best applicant tracking systems for startups

Ashby

Ashby packages the applicant tracker, interview scheduling, a sourcing CRM and reporting into one product, and sells its Foundations plan to companies under 100 employees, which is where most funded startups sit. Its pricing selector is unusually open for a sales-led vendor: it shows $300 a month for a team of 1 to 10 and $400 for 11 to 25, and the page promises the figure will not change during the sales process. Reporting is the standout, to the point that Ashby also sells its analytics as a bolt-on for teams that keep another ATS. The catch is that you still have to talk to sales to buy, and the bill tracks your headcount rather than how much hiring you actually do.

Greenhouse

Greenhouse is the structured-hiring standard: interview kits, scorecards and a sourcing CRM are all in the entry Core plan, and the Core / Plus / Pro ladder carries a company from its first hires into enterprise-grade governance and audit controls. It also sells a separate onboarding product, so the handoff from signed offer to first day stays in the same system. Nothing about the price is public: you pick a plan with a sales rep and the cost depends on hiring volume and organisational complexity. Its own site points at customers like DoorDash, Betterment and MLB, which tells you where the product's centre of gravity sits.

Lever

Lever's pitch is one system for inbound applicants and outbound sourcing: the ATS and the candidate CRM are the same product rather than two tools stitched together, which suits a startup whose early roles are filled by reaching out rather than by waiting. Onboarding, candidate insights and AI screening are sold as add-ons on top of the Core Platform, each quoted separately. Pricing is quote-only and scales with team size and hiring needs, so there is no way to budget without a call. Lever's site links to Employ, the same parent that owns JazzHR, which is worth knowing if you end up comparing the two.

Workable

Workable is the mainstream small-company choice: an applicant tracker with an HR side attached, covering employee profiles, onboarding, time off and payroll preparation, used by more than 35,000 teams by its own count. Pricing is published and banded by company size, so a team of 20 or fewer pays one flat monthly rate no matter how many people log in, and you can start a 15-day trial without speaking to anyone. Texting, video interviews, assessments and performance reviews are separate paid add-ons, so the headline price is not the whole bill. Its current push is an AI agent that sources and screens candidates, billed on credits rather than in the plan.

Breezy HR

Breezy is the cheapest way to run a real hiring process without talking to a salesperson: the Bootstrap tier is free forever for one open role, and the paid Startup plan lifts that to unlimited positions at a flat monthly rate ($157 a month if you pay for the year). Users are unlimited on every tier, which is the reason small teams like it, since hiring managers and interviewers cost nothing to add. Onboarding, SMS and performance reviews exist but are priced as add-ons on top, starting around $49 a month each. The free tier only keeps candidates added in the last 30 days, so treat it as an extended trial rather than a permanent home.

JazzHR

JazzHR is built for small businesses hiring a few roles at a time, with unlimited users on every plan and a 14-day trial that needs no credit card. It publishes its prices, but only as annual figures: $1,000 a year for the entry Hero plan, then $3,480 for Plus and $5,508 for Pro. Hero is deliberately basic, starting at three job postings a month, with structured interviews, automation and reporting reserved for the higher tiers. Because nothing is quoted per month, comparing it against a monthly competitor means doing the arithmetic yourself.

Teamtailor

Teamtailor leads with employer branding: the career site builder is the centre of the product and the tracker sits behind it, which fits a startup whose hiring problem is being unknown rather than being buried in applications. There are no published plan tiers at all, just one all-in-one product with unlimited job postings and unlimited users, and onboarding was added on top of the ATS. It claims more than 12,000 companies, weighted towards Europe. Budgeting for it means booking a demo, since the pricing page is a quote form rather than a price list.

Manatal

Manatal is the cheapest credible option in this set, at $19 per user per month billed monthly or $15 billed annually, with a 14-day trial that needs no card. It leans on AI candidate recommendations and profile enrichment, and ships both an internal-hiring version and an agency version with a client CRM attached. The per-seat model is the trade-off: very cheap for one or two recruiters, less so once every hiring manager needs a login. Plans are also capped by job count, with the entry Professional tier covering 15 jobs and up to 10,000 candidates.

Zoho Recruit

Zoho Recruit has a forever-free tier covering one active job per recruiter licence, which is enough for a founder making a first hire, and paid tiers that raise the job limit and add sourcing, assessments, a branded careers site and reporting. It bills per recruiter licence, with cheaper employee licences for hiring managers who only need to review and refer. There is a 15-day trial and a 45-day money-back guarantee, and no forced contract. The prices themselves only render inside Zoho's own calculator rather than as text on the page, so you have to open it in a browser to see them.

BambooHR

BambooHR is an HR platform first: hiring, onboarding, payroll, benefits and performance reviews in one system, with the applicant tracker as one module rather than the main event. It charges per employee per month starting at $10 for the Core plan, so the bill tracks your headcount rather than how many roles you are filling, which is cheap while you are tiny and steadily less so as you grow. It suits a startup that wants a single system of record for people more than it wants the sharpest recruiting tool. The trial is self-serve and needs no card, and payroll and benefits are bundled at a discount.

Dover

Dover gives away a genuinely usable applicant tracker: unlimited jobs, unlimited users and more than 100 job board integrations at no cost, aimed explicitly at founding teams. The paid Premium tier at $199 a month adds AI applicant scoring, AI note taking and unlimited free basic LinkedIn and X job posts. Behind the free product is a marketplace of contract recruiters you can hire directly, with the amounts other startups spent per hire published on the site. It is a much smaller company than the rest of this list, which matters if you want a long integration catalogue or a vendor with a decade of enterprise references.

Recruitee

Recruitee, now sold as Tellent Recruitee, pairs a collaborative applicant tracker with a no-code careers site builder, and its own guides are written for European hiring teams. The entry Start plan is capped at five active job posts; Advance lifts that to unlimited and adds employee referrals, AI screening credits and workflow automation. Onboarding journeys, texting, SSO and an agency hub are add-ons, with a separate Tellent HRIS sold alongside. Prices are no longer published, so every plan routes through a demo, though you can start a free trial without booking one.