10 Best Applicant Tracking Systems for Small Businesses

Hiring breaks faster than any other process in a growing company – and we all know the cost (financial and emotional) that even a single bad hire can cause.

Which is why an applicant tracking system (ATS) is so important to implement early on. We ran hiring at Venture Harbour on Breezy for over five years and tested nine alternatives. Here’s what to look for when choosing one — and how the ten best stack up.

What to look for in an ATS

There are five things that separate a good ATS from a mediocre one.

1. Pipeline management. A drag-and-drop board that moves candidates through stages you define. If this feels clunky, nothing else matters.

2. Automation depth. Stage-triggered actions — rejection emails, screening questionnaires, interview scheduling. These are the most mind-numbingly tedious jobs when you have 198 applications to wade through. Automate them.

3. Sourcing reach. You want one-click publishing to lots of job boards. Originally, I assumed that 99% of candidates will just use the big job boards (e.g. Indeed.com in the UK) but this misses some nuance – niche job boards often bring in very high-quality candidates.

4. Collaborative hiring with a paper trail. Shared scorecards, structured interview kits, decision logs. From a compliance perspective you’ll want to ensure you’ve got a paper trail for why each candidate was rejected or scored the way they were.

5. Pricing model. Flat-rate plans (Breezy, GoHire, Teamtailor) usually beat per-seat pricing for startups under 50 people. Per-seat only makes sense once you have a dedicated recruiting team.

Top Applicant Tracking Software

One important thing to note about ATS software is that you’re not limited to choosing from a small group of providers—there are lots of solutions to choose from, each with different feature sets, price points, and the niche it’s designed for.

We’ve chosen some of our favourites for specific mention:

1. Breezy - Best ATS for small businesses
2. Ashby — Best all-in-one ATS for scaling startups
3. Manatal — Best AI-powered ATS on a budget
4. Workable - Best ATS with built-in sourcing tools
5. Greenhouse - Best ATS for tech companies
6. Teamtailor — Best for employer branding
7. BambooHR - Best end-to-end HR solution for startups
8. Lever — Best ATS + CRM combo
9. Zoho Recruit — Best free ATS for startups
10. GoHire - Best UK-based ATS for small teams

Now, let’s dive into the full list of the best applicant tracking systems.

01Breezy

Best ATS for small businesses (this is the tool we actually use)

Breezy HR is our top pick — and not just because we’ve used it ourselves at Venture Harbour for over five years. It’s the ATS that consistently delivers the best balance of power, simplicity, and value for growing businesses.

What makes Breezy click for us is how familiar it feels from day one. The interface mirrors a Kanban board (think Trello), where you define clear stages in your hiring process and drag candidates through them. There’s no steep learning curve, no week-long onboarding — you can have your first job posted within minutes.

Where Breezy really earns its keep is through “stage actions” — automated triggers that fire when you move a candidate from one stage to the next. For instance, when someone applies for a role at Venture Harbour, we automatically send a screening questionnaire. This alone filters out roughly 15–20% of candidates who aren’t a good fit, saving our team hours of manual review every week.

Breezy has also stepped up its AI game. The platform now includes AI-powered candidate evaluation, interaction summaries, and resume auditing — features that help you quickly surface the strongest candidates without wading through every application manually. It also includes built-in video interviewing (both live and one-way), self-scheduling for candidates, and EEOC/OFCCP compliance tracking that works with a simple toggle.

One criticism we’d flag: some of the more advanced features, like creating custom interview guides and multi-path questionnaires, aren’t immediately intuitive. There’s a bit of a learning curve once you move beyond the basics. And the mobile app, while functional, doesn’t surface all the information you’d see on desktop.

Key features:

• Unlimited users and candidates on all plans (no per-seat charges)
• Visual drag-and-drop hiring pipeline with customisable stages
• AI-powered candidate scoring and resume auditing
• Automated stage actions (emails, questionnaires, tasks triggered on candidate movement)
• Built-in video interviewing (live and one-way)
• Candidate self-scheduling synced with Google/Office 365 calendars
• One-click distribution to 50+ job boards
• GDPR compliance and EEOC/OFCCP reporting

Pricing:

Breezy doesn’t charge per seat — all plans include unlimited users and candidates, which is a genuine advantage over competitors.

Plan	Monthly	Annual (per month)	Active Positions
Bootstrap (Free)	$0	$0	1
Startup	$189/mo	$157/mo	Unlimited
Growth	$329/mo	$273/mo	Unlimited
Business	$529/mo	$439/mo	Unlimited
Pro	Custom	Custom	Unlimited

Annual billing includes 2 months free. The Pro tier adds API access, SSO, advanced reporting, and a dedicated account manager — contact Breezy for a quote.

• Genuinely intuitive interface with minimal onboarding needed

• No per-seat pricing — great value for collaborative hiring teams

• Strong automation that meaningfully reduces manual work

• Free tier available to test before committing

Our verdict: Breezy is the ATS we’d recommend to most startups and small businesses. It does the fundamentals exceptionally well, the pricing is fair, and the automation genuinely saves time. If you need enterprise-grade compliance or deep analytics, you’ll outgrow it — but for the majority of growing companies, it’s hard to beat.

Is Breezy the right ATS for you?

Startups and small businesses (5–200 employees) that want a powerful ATS without per-seat charges. If you’re hiring across multiple roles, want collaborative scoring, and need automation that actually fires reliably, Breezy is the safest pick on this list.

Open Breezy's Website→Read Breezy review

02Ashby

Best all-in-one ATS for scaling startups and data-driven hiring teams.

Ashby has rapidly become the ATS of choice for ambitious, fast-growing tech companies — and for good reason. It’s one of the few platforms that genuinely combines ATS, CRM, scheduling, and deep analytics into a single product without feeling bolted together.

The standout feature is Ashby’s analytics. Where most ATS platforms give you basic time-to-hire reports, Ashby provides granular data on pass-through rates by stage, interviewer calibration, source effectiveness, and pipeline health — the kind of metrics that a Head of Talent at a Series B startup actually needs to make hiring decisions. If you’re the type of team that wants to measure everything, Ashby delivers.

The automation is equally impressive. You can set up multi-step workflows that trigger based on candidate stage changes, automate interview scheduling across complex panels, and create structured interview kits with standardised scorecards. It’s clearly designed by people who’ve felt the pain of hiring at scale.

That said, Ashby isn’t simple. The platform requires genuine investment to set up properly — we’re talking weeks of configuration, not hours. The scheduling system alone has 14 tabs of settings. For a 5-person startup making its first few hires, this is overkill. Ashby is built for teams that are hiring consistently and have someone dedicated to managing the recruitment process.

Key features:

• All-in-one ATS + CRM + scheduling + analytics
• Industry-leading hiring analytics with custom dashboards
• Structured interview kits with standardised scorecards
• Multi-step workflow automation
• AI-powered candidate sourcing and outreach
• Candidate relationship management for passive talent pools
• Integrations with 100+ HR tools

Pricing:

Ashby finally published headline pricing for its smallest tier in 2025 — though Plus and Enterprise remain quote-only.

Plan	Price	Best For
Foundations (All-in-One)	$400/mo	Up to 100 employees
Plus (All-in-One)	Custom quote	101–1,000 employees
Enterprise (All-in-One)	Custom quote	1,000+ employees
Ashby Analytics (add-on)	Custom quote	Layered onto an existing ATS

Annual contracts unlock a 10% discount. Multi-year deals can stretch this to 20%. There’s no public free trial — you’ll need to book a demo to evaluate the platform.

• Best-in-class analytics and reporting — genuinely actionable data

• True all-in-one platform (ATS, CRM, scheduling, analytics)

• Powerful automation that scales with your hiring volume

• Strong reputation among tech startups and VC-backed companies

Our verdict: Ashby is the right choice if you’re a scaling startup with dedicated recruiting capacity and a hunger for data-driven hiring. It’s not the right tool for a founder doing occasional hiring — you’ll spend more time configuring it than actually recruiting. But for teams making 20+ hires per year, it’s one of the most powerful platforms available.

Is Ashby the right ATS for you?

Series A–C tech startups, mid-market companies hiring 20+ roles per year, and any team that takes hiring metrics seriously. The analytics, scheduling, and workflow automation pay off heavily once you have someone whose job it is to actually use them.

Open Ashby's Website→

03Manatal

Best AI-powered ATS for teams on a tight budget.

If you’re looking for genuine AI features at a price point that won’t make your accountant flinch, Manatal is difficult to ignore. Starting at just $15 per user per month (billed annually), it’s one of the most affordable ATS platforms on the market — yet it packs in AI-driven candidate scoring, social media profile enrichment, and access to a database of over 600 million candidates.

Founded in Bangkok in 2017, Manatal has grown rapidly by targeting the gap between expensive enterprise tools and bare-bones free options. The platform uses AI to automatically score and rank candidates against your job requirements, pulling in data from LinkedIn and 20+ social platforms to build richer candidate profiles than what you’d get from a CV alone.

The Kanban pipeline is clean and intuitive — you can drag candidates between stages, set up automated actions, and collaborate with your team through shared notes and activity feeds. Manatal also recently introduced an AI Interviewer feature, which conducts automated first-round screening with asynchronous video interviews and AI-generated assessment summaries. It’s a genuinely useful feature for high-volume roles where you’d otherwise spend days on initial phone screens.

The trade-off for the low price is depth. Reporting is basic compared to tools like Ashby or Greenhouse, customisation options are limited, and the integration ecosystem is narrower than what you’ll find with more established platforms. The career page builder works but feels like an afterthought rather than a standout feature.

Key features:

• AI-powered candidate scoring and ranking
• Social media enrichment across 20+ platforms (LinkedIn, Facebook, etc.)
• Access to a Sourcing Hub of 600M+ candidate profiles
• AI Interviewer for automated first-round screening
• Job posting to 2,500+ free and premium channels
• Customisable Kanban pipeline
• Recruitment CRM for agencies
• GDPR, CCPA, and PDPA compliance

Pricing:

Manatal’s pricing is refreshingly transparent — no need to speak with sales:

Plan	Annual (per user/mo)	Monthly	Limits
Professional	$15	$19	15 jobs · 10,000 candidates
Enterprise	$35	$39	Unlimited jobs & candidates · workflow automations
Enterprise Plus	$55	$59	+ SSO, user groups, API access, priority support
Custom	On request	On request	Dedicated AM, custom features, phone support

All plans include a 14-day free trial with no credit card required. Hiring managers are unlimited on every tier — you only pay per recruiter seat.

• Exceptional value — hard to find this level of AI functionality at this price

• Fast setup (the company claims 15 minutes, which in our experience isn’t far off)

• Transparent pricing with no hidden fees

• Strong AI features including the new AI Interviewer

Our verdict: Manatal is the best “bang for your buck” ATS on the market right now. If you’re a startup or small business that wants AI-powered recruiting without spending £300+/mo, it’s a no-brainer to at least trial it. Don’t expect enterprise-grade analytics or deep customisation — but for straightforward hiring with smart automation, it punches well above its price point.

Is Manatal the right ATS for you?

Cost-conscious startups, recruitment agencies running multiple client searches, and any team that wants AI features without the enterprise price tag. The agency CRM is genuinely useful — Manatal is one of the few platforms that caters to both in-house teams and external recruiters.

Open Manatal's Website→

04Workable

Best ATS with built-in sourcing tools.

Boasting, “Enterprise-grade hiring, for everyone,” Workable offers a robust solution in a pretty low-cost package and with flexible options for scaling up your recruiting efforts.

They break down their features into 3 main categories:

1. Find
2. Evaluate
3. Automate

Their platform offers many of the features you’d expect, allowing you to build branded career portals and job listings, sync with job boards, and share listings via social media.

But, what makes Workable really stand out is their built-in database of over 400 million candidates, which is searchable by employment history, roles, and specific skills.

This gives your team the ability to proactively source candidates and build automated outreach campaigns to drive applications. Workable also makes AI-powered candidate recommendations based on your job listings. Note: Access to the candidate database appears to only be available for annual plans and not pay-as-you-go solutions.

In addition to these powerful tools, Workable has built-in features to drive internal referrals, including gamification, rewards, and leaderboards.

They have collaborative evaluation tools so your hiring team can score and discuss specific candidates.

And, one more unique feature, is what Workable calls “one-way video interviews”, which allow candidates to record video responses to specific prompts. They bill these as a replacement for a traditional phone screen. These require integration with third-party video tools.

Workable gets rave reviews for the ability to quickly build and deploy hiring workflows, including automation for candidates at various stages in the hiring process.

All told, Workable offers a pretty unique platform that offers features beyond many ATS solutions. Perhaps the only drawback is that they are only focused on sourcing and hiring, but don’t offer the same onboarding and employee management features of an HR suite like Greenhouse or BambooHR.

Key features:

• Branded careers and job listings pages
• Searchable database of 400 million+ candidates
• Gamified internal referral features
• One-way video interviews
• Multi-step workflow automation
• Built-in HRIS, onboarding, time tracking, and performance reviews on Premier+

• 400M+ candidate database is genuinely searchable by skill, role, and company — closest thing to a built-in LinkedIn Recruiter

• 15-day free trial includes the full Standard feature set (no credit card required)

• All-in-one Recruiting + HR if you upgrade to Premier

• Strong automation for sourcing campaigns and referral programmes

• Mature integration ecosystem (300+ integrations)

Pricing:

Workable retired its pay-as-you-go option in 2024. All plans are now monthly or annual subscriptions, and prices below assume up to 20 employees with 20% off on annual billing.

Plan	Monthly	Annual	Best For
Standard	$299/mo	$3,588/yr	Pure ATS for small teams
Premier	$599/mo	$7,188/yr	Full Recruiting + HR suite
Enterprise	$719/mo	$8,628/yr	Larger teams needing SSO, advanced security

Standard add-ons (per month): Texting+ $89 · Video Interviews+ $109 · Assessments+ $59 · Performance Reviews+ $39. Premier and Enterprise bundle these in.

Is Workable the right ATS for you?

Mid-sized companies (20–500 employees) that want recruiting plus light HRIS in one platform, and any team that does heavy proactive sourcing. The 400M+ candidate database is the genuine differentiator — if you’re hiring for hard-to-fill roles, Workable saves you a separate LinkedIn Recruiter subscription.

Open Workable's Website→

05Greenhouse

Best ATS for tech companies.

The goal of this ATS is twofold—allow you to scale your recruitment processes during times of growth, and empower you to refine them during off-peak times.

Greenhouse has quickly become a recruitment and hiring platform du jour for tech companies and startups. In part, because it offers all of the core features you’ll need to rapidly scale your team in a well-designed and intuitive package. But, it’s also especially well-suited for industries that prioritise candidate experience and compete to hire top talent.

SoftwareAdvice.com

The UI and UX for both applicants and internal teams are truly second to none.

GetApp.com

Greenhouse also offers best-in-class features for creating and managing diversity, equity, and inclusion (DE&I) initiatives. They offer specific tools designed to combat hiring bias like in-app prompts for hiring teams, anonymous candidate reviews, and pre-defined decision criteria.

Key features:

• Best-in-class user interface and candidate experience scores
• Structured interview kits with standardised scorecards
• Sourcing & CRM with Real Talent matching
• DE&I tools (anonymous reviews, in-app bias prompts)
• 500+ pre-built integrations (the largest ATS marketplace)
• SOC 2, GDPR, and enterprise-grade audit logs (Pro tier)
• Onboarding workflows with personalised welcome sequences

• Reference standard for structured hiring — interview kits and scorecards genuinely reduce hiring bias

• Largest integration marketplace of any ATS (500+ partners)

• Excellent candidate experience scores on G2 and Capterra

• Strong DE&I tooling, including anonymised candidate reviews

• Native onboarding handoff if you also use Greenhouse Onboarding

Pricing:

Greenhouse doesn’t publish list pricing. Plans are now branded Core / Plus / Pro (renamed from Essential / Advanced / Expert in 2025). Based on verified buyer reports through early 2026:

Company Size	Approx. Annual Cost (Core)
Under 50 employees	$6,000–$10,000/yr
50–200 employees	$12,000–$18,000/yr
200–500 employees	$25,000–$40,000/yr
1,000+ employees	$50,000–$70,000+ /yr (Pro)

Implementation is quoted separately at smaller tiers ($2,000–$8,000). Pro adds enterprise security, audit logs, developer sandbox, and unlimited CRM events.

Is Greenhouse the right ATS for you?

Series B+ tech companies, scale-ups hiring 50+ roles per year, and any team that takes structured hiring seriously. If you need a defensible interview process, deep integrations, and enterprise-grade security, Greenhouse is the safe procurement-friendly choice.

Open Greenhouse's Website→

06Teamtailor

Best ATS for employer branding and candidate experience.

Teamtailor approaches recruitment from a different angle than most ATS platforms. Rather than focusing primarily on pipeline management or analytics, it treats hiring as a marketing and branding exercise — and that philosophy shapes every aspect of the product.

The centrepiece is Teamtailor’s career site builder, which is genuinely best-in-class. It’s a no-code, drag-and-drop editor that lets your talent team (not your developers) create polished career pages with team stories, culture videos, department spotlights, and interactive content. The level of customisation is remarkable — you can adjust fonts, colours, button styles, and layouts without touching a line of code. For companies competing for talent in crowded markets, this feature alone can justify the subscription.

Beyond branding, Teamtailor is a capable ATS with strong automation. You can set up triggers to automatically move candidates between stages, send templated communications, and schedule interviews. The AI Co-pilot — introduced in recent updates — helps draft job descriptions, summarise CVs, and suggest candidate matches, though it’s more of a time-saver than a game-changer at this stage.

Teamtailor is particularly popular in Europe (it was founded in Sweden) and includes solid GDPR compliance features out of the box. It’s priced competitively for what it offers, though you’ll need to speak with sales for an exact quote.

Key features:

• Best-in-class no-code career site builder
• AI Co-pilot for job descriptions, CV summaries, and candidate matching
• Automation triggers for pipeline stages and candidate communications
• DEI features including anonymised screening
• Employee referral tools
• Built-in analytics and hiring metrics
• GDPR compliance and multi-language support
• Unlimited users on all plans

Pricing:

Teamtailor doesn’t publish fixed pricing — you’ll need to book a demo. Unusually, it prices by the number of open job slots rather than headcount or seats, which makes the maths look very different from competitors. Verified buyer data through early 2026 puts the typical contracts at:

Company Size	Approx. Annual Cost
Small team (1–5 active jobs)	~$2,750–$5,000/yr
Growing team (10–20 active jobs)	$7,000–$17,000/yr
Mid-market (30+ active jobs)	$18,000–$36,000/yr
Enterprise (1,000+ employees)	Up to $72,000+ /yr

12-month minimum contract is standard. Most agreements include 3–8% annual renewal escalators — worth negotiating out where possible. Unlimited users on every tier.

• Best career site builder of any ATS — a genuine competitive advantage

• Strong employer branding tools that attract higher-quality candidates

• Unlimited users included (no per-seat charges)

• Responsive customer support with live chat

• Clean, modern interface that both recruiters and candidates enjoy

Our verdict: If employer branding is a strategic priority for your company, Teamtailor is the clear winner. The career site builder genuinely differentiates it from everything else on this list. As a pure ATS for processing candidates, it’s competent but not class-leading — so weigh up whether branding or pipeline power matters more for your team.

Is Teamtailor the right ATS for you?

European companies that compete for talent on culture and brand — agencies, design studios, consumer brands, and any team where the careers page is part of the marketing surface. Also a strong pick for companies with stable, moderate hiring volumes where job-slot pricing works in your favour.

Open Teamtailor's Website→

07BambooHR

Best end-to-end HR solution for startups.

One more applicant tracking system that’s near and dear to our hearts is BambooHR.

For startups and small businesses that are looking to really button up their hiring and onboarding process—perhaps in one fell swoop—BambooHR is likely to check all of the boxes for your team.

The functionality extends beyond the common ATS and borders on an all-in-one HR suite, but in a much more accessible package (and price range) than many of the enterprise solutions out there.

On the hiring front, BambooHR offers a strong set of tools to build branded job pages, create listings, collect applications, and then build a candidate funnel to fill each role.

The features here are roughly equivalent to what you’ll get with solutions like Breezy or GoHire. But, Bamboo does offer some extended functionality that dips into the realm of employee experience, HR, and performance management.

This platform covers the most obvious next step in the hiring journey—employee onboarding.

From sending and storing offer letters to building customizing onboarding workflows, BambooHR packs a powerful suite of tools that can help you not just find and hire talent but bring them into the fold with less stress and headache.

This is important for startups because establishing a consistent onboarding flow is just as important as filling empty seats. And when you’re growing fast, you need a system in place to make sure that each new hire is ready to go right away.

BambooHR extends even further, offering time tracking, paid time off, benefits administration tools, employee satisfaction surveys, and more.

It’s the Swiss Army knife of hiring and managing employees.

One thing to consider here is that, in some cases, when platforms attempt to do it all, it comes at the expense of doing any one function particularly well. For what it’s worth, BambooHR boasts an average review of 4.5/5 on Capterra and they have hundreds of glowing reviews. But, some users have noted that the nitty-gritty HR features like benefits management are not as intuitive as you might expect.

Key features:

• Branded jobs pages and listings
• Candidate funnels and applicant tracking (5–50 active jobs by tier)
• Automated employee onboarding
• Employee records, benefits administration, time tracking
• Performance management tools and employee satisfaction surveys
• Native payroll (US) and integrations with major payroll providers

• True end-to-end HR + ATS in a single platform — replaces three or four separate tools for most small businesses

• Excellent onboarding workflows that hand off cleanly from the ATS

• 4.5/5 average review on Capterra with thousands of reviews

• Native US payroll available as a paid add-on

• Strong mobile app (one of the few HRIS platforms with feature parity to desktop)

Pricing:

BambooHR does not list public pricing — every quote is custom. Based on third-party buyer data through early 2026:

Plan	Approx. Per-Employee Cost (mo)	What’s Included
Core	~$10/employee	HRIS, employee records, time-off, basic ATS (5 active jobs)
Pro	~$17/employee	+ Performance management, advanced reporting, ATS (20 active jobs)
Elite	~$25/employee	+ Multi-EIN, advanced security, ATS (50 active jobs)

Companies with 25 or fewer employees pay a flat $250/mo minimum. Per-employee rates decrease at higher headcount tiers. ATS is included in every plan — there’s no separate add-on fee.

Is BambooHR the right ATS for you?

Small businesses (10–200 employees) that want to consolidate HR, payroll, and recruiting into a single platform. If you’re hiring fewer than 20 roles per year and care more about onboarding and employee management than recruiting depth, BambooHR is the obvious all-in-one pick.

Open BambooHR's Website→

08Lever (by Employ)

Best ATS + CRM combination for proactive talent sourcing.

Lever — now part of the Employ suite following its acquisition — was one of the first platforms to combine applicant tracking with a full candidate relationship management (CRM) system. This makes it particularly strong for companies that do a lot of proactive sourcing rather than simply posting jobs and waiting for applications.

The CRM functionality allows your team to build long-term talent pools, nurture passive candidates with automated email sequences, and track candidate engagement over time. When a role opens up, you can search your existing talent pool first rather than starting from scratch. For companies in competitive talent markets where the best candidates aren’t actively job-seeking, this is a genuine strategic advantage.

On the ATS side, Lever offers customisable hiring pipelines, collaborative feedback tools, interview scheduling, and offer management. The interface is clean and well-designed, though power users sometimes find it less configurable than alternatives like Greenhouse or Ashby.

Since joining Employ, Lever has been bundled with other recruitment tools in the portfolio, which can make the product positioning and pricing slightly confusing. The platform has also seen less frequent standalone updates compared to independent competitors.

Key features:

• Combined ATS + CRM in a single platform
• Talent nurture campaigns with automated email sequences
• Searchable talent pools for proactive sourcing
• Customisable hiring pipelines and workflows
• Collaborative candidate evaluation with structured feedback
• Diversity and inclusion analytics
• Advanced reporting and analytics
• 300+ integrations

Pricing:

Lever uses a custom, quote-based model — every price is negotiated. Based on verified buyer reports through early 2026:

Company Size	Approx. Annual Cost
Small team (under 50 employees)	$4,000–$8,000/yr
Mid-market (50–500 employees)	$12,000–$37,000/yr
Enterprise (500–1,000+ employees)	$63,000–$144,000+ /yr

A rough per-employee benchmark is $6–$8/employee/month. Annual contracts are standard. Add-ons (Candidate Insights, AI Screening by VONQ, Onboarding) cost extra.

• Best-in-class CRM for building and nurturing passive talent pools

• Strong combination of reactive (ATS) and proactive (CRM) hiring

• Good analytics with diversity and pipeline health reporting

• Established platform with a large integration ecosystem

Our verdict: Lever is the right choice for companies that rely heavily on proactive sourcing and candidate relationship building. The CRM is genuinely differentiated — if you regularly nurture passive candidates over weeks or months before they’re ready to apply, Lever makes this workflow seamless. For companies that primarily hire through job postings, a traditional ATS will serve you just as well at a lower price.

Is Lever the right ATS for you?

Mid-market and enterprise companies that hire in competitive talent markets and rely on proactive sourcing. If your recruiting team builds and nurtures talent pools over months — common in tech, finance, and exec search — Lever’s combined ATS + CRM is the cleanest implementation available.

Open Lever (by Employ)'s Website→

09Zoho Recruit

Best free ATS for bootstrapped startups and small teams.

If you’re a bootstrapped startup with no recruitment budget, Zoho Recruit is the strongest free ATS available. The Forever Free plan includes one active job, candidate management, email integration, and interview scheduling — enough to manage basic hiring without spending a penny.

Beyond the free tier, Zoho Recruit offers a solid feature set that punches above its weight class. The AI matching engine scores candidates against your job requirements, automated resume parsing builds structured profiles, and the platform integrates natively with the broader Zoho ecosystem (CRM, People, Mail, etc.) — a significant advantage if your business already uses Zoho tools.

For recruitment agencies, Zoho Recruit includes a full CRM module for managing client relationships alongside candidate tracking, making it one of the few platforms on this list that caters to both in-house hiring teams and agencies.

The trade-offs are predictable for a budget tool. The interface feels dated compared to modern competitors like Breezy or Teamtailor, the learning curve is steeper than it should be (especially initial setup), and customer support response times can be slow on lower-tier plans.

Key features:

• Forever Free plan with 1 active job
• AI candidate matching and scoring
• Automated resume parsing
• Job posting to major boards (Indeed, LinkedIn, Glassdoor, etc.)
• Built-in recruitment CRM for agencies
• Native integration with Zoho ecosystem
• Custom workflows and automation (on paid plans)
• GDPR and EEOC compliance tools

Pricing:

Plan	Annual (per user/mo)	Monthly	Active Jobs
Forever Free	$0	$0	1
Standard	$25	$30	10 (resume parsing, email templates)
Professional	$50	$60	Unlimited (AI matching, candidate portal)
Enterprise	$75	$90	Unlimited (custom modules, advanced analytics)

Annual billing saves up to 16%. Add-ons (Vendor Portal, Video Interviews, Employee Licences) are priced separately and can push real-world costs 30–50% above the headline rate. Note: prices reflect the Staffing Agency edition — the Corporate HR edition skips the Professional tier and goes straight from Standard to Enterprise.

• Genuine free tier with no time limit — rare among ATS platforms

• Excellent value across all pricing tiers

• Strong AI features for the price point

• Native Zoho ecosystem integration

• Dual-purpose: works for both in-house teams and recruitment agencies

Our verdict: Zoho Recruit is the obvious choice for startups with zero recruitment budget. The free tier is genuinely usable (not just a demo), and the paid plans offer strong value. If your company already uses the Zoho ecosystem, it’s practically a no-brainer. The main risk is the dated interface — if candidate experience and employer branding matter to you, consider Teamtailor or Breezy instead.

Is Zoho Recruit the right ATS for you?

Bootstrapped startups, sole-trader recruitment agencies, and any business that already runs on the Zoho stack (CRM, Mail, People). The free tier is one of the only “actually usable” free ATS plans on the market — and the Staffing Agency edition is purpose-built for boutique recruiters.

Open Zoho Recruit's Website→

10GoHire

Best ATS for UK-based companies

GoHire finds a sweet spot in the ATS space by offering the most popular features of other tools at a very competitive price point.

At Venture Harbour, we’ve considered making the jump to GoHire because it’s such a powerful tool in an easy-to-use package. It offers much of the same functionality as our current solution.

GoHire allows you to build a branded careers page and post job descriptions to your company socials as well as 15+ third-party job boards.

That’s, of course, a relatively small number of job board integrations compared to some other ATS options. But, it’s indicative of GoHire’s focus on startups and special emphasis on hiring for software companies.

GoHire offers a familiar, multi-step hiring workflow with defined stages and a snapshot of all candidates at each stage. It’s a bit more complex than the simplified view in a solution like Breezy, but also allows your team to rate and score candidates.

You can also automate messages and tasks within each stage and create templates for consistent messaging and workflows.

It’s important to note that GoHire is specifically geared towards startups and small to medium-sized companies. If you’re looking for a full-blown enterprise suite, this probably won’t fit the bill.

Key features:

• Visual pipeline and candidate management with ratings
• Branded careers pages and job descriptions
• AI-powered candidate matching and CV parsing
• 700+ job description templates (UK-tailored)
• Posting to 15+ job boards (Reed, Totaljobs, Indeed, LinkedIn)
• Screening questions, scorecards, and automated stage actions
• Video questionnaires and advanced reporting on Pro

• Cheapest serious ATS on this list — Starter at $99/mo undercuts every competitor at the same feature depth

• Unlimited team members on every plan

• 30% discount for registered charities; Early-Stage Program offers discounted Pro for qualifying startups

• UK-built and UK-focused — strongest integrations with Reed, Totaljobs, and other UK boards

• 14-day free trial with no credit card required

Pricing:

Plan	Monthly	Active Jobs	Key Features
Starter	$99/mo (£89)	3	Unlimited users, CV parsing, AI matching
Growth	$199/mo (£149)	10	+ Screening questions, customisable pipelines, activity feed
Pro	$299/mo (£249)	Unlimited	+ Video questionnaires, scorecards, automated stage actions, advanced reporting

Annual billing saves 2 months. Pro 2-year commitments save up to ~$1,900. 30% off for registered charities. Discounted Pro available for qualifying early-stage startups for up to 12 months.

Is GoHire the right ATS for you?

UK-based startups and small businesses (under 100 employees) that want a clean, affordable ATS with proper UK job-board coverage. If your hiring is mostly in the UK and you don’t need a 50-board global distribution network, GoHire is the price-performance pick.

Open GoHire's Website→

By Type of Business

The best ATS depends on what you’re hiring for, where you’re based, and how much recruiting capacity you have. Here’s my take on the strongest contenders for different types of business.

Best ATS for startups

Winner: Breezy. Runner-up: Manatal.

Breezy is the ATS we use ourselves at Venture Harbour, and it's the one I'd recommend to any founder making their first proper round of hires. The reason is unit economics: Breezy doesn't charge per seat. So your engineering lead, your marketing lead, and your CEO can all collaborate on a candidate without three separate licences eating into your runway. At $157/mo on the Startup plan, you get unlimited users, unlimited candidates, and stage-triggered automation that genuinely cuts the busywork.

The Bootstrap (free) plan is also a legitimate option if you only have one role open at a time — it's the same product, just capped at 1 active position. Most founders end up upgrading once they're hiring across two or three roles concurrently, but you can validate the workflow at zero cost first.

Manatal is the runner-up if your single biggest constraint is cost and you want AI features. At $15/user/mo (annual), it's the cheapest "real" ATS on the market, and the AI Interviewer can save you hours of phone-screen time on high-volume roles. The trade-off is depth — reporting and customisation are basic — but for an early-stage team that needs candidates in the door fast, Manatal punches above its price.

Try Breezy — Free Plan Available →

How to Choose the Best ATS for Your Company

When it comes to choosing the right ATS for your company, several factors will come into play.

To break it down, you’ll want to consider:

• Pricing
• Features
• Extendability
• Integrations
• Complexity
• Hiring stack

The most fundamental question to ask when evaluating solutions is which type of hiring software you truly need for your current and future hiring needs.

Most of the applicant tracking systems here can be divided into 2 main camps:

1. Purpose-built ATS designed to simply create job postings and track candidates in the pipeline
2. All-in-one HR solutions with ATS functionality plus onboarding, employee management, compliance, and more

If you’re looking for option 1, then a solution like BreezyHR or GoHire are likely to be best suited for your needs.

Under option 2, we love the full suite of features offered by Workable, BambooHR, and Greenhouse.

ATS Price Comparison

Finally, there’s the question of bang for the buck.

Based on our evaluation of dozens of options—and our top picks listed here—we’ve broken down the full range of options by their pricing and have followed this with a comparison that takes into account features.

Tool	1 active job	3 active jobs	10 active jobs
Breezy	Free (Bootstrap)	$157/mo (Startup, annual)	$157/mo (Startup, annual)
GoHire	$99/mo (Starter)	$99/mo (Starter)	$199/mo (Growth)
Manatal	$15/user/mo (Pro, annual)	$15/user/mo (Pro, annual)	$15/user/mo (Pro, annual)
Zoho Recruit	Free	$25/user/mo (Standard, annual)	$25/user/mo (Standard, annual)
Workable	$299/mo (Standard)	$299/mo (Standard)	$299/mo (Standard)
Teamtailor	~$229–400/mo	~$300/mo	~$500–700/mo
Ashby	$400/mo (Foundations)	$400/mo (Foundations)	$400/mo (Foundations)
BambooHR	$250/mo min (≤25 employees)	~$10/employee/mo (Core)	~$10/employee/mo (Core)
Lever	~$4–8K/yr	~$4–8K/yr	~$8–12K/yr
Greenhouse	~$6–10K/yr (Core, <50 employees)	~$6–10K/yr (Core)	~$10–18K/yr (Core)

You’ll notice that no matter your budget or the complexity of the solution you’re looking for, one of these tools is almost certainly right for your needs.

Based on the above criteria, you can safely decide whether you’re looking for a high-end solution with more end-to-end HR features, or a simpler solution that might come at a more affordable price. Or, most likely, you’ll want to look for something in the middle—an affordable solution with all of the features you need, but nothing more.

Again, our top picks here include:

1. GoHire
2. BreezyHR
3. Workable
4. BambooHR
5. Greenhouse

Each of these solutions seems to hit a sweet spot in terms of pricing and functionality, with the more comprehensive HR suites demanding a higher price but also including a fuller range of features for talent management.

No matter which ATS you choose, you’ll likely be grateful to have a system in place to make hiring faster, easier, and more organised.

Take a few options for a test drive, figure out which one meets your needs, and then forge ahead.

FAQ

What is an applicant tracking system (ATS)?

An applicant tracking system (ATS) is software that helps businesses manage the entire hiring process in one place. It automates tasks like posting jobs to multiple job boards, collecting and organising applications, screening candidates, scheduling interviews, and tracking each applicant’s progress through your hiring pipeline. Most modern ATS platforms also include AI-powered features such as resume parsing, candidate scoring, and automated communications. For small businesses, an ATS replaces the need to manage recruitment through spreadsheets, email, and manual processes — typically reducing time-to-hire by 30–50%.

What is the best free applicant tracking system?

The best free applicant tracking systems in 2026 are Zoho Recruit, Breezy HR, and Dover. Zoho Recruit offers a Forever Free plan with one active job, candidate management, and email integration — making it the strongest free option for bootstrapped startups. Breezy HR’s Bootstrap plan is also free and includes one active position with unlimited users and candidates. Dover offers a free ATS aimed at startups, though with a more limited feature set. For teams that need more than one active job, Manatal’s 14-day free trial provides full access to AI-powered features before requiring a paid subscription starting at $15 per user per month.

How much does an applicant tracking system cost?

ATS pricing varies widely depending on the platform, your company size, and the features you need. As a rough guide (April 2026): budget-friendly tools like Manatal start at $15 per user per month (annual), mid-range platforms like Breezy HR and GoHire range from $99–$439 per month as a flat fee, Ashby’s Foundations plan starts at $400 per month for companies under 100 employees, and enterprise-grade tools like Greenhouse and Lever typically cost $6,000–$70,000+ per year depending on headcount. Workable starts at $299 per month for the Standard plan. BambooHR uses per-employee pricing (~$10–$25 per employee per month) with a $250/mo minimum. Free tiers are available from Zoho Recruit and Breezy HR for companies with minimal hiring needs.

What is the best ATS for startups?

The best ATS for startups depends on your stage and hiring volume. For early-stage startups making their first few hires, Breezy HR offers the best balance of simplicity, automation, and value — with a free tier and paid plans from $157 per month. For startups on a tight budget that want AI-powered features, Manatal starts at just $15 per user per month. For scaling startups making 20+ hires per year that need advanced analytics, Ashby is the preferred choice among VC-backed tech companies. Zoho Recruit is the best option for bootstrapped startups with zero recruitment budget, offering a genuinely usable free tier.

What is the best applicant tracking system for small businesses?

Breezy HR is the best applicant tracking system for small businesses in 2026. It offers an intuitive drag-and-drop pipeline, one-click job posting to 50+ boards, built-in video interviewing, and strong automation — all without charging per user. Paid plans start at $157 per month with unlimited users and candidates included. For UK-based small businesses, GoHire is a strong alternative with plans from $99 per month, 700+ job description templates, and a focus on simplicity. If you need a combined ATS and HR platform to handle hiring, onboarding, and employee management together, BambooHR provides the most complete all-in-one solution.

What is the difference between an ATS and an HRIS?

An ATS (applicant tracking system) manages the recruitment process — posting jobs, tracking candidates, scheduling interviews, and managing offers. An HRIS (human resource information system) manages employees after they’re hired — handling payroll, benefits, time off, performance reviews, and employee records. Some platforms combine both: BambooHR is an HRIS with built-in ATS functionality, while Workable offers an optional HR module alongside its ATS. For most small businesses, starting with a dedicated ATS like Breezy HR and adding HR tools later is more cost-effective than buying an all-in-one platform upfront.

Do startups need an applicant tracking system?

Most startups benefit from an ATS once they’re hiring for more than two or three roles simultaneously. Before that point, email and spreadsheets can work — but they quickly become unmanageable as application volumes grow. An ATS automates repetitive tasks like sending acknowledgement emails, scheduling interviews, and distributing job postings across multiple boards. This typically saves 10–15 hours per week for a team making regular hires. Free ATS options like Zoho Recruit and Breezy HR’s Bootstrap plan mean there’s no financial barrier to getting started, so even pre-revenue startups can benefit from structured hiring processes from day one.

What is the best applicant tracking system in the UK?

The best ATS options for UK businesses in 2026 include GoHire (a UK-based platform built in York, with plans from £89 per month / $99 USD), Breezy HR (which includes GDPR compliance and supports GBP pricing), and Teamtailor (a Swedish platform with strong European presence and built-in GDPR features). GoHire is particularly well-suited for UK SMBs due to its focus on the UK job market and native integrations with UK job boards like Reed and Totaljobs. For UK businesses that need enterprise-grade structured hiring, Greenhouse offers robust GDPR compliance and multi-language support. When evaluating any ATS for UK use, ensure it supports GDPR-compliant data handling, integrates with UK job boards, and displays pricing in GBP.

What ATS do most companies use?

The most widely used applicant tracking systems vary by company size. Among enterprise and large tech companies, Greenhouse, Workable, and iCIMS are the most common. Among startups and small businesses, Breezy HR, Lever, and BambooHR are popular choices. Ashby has gained significant traction among VC-backed tech startups since 2023. According to industry data, Workable is used by over 27,000 companies, Breezy HR by over 17,000, and Teamtailor by over 10,000. The right choice depends less on what’s most popular and more on your company size, budget, and whether you need a pure ATS or a combined ATS and HR platform.

What is the difference between an ATS and a CRM in recruiting?

An ATS (applicant tracking system) manages active candidates who have applied for open roles — tracking them through stages like screening, interviewing, and offer. A recruitment CRM (candidate relationship management) manages passive candidates who haven’t applied yet — nurturing them through email campaigns, talent pools, and long-term engagement until a suitable role opens. Lever is the leading platform that combines both ATS and CRM in a single product. Manatal also includes CRM functionality aimed at recruitment agencies. For most small businesses that primarily hire through job postings, a standard ATS is sufficient. A CRM becomes valuable when you’re proactively sourcing candidates in competitive talent markets.

Which applicant tracking systems have the best AI features?

The ATS platforms with the strongest AI features in 2026 are Manatal, Ashby, and Workable. Manatal offers AI-powered candidate scoring, social media profile enrichment across 20+ platforms, and an AI Interviewer that conducts automated first-round screening — all from $15 per user per month. Ashby provides AI-powered sourcing and advanced analytics with predictive hiring insights. Workable includes AI candidate sourcing from a 400 million+ profile database and automated outreach campaigns. Breezy HR has also introduced AI candidate evaluation and resume auditing. Teamtailor’s AI Co-pilot assists with drafting job descriptions and summarising CVs. When evaluating AI features, look for tools that automate screening and scoring rather than just generating text.

Update Log

• April 2026: Refreshed pricing across all 10 vendors (validated against vendor sites April 2026). Added “By Type of Business” interactive section covering startups, small businesses, mid-size, enterprise, recruitment agencies, UK-based, AI-powered, and free options. Added Pros/Cons and “Recommended for / Not recommended for” sections to every tool. Updated Greenhouse plan names (Core/Plus/Pro) and noted Workable’s retirement of pay-as-you-go pricing.
• February 2026: Complete overhaul with updated pricing, new vendors (Ashby, Manatal, Teamtailor), removal of discontinued products (Freshteam, Recruiterbox) and hands-on testing methodology.
• August 2020: Original article published with 15 ATS vendors tested