.jpg)
"SSR is the best platform to discover top 1% HR tools. Their 10 years of HR Tech experience makes their reviews the best in the industry! Every time I speak about HR technology, SSR is my number one recommendation to for people pros."
"SSR is my go-to place when it comes to researching HR tools. Their product reviews are real time-savers and trustworthy, and the online community is fantastic for bouncing questions and ideas off of others in the Talent space!"
"I trust SSR's HR Tech Reviews because they talk to so many experts, know the right questions to ask and uncover during in-depth product demos to come up with their best picks"
We spend all day researching the best HR software so you don’t have to. We never take money from vendors during our research phase and rely heavily on experts to refine our recommendations. We may earn a fee if you click on vendor links on this page. Learn more about SelectSoftware Reviews
Looking for new, free ATS software? Our picks for the best Free Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS systems) are Manatal, Teamtailor, and Zoho Recruit. Each of these budget-friendly software solutions will help your talent acquisition teams automate recruiting, track applicants, and save you time and money – all while staying compliant.
We've researched ATSs for more than five years, and have tons of information and opinions to share. This guide covers how we came up with our list, and who else we recommend. Read on for information about features, user experience, and much more!
Hand picked by our HR Technology experts after product testing, user research, and much debate - enjoy!
An applicant tracking system (ATS) is designed to improve the recruitment process by making hiring simpler and more efficient. Applicant Tracking Systems allow companies of all sizes to stay organized and productive throughout the hiring process by managing job postings, filtering resumes, organizing applicant information, contacting applicants, and scheduling interviews.
However, many of these systems can be very expensive. So, we wanted to curate a list of the best ATS's that have a free option for companies who are just getting started and need a basic option. We're also crowdsourcing data on ATS pricing through a survey that's anonymous and takes only two minutes. Anyone who helps out the community by filling it out will get access to the entire data set.
For large businesses with extensive HR departments, purchasing a new ATS may be the best option to fit all your HR needs. If you’re considering purchasing a new ATS, check out our complete guide to the Best ATS solutions.
If your business is small or has no budget, purchasing an expensive ATS may not be financially viable. However, there are many products that will offer the services you need for free. These free applicant tracking systems will help make the hiring process faster and simpler for you and your business.
Lastly, you may want to check out this service that will look at your requirements, and recommend an ATS tailored to you. It's free!
Our Criteria: Here's how we chose who made the cut
We take research seriously. To make sure we’re offering our readers the very best solutions in a given software category, we are methodical, rigorous, and expansive in our research. We consult with HR professionals, vendors, and industry experts. We cut through the noise to bring you a carefully curated list of vendors, along with other essential information, to help you find the right software platform for your business.
Here’s how we chose who makes the cut:
Product: We believe in gaining a comprehensive understanding of a product before we recommend it, so we start by getting to know the software. Whenever possible, we meet with a senior executive (CEO or Head of Product) for a demo and Q&A. We also test the product ourselves to make sure it has a solid UI, intuitive workflows, and the features to make it a best-in-class offering.
User feedback: We go straight to the source and compile feedback on user experience. Real-world input supports our commitment to diligence in our software evaluation methods and the products we recommend. Keeping up with the everyday experience of HR pros also puts new vendors on our radar, and it keeps us close to our community so we can better connect the right products to the right people.
Financial metrics: We are certified finance nerds, so we use all the data we can get our hands on to make selections for our guides. We comb through data for concrete statistics like retention rates, growth, profitability, and scalability. We evaluate the bottom line of each product because we know making a software purchase can put your reputation on the line.
Best for a use case: Software is never a one-size-fits-all product. Sometimes the best solution is free or cheap. Other times it’s the one that is best for global companies or the one that’s sized right for early-stage startups. Keeping this in mind, we include solutions across the spectrum so our readers can find the best fit for their unique needs.
Here's more detail if you want to read more about how we research vendors. Our dedicated staff writers rely on hard data, impartial experts, and user feedback to ensure our reviews are helpful, truthful, and hopefully a pleasure to read!
Top Free Applicant Tracking Systems
We surveyed the landscape and came up with these free applicant tracking systems you should look into.
Why we love it
:
We love Teamtailer's focus on the candidate's first impression. Great platform if you want to make a big splash to attract talent.
- User-friendly ATS that is accessible via both browser and mobile devices.
- Career site builders can work with drag and drop — no coding knowledge is needed.
- Well-built features to support diversity, equality, and inclusion (DEI), including anonymous hiring and equal employment opportunity (EEO) surveys.
- Responsive customer support. The help center is helpful too.
- Unlimited number of users.
- Free trials are available without asking for your credit card.
- Pro: 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.
- Pro: Teamtailor backs several features that support diversity, equality and inclusion (DEI), including anonymous hiring, equal employment opportunity (EEO) surveys, etc..
- Pro: Teamtailor is highly rated for their ease-of-use. It’s quite simple to post and promote jobs through their platform.
- Pro: There is really in-depth and intuitive help documentation for this solution
- As several users noted, the analytics function is quite hard to adjust.
- Hyper-focused on ATS and offers no other HR solutions, such as HRIS or HRMS.
- The customization and video interview features could be improved.
- Its pricing is undisclosed on the website.
- Con: 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.
- Con: Analytics doesn’t allow recruiters to see their cost per hire, which is a really impactful metric
- Con: While they offer integrations with HRIS, onboarding, etc - they have focused on just being a really good ATS now.
- Con: There are predefined user access levels, but you cannot define your own user access levels which is important, especially for the largest companies.
Teamtailor
Review:
Teamtailor is a cloud-based applicant tracking system with features that help organizations hire and nurture talent.
What caught our eye is their unique approach to talent acquisition, putting a heavy focus on how your team markets itself to candidates.
The ATS allows businesses to 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.
Hyper-focused on ATS helps Teamtailor to be especially good at what they are doing and, at the same time, makes them less attractive to teams looking for an all-in-one HR solution.
Teamtailor
Customers:
Over 4000 organizations have used Teamtailor, including Kry, Goodbye Kansas, Vitamin Well, Ponsse, and Daniel Wellington.
Teamtailor is used by over 4000 organizations, including Kry, Goodbye Kansas, Vitamin Well, Ponsse, and Daniel Wellington.
Teamtailor
Pricing:
- Teamtailor’s pricing is custom based on customer business size and requirements.
- For teams under 25 employees, the price for unlimited job postings, candidates, and users in the system typically starts at $3,300.
Teamtailor’s pricing starts at £2750 for companies with 1-25 employees. This includes unlimited job postings, candidates and user access to the system. You can get in touch with Teamtailor’s sales team to get an estimate according to your business size and needs.
Best For
Teamtailor used to be a tool for smaller companies, but now their solution caters mainly to 50-400 employee companies that need a powerful but straightforward ATS.
Why we love it
:
Manatal made our list because it's budget-friendly, AI-equipped, and its pricing is transparent—no need to call a sales rep just for a ballpark figure.
- Among the most affordable ATS options in the market.
- Offers a 14-day free trial.
- Easy to use with drag-and-drop enabled pipelines.
- The AI-based recommendations feature is a real time saver.
- Web-based, so it works on multiple devices.
- Free data migration from your existing hiring software.
- Transparent and flexible pricing.
- 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.
- The AI recommendations feature does not work well in languages other than English.
- The core product is only available in English and Spanish.
- No free plans.
- Integrations happen at the API level, making this a relatively technologically complex platform.
- API and Zapier integration are restricted to top-tier plans.
- Boolean Search and Advanced Search cannot be used together.
- 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
Review:
Manatal is an AI-powered applicant tracking system that helps HR teams and recruitment agencies find and hire top talent. The platform allows users to create a custom-branded career page, post jobs to multiple boards, and receive, sort, and store candidate applications. Users can also upload candidate info from public social media accounts for deeper insight.
Manatal features a customizable recruiting pipeline, resume parsing abilities, and AI-based candidate recommendations.
It also features customizable analytics dashboards, a mobile app for on-the-go access, and a Chrome extension that allows users to connect with and save candidates who fit job requirements.
Manatal
Customers:
Manatal is used in over 100 countries. Their customer list includes Unilever, Coca-Cola, Panasonic, Ogilvy, and Toyota.
Manatal is used in over 100 countries. Their customer list includes Unilever, Cocacola, Panasonic, Ogilvy, and Toyota.
Manatal
Pricing:
- 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.
Manatal has two plans with fixed pricing. When Billed annually, they cost as follows:
- 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, as well as unlimited candidates and guests.
Note:
- “Users” refers to the individuals with full unrestricted access to Manatal’s platform and its features such as recruiters and HR professionals who actively use the software.
- “Guests” refers to individuals who are invited to collaborate on the platform through a dedicated portal such as hiring managers and decision-makers. Thes
Best For
Manatal can benefit organizations of all sizes across different industries, but it’s worth noting that most of their customers are small and mid-sized enterprises.
Why we love it
:
GoHire is an affordable recruiting solution that's also scalable; SMBs can derive value from its introductory plans, and upgrade to more features as their operation grows.
There are both pros and cons to using GoHire.io. Let's take a look at some of the most important ones:
- One user appreciated the in-app messaging and email saying “Great templating for messages and emails.” They further liked the fact that they were able to control the on-boarding process as well as display jobs on the website.
- The platform is easy to use and helps businesses keep track of their hiring process by providing them with tools to manage job postings, candidate screening, interview scheduling, and offer management.
- GoHire.io makes it possible to post jobs on multiple job boards giving the user a wide variety of applicants. Therefore, hiring managers and founders can manage the applicants from numerous job boards on one platform. One user stated that they used to receive three job applications for €12.8 when using LinkedIn Jobs paid advertisements, but are now receiving 50+ applicants every month for free while using GoHire.
- The HR team appreciates that GoHire.io has a responsive customer support team. One user even appreciated that they were happy that their feedback was taken seriously and implemented on the ATS.
- GoHire.io does not support sending SMS to the applicants.
- While GoHire.io has received a lot of positive feedback about its platform, a significant number of users who had bought lifetime deals via AppSummo felt let down when the company discontinued the plan despite stating that it was a lifetime deal.
- One user complained that they were not able to upload multiple file formats for candidates. They were only able to upload PDF files.
GoHire
Review:
GoHire is a simple to use ATS that is perfect for smaller companies focused on growing their teams. Their software will distribute your roles to job boards, schedule interviews, record candidate feedback, and communicate with candidates. This is a great offering for budget conscious companies and they offer a two week free trial.
GoHire
Customers:
Snagajob, Promoter, Sweetberry, Swapcard, Voucher Cart
Snagajob, Promoter, Sweetberry, Swapcard, Voucher Cart.
GoHire
Pricing:
GoHire.io offers three pricing plans to meet the needs of businesses. The plans provide flexible schedules for both monthly and annual payments. The company also offers a cancel anytime policy that is helpful when a business is not hiring. For new users, the company offers a free 14-day trial. The plans are:
- Starter costs £58 per month (about $74) and includes baseline features, with 3 active job posts, 3 active talent pools, Interview Scheduler & Calendar Sync, Customizable Pipeline Stages, and unlimited team members.
- Growth costs £83 per month (about $125) and provides everything from Starter plus 10 Active Job Posts, Talent Pools, Application Form Editor, Bulk Actions, Team Inbox, and @Mention Team members.
- Pro costs £165 per month (about $241) and provides all Growth features Plus Unlimited Active Job Posts, Automated Stage Actions, Advanced Reporting, Selection Questionnaires, Interview Scorecards, Careers Page Editor, Slack Integration, Zapier Integration, Audit Log, and Priority Support.
GoHire.io offers three pricing plans to meet the needs of businesses. The plans provide flexible schedules for both monthly and annual payments. The company also offers a cancel anytime policy that is helpful when a business is not hiring. For new users, the company offers a free 14-day trial. The plans are:
- Starter costs £58 per month (about $74) and includes baseline features, with 3 active job posts, 3 active talent pools, Interview Scheduler & Calendar Sync, Customizable Pipeline Stages, and unlimited team members.
- Growth costs £83 per month (about $125) and provides everything from Starter plus 10 Active Job Posts, Talent Pools, Application Form Editor, Bulk Actions, Team Inbox, and @Mention Team members.
- Pro costs £165 per month (about $241) and provides all Growth features Plus Unlimited Active Job Posts, Automated Stage Actions, Advanced Reporting, Selection Questionnaires, Interview Scorecards, Careers Page Editor, Slack Integration, Zapier Integration, Audit Log, and Priority Support.
Best For
GoHire.io targets startups and small businesses looking for an affordable, efficient and effective way to manage their hiring process. The cost starts from £58 per month on the lowest plan and this can be scaled to fit the company needs and budget.
Why we love it
:
If you are a small business that only requires one ATS user seat, Recooty is worth checking out. It is completely free for a single user and provides several features for a recruiter to keep track of applicants.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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
Review:
Recooty's free applicant tracking system (ATS) enough functionality for small businesses to attract and hire the right people. Their free plan allows for one active job post at a time, job widget integration, the creation of branded careers page and social network sharing. They also offer a 15 day trial of their paid plans so you can test out some of their more advanced features before committing.
Recooty
Customers:
Recooty serves over 5000 companies, including Sendlane, Airtable, Uber, Rack Bank, American Hospital, and Trello.
Sendlane, Airtable, Uber, Trello, Rack Bank, American Hospital
Recooty
Pricing:
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.
You'll appreciate Recooty's flexible and affordable pricing options if you're a small business. If you're starting, the free tier gives you access to one job posting, which is more than adequate for most small firms that only require one or two people at any given time.
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.
You'll appreciate Recooty's flexible and affordable pricing options if you're a small business. If you're starting, the free tier gives you access to one job posting, which is more than adequate for most small firms that only require one or two people at any given time.
Best For
Recruitee's free solution is perfect for a small company with only one person doing the recruiting.
Why we love it
:
For a free product, Zoho Recruit is a decent offer. It’s a basic ATS & CRM, with the free version including free job boards, email management, interview scheduling, and 24/5 support.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
Zoho Recruit
Review:
Zoho’s free plan provides services for candidate management, email management, and interview scheduling. It allows for simple resume search and provides 5 email templates. It's important to note that Zoho’s free plan allows for only one active job opening.
Although their free plan is relatively limited in terms of features compared its paid plans, they do offer a 45-day money-back guarantee. Also worth noting is that the paid plans are not that expensive compared to similar products, and some modules are available as separately-priced add-ons.
Zoho Recruit
Customers:
Bosch, Deloitte, Saint-Gobain, PWC, Allianz
Bosch, Deloitte, Saint-Gobain, PWC, Allianz
Zoho Recruit
Pricing:
Zoho Recruit has three paid plans on top of the free plan.
- Standard is $30 per user per month, with many more features compared to the Free version.
- Professional is $60 per user per month, with key features like assessments and social recruiting.
- Enterprise is $90 per user per month, and rounds out Zoho's entire feature set, except for the add-ons.
The client portal and video interview modules are what’s available as add-ons. Zoho Recruit also has a 15-day free trial, as well as a free-forever version. The free version has limited features and only 1 active job at a time.
Zoho Recruit has three paid plans on top of the free plan.
- Standard is $30 per user per month, with many more features compared to the Free version.
- Professional is $60 per user per month, with key features like assessments and social recruiting.
- Enterprise is $90 per user per month, and rounds out Zoho's entire feature set, except for the add-ons.
The client portal and video interview modules are what’s available as add-ons. Zoho Recruit also has a 15-day free trial, as well as a free-forever version. The free version has limited features and only 1 active job at a time.
Best For
Zoho Recruit is perfect for large and small companies of various industries that use premium and niche job boards to give them an edge over competitors. It is also worth considering for smaller recruiting firms, but also has tons of functionality that enterprise companies would value. Of course, any company wanting a free ATS that can integrate with the rest of their tech stack would be wise to consider them.
Why we love it
:
Freshteam (by Freshworks) is a full-size HR suite that works for teams of many sizes, and they offer a free trial, so you can check the fit before you buy.
- Free-forever plans are available.
- Transparent pricing plans.
- Easy to navigate, user-friendly, and intuitive user interface.
- Customizable and drag-and-drop features make managing the whole hiring process easy.
- Budget-friendly for SMBs with a feature set comparable to more expensive solutions.
- Quite scalable with four plans: customers can start with the free plan, then upgrade to more features as their business grows.
- Freshteam is very user-friendly, with an intuitive UI that’s easy to navigate. It features a customizable, Kanban-style view of the full hiring process from initial contact to offer sending. Drag and drop mechanism makes it easy to move candidates around as they progress through the different stages.
- Freshteam is affordable for SMBs to use while still having a comparable feature set to more expensive solutions.
- Freshteam is quite scalable. With four plans to choose from, customers can start out with the free plan, then upgrade to more features as their business grows.
- The free-forever plan is limited in features and allows only three published job postings.
- Not ideal for enterprise-size companies or any organization with regular, high-volume hiring needs.
- Lack of advanced features for applicant tracking, candidate sourcing, and relationship management.
- While Freshteam has a free-forever plan that small companies can use, the plan is limited in features and allows for only 3 published job postings. That said, Freshteam’s paid plans are quite affordable, and can be used by small businesses - should they need to - without breaking the bank.
- Freshteam might not be suitable for enterprises and agencies that do volume hiring and are in need of advanced applicant tracking, candidate sourcing, and relationship management capabilities, as we've confirmed via several user interviews.
Freshteam
Review:
Freshteam is a user-friendly HR suite with features for applicant tracking, candidate screening, hiring, onboarding, time-off management, employee information management, and more on a single platform.
With a customizable career site, integration with multiple job boards, and social media channels, Freshteam enables users to attract top talent.
Once candidate applications are received, a recruiting team can screen resumes, schedule interviews, and share internal feedback with hiring panel members. Through Freshteam’s recruiting funnel, activity can be tracked and refined to create a custom workflow that reflects all the stages in a team’s hiring process.
Freshteam
Customers:
Freshteam is one of the most widely used HR suites, with over 7,000 customers, including Monster, PharmEasy, Ocado, Reaktor, Nissan, SAP, and the University of Pennsylvania.
Freshteam is one of the most widely used HR suites out there with over 7,000 customers including Monster, PharmEasy, Ocado, Reaktor, Nissan, SAP, and the University of Pennsylvania.
Freshteam
Pricing:
Freshteam has four pricing plans:
- Free
- Growth: $1 per employee per month plus a $59 platform fee per month
- Pro: $2 per employee per month plus a $99 platform fee per month
- Enterprise: $4 per employee per month plus a $169 platform fee.
Freshteam has 4 pricing plans. When billed annually, they cost as follows:
- Free: This plan is free of charge for up to 50 active employees and is limited to 3 published job postings.
- Growth: Costing $1 per employee per month + $59 platform fee per month, the Growth plan is ideal for small companies looking to handle their basic HR needs more effectively.
- Pro: For $2 per employee per month + $99 platform fee per month, the Pro plan comes with several added features to automate workflows and manage HR data.
- Enterprise: For $4 per employee per month + $169 platform fee per month, the Enterprise plan is Freshteam’s most premium offering, providing users with access to all features in previous plans with the addition of advanced customizations, reporting, and more.
Best For
While companies of all sizes can benefit from Freshteam's offering, it's best suited for small and mid-sized companies.
Why we love it
:
Apart from their basic job posting services, VanHack offers a free, full-scale applicant tracking system (ATS) that supports unlimited jobs and users. Their platform lets you schedule interviews in as little as three clicks, post jobs, and track candidate progress.
- VanHack offers a free ATS that supports unlimited jobs and users.
- You can filter your list of potential candidates according to skills, years of experience, or custom keywords fairly easily.
- Many of VanHack’s job seekers are willing to relocate to pursue the right opportunity.
- Employers can work with a dedicated team of talent acquisition experts to find potential candidates.
- The platform’s salary guide helps job seekers and employers get a better idea of average salaries for roles.
- Because of the general focus on tech-related jobs, it’s difficult to find jobs in other industries.
- Despite their best efforts, some spam messages and emails do slip through the cracks.
- Virtual hiring events don’t provide enough time to meet many potential candidates.
- VanHack doesn’t currently offer a mobile app for hiring managers and recruiters to use on the go.
VanHack
Review:
VanHack offers a free ATS platform for all employers. Their platform supports unlimited users and jobs, and it doesn’t even require a credit card to get started. This makes it a great option for small businesses, startup entrepreneurs, and those who just want to test the waters and see what they have to offer.
Their ATS includes a Kanban pipeline for all jobs, making it a breeze to manage potential candidates, and you can schedule an interview in as little as three clicks. Users can also post jobs directly from their ATS platform.
VanHack
Customers:
Some of VanHack’s customers include Deloitte, Brex, Booking.com, Zalando, Rogers, and SkipTheDishes.
Some of VanHack’s customers include Deloitte, Brex, Booking.com, Zalando, Rogers, and SkipTheDishes.
VanHack
Pricing:
VanHack is completely free for job seekers. For employers, VanHack charges a fee per hire that amounts to 20% of the candidate’s annual salary. Job posts, interviews, and candidate searching are all free.
VanHack is completely free for job seekers. For employers, VanHack charges a fee per hire that amounts to 20% of the candidate’s annual salary. Job posts, interviews, and candidate searching are all free.
Best For
VanHack is best for organizations that are looking for potential candidates within the IT industry, especially in on-demand roles. It’s also useful when trying to hire one-off tech roles for your company – regardless of your industry.
Why we love it
:
We love Recruitee's focus on internal referrals. Employee-recommended candidates tend to be easier to close and perform well on the job, so Recruitee got it right!
- Highly rated for its ease of use and customizable recruiting pipeline.
- Features to combat bias: interviewers cannot see each other’s evaluations.
- Free trials are available without card info required.
- No limits on the number of users applied to all plans.
- Pricing model is month-to-month
- 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.
- Integration of third-party tools is necessary for some essential functions like skill assessments, onboarding, video interviewing, and e-signatures.
- Our user researchers had trouble with the reporting function, which occasionally did not retrieve data accurately.
- Some users noted the 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
Review:
Recruitee is best for small and medium-sized businesses looking for a collaborative and user-friendly ATS. Reports of excellent user experience stand out among our researchers, and this ease of use facilitates collaboration among recruiters and hiring managers.
Recruitee has an open API, making connecting with other tools and services easy. For example, in addition to LinkedIn, the platform can connect and post open positions across 1,500 job boards.
However, it’s essential to know that video interviews, skill assessments, offer management, and onboarding are not built into Recruitee. Users must connect to third-party vendors to use such features.
Recruitee
Customers:
Recruitee is used by over 5,000 companies, including Semrush, Mark and Spencer, Transcom, Taco Bell, Toyota, Asus, Livestorm, and Rakuten.
Recruitee has been used by over 5,000 companies, including Semrush, Mark and Spencer, Transcom, Taco Bell, Toyota, Asus, Livestorm, and Rakuten.
Recruitee
Pricing:
Recruitee offers custom plans based on the number of active jobs and other particular needs. The ATS has three pricing plans:
- Launch starts at $91 per month
- Scale starts at $333 per month
- Lead has custom pricing.
Recruitee has three pricing plans, all of which accommodate an unlimited number of users and can be trialed for free for up to 18 days. When billed annually, Recruitee’s plans cost as follows:
- Launch starts at $91per month for 5 job slots and access to basic recruitment features such job post distribution, candidate video chatting, calendar sync, and career site editor.
- Scale starts at $333 per month for 10 job slots and adds workflow automation and permission settings to Launch's feature set.
- Lead has custom pricing. It includes everything in Scale, along with exclusive API access and premium services such as dedicated customer success and guided onboarding.
Best For
Though companies of many sizes (except enterprises) can find value in Recruitee’s offering, its current feature set can best support medium-sized businesses.
Why we love it
:
Unlike other free products that are often limited in functionality, MightyRecruiter is a robust ATS that allows for unlimited job posting across various job boards. It also comes with a comprehensive resume database, employee referral features, a reporting dashboard and a branded career website at no additional cost.
- MightyRecruiter allows you to post unlimited jobs to 29+ job boards for free and access a resume database of over 21 million candidates.
- The platform has a clean and intuitive interface that allows you to create job postings, filter, screen, and rate candidates easily.
- The built-in reporting dashboard provides a comprehensive view of how your job postings are performing on various job boards and channels through metrics like number of views, applications, and conversions.
- MightyRecruiter allows you to post unlimited jobs to 29+ job boards for free and access a resume database of over 21 million candidates.
- The platform has a clean and intuitive interface that allows you to create job postings, filter, screen, and rate candidates easily.
- The built-in reporting dashboard provides a comprehensive view of how your job postings are performing on various job boards and channels through metrics like number of views, applications, and conversions.
- Once created, job postings can take anywhere between 24-48 hours to be approved by MightyRecruiter's team and made live.
- MightyRecruiter does not offer advanced ATS features like integrated assessments, interview scheduling, workflow management, and collaborative hiring for end-to-end recruitment
- While MightyRecruiter is primarily free to use, viewing the full resumes of candidates on their resume database costs extra.
- Once created, job postings can take anywhere between 24-48 hours to be approved by MightyRecruiter's team and made live.
- MightyRecruiter does not offer advanced ATS features like integrated assessments, interview scheduling, workflow management, and collaborative hiring for end-to-end recruitment
- While MightyRecruiter is primarily free to use, viewing the full resumes of candidates on their resume database costs extra.
MightyRecruiter
Review:
Ideal for small and medium-sized businesses, MightyRecruiter is a free recruitment software that helps companies streamline their talent-sourcing process. The tool allows you to attract candidates through a custom-branded career page, post unlimited job openings across 29+ job boards, access a resume database of over 21 million candidates, rank and filter candidates. To speed up your sourcing efforts further, the platform packs over 200 ready-to-use job description templates and suggests suitable candidates for your job posts based on defined criteria.
MightyRecruiter
Customers:
ThinkGlink Media, DocuSign, OpExpert, GTM Pros, Small World Recruiting
ThinkGlink Media, DocuSign, OpExpert, GTM Pros, Small World Recruiting
MightyRecruiter
Pricing:
MightyRecruiter is free to use. However, viewing the full resumes of candidates on their resume database costs extra.
MightyRecruiter is free to use. However, viewing the full resumes of candidates on their resume database costs extra.
Best For
MightyRecruiter is best suited for SMBs. It is a free ATS that packs a decent range of features to streamline recruitment for companies hiring under 50 candidates a year.
Why we love it
:
OpenCats because is a completely free open-source ATS that packs all the basic features a small business would need to keep track of applicants.
OpenCATS
Review:
OpenCATS is a completely free open source ATS. Designed for recruiters, OpenCATS provides basic ATS services such as candidate tracking, resume parsing, and job requisition and posting.
OpenCATS
Customers:
OpenCATS
Pricing:
OpenCATS is a completely free open source ATS.
OpenCATS is a completely free open source ATS.
Best For
OpenCATS is best for companies needing a free ATS in a pinch.
Benefits of using a Free Applicant Tracking System
ATS's are great for recruiting teams that are looking to grow their organization's headcount, and want to stay organized. Even with a free option, companies can expect to gain benefits including:
- Recruiting automation: let's face it, recruiting is a series of many tasks which can take up a considerable amount of time. An applicant tracking system can go a long way towards automating some of these tasks so that you spend less time scheduling, wading through resumes, collecting interview feedback, etc.
- Compliance: EEOC audits and other forms of equitable recruiting compliance are an important function for applicant tracking systems. Your ATS should keep you compliant with the relevant rules and regulations in your country.
- Candidate experience: An applicant tracking system is a much better candidate experience than simply emailing a resume, or worse yet trying to figure out how to apply in the first place. You can usually also add in employer branding elements to your careers site like a jobs page complete with employee testimonials.
- Recruiter experience: Anyone on your team that does recruiting will be grateful for an ATS. Say goodbye to disparate spreadsheets, dropbox folders, or the random google doc.
- Staying organized: Now you can keep all of your candidate workflows in one place. This means you can focus on the tasks that matter, and grow your company.
Pitfalls when buying a free ATS
One of the key benefits of buying a free ATS is that you get to try out a system before you have to pay for it. While some of these systems do have forever free tiers, the main pitfall to remember here is that you will most likely eventually pay for the system you are using (businesses have to make money after all!).
This means it's really important for your team to choose the right solution, and then make sure you are vetting it as a long term play. Don't let a paid tier sneak up on your unprepared!
Features of Free Applicant Tracking Systems
Even for free (and cheap) versions of software, you can still expect to get many of the basics that you'd find in any ATS:
- Job Site: Most solutions come with a career site built in so that you can have a dedicated place on your website for job seekers to see openings and learn about working at your company.
- Application Submissions: Of course, an ATS will allow you to accept and organized applications from job seekers.
- Interview feedback: Look for solutions that are easy to collect and organize feedback from, especially since most of the people adding feedback are not full time recruiters.
- Job distribution: Many times even free ATS's will distribute your jobs to various free job boards. They may also have the ability to distribute them to paid job boards. Of course, this will cost money.
- Scheduling: Look for an ATS that helps to schedule job seekers for interviews and integrates with your calendar system. This can save a lot of time!
Free Applicant Tracking System FAQs
What is an applicant tracking system?
An applicant tracking system is a software application designed to help HR teams organize recruitment and hiring data.
Why do you need an applicant tracking system?
You need an applicant tracking system to easily manage large volumes of applicants and candidates, streamlining the recruitment process.
What kind of free ATS options are available?
When looking into a free applicant tracking system, you might come across a few different options:
- Free trials of fully-functional paid software that let you try out a system for a week up to thirty days depending on the company.
- Basic subscriptions that offer limited functionality but are completely free to use forever.
Who should look into getting a free applicant tracking system?
Small businesses and startups in particular who aren’t looking to do a ton of hiring at once should look into a free applicant tracking system. An ATS will streamline their hiring process while saving them the cost of buying enterprise software.
However, larger companies may find value in free trials, as it allows them to vet different vendors to find the right solution before buying.
Why is an ATS used in recruitment?
An ATS is used in recruitment to make the end-to-end process of hiring easier. Applicant tracking systems were originally made for large corporations that deal with thousands of job applications every week. Therefore having a software system automatically sort applicant information into a database and analyze the best candidates saves HR teams hours of work.
However, an ATS will still provide value to a small business looking to automate their hiring process.
How do applicant tracking systems work?
Applicant tracking systems work by acting as a liaison between an employer and an applicant. Once an application is submitted, the ATS stores the candidate’s work experience, education, contact information and other details into a database. HR teams use the database to review applications, communicate with applicants, schedule interviews and sometimes administer skills tests.
What features do free applicant tracking systems offer?
A free applicant tracking system won’t have all the features of a paid software, but they can offer a selection of the following:
- Career site
- Job board integration
- Application sorting
- Resume parsing
- Interview schedule
- Candidate messaging
- Chatbots
- Company profile
- Reporting and analytics
- Cloud storage
- Internal candidate portal
- Employee referral tool
- Search functionality
- Team collaboration
- Import/Export capabilities
We hope this listing of free applicant tracking systems was useful for your recruiting team as they look to bring on a new ATS. If you have any additions, please send us a note, or leave a comment, and we’ll be happy to update the list!
Lastly, if you have the budget to use a paid ATS, we recommend checking out our page on the best applicant tracking systems, complete with questions to ask on demos, ROI calculations, etc. Enjoy!
Guides and Blogs on ATS:
What is an ATS? / Benefits of an ATS / How to Calculate ATS ROI / Guide on ATS Pricing / ATS Buyer Guide / Questions to Ask ATS Vendors on Demos
Best Free Applicant Tracking Systems
Stay on top of what really matters in HR and People Tech. Subscribe to our newsletter to keep up on the latest news, trends, and culture.
We put in the effort to make this guide awesome
25
Hours Researched
.svg)
2
Experts Consulted
.svg)
21
Vendors Reviewed
Featured in
Looking for HR Tech Advice? Join our community
Ask questions, share knowledge, find new job opportunities, network and more in our closed HR Tech Buyers Community
Join 20,000 HR Tech Nerds who get our weekly insights
