SeekOut vs Maki, before the application and after it

SeekOut vs Maki is a question of which side of the application you need help with. Pick SeekOut if recruiters need to find, rediscover and contact people, and rank applicants as they arrive. Pick Maki if you already have candidates and want structured screening, deep assessment and interview evidence at enterprise scale, often in Europe.

SeekOut vs Maki, side by side

Each cell restates seekout.com or makipeople.com as read on 5 October 2026.

Neither company's price figures are repeated on this page. Both sites change; confirm packaging when you buy.

They sit on opposite sides of the application

SeekOut's job ends roughly where a candidate becomes an applicant. It finds people in a huge index and your ATS, writes to them, and when applications arrive it ranks them and routes the best to a recruiter after a short screen. What happens in the interview room is outside its scope.

Maki's job starts where SeekOut's ends. Intake turns a job description into competencies, and those competencies drive every later stage: a skills screen, a voice screen, a deep assessment for the roles where a wrong hire is costly, scheduling, and a co-pilot that structures the human interview. The output is a decision card with a recommendation.

Maki's five stages, in order

Maki's homepage lays out its process as five stages orchestrated on top of your existing ATS.

1. Intake A job description becomes a structured hiring journey. Maki says it builds the live pipeline in 30 minutes, and the competencies set here drive every later stage.
2. Screening Shiro screens skills across 300+ skills. Mochi runs voice screens in the candidate's language, by web or phone, scored against a fixed grid.
3. Assessment Ken delivers late stage, role calibrated assessments across 400+ skills for the hires where a mistake is expensive.
4. Interview Kumi schedules from your ATS. Tomo joins the Zoom, Teams or Meet call, transcribes, keeps the plan on screen and scores against competencies.
5. Decision Every signal lands on one decision card: scorecard, radar, risk flags and a hire recommendation with a confidence level.

Choose SeekOut if, choose Maki if

Each card names the feature on the vendor's own page that decides it.

A US software company has 30 engineering openings and almost no qualified applicants.

SeekOut. It searches more than a billion profiles and your ATS, then sends AI drafted campaigns.

ATS rediscovery starts at the Sourcing plus Integration tier.

A European professional services firm screens thousands of graduates a year and must satisfy works councils.

Maki. It hosts in the EU by default, lists EU AI Act readiness and has an early talent use case.

Ask which agents your early talent flow would actually use.

A retailer replaces thousands of recruiter phone screens a month across several countries.

Maki. Mochi calls or meets candidates on the web in their language, and Maki's homepage says 45+ languages.

Confirm callback and SMS follow ups work in each country you hire in.

A US enterprise wants every applicant scored the day they apply, with reasons recruiters can read.

Either. SeekOut's inbound evaluation and Maki's skills screen both rank applicants with explanations.

SeekOut sells this as an add on; Maki bills it as agent usage.

SeekOut vs Maki pricing models

SeekOut prices people and features. Its entry plan, Sourcing Core, is self serve with monthly or annual billing and a 14 day trial with no card. Larger tiers are custom, billed annually and priced per seat or package, and AI screening is an add on until Full Recruiting Funnel.

Maki prices usage. Its pricing page describes an enterprise grade platform plus flexible, credit based usage for each AI agent you switch on, and says you pay for candidate interactions rather than licences. No figures are published, and rollout runs through contracting, privacy review and a pilot, which Maki puts at under 2 months.

SeekOut vs Maki at a glance

• SeekOut finds and contacts people; Maki evaluates the people who applied
• Both rank inbound applicants with explanations, SeekOut as an add on and Maki through Shiro
• Only Maki covers deep assessment and a co-pilot for human interviews
• Maki is EU hosted by default; SeekOut's compliance records are aimed at US reviews

Before you shortlist either vendor

Do

• Map whether your bottleneck is before or after the application
• Read Maki's Holistic AI audit results and SeekOut's latest bias audit
• Ask Maki which ATS stage triggers each agent and what moves automatically

Do not

• Expecting Maki to fill an empty pipeline
• Expecting SeekOut to structure your final round interviews
• Comparing a seat price with agent credits without modelling your volume

A smaller option that covers both sides

Criteria set once per role; each interview is scored against them.

For teams below enterprise scale, The Cognitive searches ~900M public profiles with verified emails and phones, then runs a live 10 or 20 minute AI video interview. Each criterion is scored 1 to 5 with overall written feedback, a transcript and the recording. It has no assessments or human interview co-pilot.

Keep reading

SeekOut review · SeekOut alternatives · Maki review · Maki alternatives · HireVue vs Maki

Frequently asked questions

Is Maki better than SeekOut?

They are better at different halves of hiring. Maki is stronger once candidates have applied, with skills and voice screening, deep assessments, scheduling and an interview co-pilot feeding one decision card. SeekOut is stronger before that point, searching over a billion profiles and your ATS and running outreach. Many enterprises would need something from each side.

SeekOut vs Maki pricing: how do they charge?

SeekOut charges per seat, apart from its self serve entry plan, which shows a price and offers 14 free days; the rest are custom annual contracts. Maki charges for an enterprise platform plus credit based usage per AI agent, paying for candidate interactions rather than licences, and publishes no figures.

Does Maki source candidates?

Not on the pages read on 5 October 2026. Maki's first stage is intake, which it describes as defining success before sourcing, and its agents start once candidates are in your ATS. For finding people who have not applied, you would pair it with a sourcing tool such as SeekOut.

Does SeekOut do voice screening like Maki's Mochi?

SeekOut's homepage says its AI screener conducts video interviews; no page read mentions a phone channel. Maki's Mochi is a voice screener that candidates call or join from the web, with automatic callbacks, SMS follow ups and scoring against a fixed grid, and Maki says it never rejects a candidate automatically.

Can I use SeekOut and Maki together?

Yes, through the ATS. Both list Workday and iCIMS. SeekOut would find and engage people who then apply, and Maki would trigger its agents when those applicants reach the stage you choose, writing results back to the ATS. Neither lists the other as a direct integration.

Which is better for EU data residency?

Maki states EU data residency by default, ISO 27001 certification, GDPR compliance and EU AI Act readiness. SeekOut's pages read on 5 October 2026 list SOC 2 Type II, encryption and records ready for EEOC and OFCCP reviews, but do not state a hosting region, so ask SeekOut directly.

What is Maki Tomo?

Tomo is Maki's interview co-pilot. It joins Zoom, Microsoft Teams or Google Meet interviews when invited, transcribes them, keeps a structured plan in front of the interviewer and produces notes and competency level evidence. The human still asks the questions and makes the decision. SeekOut has no equivalent.

Explore: SeekOut review · Maki review · Maki alternatives · SeekOut alternatives