How Much Does AI Interview Software Cost?
AI interview software pricing starts around $99/month on usage-based plans, with enterprise platforms priced by custom contract instead. The Cognitive publishes its tiers: $99/month for 15 interviews, $299/45, $499/100, $999/225, with per-interview overage by tier and 5 free interviews to start. Compare that to the alternative: a manual screen consumes $60-80 of engineer or recruiter time.
The pricing models you'll encounter
- Usage plans (per interview): transparent, scales with hiring - The Cognitive's model.
- Per-seat licenses: common in enterprise video interviewing; cost is fixed regardless of usage.
- Enterprise contracts: custom pricing, usually annual, often five to six figures - typical for HireVue-class deployments.
- Ultra-cheap per-interview tools (~$1): usually one-way recordings, not live adaptive interviews - a different product class.
Hidden costs to check before buying
- Implementation and ATS-integration fees (The Cognitive includes ATS integration in plans).
- Per-seat add-ons for reviewers who just need to watch recordings.
- Overage pricing - demand the per-interview overage rate in writing (The Cognitive publishes its per-tier overage on the pricing page).
- Minimum commitments and cancellation terms (The Cognitive: cancel anytime, no lock-in).
Frequently Asked Questions
What does The Cognitive cost exactly?
AI interviews: $99/month (15 interviews), $299 (45), $499 (100), $999 (225), custom above that; overage $8/$7/$6/$5 per interview by tier; annual billing saves 17%. AI sourcing: credit plans from $49/month (500 credits) to $299/month (5,500), with emails at 5 credits and phone numbers at 10. Every account starts with 5 free interviews.
Is AI interview software worth the cost?
Do the math on your own funnel: multiply your monthly screening interviews by ~$70 of staff time, and compare to a usage plan. A team running 100 screens a month spends ~$7,000 in staff time versus $499 on The Cognitive's Scale plan - plus faster shortlists and evidence-backed decisions. The ROI calculator on this site runs your numbers.