Best Applicant Tracking Systems for Startups
For most startups the choice comes down to how you want to be billed: Breezy HR and Dover charge one flat monthly fee ($189 and $199) with unlimited users, Manatal charges $19 per recruiter seat, and BambooHR charges $10 per employee but also runs payroll and time off. Greenhouse, Lever, Teamtailor and Recruitee publish no price at all, so buying any of them starts with a quote.
Then there is how far you get before paying anything. Breezy HR, Zoho Recruit and Dover each keep a plan that stays free, five vendors let you start a trial yourself, and Ashby, Greenhouse, Lever and Teamtailor are demo only. A founder making a first hire belongs on the free side. A team that wants scorecards and interview kits from the start will find them in Greenhouse's entry Core plan, and Ashby's reporting is strong enough that it sells its analytics to teams that keep another tracker; both start with a call to sales.
Our picks
- Best for a founding team with no hiring budget: Dover. The tracker is free with unlimited jobs, unlimited users and more than 100 job board integrations; $199 a month adds AI applicant scoring and note taking.
- Low cost for one or two recruiters: Manatal. $19 per user per month billed monthly ($15 billed annually), with the Professional tier covering 15 jobs and up to 10,000 candidates.
- Best when every interviewer needs a login: Breezy HR. Users are unlimited on every tier, and the Startup plan is a flat $189 a month for unlimited positions.
- Best if hiring should live inside your HR system: BambooHR. Hiring, onboarding, payroll, benefits and reviews in one platform, at $10 per employee per month on the Core plan.
- Best for structured interviewing: Greenhouse. Interview kits, scorecards and a sourcing CRM all come in the entry Core plan, though the price is set by quote.
At a glance
| Option | Starting Price | Cheapest Paid Plan | Pricing Model | Free Option | Scope |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| $400source | Foundationssource | By company sizesource | Demo onlysource | ATS + sourcingsource | |
| Coresource | Quote onlysource | Demo onlysource | ATS + onboardingsource | ||
| Core Platformsource | Quote onlysource | Demo onlysource | ATS + onboardingsource | ||
| $299source | Standardsource | By company sizesource | Free trialsource | Full HR platformsource | |
| $189source | Startupsource | Flat monthlysource | Free plansource | ATS + onboardingsource | |
| Herosource | Flat annualsource | Free trialsource | ATS + onboardingsource | ||
| Quote onlysource | Demo onlysource | ATS + onboardingsource | |||
| $19source | Professionalsource | Per usersource | Free trialsource | ATS + sourcingsource | |
| Standardsource | Per usersource | Free plansource | ATS + sourcingsource | ||
| $10source | Coresource | Per employeesource | Free trialsource | Full HR platformsource | |
| $199source | Premium ATSsource | Flat monthlysource | Free plansource | ATS + sourcingsource | |
| Startsource | Quote onlysource | Free trialsource | ATS + onboardingsource |
Flat fee, per seat, or per employee
Sorting by Starting Price ranks numbers charged on different bases. BambooHR's $10 is per employee per month, so a 20-person company pays $200 and the bill rises with every hire. Manatal's $19 is per recruiter seat: cheap for one recruiter, less so once every hiring manager wants a login. Breezy HR at $189 and Dover at $199 are flat for the whole company, with unlimited users.
Workable and Ashby band their price by company size. Workable's Standard plan starts at $299, and a team of 20 or fewer pays one flat monthly rate however many people log in. Ashby's selector shows $300 a month for 1 to 10 employees and $400 for 11 to 25, so both bills follow headcount rather than how many roles you open. JazzHR only quotes by the year: $1,000 for Hero, $3,480 for Plus and $5,508 for Pro.
What the free ATS plans actually hold
On paper Dover's free plan is the least restricted, with unlimited jobs and users, but Dover is also a much smaller company than the rest of this list, which matters if you need a long integration catalogue. Breezy HR's Bootstrap tier is free for one open role and keeps only candidates added in the last 30 days, which makes it closer to an extended trial. Zoho Recruit's free tier allows one active job per recruiter licence, and hiring managers who only review and refer can go on cheaper employee licences.
The trials differ mostly in length: 15 days at Workable and Zoho Recruit (which adds a 45-day money-back guarantee), 14 days with no card at Manatal and JazzHR, and a self-serve BambooHR trial that also skips the card.
Add-ons outside the headline price
Workable is one of two full HR platforms here, yet texting, video interviews, assessments and performance reviews are paid add-ons, and its AI sourcing agent is billed on credits. Breezy HR's onboarding, SMS and reviews start around $49 a month each. Lever quotes onboarding, candidate insights and AI screening separately on top of its Core Platform, and Recruitee's Start plan is capped at five active job posts, with onboarding journeys, texting and SSO sold as extras.
Buying from the quote-only vendors
Greenhouse prices by hiring volume and organisational complexity across a Core, Plus and Pro ladder. Lever scales with team size and hiring needs. Teamtailor has no tiers at all, just one product with unlimited job postings and users, and claims more than 12,000 companies weighted towards Europe. Recruitee is the only one of the four that lets you start a free trial without booking a demo. One more thing to know before a call: Lever and JazzHR share a parent, Employ.
The options in detail
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.
How we researched this
The price column holds the monthly-billed figure each vendor prints for its cheapest paid plan, quoted from its own pricing, feature or signup pages, so Breezy HR shows $189 rather than its $157 annual rate and Manatal $19 rather than $15. Where a vendor prints no monthly figure the cell is empty: Greenhouse, Lever, Teamtailor and Recruitee sell by quote, JazzHR prices only by the year, and Zoho Recruit's numbers appear only inside an interactive calculator. Scope records what each vendor claims on its own site, never what it seems to lack, and nothing in the table ranks product quality.
We weighed 20 trackers and kept 12. SmartRecruiters now starts at $14,995, an enterprise entry point; Homerun publishes in euros and pounds and GoHire in pounds; Wellfound's published prices are for job ads rather than its tracker; Pinpoint had no public pricing page; Loxo and Recruit CRM are agency tools at $149 or more per seat; and iCIMS, Jobvite, Workday and ClearCompany are enterprise purchases. Prices are as published in September 2026. Size bands and add-on rates are the vendors' to change, and the band your headcount falls in is the number to get in writing.