Manatal Pricing 2026: Plans, Add-ons, Limits and What Users Say

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

• Manatal costs $15, $35 or $55 a user a month billed yearly for Professional, Enterprise and Enterprise Plus, or $19, $39 and $59 billed monthly. A Custom plan is quoted.
• Manatal's help centre prices the AI Interviewer, contact details, SMS and extra email as add-ons, and outside database searches are capped at 10 a month below Enterprise Plus.
• Manatal rates 4.8 on G2 and 4.6 on Capterra, where reviewers praise ease of use and price and criticise basic reporting and job-board posting problems.

Manatal publishes its prices: Professional costs $15 a user a month, Enterprise $35 and Enterprise Plus $55 when billed yearly, or $19, $39 and $59 billed monthly. A fourth plan, Custom, is quoted on request. Every plan is priced per user, and the 14-day free trial needs no card.

The seat price is not the whole bill. Manatal sells its AI Interviewer, contact details, SMS and extra email as add-ons, and its help centre prints a price for each. Searches of Manatal's outside candidate database are capped at 10 a month below Enterprise Plus. On review sites Manatal scores 4.8 on G2 and 4.6 on Capterra, with praise for ease of use and price and complaints about basic reporting and uneven support.

Manatal is an applicant tracking system and recruitment CRM for HR teams, agencies and headhunters. Some teams have a different gap: finding new people outside their own database and running a live first interview. For them, The Cognitive is worth a look, since it publishes its plans and the credit cost of each step.

How much does Manatal cost?

Manatal says its pricing "depends on the number of users, jobs, candidates, and the specific features you need." In practice three choices set the base price: the plan, the number of seats and the billing period.

Yearly billing saves $4 a user a month on every plan. A five-recruiter team on Enterprise pays $175 a month at the yearly rate and $195 at the monthly rate.

Manatal adds GST only for Singaporean tax residents. For larger teams, its pricing FAQ says it "can also provide a favorable custom plan."

What does each Manatal plan include?

Manatal's plan comparison gives every plan the same core. That core is the ATS, the recruitment CRM, AI recommendations and candidate scoring, the AI Copilot and a career page. It also covers a Chrome sourcing extension, mass email, SMS recruitment and GDPR tools. The plans differ on limits and on admin features.

Professional: for individuals and small teams

Professional allows 15 jobs and 10,000 candidates, with unlimited hiring managers. The job limit is "calculated per account and not per user," so five recruiters share the same 15 jobs. Manatal also says "A job is not a headcount": one job can fill several seats.

Gem's 2026 Recruiting Benchmarks Report puts the average recruiter at 13.4 open roles at a time. One busy recruiter can come close to Professional's limit alone. Professional also has no workflow automation and includes 200 mass emails a month.

Enterprise: for growing teams

Enterprise removes the job and candidate caps and adds workflow automation, with a fair-use limit of 30 automated workflows. It includes 1,000 mass emails a month. Manatal's FAQ points teams with more than 15 open jobs to Enterprise, so for a team past 15 jobs it is the realistic starting point.

Enterprise Plus: for industry leaders

Enterprise Plus adds the advanced report builder, a candidate portal for internal mobility, an employee portal, custom permissions, user groups, single sign-on and priority support. On integrations, it adds "ChatGPT, Claude & LLM Integration", the Manatal Open API and MCP server, Zapier and n8n. It raises mass email to 5,000 a month and outside database searches from 10 to 300 a month.

Below Enterprise Plus, Manatal lists advanced reports as "Demo data only." And the search limit means a team that sources heavily from Manatal's database has to move from $35 to $55 a seat for that alone.

Custom: for custom integrations

Custom, priced on demand, adds a dedicated account manager, phone support and custom features, integrations, compliance and reports. Standard support runs 24/5 by chat or email, so phone support is a reason to ask for it.

What do Manatal's add-ons cost?

Manatal's help centre prices each add-on in its "Feature and Add-on Pricing & Usage Limits" article and notes that prices are subject to change.

AI Interviewer

Manatal's AI Interviewer runs "automated, asynchronous video interviews" that candidates complete on their own schedule. You set up to 10 questions, generated from the job description or written yourself, and allow 0 to 5 retakes. The interview link does not expire, and you get "full video recording and a complete transcript." The help centre lists 12 interview languages; the pricing page names six.

A credit is "only deducted when a candidate completes an interview," so invitations nobody opens cost nothing. The minimum purchase is 20 interviews. Monthly credits "do not roll over", while yearly credits are allocated upfront. The help centre calls it an "add-on feature available upon request".

Contact details

Phone numbers and emails come from contact credits. One credit is used for each profile that returns at least one detail, and Manatal says the results include "both personal and professional contact details." Manatal's plan comparison lists contact finding on every plan, while the help centre says it is "a separate add-on and is not included in the base plans."

Outside database search

Manatal's Sourcing Hub searches a database of over 700 million candidates, per its pricing page, which the help centre says is "aggregated from a third-party provider." Each search uses one credit and returns up to 100 profiles, and "Credits are deducted even if no profiles are returned." Credits reset each month.

Ten searches is roughly 1,000 profiles a month, by Manatal's own count. Contact details appear only after you add a person to Manatal, and then they draw on contact credits. For an agency that lives on outbound sourcing, the search cap and the contact packs are where the real cost sits.

What makes a Manatal bill bigger?

Six things push a Manatal bill above the headline seat price.

• Seats, including idle ones. Billing is per seat, seats "cannot be shared," and a suspended user still takes a seat. Remove people you no longer need.
• The 15-job cap. A team on Professional that opens a sixteenth job has to move up to Enterprise.
• The 10,000-candidate cap. According to Ashby's 2026 Talent Trends Report, applications per hire tripled from 2021 to 2024 and stayed above 300 throughout 2025. A team that hires from inbound applications fills a candidate cap faster than its job count suggests.
• The search cap. More than 10 outside searches a month means Enterprise Plus.
• Add-on packs. AI interviews, contact credits, SMS lines and extra email are each bought separately.
• Getting your data out. One CSV export a year is free. A full export with CVs and attachments costs $900 each time, which matters on the day you switch systems.

Billing terms

Subscriptions renew automatically. You cancel from the Administration area, and the plan runs to the end of the current billing cycle. An upgrade costs the price difference, "pro-rated to the current billing cycle's length." Manatal describes its pricing as "without lock-in contract."

Before buying, count jobs open at once across the whole account, not per recruiter, and the outside searches the team runs each month. Those two numbers decide the plan more than the seat price does.

Does Manatal have a free trial?

Yes. Manatal offers a "14-day free trial, no card required." Manatal's pricing page lists no free plan.

The trial does not include everything. Manatal switches off free and premium job board posting, mass emailing and email automations. Sending emails from the Manatal domain, AI-generated job descriptions and the GDPR consent request tool are off too. The AI Interviewer is not on the trial either.

Job board posting also needs account verification, which starts after the first payment and, Manatal says, "typically" takes no more than three working days. If posting is the main thing you want to test, plan for it in the first week of the paid plan, not in the trial.

What do Manatal users say?

Manatal rates 4.8 out of 5 on G2 from 147 reviews, 133 of them five stars. On Capterra it rates 4.6 from 142 reviews, with 4.7 for ease of use and 4.6 for customer service.

What reviewers praise. G2's AI-generated summary of reviews leads with ease of use and an intuitive interface, followed by automation and AI recommendations. On Capterra, Rashid A. writes that "Manatal is very user-friendly and easy to set up" and calls the pricing very competitive.

What reviewers complain about. The same G2 summary notes limits in search, especially custom filtering, and its most common complaint tags are navigation difficulty, missing features, email limits and a clunky interface. A Talent Acquisition Specialist at a mid-market company gave Manatal 2.5 on G2 and called it too basic for staffing operations. The reviewer cited no recruiter-performance reporting and wrote that "The built in AI fails to properly identify talent especially for complex roles."

Capterra's critical reviews repeat four themes. Reporting and analytics feel basic next to enterprise systems, and the interface lags at times. Job-board posting errors repeat, and some reviewers found support hard to pin down. These low scores are a small share of the 142 reviews.

Small teams and agencies like the price and how quickly they get going. The low scores cluster around reporting depth, search precision, job-board posting and support, not price.

Is Manatal worth the price?

For a small HR team or agency that wants an ATS and a CRM at a printed per-user price, Manatal is good value. The entry price is low, the plans are public, there is no lock-in contract, and reviewers consistently say it is easy to set up.

A database you can search again is worth paying for. Gem's 2026 benchmarks found that 46% of sourced hires were people a company already had in its CRM or ATS, up from 26% in 2021. The same report says recruiters handle 93% more applications than in 2021. A cheap system that keeps those people organised and searchable earns its seat price.

It is a weaker fit in three cases:

• Teams that source outbound every day. Ten outside searches a month below Enterprise Plus, plus paid contact credits, make heavy sourcing a $55-a-seat plan with packs on top.
• Staffing operations that run on reporting. Advanced reports need Enterprise Plus, and reviewers on both sites call the reporting basic.
• Teams that want a live interview. Manatal's AI Interviewer runs "automated, asynchronous video interviews": an AI voice asks up to 10 set questions whenever the candidate opens the link.

Cheaper or different options to Manatal

Teams look past Manatal for one of two reasons. Either they want a different ATS at a different price shape, or the ATS is fine and the gap is finding and screening new people.

The Cognitive publishes this page and appears in it.

The Cognitive: best for sourcing outside your database and a live first interview

The Cognitive is listed first on two differences anyone can check against Manatal's own pages. Manatal counts outside searches and caps them at 10 a month below Enterprise Plus, while The Cognitive charges 1 credit for each person a search shows. And Manatal describes its AI Interviewer as "automated, asynchronous video interviews" built on up to 10 set questions. The Cognitive's AI interview is a live two-way video conversation that follows up when an answer needs more depth.

A Sourcing Hub search costs Manatal users a credit even when it returns nobody. The Cognitive's AI sourcing works per person instead: describe the role in plain English and see people from about 900M public profiles, each with a short reason. A personal email costs 4 credits to reveal and a phone number 12, on Sourcing Pro, Max, Business and Enterprise. Nothing is charged when no contact turns up. Outreach, on Sourcing Team and on Sourcing Pro and above, is personal email sent from your own mailbox, and follow-ups stop once someone replies.

Manatal's interviewer works through its set list whenever the candidate opens the link. In The Cognitive's AI interview, the AI talks with the candidate live and asks follow-ups. It runs 10 or 20 minutes on a laptop or desktop, in one of 9 languages. Every answer is scored against the role's rubric, which stays fixed while the questions adapt.

The Cognitive connects to 100+ ATS on Sourcing Max, Interviews Pro and Max, the Business plans and Enterprise. Sourcing and interviews each have their own plans on the pricing page, billed monthly or yearly, and Enterprise is quoted. Plans start at $99 a month.

Best for: teams that hit Manatal's 10-search cap before the month ends, or that want a live first interview with a scorecard and recording.
Watch out for: it is not an ATS or a CRM and has no career page or job board posting, so most teams keep an ATS beside it. Candidates need a laptop or desktop for the interview. The trial, Starter and Growth leave out outreach.
Pricing model: separate plans for sourcing and interviews, billed monthly or yearly, with credits spent on people shown and contacts found; Enterprise custom.

Other ATS options

If the goal is a different ATS, four publish at least part of their pricing.

• Zoho Recruit: a free plan, then paid recruiter licences with active-job caps.
• Recruit CRM: per user per month, in tiers.
• Workable: by company size, with ATS and HR bundles.
• Loxo: Core plan per user, billed annually up front; Professional behind a form.

More in the Recruit CRM review, the Loxo review and the guides to Zoho Recruit alternatives and Workable alternatives.

The full comparison, with what each tool does better than Manatal and where each falls short, is in the guide to Manatal alternatives.

When to skip The Cognitive

Skip it if what you are pricing Manatal for is the system itself: pipelines, a career page, job board posting, hiring manager access and a CRM of past candidates. None of that is in The Cognitive. It also adds little if Manatal's 10 searches a month already cover your sourcing, or if candidates need to interview from a phone.

How to start

Use Manatal's own limits as the test. If open jobs push you past 15 and outside searches stay under 10 a month, Manatal Enterprise is likely enough. If you would need more searches than that, run one role through The Cognitive first and compare the credits used with the jump to Enterprise Plus.

A 7-day trial comes with 100 sourcing credits and asks for no card. Start free with The Cognitive.

Sources

• Manatal, pricing page, plan comparison and pricing FAQ: manatal.com.
• Manatal, homepage and AI Interviewer feature page: manatal.com.
• Manatal help centre, "Feature and Add-on Pricing & Usage Limits", Sourcing Hub, AI Interviewer, Find Contact Details, premium job board posting and subscription management articles: support.manatal.com.
• G2, Manatal reviews and listing. g2.com
• Capterra, Manatal reviews. capterra.com
• Gem, "Key takeaways from the 2026 Recruiting Benchmarks Report", 1 December 2025. gem.com
• Ashby, 2026 Talent Trends Report, Recruiter Productivity. ashbyhq.com
• Zoho Recruit, pricing page: zoho.com.
• Recruit CRM, pricing page: recruitcrm.io.
• Workable, pricing page: workable.com.
• Loxo, pricing page: loxo.co.
• The Cognitive, pricing: thecognitive.io/pricing.

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