ATS pricing in 2026: what an applicant tracking system actually costs

Every price below was read off the vendor’s own pricing page, not copied from another comparison post. Where a vendor publishes nothing, this page says so rather than repeating a number someone guessed in 2023.

Last verified 2026-08-19 · 11 vendors

What a 5-person recruiting team pays

Entry price is the cheapest published plan. The five-seat column is what that same vendor charges once five people need access — the number that actually decides your bill, and the one headline pricing hides.

ATSPricing modelEntry price5 peopleFree plan
JuggleHireFlat, whole team$79/mo$79/mo
ManatalPer recruiter seat$15/user/mo$75/mo
JazzHRAnnual prepay only$1,000/yr$83/mo equivalent
Zoho RecruitPer recruiter seat$25/recruiter/mo$125/mo
Breezy HRFlat per plan$157/mo$157/mo
BambooHRPer employee$10/employee/mofrom $250/mo
WorkableFlat per plan$299/mo$299/mo
SmartRecruitersQuote onlyfrom $14,995from $14,995
GreenhouseQuote onlyQuote onlyQuote only
LeverQuote onlyQuote onlyQuote only
RecruiteeQuote onlyQuote onlyQuote only

BambooHR is billed per employee in the company rather than per recruiter, so a small team pays its flat floor. Read the per-vendor notes below before budgeting on any single number.

The three pricing models, and which one bites

Flat, whole team. One price, everyone included. The bill does not move when you add a recruiter or a hiring manager. This is the only model where your cost is predictable a year out.

Per recruiter seat. Looks cheapest on the pricing page and rarely stays that way. At $15 per seat, one recruiter is $15 and a team of eight is $120. The trap is hiring managers: if they need logins to leave feedback, they are seats too.

Per employee in the company. Used by HR suites that bundle an ATS. Your hiring cost is then driven by how many people you employ, not how much you hire — a 200-person company that hires twice a year pays for 200 seats.

And the fourth: no price at all. Greenhouse, Lever and Recruitee publish nothing. Recruitee used to publish euro prices and stopped, which is why figures for it still circulating on other comparison pages are worth nothing.

Vendor by vendor

Published pricing first, then the vendors that require a sales call.

JuggleHire

Flat, whole team

Light $79/mo (up to 5 members, 5,000-candidate database); Pro $149/mo (unlimited members and database, automation, GDPR tools). 14-day free trial, no free-forever plan.

Flat for the whole team. Five recruiters cost the same as one on Light; the price only changes if you need Pro features.

Vendor pricing pageVerified 2026-08-19

Manatal

Per recruiter seat

Professional $15, Enterprise $35, Enterprise Plus $55 per user/month on annual billing.

Cheapest per-seat option here. Five seats on Professional is $75/mo, but that tier caps at 15 jobs and 10,000 candidates.

JazzHR

Annual prepay only

Hero $1,000/yr, Plus $3,480/yr, Pro $5,508/yr — all billed annually, no monthly option.

Cheapest published entry price of any ATS here, but you pay the full $1,000 up front — there is no monthly plan. Hero starts at 3 job postings.

Zoho Recruit

Per recruiter seat

Free forever for 1 recruiter; Standard $25 and Enterprise $50 per recruiter/month billed annually. The old $75 tier is gone.

Per recruiter licence. Five seats on Standard is $125/mo billed annually; on Enterprise it is $250/mo. A genuine free tier covers one recruiter and one active job.

Breezy HR

Flat per plan

Bootstrap free (limited); Startup $157/mo, Growth $273/mo, Business $439/mo on annual billing (about $189, $329 and $527 billed monthly). E-signatures need Growth or above.

Flat per plan, not per seat. Annual billing; monthly billing is roughly 20% more. A free Bootstrap tier exists but is very limited.

BambooHR

Per employee

Core $10, Pro $17, Elite $25 per employee/month. Under 25 employees, a flat rate from $250/mo. Hiring is part of the HR suite, not a standalone ATS.

Billed per EMPLOYEE, not per recruiter. Companies with 25 or fewer employees pay a flat rate starting at $250/mo, so a small team pays the floor.

Workable

Flat per plan

Standard $299/mo; Premier $599/mo; Enterprise $719/mo (all at 1-20 employees). Texting +$89/mo, Video interviews +$109/mo, Assessments +$59/mo.

Priced by company headcount, not recruiter seats. $299 covers 1-20 employees; add-ons are extra.

SmartRecruiters

Quote only

Essential starts at $14,995; Professional, Enterprise and Global tiers are Contact Sales. The published figure carries no billing period on the page.

The page prints Starting at $14,995 without stating per what. Treat it as an annual floor and confirm with sales. No free plan is offered any more.

Greenhouse

Quote only

Custom quote only — no public pricing (re-checked 2026-08-19, still no figures published).

No price is published at any tier. Expect a sales call before you see a number.

Lever

Quote only

Custom quote only — no public pricing (re-checked 2026-08-19, still no figures published).

No published figures. Third-party reports put contracts in the four to five figures per year, but Lever itself publishes nothing.

Recruitee

Quote only

No public pricing. Now branded Tellent Recruitee; every plan is a Get a demo button (re-checked 2026-08-19). Older €99/€249/€399 figures are no longer published anywhere.

Prices were public in the past and are not any more. Do not trust the euro figures still circulating on comparison blogs.

The costs that are not on the pricing page

  • Add-ons. Workable charges $89/mo for texting, $109/mo for video interviews and $59/mo for assessments on top of the plan price. A $299 plan with all three is $556.
  • Annual lock-in. JazzHR has no monthly option at all. Breezy, Zoho and Manatal advertise the annual rate; monthly billing costs roughly 20% more.
  • Seats you did not plan for. Hiring managers, interviewers and finance approvers all need access on most per-seat tools.
  • Paid job-board posting. Distribution to paid boards is almost always billed separately from the ATS subscription, whichever vendor you pick.
  • Implementation. The vendors that hide pricing are also the ones most likely to attach an onboarding fee.

Frequently asked questions

How much does an applicant tracking system cost?

For a small recruiting team, published ATS pricing in 2026 runs from about $75/month at the cheap end to roughly $300/month for a mid-market product, with enterprise tools starting around $15,000 and going up from there. The spread is wide because vendors charge on three different bases: a flat price for the whole team, a price per recruiter seat, or a price per employee in your company.

What is the average cost of an applicant tracking system?

An average is misleading here, because the pricing models are not comparable. A per-seat tool at $15/user looks cheaper than a $79 flat plan until you add the fourth recruiter. Compare what your specific team size pays, not headline entry prices — that is what the table on this page shows.

Why do so many ATS vendors hide their pricing?

Four of the eleven vendors on this page publish no price at all: Greenhouse, Lever, Recruitee and the upper tiers of SmartRecruiters. Hidden pricing usually means the price varies by company size and by what the sales team thinks you will pay. Expect a discovery call before you see a number, and expect an annual contract.

What is the cheapest applicant tracking system with good reviews?

On published entry price, Manatal at $15 per user per month and JazzHR at $1,000 a year are the lowest. Both come with real limits: Manatal Professional caps at 15 jobs, and JazzHR has no monthly option, so you pay the full year up front. Per-seat pricing also stops being cheap quickly — five Manatal seats is $75/month, five Zoho Recruit seats is $125/month.

Is there a free applicant tracking system?

Zoho Recruit has a genuine free tier for one recruiter and one active job, and Breezy HR has a limited free Bootstrap plan. Both are real, and both are built to run out as soon as you hire at any volume. JuggleHire does not offer a free-forever plan — it is a 14-day trial of the complete product.

Are these prices up to date?

Every figure here was read off the vendor’s own pricing page on the date shown in the table. Prices decay quietly: when this page was built, five of the eleven vendors had changed what they publish since the previous check, including two that had started publishing prices they used to withhold. Always confirm on the vendor page before you budget.

Where JuggleHire sits. $79/month flat for the whole team, $149 with automation and unlimited database. No per-seat maths, no sales call to see a number, 14-day trial of the complete product. See our pricing