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!
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!
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.
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 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.
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 plans with fixed pricing. When Billed annually, they cost as follows:
Note:
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:
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:
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:
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.
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:
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:
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.
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.
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.
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.
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:
Freshteam has 4 pricing plans. When billed annually, they cost as follows:
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
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!
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:
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:
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
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.
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:
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!
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:
An applicant tracking system is a software application designed to help HR teams organize recruitment and hiring data.
You need an applicant tracking system to easily manage large volumes of applicants and candidates, streamlining the recruitment process.
When looking into a free applicant tracking system, you might come across a few different options:
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.
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.
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.
A free applicant tracking system won’t have all the features of a paid software, but they can offer a selection of the following:
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
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