Ashby Pricing 2026: Plans, Costs by Company Size and Add-Ons

By Sparsh Goyal, Founder at The Cognitive. Published 2026-11-10 · Last updated 2026-11-12

• Ashby Foundations, for teams of up to 100 employees, is priced by company size at $300 to $900 a month, with 10% off on annual terms.
• The $400 most sites quote is the 11 to 25 band, and Plus and Enterprise are quoted by paid seat.
• One price covers the ATS, sourcing, CRM, scheduling and analytics; the AI Notetaker and extra credits, lookups and texts cost more.

Ashby publishes a price for one plan, Foundations, for companies of up to 100 employees. It starts at $300 a month for a company of 1 to 10. The top band, 76 to 100, is $900, and annual terms take 10% off. Plus (101 to 1,000 employees) and Enterprise (1,000+) have no public price. Ashby quotes them on "company size, usage, and commitment" and bills them by paid seat. The "$400 a month" most articles call the starting price is the 11 to 25 band, the one Ashby's calculator opens on.

How much does Ashby cost?

Ashby sells four plans. Three are the All-in-One platform at different company sizes, and one is an analytics product for teams that keep another ATS.

Ashby's pricing page also promises: "We are committed to transparent pricing so the above price will not change during the sales process." The calculator figure should survive the demo.

There is no self-serve signup on any plan. Every button on the pricing page says "Get in Touch," and no free trial of the platform is listed. Monthly plans come with a 30-day money-back guarantee, per Ashby's billing FAQ.

How much does Ashby Foundations cost by company size?

Foundations is priced on your total workforce at the time you buy, not on the number of recruiters or users. Ashby's FAQ says the startup model is "based on the size of your organization at that point of purchase, not on a seat or talent team basis." A 20-person company pays the same whether one founder or five managers log in.

Across a year, that runs from $3,240 for the smallest band on annual terms to $10,800 for the largest on monthly terms.

Three rules decide which band you pay:

• Headcount is counted once a year. "Pricing is reassessed annually." A company that grows from 24 to 40 people moves from the $400 band to the $500 band at renewal, not mid-year.
• At 101 people, the price becomes a quote. Ashby says that once your workforce "exceeds 100 individuals," it moves you to a custom pricing model, which in practice means Plus.
• The payment term changes how you pay. Monthly plans are paid by credit card. Annual plans can be paid by card, direct deposit or wire, and only annual plans can be invoiced.

Ashby also lists "Emerging market pricing available" on the Foundations card, without figures. Companies outside the main markets should ask for it before accepting the calculator price.

Foundations includes 200 email lookups a month, 1,500 AI credits a month for the account, and 1,000 outbound text messages a month in the US and Canada.

How does Ashby price Plus and Enterprise?

Above 100 employees, Ashby switches from company size to seats. Ashby's help centre says: "Not all Ashby accounts are on seat-based pricing. Our Foundations Plan, for companies of <100 employees, is priced based on their total workforce size." Plus and Enterprise are the seat-based plans, and neither has a public price.

Who needs a paid seat

Ashby splits users into paid and free types. Elevated Access Users and Organizational Admin Users take paid seats. Limited Access Users and Agency Users are free.

Ashby says the people who need a paid seat are the talent team, "Hiring Managers with open roles to fill," and leaders who use analytics. That last group is where seat counts grow. A company with eight recruiters and thirty active hiring managers is not buying eight seats.

How seat changes are billed

Seats added in the product are invoiced on a prorated basis "At the end of each quarter." Removing seats does not earn a credit until renewal. Ashby's answer to "will I be issued any credit?" is "No." A seat added mid-year stays on the bill until renewal, so count hiring managers before you sign.

What changes between Plus and Enterprise

The pricing page says only that the price "is based on company size, usage, and commitment." Enterprise is for companies of 1,000+ employees, and Ashby says it offers "a predictable pricing model helping you consolidate and simplify your spend." In the plan table, Enterprise adds the Workday integration, Snowflake and S3 data sharing, comprehensive audit logs and white-labelled URLs. It includes advanced scheduling and advanced diversity analytics, which are paid add-ons on Plus.

The per-seat allowances also rise. Plus includes 2,500 AI credits and 2,000 outbound texts a paid seat a year. Enterprise includes 12,500 AI credits and 3,000 texts a paid seat a year.

What does each Ashby plan include?

Ashby does not sell modules. Its FAQ says: "With our All-in-One solution, it's one price for the entire platform across ATS, Sourcing, CRM, Scheduling, and Analytics." Integrations are free too: to "Do you charge for integrations?" the answer is "No," and Ashby lists a marketplace of 250+ integrations.

Every plan, Foundations included, gets automated sequences "across email and LinkedIn InMail or connection stages," a Chrome extension, AI candidate search, custom AI agents, an MCP server and API access. The plan you buy changes the rest:

A growing startup usually misses rediscovery of its own past candidates first, then the approvals and headcount controls finance asks for. All of them start at Plus.

Baseline onboarding and Customer Success support come with every account. The largest customers pay for an Enterprise Implementation Service, and Professional Services are optional extras. A move from Greenhouse or Lever takes "a day or two" over the API, according to Ashby, and other systems import by CSV.

What costs extra on an Ashby bill?

The plan price is the floor. Six things can raise it, and Ashby prints the cost of some of them.

• AI Notetaker. It records, transcribes and summarises interviews and debriefs, as a paid add-on on every plan. Foundations customers see the price inside the product. Plus and Enterprise pricing is "tailored to your account." A free trial covers up to 500 meetings, and it works only on interviews scheduled through Ashby.
• Advanced scheduling. A paid add-on on Plus and included on Enterprise. Foundations customers cannot buy it.
• Extra email lookups. Every plan includes 200 lookups a month for finding candidates' personal email addresses. More are sold in batches of 300, and one-off batches expire after 30 days.
• Extra AI credits. On monthly Foundations, 1,000 extra credits cost $100 a month. On annual or multi-year plans, 5,000 extra credits cost $500 a year.
• Extra texting. Messages beyond the plan's allowance cost $90 per 1,000 on all three plans.
• SSO on Foundations. $100 a month. It is included on Plus and Enterprise.

Which features use AI credits

Ashby says "most AI features in Ashby are free to use without limitation." Three draw on credits: AI-assisted application review, candidate fraud detection and AI talent rediscovery.

AI application review is the one that grows with volume, because it runs on every applicant. Ashby's 2026 Talent Trends data counts 291 applications behind the average recruiter's hire. In early 2021 the number was near 100. A team that runs AI review on every application will use credits in proportion to its inbound volume. Buying the AI Notetaker or advanced scheduling adds bundled credits.

How to get the right Ashby price

1. Check your headcount band before the call, and ask whether contractors count toward your total workforce.
2. Price the annual term. It saves 10% and is the only term that can be invoiced.
3. On Plus and Enterprise, list every hiring manager who will need a paid seat. Ask which of them could work as free Limited Access Users.
4. Ask what the AI Notetaker costs for your team before the 500-meeting trial ends.
5. If you are switching from another ATS, ask about a buyout. Ashby says "Contract buyouts are available for companies that qualify," covering a percentage of your current contract.

Is Ashby worth the price?

For a startup that wants one system for applicants, sourcing, a CRM, scheduling and reporting, Ashby is good value at the Foundations price. Greenhouse, Lever and Teamtailor print no price. Ashby prints five, ties them to company size rather than seats, and does not charge for integrations or modules. The guide to applicant tracking system pricing sets that model beside other systems.

The analytics are the other draw, strong enough that Ashby sells them on their own to Greenhouse and Lever customers.

Three kinds of team get less from it:

• Hiring that depends on finding new people. Ashby sources through a Chrome extension on every plan, its AI talent rediscovery searches your own past candidates and starts at Plus, and every plan includes 200 email lookups a month. In Ashby's State of Startup Hiring report (2026), sourcing ranked second only to inbound as a source of startup hires, and at the smallest startups it produced 30% of hires.
• A live AI video first interview. Ashby says its AI Interviewer conducts structured interviews "via real-time voice" and will be "available for Early Access" through a waitlist. Ashby publishes no price for it.
• Growing past 100 people this year. A team about to cross the line is really choosing a Plus quote, so ask for it before signing a Foundations band.

Head-to-head pages cover Greenhouse vs Ashby and Lever vs Ashby.

What are cheaper or different options to Ashby?

Teams look past Ashby for a different ATS, often one with a trial or a lower entry point, or for a tool that finds and screens new people beside the ATS they keep. Outbound earns its place: in Gem's 2026 Recruiting Benchmarks Report, direct sourcing produced 11% of hires while making up 2.6% of applications.

The Cognitive publishes this page and appears in it.

The Cognitive is listed first on one combination anyone can confirm on the vendors' own sites: a live two-way AI video interview on a plan with a printed price. Ashby's AI Interviewer works "via real-time voice" and has no price shown. Greenhouse also sells voice AI interviews, on a custom quote. Workable prints its plans, but its video interview add-on is a one-way recording. Gem and Teamtailor list no AI interviewer on their own sites, and Lever prints no plan price. The remaining five are ordered A to Z.

1. The Cognitive: best for sourcing new people and a live AI interview beside Ashby

The Cognitive is not an ATS and does not replace Ashby. It handles the two steps before a candidate reaches Ashby's pipeline: finding people who never applied, and holding the first interview.

Ashby's search works mostly on candidates already in your account. The Cognitive's AI sourcing starts from a brief written in plain English, looks across about 900M public profiles and notes why each person matches.

Each person shown in results takes 1 credit. Revealing a personal email takes 4. A phone number, available on Sourcing Pro, Max, Business and Enterprise, takes 12. A contact that is not found costs nothing. On Sourcing Team, Pro, Max, Business and Enterprise, messages go from the recruiter's own mailbox as personal email, and follow-ups halt once someone replies.

Where Ashby's interviewer speaks by voice, the AI interview in The Cognitive happens over live two-way video. It lasts 10 or 20 minutes, runs on a laptop or desktop in any of 9 languages, and probes further when an answer is thin. The scoring rubric is set before the call, while the questions move with the conversation.

With the Ashby connection, people you shortlist can go straight into an Ashby job, and interview results go back onto candidates who came in from Ashby. ATS sync comes with Sourcing Max, Interviews Pro and Max, Business and Enterprise; the Ashby integration page has the details.

The Cognitive's pricing page lists sourcing and interviews as two products, with separate plans and a custom Enterprise tier. Plans start at $99 a month. No card is needed for the 7-day trial.

Best for: teams that keep Ashby as the system of record and want people from outside their own database, plus a recorded first round.
Watch out for: as a non-ATS, it leaves job posting, application intake, offers and the scheduling of interviews your team runs to Ashby. Candidates need a laptop or desktop; phones or tablets cannot run the interview. The trial and the Sourcing Starter and Growth plans leave out outreach.
Pricing model: two products on monthly plans, with credits metering search and contact reveals; Enterprise quoted.

2. Gem: best for companies under 100 that qualify for startup terms

Gem quotes custom pricing "based on your company's FTE count." The smallest companies get the clearest terms: under 30 employees, Gem All-in-One is "free for six months, then 50% off" once it becomes a paid plan, and those with 30 to 100 get "reduced rates from day one." Above 100, expect a sales call. The Gem review covers the product itself.

Pricing model: custom by employee count; published startup terms.

3. Greenhouse: best for a quote shaped by hiring volume

Greenhouse sells three plans, Core, Plus and Pro, and says its "pricing is customized based on your company's hiring needs," shaped by plan, hiring volume and organisational complexity. It also sells voice AI interviews. More in the guide to Greenhouse pricing.

Pricing model: custom quote by plan and volume.

4. Lever: best for an ATS and CRM in one, on a quote

Lever describes itself as "modern recruiting software that combines ATS and CRM capabilities." Its pricing page says pricing is "available upon request" and "tailored based on your organization's size and hiring needs."

Pricing model: custom quote by size and hiring needs.

5. Teamtailor: best for unlimited users on a quote

Teamtailor quotes every customer ("Let us give you a quote") and includes "Unlimited job postings and unlimited users." For a company with many hiring managers, that removes the seat count that drives a Plus or Enterprise quote at Ashby. The Teamtailor alternatives guide sets it against similar systems.

Pricing model: quote; no per-user charge.

6. Workable: best for small teams that want to see the price and test first

Of the ATS options here, Workable is the closest like-for-like swap for a small team. It lists plans by employee band, discounts annual billing and lets you try it for 15 days without a credit card. Texting, one-way video interviews and assessments are add-ons, and its AI agent runs on credits. The Workable alternatives guide goes further.

Pricing model: published plans by company size; add-ons; AI credits for agents.

Where each tool beats Ashby, and where it falls short, is covered in the guide to Ashby alternatives.

When to skip The Cognitive

Pick Ashby on its own if your hiring runs mainly on inbound applicants and you want them tracked, scheduled and reported on in one system. Ashby also wins if you need offers, approvals, a job board, interview scheduling or funnel-wide analytics. The Cognitive covers none of those. Its job is the part before the pipeline, sourcing and a first interview, so it sits beside an ATS rather than replacing one.

How to start

Find your Foundations band on Ashby's calculator. If you expect to pass 100 people within a year, count the hiring managers who would need paid seats. If the real gap is people at the top of the funnel, run a single open role through The Cognitive. Write the brief, look at who turns up, and note the credit cost of each step.

Start free with The Cognitive.

Sources

• Ashby, pricing page, plan table and pricing FAQ: ashbyhq.com/pricing.
• Ashby help centre, seat-based pricing, AI credits, billing FAQ, AI Notetaker trial and email lookups: docs.ashbyhq.com.
• Ashby, homepage, AI Interviewer waitlist, AI Notetaker add-on and migration pages: ashbyhq.com.
• Ashby, "Recruiter Productivity", 2026 Talent Trends Report, 28 April 2026. ashbyhq.com
• Ashby, "The State of Startup Hiring", Talent Trends Report, 23 February 2026. ashbyhq.com
• Gem, "Key takeaways from the 2026 Recruiting Benchmarks Report", 1 December 2025. gem.com
• Gem, pricing page: gem.com.
• Greenhouse, homepage and pricing page: greenhouse.com.
• Lever, homepage and pricing page: lever.co.
• Teamtailor, pricing page: teamtailor.com.
• Workable, homepage, pricing page and features page: workable.com.
• The Cognitive, pricing: thecognitive.io/pricing.

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