Applicant tracking systems help businesses post jobs, manage candidates, schedule interviews, and move qualified applicants through the hiring process from one centralized platform. In this guide, we compare the best ATS software by features, pricing, use case, and business fit so you can choose the right tool for your hiring needs and budget.
Here’s a table to quickly compare each ATS by its strongest use case and best-fit buying scenario:
| Rippling | All-in-one ATS | You want recruiting tied to HR, payroll, and onboarding. |
| Pinpoint | Growing companies | You need branded career pages and scalable workflows. |
| Freshteam by Freshworks | Hiring managers | You want simple job posting and candidate tracking. |
| Workday | Enterprises | You need recruiting within a larger HCM system. |
| BambooHR | Small businesses | You want basic ATS tools inside an HR platform. |
| JazzHR | Candidate sourcing | You need broad job posting and sourcing tools. |
| Greenhouse | Customizable hiring workflows | You want structured hiring and configurable workflows. |
| Recooty | Ease of use | You want a simple ATS for a small team. |
| Breezy | Team collaboration | You need shared feedback and scorecards. |
| RecruiterFlow | Scheduling and recruiting automation | You need scheduling and automation for recruiter workflows. |
The best applicant tracking systems: Feature comparison table
| Rippling | $8/user/mo. | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | No |
| Pinpoint | Contact for quote | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Freshteam by Freshworks | $1.20/employee/mo. + $71 platform fee/mo. | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Workday | Contact for quote | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| BambooHR | $10/user/mo. | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| JazzHR | $1000/mo. | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes (starting with Plus plan) |
| Greenhouse | Contact for quote | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Recooty | $79/mo. | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
| Breezy | $157/mo. | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes (starting with Growth plan) |
| RecruiterFlow | $99/user/mo. | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Pricing and details up to date as of 6/23/2023.
Leading Applicant Tracking Systems
ATSs can provide both hiring and recruiting tools for teams looking to bring in new employees. Most large enterprises and a growing number of smaller companies are utilizing these ATSs to help sort through resumes quickly and efficiently to find the best candidates for a role. If you’re considering an ATS, we recommend looking at one of the following top providers.
Rippling: Best all-in-one ATS
Rippling’s ATS tool has the largest swath of positive reviews among the businesses that utilize an ATS. This cloud-based software system boasts high ratings from a number of different outlets for its ease of use and all-in-one capabilities. Rippling syncs with various calendar applications such as Outlook, iCal, Google Calendar, and other applications, to take the onus off the manager to get an interview time scheduled. The integration allows your hiring manager to view multiple calendars at the same time and find which times work best to conduct interviews with prospective candidates.
As with any platform, Rippling does have its drawbacks, however. Many reviews have noted that while Rippling has an easy-to-use interface, a lack of support has been noted as an issue for those running into technical or clerical errors with the platform. Lack of customer service and slow response to technical support have been the most common complaints with the ATS.
All in all, Rippling’s ATS tool is a great pick if you want features like user-friendly hiring manager collaboration, candidate tracking, and candidate experience organization.
Rippling pricing
Rippling’s all-inclusive human capital management system starts at $8 per employee per month on top of an unlisted base fee. Rippling plans are fairly easy to customize, though each tool you add costs an extra per-employee fee. If you’re looking for a more affordable ATS solution than Rippling, you could find a better match on our list of the best free ATS solutions for small businesses.
Try Rippling
Pinpoint: Best for growing companies
Pinpoint is a relatively new solution within the ATS industry, offering hiring teams the ability to work within a branded career website to jumpstart the recruitment process. This solution provides simplification of the career page hosting by having the hiring manager spend less time on admin duties, making good talent acquisition faster and reducing the cost typically associated with recruitment agency spending.
Pinpoint boasts a branded careers website, capable of posting to over 1,450 job sites while maintaining the brand’s existing guidelines and house styles. The platform can assist teams and users by suggesting job descriptions to pull in more qualified candidates, and the ability to change the listings on all job boards once a position has been added, edited, or removed from the branded site.
Pinpoint pricing
You need to call Pinpoint for a custom quote based on your needs.
Try Pinpoint
Freshteam by Freshworks: Best for hiring managers
Freshteam is a popular option from Freshworks that offers either free or paid options for hiring teams looking to create and host a career page through an ATS tool. The solution allows hiring managers and their teams to quickly set up a career site with customizable options ranging from a simple list of job openings to a collection of employees sharing their experiences with the company to attract potential candidates. Once a potential candidate has applied, they are then routed to the Freshteam ATS where their profiles can be combed through by the hiring team.
Freshteam pricing
Freshteam is free for businesses with up to 50 employees and no more than three active job postings at a time. Freshteam also offers three paid plans:
- Growth (20 active job postings): $71 per month + $1.20 per employee per month.
- Pro (100 active job postings): $119 per month + $2.40 per employee per month.
- Enterprise (unlimited active job postings): $203 per month + $4.80 per employee per month.
Try Freshworks
Workday: Best for enterprises
Workday is an incredibly powerful tool known for its work alongside major companies like Bank of America, Target, and Patagonia. By giving your recruiter or hiring manager the ability to post a clear job description, then sort through thousands of potential candidates and their applications, all with a few simple clicks, Workday’s recruiting software can provide businesses with peace of mind knowing they are pulling the correct employee from a large applicant pool.
Workday pricing
Workday offers custom pricing only. According to user reviews, Workday is one of the more expensive ATSs on the market today.
Try Workday
BambooHR: Best small-business ATS
BambooHR is one of the premier HR platforms for small and midsize businesses. Its ATS solution has thorough collaboration tools, with the ability to cut communication time by allowing for customization in hiring roles, automated notifications, offer letter templates, and new hire packages. Using their suite of collaboration tools, enterprises can get offers out to job seekers faster and begin the onboarding process very quickly after an offer has been accepted.
BambooHR pricing
BambooHR offers three plans: Core, Pro, and Elite. Its Hiring & Onboarding features are available in Core, including applicant tracking for up to five job openings, candidate records, job posting, and email and offer letter templates.
- Core: $10 per user per month
- Pro: $17 per user per month
- Elite: $25 per user per month
As an all-in-one human resource management suite, BambooHR also offers add-on features like benefits administration and full-service payroll software. Make sure to account for these extra costs while budgeting for your ATS solution.
Try BambooHR
JazzHR: Best candidate sourcing
JazzHR is a top recruitment software option for many small to medium businesses (SMBs) as its aggregate recruiting tool allows users to post across various job site networks, both free and paid. Users of the platform can purchase job traffic through pay-per-click and pay-per-post job boards from around the internet. This promotes better organization of suitable candidates through a watchlist once a set number of candidates are chosen for interviews, giving the hiring team control over settings, which ultimately creates a more specialized experience for the recruitment team when sourcing candidates.
JazzHR pricing
JazzHR has two plans for growing companies:
- Hero: Starts at $1,000 per year, up to 3 job postings per month
- Plus:Â Starts at $3,480 per year, allowing up to 200 active jobs
- Pro:Â Starts at $5,508 per year; has everything in Plus, plus eSignature and advanced reports
Try JazzHR
Greenhouse: Most customizable solution
Greenhouse is another popular ATS tool, used by a number of notable companies such as DoorDash, Wayfair, and DocuSign. The platform can assist those overseeing large businesses as well as the more intricate needs of SMBs as well. The platform allows hiring teams the ability to optimize and access postings for over 1,000 job boards, and Greenhouse boasts its own job ad market. This board makes the recruiting process easier by recommending candidates based on historical and industry performance, all within Greenhouse’s board.
Greenhouse pricing
Greenhouse has three plans: Essential, Advanced, and Expert. The site doesn’t list its pricing online. To get a quote, you must schedule a demo through Greenhouse’s website.
Try Greenhouse
Recooty: Most user-friendly option
Recooty is another ATS solution that is known for its ease of use for hiring teams. The dashboard within this system allows hiring teams to check resumes and create a shortlist based on the most qualified candidates that have submitted applications. Recooty, in addition to its reputation as an easy-to-use tool, is also more affordable for SMB’s than some of the larger ATS platforms.
Recooty pricing
Recooty has three plans and clear, transparent pricing:
- Starter:Â Starts at $79 per month when billed annually and allows for 5 active job posts.
- Standard:Â Starts at $149 per month when billed annually and allows for unlimited active job posts.
- Premier:Â Book a call for a custom quote; has everything in Standard, plus SSO and and advanced reports
Try Recooty
Breezy: Best for collaboration
Breezy offers a leg up in team collaboration by giving managers the capacity to organize different teams and assign individual members to those teams with no restrictions on the team members that can be invited. In addition, users of Breezy can discuss and evaluate potential hires in real-time, and allow for the shared scorecards of applicants to help companies find the best fit for their organization’s needs.
Breezy pricing
Breezy has one free plan that allows for one active job posting at a time. It also has three paid plans with either annual or monthly pricing. If you pay for an annual plan, you’ll get two months free:
- Startup:Â $157 a month when billed annually or $189 when billed month to month.
- Growth:Â $273 a month when billed annually or $329 when billed month to month.
- Business:Â $439 a month when billed annually or $529 when billed month to month.
Try Breezy
RecruiterFlow: Best scheduling feature
RecruiterFlow’s solution is also paramount to proper time management by not only syncing with other calendar applications, but also letting interviewers log detailed notes about the interview and the candidate that can be viewed by the entire hiring team. Additionally, the platform’s calendar integration allows hiring managers to create, alter, or cancel interview times across multiple users’ calendars if availability or the status of the open position changes.
RecruiterFlow pricing
RecruiterFlow has three plans, all of which include unlimited active job listings and a 14-day free trial:
- Growth:Â Starts at $99 per user per month.
- Scale:Â Starts at $109 per user per month.
- Enterprise:Â Starts at $129 per user per month.
SEE: Meet the duellists… and compare Oracle vs Workday in an HR software comparison.
Try RecruiterFlow
Key ATS features
While companies use ATS platforms for many different hiring tasks, from interview scheduling to performance management, most ATS software tools have similar features. They usually include career page hosting, tools for sourcing candidates, automated interview scheduling, job distribution, application sorting, collaboration tools for hiring team members, and basic onboarding tools.
Career page hosting
Career page hosting is the first step when it comes to attracting potential candidates, as many different ATS software options offer the opportunity to host a career-branded site. These career pages typically are where open positions are posted, on an enterprise’s website. An advantage that the utilization of an ATS provides is the ability to manage these career pages directly through the ATS’s platform.
As the ATS makes it easier to set these pages up, hiring managers and their teams can focus more on finding the right candidate for the job rather than having to worry about updating a multitude of external job boards.
Job distribution
To cut down on the amount of time spent getting word of open roles out to potential candidates, many of these ATSs will utilize a job distribution system to post to numerous job boards all at once, eliminating the time-consuming process of posting to these boards individually. In addition, many of the major job boards, such as Indeed or ZipRecruiter, will often have partnerships with ATS software, allowing hiring teams to alter, add, or remove the job posting as needed.
Best business software
Many companies utilize an ATS due to the ability to sort thousands of submitted resumes, automatically gathering candidate information so companies can find a job applicant whose mindset aligns with the company’s core values. Several can also help hiring teams manage the flow of incoming emails, allowing teams to communicate with a number of applicants at the same time and not requiring individualized responses to every candidate.
Application organization
Another key feature of ATSs is the ability to sort and organize prospective candidates’ applications to find the best applicants for the role. This, in turn, allows for less time spent trying to order the attributes of candidates and more time spent reaching out to those who best suit the position. Using an ATS, hiring teams can pull a number of candidates and their applications into one portal and allow those making the hiring decision to sort and filter through candidates quickly.
Calendar integration
With speed being a key factor in the hiring process, it is important that not only the members of the hiring team be in the loop with the times interviews are taking place, but also the interviewee be kept informed about where they are in the process. To do this, many systems and platforms allow for integration with calendar applications, allowing managers to view the availability of both the members of their teams and also the times in which their applications are free to have an interview scheduled.
Collaboration tools
With so many industries looking for employees, it’s no surprise that enterprises are looking to make decisions on candidates and get offers out faster to those desired applicants and fill openings. To streamline the hiring process, it is important that all hiring team members are up to speed with the stages each candidate is currently in and that every member of the team has the tools to remain informed on important deadlines and milestones.
How do I choose the best ATS for my company?
Choosing the best applicant tracking system starts with understanding your hiring volume, team structure, and must-have recruiting features. Use these steps to narrow your options.
1. Estimate your hiring volume.
Start with how many roles you fill each year and how many applications you typically receive. If you manage only a few openings at a time, a simple ATS may be enough. If you screen hundreds or thousands of resumes, look for stronger automation, filtering, reporting, and collaboration tools.
2. Match the ATS to your company size.
Small businesses may only need job posting, candidate tracking, interview scheduling, and basic onboarding support. Larger companies usually need custom workflows, role-based permissions, compliance tools, analytics, and integrations with HR, payroll, and workforce management systems.
3. Identify your biggest hiring bottleneck.
Choose an ATS based on the problem you need to solve first. For example, if your team spends too much time posting jobs manually, prioritize job board distribution. If interviews are hard to coordinate, look for automated scheduling. If hiring decisions get delayed, focus on collaboration tools, scorecards, and shared candidate feedback.
4. Check integrations with your current tools.
Your ATS should connect with the systems your team already uses, such as email, calendars, HR software, payroll, background checks, and onboarding tools. Strong integrations reduce duplicate data entry and make it easier to move candidates from application to new hire.
5. Review usability for hiring managers.
A powerful ATS will not help much if managers avoid using it. Look for a clean dashboard, simple candidate review tools, easy interview feedback, and clear hiring-stage visibility.
6. Compare pricing against recruiting costs.
Consider the total cost of the ATS, including monthly fees, implementation, add-ons, and per-user charges. Then compare that cost with the time your team spends on manual hiring tasks or outside recruiting support. A good ATS should help reduce admin work, improve candidate tracking, and make the hiring process more consistent.
7. Test before committing.
Use demos or free trials to walk through your actual hiring workflow. Test how easy it is to post a job, review applicants, schedule interviews, collect feedback, and move a candidate into onboarding.
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