interview could be improved.
- Lacks pricing transparency.
- 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’s ATS has a unique approach to talent acquisition, paying a lot of attention to how your company presents itself to candidates. This ATS helps SMBs build attractive career sites, market to specific talent demographics through landing pages and talent pools, run referrals, and nurture campaigns for current and future recruitment needs.
Another way TeamTailor differentiates itself from the pack is how the platform structures its pricing. There actually isn’t any structure to it. It’s a single plan with all features included. Thus, the pricing of this plan adapts to the size of your company.
Kry, Goodbye Kansas, Vitamin Well, Ponsse, Daniel Wellington.
Teamtailor’s pricing will vary depending on your company size. To give you an idea, $3,300 is a usual starting price for organizations with fewer than 25 employees.
Best For
Teamtailor is an excellent choice for startups and small and medium-sized businesses looking for a straightforward ATS with outstanding features for employer branding.
The main use for Teamtailor has been to add a careers website to my organization which allows me to externally advertise and manage open vacancies in the most engaging way possible.
I also use it for existing team bios, which do a good job of attracting prospective candidates, as it allows them to get an understanding of what kind of people we hire. Employees can create their own bios, and can even add gifs to make it a little more engaging!
On the backend of the system, I am able to track and monitor traffic to each job vacancy (external and internal) I have open, all in one place in a sales pipeline-like view, which allows me to drag and drop candidates along the process from application, review, interview to offer stage.
User experience is great; it's fun, modern, and engaging. It has a real Gen Z energy, which is attractive!
It's a really quick and easy way of adding a careers page and ATS, there is no need to build anything manually - which is a huge money and time saver!
It brings personality to your business by enabling you to showcase your team.
We were looking for a tool that was an ATS as well as a way of attracting candidates and maximizing our employer brand. If you're looking to add a careers page to your website, Teamtailor is a brilliant way of doing this in a quick, easy, and effective way. Teamtailor can bring personality to your organization by allowing you to showcase your existing team members to prospective candidates, with personal bios and even Instagram-esque stories. I've used Teamtailor for the last couple of years.
Overall Teamtailor is an excellent platform, but its functionality can be quite simple at times. For example, there is an interview kit tool with scorecards, but the customization here is quite minimal and limited to interview questions. It would be great to see an addition to add role-specific tasks.
Other ATS tools are quite frankly, boring. Teamtailor is engaging, modern, and attractive - it's straightforward in its set-up, meaning that anyone can use it. Whereas, other tools on the market are complicated, plain, and jargon-heavy.
As with most HR tools, I think businesses should first consider whether they have the internal resources to implement and maintain Teamtailor, that being said, it is one of the least high-maintenance ATS software on the market.
Businesses should also consider whether or not they already have a careers page, as even if they want the ATS, the careers page will come with it and could serve as a duplicate, so that's also something I would suggest checking before committing.
Teamtailor has evolved to meet users' needs, particularly in terms of enabling integrations with platforms like Bob, DocuSign, and even Snapchat.
Teamtailor is great for in-house recruitment teams and hiring managers, and would suit a small to medium business, as well as a business at enterprise level (over 1000 employees).
Teamtailor isn't a great option if the business isn't hiring.
Manatal
Manatal is an affordable ATS with a 14-day free trial. Its AI-powered functionalities can be quite useful for businesses to streamline candidate sourcing. Also, the drag-and-drop feature makes the platform fairly easy for users to organize candidate pipelines.
PROS
- Offers one of the most affordable ATS options in the market.
- Provides a 14-day free trial for users to explore the platform.
- User-friendly interface with drag-and-drop enabled pipelines.
- The AI-based recommendations feature saves valuable time during candidate screening.
- Web-based, allowing seamless access across multiple devices.
- Offers free data migration from existing hiring software.
- Transparent and flexible pricing options.
- 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 may have limitations in languages other than English.
- The core product is currently available in English and Spanish only.
- No free plans are available.
- Integrations are conducted at the API level, which can be technologically complex for some users.
- API and Zapier integration is limited to top-tier plans.
- Boolean Search and Advanced Search cannot be used simultaneously.
- 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.
Manatal is a noteworthy ATS option that caters specifically to SMBs, offering a budget-friendly solution without compromising essential features. They even offer a free trial without requiring credit card info.
The AI-powered feature of Manatal is a real asset. The AI analyzes job descriptions and sifts through a user's talent pool to identify the individuals most suitable for the role. The recommendations are pretty awesome for English resumes. However, we noticed some inaccuracies in the AI suggestions with non-English candidates.
One of Manatal's strengths is its UI. Manatal has a user-friendly interface and native drag-and-drop-enabled pipelines, which are very easy to use. While it doesn’t offer a mobile app, the ATS is web-based, making it accessible on the go.
We also appreciate that Manatal is transparent about its pricing. It has a “custom” plan to make it scalable in addition to two other plans with pretty affordable prices. Additionally, Manatal provides free data migration from existing hiring software to help users have a smooth transition process.
However, we did run into some problems when testing the tool. Although several SMB-focussed ATSs offer a free version, Manatal doesn’t. The AI recommendations feature, as mentioned earlier, doesn’t work well with non-English resumes. We should also note that its API and Zapier integrations are limited to top-tier plans, while the pre-built integration list is very humble.
Unilever, Coca-Cola, Panasonic, Ogilvy, Toyota.
- Manatal has two fixed pricing plans: Profession and Enterprise, costing $15 and $35 per user per month, respectively, when billed annually.
- On-demand plans are available with custom quotes.
Best For
For English-language organizations with limited budgets who are seeking an easy-to-use ATS with AI features, Manatal is a top choice.
Applicant Tracking System FAQs
What is an Applicant Tracking System (ATS)?
An Applicant Tracking System (ATS) - of course, we don’t talk about Automatic Transfer Switches on our site - is an HR tool designed to make things easier for employers and candidates. Typically, an ATS will aid with tasks like posting jobs, sourcing candidates, organizing the hiring process, and storing data for record-keeping purposes. If you want to learn more, we have a guide that breaks down what an applicant tracking system (ATS) is.
What are the features of an Applicant Tracking System?
The features commonly found in applicant tracking systems are resume parsing to extract candidate information, job posting, candidate pipeline management, candidate searching, and filtering, reporting and analytics on the hiring process, and integration with other HR software.
What are the benefits of the best Applicant Tracking Systems specific to small businesses?
Applicant tracking system statistics show that this software has a positive impact on business hiring practices: for example, over 98% of Fortune 500 companies use some form of ATS. Below are key benefits ATSs bring about, and as always, we have the stats to back them up.
- Save time: Research shows that recruiters can save up to 20% time on hiring when using an ATS solution. 86% of recruiters say that ATS solutions helped them shorten their time-to-hire.
- Increase the quality of hire: 78% of recruiters confirm an ATS has improved the quality of hire.
- Save money: Small businesses can enjoy $10,000 annual savings using an ATS. Output from our ATS calculator has shown that from a new ATS, a 500-person company can save up to $468,000.
Naturally, some of the same factors that benefit an enterprise-size business also apply to small teams. No matter the headcount, every company wants to spend less money, save more time, and make better hires.
Any modern ATS can do all that, but small businesses need more:
Compliance and reporting: Though the small teams are held to the same legal standard as larger ones, they generally don’t have the same access to legal counsel. A quality ATS will help cross the Ts and dot the Is, allowing your business to focus and grow.
Supported collaboration: An ATS encourages collaboration across departments. It creates structure and manages tasks around a common goal, ensuring a transparent delegation of responsibility. This support is critical because though “wearing many hats” is synonymous with small teams, comradery and sleeve-rolling can only carry a team so far.
Building a talent pool: A high-quality talent pool doesn’t create itself. The right ATS can help small teams establish and nurture a repository of skilled workers. By creating and managing ongoing relationships with passive and active job-seekers, a small business can reduce the effort and expense of filling a new rec: they can simply ping the pool rather than starting the search from scratch.
How much does an ATS cost?
Specifics on ATS pricing are often hard to find. Most ATS systems base their pricing on varying factors such as business size, number of job vacancies, integrations, and whether the team is local or international.
- Small businesses (under 100 employees): As these companies tend to have a conservative number of job openings and small budgets for ATS buying, paying per user or job per month makes the most sense, and paid ATS plans with that pricing model range between $15 to a couple of thousands, depending on team size. But as we’ve previously laid out, several ATSs with a per-user-per-month pricing model offer free-forever plans, so if you’re a very small business with basic and infrequent hiring needs, you may not have to pay anything at all.
- Medium-sized business (100-500 employees): Paying on a per-user-per-month basis can still work for growing companies as long as they don’t require many people to be involved in the hiring process. But a flat rate is worth considering as you’ll be less worried about exceeding the user or job limit. The price for such a model ranges between $10,000 to $15,000 per year.
How to choose the best ATS for small businesses
You can go about this a few ways, but we think the following are the essentials that can save you a considerable amount of time in researching and picking the right recruiting software for your business:
- Talk to multiple vendors: If your business is too small to justify sending out requests for proposals, you'll need to grill vendors yourself. Come to demos armed with a list of applicant tracking system questions.
- Get information from unbiased sources: Most ATS vendors have websites with plenty of information on how good their product(s) are, but it’s rare to see a vendor ever share the cons or where their product falls short (in comparison to other products) on their website. A good source lets you see the whole picture: the strengths and weaknesses of a product. From there, you’ll develop a more sophisticated view of an ATS’ capabilities, which is what you need to make the right buying decisions.
- Real user experience is powerful: There’s a tremendous amount of value in the feedback of real product users, particularly hiring managers and HR leaders: What are their ATS decision criteria? Their expectations about the hiring software vs. reality? How satisfied are they with the purchased ATS?
Protip: Shopping for a new ATS can be challenging. We have a video that breaks down what you should consider in your applicant tracking system buying journey.
[Embedded]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YhrBUy-dbds
Which ATS is considered to be the most popular?
- Freshteam: Most cost-effective ATS
- JazzHR: Go-to ATS for startups
- Greenhouse: Best for teams that hire often
- BambooHR: Most used by medium to large companies
- Recruitee: Best for being affordable and scalable
Is there any free ATS?
Yes, there is! Manatal, Teamtailor, and Zoho Recruit are our favorites. You can find more options for the best free applicant tracking systems here.
How many ATS options should you look at when you start doing demos?
"Demoing software can be painful, but it pays to go into the weeds for every single module," says Tracie Marie, one of the experts we talked about for this piece. Her recommendation is that three can be a good starting number for vendor demos. She also suggested, “include one that is slightly less than your budget and one slightly more.” This way, you can see the differences in features among those vendors.
Best ATS for SMBs: Final Advice
Instead of a wordy conclusion, we thought we’d wrap this piece with some more industry facts and our HR Tech expert advice.
- Do you really need an ATS?: 98.8% of Fortune 500 companies utilize ATS. Additionally, 67% of large companies and 35% of small organizations depend on ATS or recruitment software. Bear in mind, though, that onboarding an ATS will neither fix your employer brand nor your candidate experience. We, again, have a dedicated guide explaining why that is in detail.
- At what point in headcount growth do you need to buy your first ATS?: From her experience buying the first ATS for her business, Stefanie Sher suggested between 20 to 40 employees would be a good starting point: “If you're only going to hire 5-10 candidates in a calendar year, not as big a deal, but once you start thinking 10+ hires, you want to have a consistent, scalable process that can grow with your team.”
- Which ATS is right for you?: Though we’ve tried our best to simplify your hiring software selection process with the above list of the best ATS for small businesses for 2023, the best solution for you will depend on your organization’s unique needs and growth plans. We recommend listing down your ATS must-have features and capabilities in an easily accessible document (or you can take advantage of our free ATS Buyer Organizer) to stay on track with what is important and what isn’t, do demos with the top vendors on your list and sign up for a couple of trial accounts if you’ve got the time. Ultimately, a supercharged modern ATS can transform your HR efforts if you’re ready for it.
About Us
- Our goal at SSR is to help HR and recruiting teams to find and buy the right software for their needs.
- Our site is free to use as some vendors will pay us for web traffic.
- SSR lists all companies we feel are top vendors - not just those who pay us - in our comprehensive directories full of the advice needed to make the right purchase decision for your HR team.
