Applicant tracking system pricing, model by model, across 14 ATSs
Applicant tracking system pricing follows 5 models: per user, per employee, flat tiers, caps on active jobs, and custom quotes. Of the 14 ATSs checked on 4 October 2026, 7 print a price and 7 quote. Your headcount, open roles and modules set the bill. The Cognitive is not an ATS; it connects to 60+ of them.
ATS pricing at a glance, checked 4 October 2026
ATS pricing has no single rate. Vendors charge per user, per employee, by flat feature tier, by capping active jobs, or by custom quote. Small-business ATSs usually print the price. Mid-market and enterprise ATSs usually quote after a demo.
How applicant tracking system pricing works: the 5 models
Every ATS bill is built from one of these, often two at once. Learn which one a vendor uses before you compare any numbers, because the same team can cost very differently under each.
| Model | What you are counted on | Who uses it | What it means for you |
|---|---|---|---|
| Per user or per recruiter | Each paid login, usually recruiters, with hiring managers sometimes cheaper or free | Manatal, Zoho Recruit, Bullhorn | Cheap for a 2-person team. The bill climbs each time a recruiter joins, so ask who needs a paid seat |
| Per employee or headcount band | Your whole company's employee count, not how much you hire | Workable, BambooHR, Ashby Foundations, Recruitee | Predictable, but a large company that hires rarely pays for headcount it never recruits against |
| Flat tier by features | The plan you pick, with unlimited users | JazzHR, Breezy HR, Teamtailor (users unlimited, price quoted) | Adding hiring managers costs nothing. The jump comes when one feature you need sits a tier up |
| Caps on active jobs or openings | How many roles are open at once | BambooHR, Manatal Professional, the free Breezy and Zoho plans | None here bills purely per job. Caps act as a hidden per-job price once you outgrow them |
| Custom quote | Plan, hiring volume, complexity and features, set in a sales conversation | Greenhouse, Lever, iCIMS, Workday, Ashby Plus and Enterprise | No public reference point. Bring your own numbers and ask for every line separately |
Models read on each vendor's own pricing page on 4 October 2026. Price figures are left out on purpose.
How much does an ATS cost?
An ATS costs whatever its pricing model multiplies. A per-user ATS scales with your recruiters, a per-employee ATS with your headcount, and a quoted ATS with whatever you describe in the demo. That is why two teams of the same size can pay very different amounts for the same product.
This page gives no dollar figures for any ATS. Packaging changes often, and 7 of the 14 vendors here publish no number at all. Where a vendor does print one, open its pricing page on the day you buy. The tables below tell you which pages to open and what to ask the rest.
ATS pricing comparison: ATSs that print a price
These 7 show a price on their own site, so you can cost them before a sales call. Read on 4 October 2026.
| ATS | Pricing model | Price published? | Free plan or trial |
|---|---|---|---|
| Workable | Standard, Premier and Enterprise, priced by employee band; Workable Agent runs on AI credits | Yes | 15-day free trial, no credit card |
| JazzHR | Hero, Plus and Pro by feature tier, with consumption-based add-ons | Yes, but not for agencies, franchises or companies over 250 employees | No trial named on the pricing page |
| Breezy HR | Flat monthly plans with unlimited users: Startup, Growth, Business; Custom Pro on request | Yes | Free Bootstrap plan, plus a 14-day trial |
| Manatal | Per user, per month; Professional caps jobs at 15, higher plans are unlimited | Yes | 14-day free trial, no credit card |
| Zoho Recruit | Per recruiter licence, with hiring manager licences sold in packs of 10 | Through a price calculator | Forever Free plan, plus a 15-day trial |
| BambooHR | Per employee, per month above 25 employees; flat monthly rate at 25 or fewer | Yes | None named; the ATS is part of the HR suite |
| Bullhorn | Per user, per month for Starter and Core; Pro and Max say Talk to us | Yes for Starter and Core | No free plan; free implementation on small-agency plans |
From each vendor's pricing page, read 4 October 2026. Our Bullhorn pricing guide covers its editions in full.
What drives applicant tracking system cost
Put a number against each of these before you talk to any vendor. Then every quote has to answer to your figures, not theirs.
- Company headcount Workable, BambooHR, Recruitee and Ashby all price on employee count. Growing from one band to the next re-prices you even if hiring stays flat. Ask where the band edges sit and when a headcount change takes effect.
- Open roles at once BambooHR allows 5, 25 or 50 job openings depending on the plan. Manatal Professional stops at 15 jobs. If you hire in bursts, count your busiest month, not your average.
- Paid users On per-user plans, every recruiter is a line item. Zoho Recruit sells hiring manager licences in packs of 10. Flat-tier ATSs such as JazzHR and Breezy HR include unlimited users.
- Modules and AI add-ons Workable sells its Agent on AI credits. Lever quotes Candidate Insights, AI Screening and Onboarding separately. iCIMS sells Hire, Engage and Employer Branding as distinct products. The base plan is rarely the whole bill.
- Implementation and migration Bullhorn includes free implementation on its small-agency plans. Most quote-led vendors do not say whether setup or data migration is billed, so ask for it as a separate line.
- Integrations Job boards, HRIS, assessments and sourcing tools each connect differently. Partner tools are bought from the partner. Check whether API access sits on a higher tier, as it does on Manatal Enterprise Plus.
ATS pricing comparison: ATSs that quote
These 7 publish no full price list. Each sets the number in a sales conversation, though Ashby shows one plan. Read on 4 October 2026.
| ATS | Pricing model | Price published? | How you get a price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ashby | Foundations up to 100 employees; Plus and Enterprise priced on company size, usage and commitment | Foundations only | Foundations price on the page; quote for larger plans |
| Greenhouse | Core, Plus and Pro, priced on plan, hiring volume, organizational complexity and features | No | Demo, then a custom quote |
| Lever | Custom quote by team size and hiring needs, with optional add-on modules | No | Quote form or phone call |
| Tellent Recruitee | Start, Advance and Optimize, by plan, employee count and billing period; 1-year minimum | No | Demo or free trial; agencies get a custom quote |
| Teamtailor | Custom quote with unlimited job postings and unlimited users | No | Quote request |
| iCIMS | Separate products: Hire, Engage, Employer Branding and High Volume Hiring | No | Request a demo or talk to sales |
| Workday | Talent Acquisition sold within its wider HR and HCM suite | No | Contact sales |
From each vendor's own site, read 4 October 2026. iCIMS has no pricing page; its /pricing URL returned not found.
Hidden ATS costs to ask about before you sign
None of these is a trick. They are simply missing from most pricing pages, so they only appear if you ask.
- Minimum contract term. Tellent Recruitee states a 1-year minimum even when you pay monthly
- Auto-renewal date and the notice period to cancel
- Implementation, onboarding and training fees, quoted as their own lines
- Data migration from your current ATS, with the scope written down
- AI credits or usage add-ons, and whether unused credits expire
- SMS and texting charges, often sold in batches or monthly credits
- Premium job board postings, which are paid to the board, not the ATS
- API access or SSO locked to a higher tier
- Re-pricing when headcount crosses a band mid-contract
How to budget for an ATS by company size
No figures here, only which pricing model tends to suit each stage and what to check first. Match the model to how you hire.
A founder or office manager hiring a few roles a year
A free plan or a flat-tier ATS. Breezy HR Bootstrap and Zoho Recruit Forever Free cost nothing for 1 active job. BambooHR charges a flat monthly rate at this size.
Whether the free plan's 1-job cap fits your busiest month of hiring.
A first recruiter, hiring managers who want to see candidates
Flat tiers with unlimited users, such as JazzHR or Breezy HR, or an employee-band plan such as Workable or Ashby Foundations, both with prices you can read.
That hiring managers do not each need a paid seat.
A small talent team running structured interviews
Employee-band or quoted plans: Workable Premier, Ashby Plus, Greenhouse, Lever or Recruitee. Expect a sales call and an annual commitment for most of these.
The cost at your next headcount band, written into the first contract.
Several recruiting teams, regions or brands
Custom quotes built from modules: Greenhouse Pro, iCIMS, Workday or Ashby Enterprise. Implementation and integrations can matter as much as the licence.
Each module, service and integration as its own priced line.
Recruiters billing clients for placements
Per-user agency ATSs such as Bullhorn or Manatal. JazzHR's published pricing excludes agencies, and Recruitee quotes agencies separately.
The price per recruiter seat as the desk grows.
Free applicant tracking system options, and their limits
2 of the 14 ATSs here have a free-forever plan. Breezy HR Bootstrap allows 1 active position or candidate pool at a time, with unlimited users. Zoho Recruit Forever Free allows 1 active job on 1 recruiter licence. Both upgrade to paid plans when you need a second open role.
Several offer free trials instead. Workable runs 15 days, and Breezy HR and Manatal run 14, all without a credit card. Zoho Recruit gives 15 days of its Enterprise features before dropping you to the free plan. A free ATS suits a company hiring one role at a time. Once two roles overlap, you need a paid plan, so check its model before you commit to the free one.
How to compare ATS quotes fairly
Do
- Price every shortlisted ATS on the same 12-month hiring plan, headcount and recruiter count
- Ask for the plan, each add-on and each service as separate lines
- Use the published prices from Workable, JazzHR or Breezy HR as a public reference point
- Write the price of the next tier or headcount band into the first contract
- Run a free trial on your real roles before you sign anything annual
Do not
- Comparing a per-user price with a per-employee price without converting both to your team
- Buying the top tier for features nobody has asked for yet
- Accepting a bundled total that hides implementation or migration
- Signing before you know the renewal terms in writing
Work out your first-year ATS cost
Our method, not any vendor's. Every input is a line on a quote, a published price, or a number you already know.
1. Licence = the plan price under its model: per user x paid recruiters, or per employee x headcount, or the flat tier, or the quote. 2. Add-ons = AI credits + texting + assessments + any module quoted apart. 3. One-off services = implementation + data migration + training, if billed. 4. Integrations = paid job boards + partner tools your process depends on. 5. Year-one cost = 1 + 2 + 3 + 4. 6. ATS cost per hire = year-one cost / hires planned this year. 7. Year-two cost = 1 + 2 + 4, re-priced for the headcount band or seat count you expect next year. Run lines 6 and 7 for every ATS on your shortlist. A cheap licence with a heavy services line can cost more by year two.
Filling the ATS you pay for
A plain-English brief read into editable filters, then searched across ~900M public profiles.
An ATS tracks the people who apply. It does not find the people who have not. The Cognitive searches public profiles from a plain-English brief, judges everyone against your must-haves and says on each card why they matched. Verified emails and phone numbers can be revealed, enriched from 30+ sources.
Where The Cognitive fits in an ATS budget
I run The Cognitive, so weigh this with that in mind. It is not an ATS. It has no job posting, careers page, offers or funnel analytics, so you still need one of the ATSs above. It connects to 60+ of them, including Workable, Greenhouse, Lever, Ashby, Bullhorn, BambooHR, iCIMS and Workday.
Candidates you import from your ATS get a note back after their AI interview, with the score, a summary and the report link. People you source inside The Cognitive are not written into the ATS automatically. The interview is a live, two-way AI video interview of 10 or 20 minutes, in 9 languages, at a slot the candidate books.
AI Sourcing starts at $49/month and AI Interview at $99/month, on monthly plans you can cancel anytime. Credits work simply: 1 per candidate a search returns, 5 to reveal an email, 10 to reveal a phone number, charged only when a value comes back. There is a free trial with 100 sourcing credits.
The interview report behind the ATS note
A 1 to 5 score per criterion, a weighted score out of 100 and a suggested verdict.
The note written back to an imported candidate carries the score, a summary and a link to this report. The report holds the criterion scores, overall written feedback, the transcript and the recording. The rubric is fixed per role and the questions adapt live. Nothing is rejected automatically.
Related reading
Applicant tracking system software · Greenhouse pricing · Bullhorn pricing · What is an ATS? · The Cognitive's ATS integrations · Rippling pricing
ATS pricing in short
- ATS vendors charge per user, per employee, by flat tier, by capping active jobs, or by quote.
- 7 of the 14 ATSs checked print a price; Greenhouse, Lever, iCIMS, Workday, Teamtailor and Recruitee quote.
- Headcount, open roles, paid users, modules, implementation and integrations drive the final bill.
- Breezy HR and Zoho Recruit have free-forever plans limited to 1 active job.
- Ask for every add-on and service as its own line, and get renewal terms in writing.
Frequently asked questions
How much does an ATS cost?
It depends on the pricing model more than the product. A per-user ATS such as Manatal or Zoho Recruit scales with your recruiters. A per-employee ATS such as Workable or BambooHR scales with your headcount. A quoted ATS such as Greenhouse or Lever is priced on what you describe in the demo. Of the 14 ATSs we checked on 4 October 2026, 7 print a price on their site and 7 quote.
Which applicant tracking systems publish their pricing?
Workable, JazzHR, Breezy HR, Manatal, BambooHR and Bullhorn print prices, and Zoho Recruit shows them through a calculator. Ashby shows the price of its Foundations plan only. Bullhorn prints prices for Starter and Core but not Pro or Max. JazzHR's published prices do not apply to agencies, franchises, multi-location businesses or companies over 250 employees. Greenhouse, Lever, iCIMS, Workday, Teamtailor and Tellent Recruitee publish no price.
Is there a free applicant tracking system?
Yes. Breezy HR has a free-forever Bootstrap plan with 1 active position or candidate pool at a time and unlimited users. Zoho Recruit has a Forever Free plan with 1 active job on 1 recruiter licence. Both suit a company hiring one role at a time. Workable, Manatal and Breezy HR also offer free trials of 14 or 15 days without a credit card.
Is per-user or per-employee ATS pricing cheaper?
Per-user pricing is usually cheaper for a small recruiting team in a large company, and per-employee pricing for a busy team in a small company. Per-user plans count paid logins, so they grow with recruiters. Per-employee plans count your whole headcount, so a 2,000-person company that hires rarely still pays for 2,000 people. Convert both to your own numbers before comparing.
Why don't ATS vendors like Greenhouse and Lever publish prices?
Because they price each deal on your situation. Greenhouse says its cost depends on the plan, your hiring volume, organizational complexity and the features you need. Lever says it scales with team size and hiring needs and asks you to contact it for a custom quote. In practice, that means you should bring a written hiring plan to the demo so the quote answers to your figures.
What hidden costs come with an ATS?
The usual extras are implementation, data migration, training, AI credits, texting, premium job board postings and integrations. Contract terms matter too: Tellent Recruitee states a 1-year minimum commitment even when you pay monthly. Ask for each extra as a separate line on the quote, and get the renewal date and notice period in writing before you sign.
Does ATS implementation cost extra?
Sometimes. Bullhorn includes free implementation on its small-agency plans. Most quote-led vendors, including Greenhouse, do not say on their pricing page whether implementation or data migration is billed. Ask for implementation, migration and training as separate priced lines, with a named go-live date, so you can compare the full first-year cost across vendors.
Which ATS is most cost-effective for a small business?
For a small business, an ATS with a published price and unlimited users is usually the most cost-effective, because you can cost it before a call. Breezy HR and JazzHR use flat tiers with unlimited users, Workable prices by employee band, and BambooHR charges a flat monthly rate at 25 employees or fewer. For one role at a time, the free Breezy HR and Zoho Recruit plans cost nothing.
Is The Cognitive an ATS, and how much does it cost?
No. The Cognitive is AI recruiting software that sources candidates across ~900M public profiles and interviews them live with AI, and it connects to 60+ ATSs rather than replacing one. AI Sourcing starts at $49/month and AI Interview at $99/month, on monthly plans you can cancel anytime. Imported ATS candidates get a note back with the interview score, summary and report link.
Explore: Applicant tracking system software · Greenhouse pricing · Bullhorn pricing · AI recruiting software pricing · BambooHR pricing · ATS for small business · Free recruitment software and free ATS · Zoho Recruit alternatives