If you are a startup hiring your first ten to fifty people, the short answer is this: pick Workable if you want a published price and a free trial, pick Ashby if recruiting is a core function and you want sourcing, scheduling and analytics in one system, and pick Greenhouse if structured interviews matter more than price transparency. Lever and SmartRecruiters are real options, but they lean toward larger or more sales-led buying.
An applicant tracking system (ATS) is software that manages recruiting and hiring: posting jobs, parsing résumés, filtering applicants, scheduling interviews and reporting. Wikipedia's overview notes that it works much like a CRM, but for candidates. That framing is useful. If you already run a sales pipeline, you know what the hiring version should feel like: stages, owners, reminders and a clean history.
A note on method. We have not run a live hiring process in each product. This guide is based on each vendor's published pricing and feature pages as of November 2026, and the profiles on ProductListo. Where a price is not public, we say so instead of guessing.
Quick comparison
| Tool | Published starting price | Free trial | Best for | AI angle |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Workable | Standard from USD 299/month (1-20 employees) | Yes, no card | Small teams that want ATS plus core HR | AI agent billed by credits |
| Ashby | From USD 400/month (up to 100 employees) | None listed | Startups with recruiting-heavy growth | AI search, review and outreach |
| Greenhouse | Custom quote (Core, Plus, Pro) | None listed | Structured interviewing | AI Notetaker from Core |
| Lever | Custom quote | None listed | ATS plus recruiting CRM | Transcripts, screening signals |
| SmartRecruiters | Custom quote | None listed | Mid-size and enterprise volume | Winston AI layer |
Prices are as of November 2026 and are in USD.
What should a startup actually look for in an ATS?
Most startups over-buy. You do not need an enterprise suite to run eight open roles. You need five things to work well:
- A careers page and job posting that takes minutes, not days.
- A pipeline your whole team can see, with clear stage owners.
- Interview scheduling that does not eat the recruiter's week.
- Scorecards, so feedback is comparable across interviewers.
- A price you can predict as headcount grows.
Everything else, such as AI screening, sourcing sequences and analytics, is a bonus that you should pay for only when you have the volume to use it. If you have not decided how many hires you plan in the next twelve months, work that out first. It decides which tier you need more than any feature list does.
Workable: the easiest to budget for a small team
Workable is the clearest fit for a company of 1 to 20 people. Its pricing page lists Standard from USD 299 per month, Premier from USD 599 and Enterprise from USD 719 for the smallest company-size band, and prices rise with employee count. There is a free trial that needs no credit card.
What you get: posting to 200+ job boards from one screen, custom pipelines, interview kits, scorecards, self-scheduling, offer letters with e-signatures, and a careers page builder. It also extends past the hire into onboarding, time off and payroll preparation, which is handy if you have no HR system yet.
The AI layer is the Workable Agent, which can source passive candidates and screen inbound applicants. It runs on credits: 1 credit per candidate screened, 2 per passive candidate sourced and 10 per chat session, with 3,000 free credits on each paid plan. That is transparent, but it is a second meter on top of the plan fee, and the trial does not include the agent.
Our take: if you are a 10-person company opening your first few roles, start here. The weak spot is cost growth as you add employees, so re-check the price band at each funding stage.
Ashby: the best all-in-one for recruiting-heavy startups
Ashby combines ATS, scheduling, sourcing CRM and analytics. The Foundations plan covers companies of up to 100 employees and is listed from USD 400 per month, with a 10% discount for annual commitments. Plus (101 to 1,000 employees) and Enterprise (1,000+) are quoted by sales.
The sourcing side is the differentiator: multi-step outreach across email and LinkedIn, a Chrome extension, talent pools and AI candidate search. The ATS side has auto-reject rules, structured reviews and fraud detection for fraudulent candidates. Reporting is configurable, which matters once your board asks about time-to-hire.
The trade-offs are listed plainly on its profile: no free plan or trial is listed, some items such as the AI Notetaker are paid add-ons, and the pricing page shows no data residency information.
Our take: if you plan to hire quickly and your recruiters will do their own sourcing, Ashby's single record for candidates saves you from stitching tools together. If you hire a few people a year, it is more tool than you need.
Greenhouse: the structured-hiring pick
Greenhouse is built around consistent process. Structured interview kits and scorecards, a sourcing CRM, scheduling with candidate self-scheduling links, an AI Notetaker and reporting are all part of the Core plan, and SSO is listed on every plan. Plus adds automation, texting and fraud detection, and Pro adds an audit log and a developer sandbox.
Pricing is customized by organization size and hiring volume, so you will need to request a quote. It also offers an MCP connection for linking hiring data to AI tools, which is useful if your team builds internal agents.
Our take: Greenhouse earns its place if you care about fair, repeatable interviews and expect to grow past 50 people. If you are a very small team, the broad ecosystem may be more than you need, and the lack of a public price makes early budgeting harder. For a head-to-head view, see Ashby vs Greenhouse and Greenhouse vs Workable.
Lever: ATS plus recruiting CRM
Lever puts applicant tracking and candidate relationship management in the same platform, so passive candidates and live applicants share a home. Reporting and analytics and key integrations are included on every plan, according to the vendor, and unlimited AI interview transcripts and summaries are part of the core platform. Lever states it is SOC 2 Type II certified. Optional add-ons include Candidate Insights, AI Screening by VONQ and Onboarding.
Pricing is quote-based, with no public price list and no free trial on the pricing page. That is the main reason it ranks below Workable and Ashby for a startup that wants to compare costs quickly.
Our take: Lever suits teams that already treat recruiting as relationship-building, such as roles where you nurture talent for months. See Lever vs Workable and Greenhouse vs Lever if you are choosing between close rivals.
SmartRecruiters: for volume, not for a seed-stage team
SmartRecruiters is an enterprise-oriented suite. The vendor says it was founded in 2010, is headquartered in San Francisco and serves more than 4,000 organizations. It covers applicant tracking, CRM, job distribution, scheduling, offer management and analytics, with an AI layer called Winston. It is also offered as part of SAP SuccessFactors, which matters to teams already on SAP HCM.
There is no public price and no free trial listed. Its own positioning is high-volume, professional and enterprise hiring.
Our take: for a typical startup, this is overbuilt. It becomes relevant if you are hiring in large numbers across sites, or if your parent company already runs SAP.
Which one should you pick? A decision shortcut
- Under 20 people, a handful of roles: Workable. Predictable price, free trial.
- 20 to 100 people, recruiters sourcing actively: Ashby. One system for sourcing, scheduling and reporting.
- Process-first culture, scorecards matter: Greenhouse.
- Talent-pipeline hiring over long cycles: Lever.
- Large volume or SAP shop: SmartRecruiters.
Other head-to-heads worth a look: Ashby vs Workable and Ashby vs Lever.
What US teams should check
If you hire in the United States, three checks save pain later.
Security paperwork. Ask each vendor for its current SOC 2 report. Lever states SOC 2 Type II certification, and Ashby's pricing page shows a SOC 2 badge. A badge is not a report, so request the document.
AI screening rules. In New York City, Local Law 144 covers automated employment decision tools. According to the city's Department of Consumer and Worker Protection, the tool must have had a bias audit within one year before use, a summary of the results must be publicly available, and candidates must receive required notices. If you turn on AI screening for NYC roles, ask the vendor what audit evidence they can provide. Other states and cities have their own rules, so check before you switch AI features on.
Integrations and billing. Confirm the ATS connects to your HRIS and payroll, and check whether add-ons such as texting, assessments or AI credits are billed separately. Several tools here do.
For teams in South Korea
If you hire in South Korea, two points are worth raising with any vendor before you sign. First, the Fair Hiring Procedure Act, Article 4-3, limits what employers may collect from applicants. According to Baker McKenzie's handbook, this covers items such as physical appearance, region of origin, marital status and property ownership, unless necessary for the job. Configure your application forms so they do not ask for these by default. Second, the same source notes that the Personal Information Protection Commission's September 2024 guidelines on automated decisions include hiring examples, so ask how any AI screening can be explained and reviewed.
None of the profiles above list Korean data residency or Korean-language support, so ask for these in writing. Our checklist for South Korea's AI Basic Act covers the wider AI-buying questions.
Moving candidates between systems
Whichever ATS you choose, you will eventually export candidate data, either to migrate or to build a report. A clean CSV makes that painless. UrwaTools has a step-by-step guide on exporting, cleaning and importing candidate data when you switch ATS. Free utilities such as a CSV to JSON converter, a JSON to CSV converter and a duplicate line remover handle the usual tidy-ups, and an email validator catches typos before an import. The steps in UrwaTools' checklist on cleaning a lead list before a CRM import also apply to a candidate list.
Related reading
If you are building out the rest of your stack, our guide to CRM software for small teams covers the sales side of the same pipeline idea, Zendesk alternatives covers support, and workflow automation tools cover the glue between them. Browse the full CRM & Sales guide, the Productivity guide and the Productivity topic page for more tools. If you also hire contractors, see best freelance platforms.
Who is missing from this list?
This roundup covers the applicant tracking systems currently listed on ProductListo. Other well-known names, including BambooHR, Jobvite, iCIMS and Teamtailor, are not listed yet, so they are not reviewed here.
Make a recruiting or HR product? You can submit your tool to the directory, or read about sponsored placements on our write for us page.
Sources: Applicant tracking system, Wikipedia; NYC DCWP, Automated Employment Decision Tools; Baker McKenzie, South Korea employment data handbook.