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Picture this: your desk is swamped with piles of printed resumes separating promising candidates from the ones who haven’t hit the mark.
Your inbox is constantly pinging with the sound of yet more applications arriving, and you need to create a shortlist of quality candidates to present to your hiring team by the end of the day.
Then the phone rings. Another employee has resigned, and their manager asks you to post a new job ad to fill yet another vacant position.
If this chaos sounds achingly familiar, you're likely in desperate need of applicant tracking software to streamline your hiring process and keep everything manageable and accessible from a central digital location.
But if you need to present a business case for ATS to your senior decision-makers, the cost of your preferred applicant tracking software will be an enormous factor.
This guide breaks down everything you need to know about ATS system pricing so you can decide which model is the right fit for your hiring requirements. We even throw in 10 vendor pricing examples to kick off the selection process.
Cloud vs. on-premise applicant tracking software pricing
Most applicant tracking software runs in the cloud, hosted by the vendor company. When you sign up with an ATS vendor, you’ll usually pay a monthly or annual subscription fee to gain access to your applicant tracking data, which you can work with 24/7 and from any location.
Alternatively, some vendors offer on-premise licensing where you’ll host the ATS software on your own servers. You'll pay a license fee for the pleasure of doing so, known as perpetual licensing.
What are the different ATS pricing models?
ATS vendors usually offer their software as part of a package. There's a huge variation in how they price these, from entirely free up to six figures.
Consider the most appropriate fit based on how often you hire, your headcount, your preferred maximum cost per hire, and the list of features you need to make recruitment a raging success. The most common pricing models are:
Pay per recruiter
Pay per recruiter, or PPR, involves paying a monthly fee based on the number of recruiters and hiring managers that use your applicant tracking system. Your hiring teams will receive full administrative access, allowing them to view candidate data and post job ads as required. It's common to see a one-time setup or implementation fee associated with a per user per month system like this.
Great for: companies with an established hiring process and recruitment team, so it’s easy to forecast the cost of using this model.
Pay per employee
Some vendors base your ATS price point on your business size, specifically your employee headcount. Costs reduce significantly with enterprise plans—you'll likely pay just a few cents or pennies per employee per month when the company headcount rises into the thousands.
Great for: small to midsize businesses or larger companies with a niche hiring team.
Pay per applicant
With this model, ATS software vendors price packages based on how many open vacancies you have or the total number of applicants or resumes you store in your system. This doesn't usually include any archived vacancies or dormant resumes.
Expect the plan to include unlimited users and unlimited applications for each job.
Great for: companies who hire consistently, so it’s easy to budget your monthly costs accurately.
Pay per module
Vendors who offer other HR software solutions, such as an HRMS suite, may charge an additional fee to run an ATS module. This isn’t usually compatible with a third-party HRMS system.
Great for: companies satisfied with their existing HR software vendor looking to enhance their recruitment process.
Flat fee
Internal recruiters can purchase some types of recruiting software for a one-time fee, allowing you to use the software at will. There's no cap on how many people can access the system, or how many applications you can accept. Expect to pay a high price tag as it's a one-time platform fee.
Great for: companies that are confident a specific ATS will meet their long-term needs and that are happy to invest upfront to help with ongoing budgeting.
Free open source
It won't cost you anything to download the ATS software but be prepared for some time investment to customise it to suit your needs.
Great for: companies stacked with in-house experience in software programming.
What additional costs are involved in an ATS purchase?
Beware of extra costs during the purchasing process. Vendors may charge you for any or all of the following:
Additional roles
Depending on your pricing model, you can purchase a small pack of roles if you're slightly over the cap on your existing package but not enough to warrant paying for the next pricing tier.
Implementation
The price and level of an implementation package will vary but could include the following:
- Access to a dedicated implementation specialist
- Software customisation to suit your recruitment strategy
- Data migration
- Integration with existing HR software.
Additional features
Expect to pay extra for bells and whistles like onboarding tools, psychometric testing, or background screening. This allows hiring teams to only pay for the specific tools they need.
Training
It's worth understanding training costs to ensure your team is quickly up to speed with the ATS system. Many vendors offer complimentary training, but additional help may be chargeable. The cost of training will also rise if it needs to take place on company premises.
Support
Basic customer support is often free if you need email support or the vendor knowledge base. Premium services such as priority support or access to a dedicated customer success team may incur a fee.
10 Examples of ATS Vendor Pricing
Below, we've dug up all the details and crunched the numbers to give you a headstart on choosing the right applicant tracking system for your hiring team. Check out our comprehensive list of ATS vendor pricing here.
1. Applied
At Applied, we offer 1-3 year subscriptions. Unlike some of the other platforms further down this list, our pricing is based on hiring volume, so whether you're a small start-up or a large business hiring hundreds of candidates, you only pay for the open job roles your organisation needs.
Fair & Flexible Pricing: Applied pricing is flexible and dependent on the number of hires and add-ons you require. To ensure the fairest and most accurate pricing plan for your needs, we recommend requesting a custom quote from one of our fair hiring experts.
You can request a pricing quote here.
All plans include:
- Requisition Management
- Branded Careers page
- Job Board integrations
- Gendered language detection
- CV anonymisation and scoring module
- Structured interview module
- Work sample question library
- Automated skills-based questions
- Automated feedback for all candidates
- Diversity Reporting
- Job board ROI reporting and more
Premium Add-ons: Optional extras to help give you more support include talent pooling (Spotlight), global aggregated role reports and 1000+ job board integrations via Broadbean.
| Mission / Values Alignment | Culture Fit Alignment |
|---|---|
| Passion for your company’s missionA shared approach to working/collaborating | A shared educational, cultural or professional backgroundSimilar demographic (age, social class etc)Mutual hobbies/interests |
| Mission / Values Alignment | Culture Fit Alignment |
|---|---|
| Passion for your company’s missionA shared approach to working/collaborating | A shared educational, cultural or professional backgroundSimilar demographic (age, social class etc)Mutual hobbies/interests |
| Mission / Values Alignment | Culture Fit Alignment |
|---|---|
| Passion for your company’s missionA shared approach to working/collaborating | A shared educational, cultural or professional backgroundSimilar demographic (age, social class etc)Mutual hobbies/interests |
2. Workable
Workable offers a pay-as-you-go plan for occasional hiring and a monthly or annual subscription based on employee headcount. The packages are:
- Paygo: this pay-per-job package costs a $149 fee per month. It includes job posting to 200+ boards globally, 200 AI-sourced profile views per month, and self-guided onboarding.
- Standard: the headcount package starts with a basic tier of 1-20 employees. Pay $299 per month or $3,588 per year to save $732. It includes unlimited jobs, 10,000 AI-sourced profile views per month and assisted onboarding. The price rises as headcount increases.
- Premier: the top-tier service starts at $599 for companies with 1-20 employees. Expect everything from the standard plan, plus custom onboarding, 20,000 AI-sourced profile views per month, and a dedicated account manager.
3. Greenhouse
Greenhouse offers three tiers of functionality: Essential, Advanced, and Expert.
The vendor prices are based on headcount, providing everyone in the organisation with access to the applicant tracking system. There’s no extra charge for integrations or the number of vacancies.
The starter tier is a 0-50 employee headcount bracket priced at approximately $7,000 to $10,000 for the year. Pricing is fixed throughout a 12-month period regardless of usage or growth.
4. Pinpoint
Pinpoint offers either the Growth or Enterprise packages as follows:
- Growth: from £600 per month when paid annually, depending on headcount. This includes unlimited team members and active positions, standard integrations, concierge onboarding tool, standard data migration, and live support (chat, telephone, and email.)
- Enterprise: from £1,200 per month when paid annually, depending on headcount. The package includes everything from Growth, plus additional features like bespoke integrations, custom data migration, unlimited complexity of org chart hierarchy, and custom contract terms.
Startups with fewer than 50 people who can demonstrate that this is their first rodeo with applicant software products can apply to join Pinpoint's startup program. This offers 50% off either the Growth or Enterprise tier for 12 months.
5. Zoho Recruit
Zoho Recruit offers entry-level ATS packages for corporate HR professionals based on per recruiter pricing. There are four options: Free, Standard, Business, and Enterprise.
- Free: provides access to 1 active job, free job boards, interview scheduling, 8/5 support, and candidate management.
- Standard: priced from £20 per recruiter per month for 100 active jobs. This includes everything from the free tier plus candidate sourcing, resume management, premium job boards, employee referrals, social recruiting, candidate assessments, reporting, department hierarchy, and 50+ integrations.
- Business: priced from £40 per user per month for 250 active jobs. This includes everything from standard plus AI candidate matching (click here to the read ethical issues associated with using AI in recruitment decision-making), assessments, advanced analytics, custom reports and dashboards.
- Enterprise: priced from £60 per user per month for 750 active jobs. This includes everything from the professional tier plus custom role & profiles, client & staffing portals, territory management, recruitment automation, Google & Microsoft teams integrations and more.
6. Bamboo HR
Bamboo HR offers a wide range of products for Human Resources departments. Applicant tracking is available on both core and pro plans. You’ll be able to hire for 5 open roles on ‘core’ while the ‘pro’ plan accommodates 20 open roles. If your headcount is 25 employees or less, they'll charge a monthly flat rate above that their software is priced on a per-employee, per-month basis. A bulk discount is also applied as your headcount rises.
With both plans, you’ll receive features like:
- Candidate Keyword Search
- Candidate Record
- Email & Offer Letter Templates
- Hiring Mobile App
- Job Boards
- Talent Pools
Add-ons for payroll, benefits administration, and time tracking are also available for an extra fee.
7. CEIPAL
CEIPAL uses a $24 per user per month model, with a 5-user minimum. You'll receive the following within your package:
- unlimited resume parsing
- comprehensive job requisition
- easy job posting
- applicant acquisition
- integrated CRM
- recruitment lifecycle automation
- 24/5 support
- free training
- free data migration
- dedicated support rep
8. Recruitee
Recruitee offers three pricing plans, Start, Grow, and Optimise which are available to pay monthly or annually.
- Start: starts from £224 per month for 5 job slot. It includes user-friendly talent pipelines, 1,450+ free and paid job boards, jobs widgets, video chat, candidate reminders and tracking information, GDPR compliance features, live chat and support, social media connections, reporting, API access and team notes.
- Grow: starts from £281 per month for unlimited job slots. It includes everything in Launch plus advanced automation, email scheduling, knockout questions, calendar meeting rooms, workflow templates, role-based access, and fair evaluations.
- Optimise: custom quotes are available from the vendor. This plan includes everything in Scale plus external data imports, tailored onboarding tool, requisition approval, dedicated customer success manager, testing sandbox, regular team consultations and API support.
9. Jazz HR
Jazz HR targets small businesses with headcounts below 500 employees. It offers three pricing plans:
- Hero: priced from $75 per month when billed annually. The package is designed for unlimited users and 3 active job positions, with extra jobs priced at $9 per job per month. The plan includes premium job listings, new candidate email alerts, a searchable talent pool database, custom job workflow stages, LinkedIn Recruiter integration, and role management.
- Plus: priced from $269 per month on an annual plan for unlimited users and unlimited open jobs. It includes everything from the Hero package, plus background checking tools, a recruiting calendar, interview guides, candidate evaluation templates, skills & coding test integrations, and video screening integrations.
- Pro: priced from $420 per month on an annual plan for unlimited users and unlimited open jobs. It includes everything from the Plus package and also eSignatures integration, template management, offer letter generator, compliance tools, and free data imports.
10. Breezy HR
Breezy HR offers four price packages: Bootstrap, Startup, Growth, and Business. All paid plans are designed for unlimited users and candidates.
- Bootstrap: this free package includes a branded career site, distribution to 50+ job boards, multi-language support, and GDPR compliance.
- Startup: priced from $189 per month, this plan includes everything from Bootstrap plus integrations for background screening, Slack, email and calendars, candidate questionnaires, automation, live video meetings, and assessments.
- Growth: priced from $329 per month, it includes everything from Startup plus automated reference checking, customisable interview guides and candidate scorecards, external recruiter support, and more
- Business: priced from $529 per month, it includes everything from Growth, plus multi-path questionnaires, assessment integrations, candidate nurture campaigns, offer management, and more.
Which applicant tracking software model is right for you?
So, we've cracked the code to ATS pricing, and it's over to you to select the right package and recruitment software vendor for your hiring process.
Consider your current hiring needs, but also look into your crystal ball to predict future growth within the next 1 to 5 years. Always choose an ATS supplier that provides flexibility to grow or scale back in line with your company org chart and your HR department's bandwidth.
Want to achieve a fantastic candidate experience and source diverse and highly-skilled applicants?
Remember: budget will always be a consideration, but it shouldn't overshadow the value that a quality applicant tracking system provides. The best recruitment tools incorporate the following advanced features:
- powerful bias-removing software
- anonymised applications and reviewing
- inclusive job descriptions with built-in gender decoding
- skills-based testing
- centralised client communication dashboard
- predictive shortlisting
- data-driven analytics.
Applied is the all-in-one recruitment software purpose-built to reduce bias and reliably predict quality talent.
Start transforming your hiring now: book in a demo.
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