ATS pricing in 2026
Short answer. There is no honest average. Floors checked 2026-08-28: $0 on a capped free plan, $15/user/mo annual for Manatal Professional, $157/mo annual for Breezy Startup. Skip quote-only enterprise if you need to post a job today.
An applicant tracking system for a small business in 2026 costs $0 on a capped free plan, $15 per user per month on the cheapest published paid AI seat (Manatal Professional, billed annually), or a few hundred dollars a month once you buy a flat multi-user or headcount-band product. There is no honest average. The number that matters is not the sticker for one login. It is what you pay when three people touch hiring.
Prices below were opened on vendor pages on 2026-08-28. Hirelane is a review publication, not an ATS vendor. Tool-by-tool picks: best ATS for small business. How we treat list prices: methodology.
Some links may be affiliate links. Ranking is not for sale; we still only list dollars we can see on the vendor’s own site. Affiliate disclosure.
The three pricing models
| Model | How the bill grows | Published 2026-08-28 example |
|---|---|---|
| Per-user | Each recruiter seat is a line item. Hiring-manager access may be free, packed, or another seat. | Manatal Professional $15/user/mo annual ($19 monthly). Zoho Recruit Corporate Standard $25/recruiter/mo annual ($30 monthly). Recruiterflow Platform $119/user/mo yearly ($149 monthly). |
| Flat fee | One price for the company, usually with job or feature caps — not a per-login meter on the public page. | Breezy HR Startup $157/mo annual ($189 monthly), unlimited users on paid plans. JazzHR Hero $1,000/yr. Plural Hire $59/month (3 hiring managers). ApplicantStack Starter $29.99/mo. |
| Headcount band | You pay for company size, not hires and not recruiter seats. | Workable Standard $299/month ($3,588/year) for 1–20 employees, annual view. |
Three recruiter logins turn a $15 seat into $45 and a $25 Zoho license into $75. They do not change Breezy Startup or JazzHR Hero. That is the whole game.
What 1 person vs 3 people pay
Assumptions stated in the cell. Annual (or the yearly rate the vendor prints) where they print both. Recruiterflow is an agency product; it is here so you can see a per-seat desk bill next to SMB flats.
| Product (rate we captured) | 1 person who hires | 3 people touching hiring |
|---|---|---|
| Manatal Professional (annual) | $15/mo | $15/mo if 1 recruiter + hiring managers (unlimited HMs on Professional); $45/mo if 3 recruiter seats |
| Zoho Recruit Corporate Standard (annual) | $25/mo | $75/mo (3 recruiter licenses). Hiring-manager/employee licenses are add-ons in packs of 10. |
| Recruiterflow Platform (yearly rate) | $119/mo | $357/mo (3 × $119) |
| Breezy HR Startup (annual) | $157/mo | $157/mo (unlimited users on paid plans) |
| JazzHR Hero | $1,000/yr | $1,000/yr (no per-seat line on the public page) |
| Workable Standard, 1–20 employees (annual) | $299/mo | $299/mo inside that band |
| Plural Hire | $59/mo | $59/mo (Hire includes 3 hiring managers) |
| ApplicantStack Starter | $29.99/mo | $29.99/mo if you fit 1 admin + up to 5 hiring managers and 1 active job |
Free plans are $0, with a job cap: Breezy Bootstrap is one active pool or position; Zoho Forever Free is one active job. Fine for one opening. A trap for three.
Published floors we verified on 2026-08-28
| Tool | Model | Entry paid price we saw | Free / trial | Skip the table if |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Manatal | Per-user | Professional $15/user/mo annual ($19 monthly) | 14-day trial, no card | You need a forever-free plan |
| Zoho Recruit | Per-user | Corporate Standard $25/recruiter/mo annual ($30 monthly) | Forever Free, 1 job; 15-day trial | You refuse per-recruiter billing |
| Recruiterflow | Per-user (agency) | Platform $119/user/mo yearly ($149 monthly) | Not a printed free plan on the pricing page we opened | You want the AIRA plan (quote-only) |
| Breezy HR | Flat | Startup $157/mo annual ($189 monthly) | Bootstrap free, 1 pool/position | You need Custom Pro (quote-only) |
| JazzHR | Flat (yearly invoice) | Hero $1,000/yr | No free plan on the public page | You refuse annual and wanted a monthly sticker we did not capture |
| Plural | Flat | Hire $59/month | Free to start; 14-day trial on paid plans | You need more than 3 hiring managers on Hire |
| ApplicantStack | Flat (month-to-month) | Starter $29.99/mo | 14-day trial | You are outside the US/Canada |
| Workable | Headcount band | Standard $299/mo ($3,588/yr), 1–20 employees, annual | 15-day trial, no card | You only needed a kanban, not a sourcing suite |
Not in the tables (no dollars we could quote, or quote-only): Recruit CRM, Recruitee, Greenhouse, Freshteam, Recruiterflow AIRA, Breezy Custom Pro. Details below.
Per-user ATS
Manatal (manatal.com/pricing, 2026-08-28). Professional $15 per user per month billed annually ($19 monthly) — 15 jobs, 10,000 candidates, unlimited hiring managers. Enterprise $35 annual ($39 monthly). Enterprise Plus $55 ($59 monthly). Custom is on demand. FAQ on that page: Professional is $15 USD per user/month (billed annually); 14-day trial, no card. “User” is the recruiter you pay for. Three recruiter users = $45/mo annual. Interviewers can stay $0 extra on Professional if they are hiring managers. Trial: Manatal signup.
Zoho Recruit (zoho.com/recruit/pricing.html, USD from Zoho’s published price file recruit-pricing-val.json loaded by that page, 2026-08-28). Corporate HR Standard $25/recruiter/month billed annually ($30 monthly); Corporate Enterprise $50 ($60 monthly). Staffing edition: Standard $25/$30, Professional $50/$60, Enterprise $75/$90 (annual/monthly). Forever Free $0, one active job. 15-day trial, then Free; 45-day money-back on paid editions; no forced contracts, per the pricing page. Taxes extra. Three Corporate Standard recruiters: $75/mo before add-ons. Hiring-manager/employee licenses are sold in packs of 10.
Recruiterflow (recruiterflow.com/pricing, 2026-08-28). Platform plan USD in page source: $149 monthly, $119 yearly, per user. Meta and JSON-LD on the same page: pricing starts at $119/user/month. AIRA plan is “Let’s chat / custom pricing” — excluded from tables. This is agency desk software, not a 20-person in-house default. Compare the seat math with Manatal on Manatal vs Recruit CRM and the agency ATS guide. Product: Recruiterflow.
Flat-fee ATS
Breezy HR (breezy.hr/pricing, 2026-08-28). Bootstrap free. Startup $157/mo annual / $189 monthly. Growth $273 / $329. Business $439 / $529. Annual pricing includes two months free. Paid plans: unlimited users and unlimited positions. Custom Pro is contact us (quote-only). Bootstrap: one active pool or position; unlimited candidate access is only for records added in the last 30 days. Add-ons printed on the same page: Intelligence credits from $30/100,000, SMS from $41/mo, Onboard from $49/mo. Trial: Breezy signup — 14-day full-feature trial, no card, 100,000 Intelligence credits (vendor copy, 2026-08-28). Three hiring managers do not raise the Startup sticker. See JazzHR vs Workable vs Breezy.
JazzHR (jazzhr.com/pricing, 2026-08-28). Hero $1,000/yr. Plus $3,480/yr. Pro $5,508/yr. Page: “save up to 24% by paying yearly.” We cite the yearly dollars shown. We are not inventing a monthly sticker. Hero job postings start at 3/month (vendor wording, eligibility caveats). No per-seat fee on the public page. Offers/e-signatures and advanced visual reporting are add-ons on lower tiers. Some features are consumption-based.
Plural (pluralcareers.com/pricing, 2026-08-28). Hire $59/month. Hire + Retain $179/month. Enterprise $299/month. Figures we captured are the monthly prices shown (the page toggles monthly/yearly). Hire includes 3 hiring managers and 5 offices. 14-day trial on paid plans; free to start, no card. A 75% switch-from-Greenhouse guarantee is marketing, not a list price. Small-team Greenhouse context: Greenhouse alternatives for small teams.
ApplicantStack (applicantstack.com/pricing, 2026-08-28). Starter $29.99/mo (1 job, 1 admin, 5 hiring managers). Growth $49.99/mo (3 jobs). Recruit $109.99/mo (unlimited jobs; add seats). Bundle $159.99/mo. Month-to-month; vendor: no required contract or cancellation fee, no required setup fee. Extra seats on Recruit/Bundle have no public unit price. Vendor form: US and Canada only. 14-day trial; vendor says you can only view the first 100 candidates until you upgrade.
Headcount-band ATS
Workable (workable.com/pricing, 2026-08-28). 1–20 employees, annual view: Standard $299/month ($3,588/year); Premier $599 ($7,188/year); Enterprise $719 ($8,628/year). Page advertises up to 20% savings on annual/bundle. Higher employee bands are listed; those dollars were not in the public figures we captured, so they are not in the table. Standard add-ons in the 1–20 band: texting +$89/mo, video +$109/mo, assessments +$59/mo. Paid accounts start with 3,000 Agent credits; extra packs $0.12 / $0.10 / $0.095 per credit (5,000 / 10,000 / 50,000). Credits expire in one year; non-refundable. 15-day trial, no card; trial does not include the Agent. You pay for headcount, not hires. A 20-person company that posts twice a year is buying a sourcing suite, not a spreadsheet replacement. Trial: Workable free trial.
Quote-only, missing dollars, do not table
If the only CTA is a demo and the page will not print a number, it is not a small-business default. We exclude these from the cost tables.
- Recruit CRM (recruitcrm.io/pricing, 2026-08-28). Pro / Business / Enterprise with a monthly vs annual toggle and “Save up to 20%.” The HTML and schema Offer we fetched did not include dollar amounts. Agency comparison: Manatal vs Recruit CRM. Product: Recruit CRM.
- Recruitee (recruitee.com/pricing, 2026-08-28). Start / Advance / Optimize. No dollars. FAQ: subscriptions are tiered by plan, employee count, and billing period; annual is a 20% discount; minimum commitment one year. Quote-only for this page.
- Greenhouse (and Lever, Ashby). Structured hiring for companies that will take a sales call. Not ranked as small-business ATS. Greenhouse alternatives for small teams.
- Freshteam. freshworks.com/freshteam and freshworks.com/freshteam/pricing returned page not found on 2026-08-28. No dollar figure.
- Recruiterflow AIRA and Breezy Custom Pro. Custom / contact us. Platform and Startup/Growth/Business are the printed plans.
Who should skip — when not to buy an ATS
Do not buy a standalone ATS if:
- You hire fewer than about 10 people a year and already pay for an HRIS (BambooHR, Rippling, Gusto, payroll-bundled hiring). Use the module you already pay for. A second subscription is usually wasted.
- You have one open role and a spreadsheet that still tells the truth. Start on Breezy Bootstrap or Zoho Forever Free. Paying $299/mo for Workable Standard to post one job is the expensive way to learn you needed a careers page.
- The vendor will not print a price. Recruitee, Greenhouse, Recruiterflow AIRA, Breezy Custom Pro, and Recruit CRM (no dollars in our 2026-08-28 fetch) are research projects, not checkout.
- You are shopping Freshteam because last year’s list still has the logo. There was no live vendor price on 2026-08-28.
- You need 10 hiring-manager logins and you only looked at a $15 per-recruiter sticker. Count who must log in. If they are recruiter seats, multiply. If they are hiring managers, read the plan. Plural Hire caps at 3. Zoho packs HMs. Manatal Professional does not charge HMs. Breezy paid plans do not charge per user.
- You are a recruiting agency buying an in-house SMB flat. Agency desks usually need CRM, clients, and per-desk math — ATS for agencies, not JazzHR Hero.
If you cannot answer what happened to the March candidate, you have outgrown the spreadsheet. That is not automatically a paid plan, and it is not Greenhouse.
How to pick the cost model in 10 minutes
- Count last year’s hires. Under ~10 with an HRIS: stop.
- Count logins. One recruiter: per-user (Manatal or Zoho) is usually cheaper than Workable’s 1–20 band. Three-plus people in the tool: prefer flat (Breezy Startup, JazzHR yearly, Plural Hire) unless they are all billable recruiter seats.
- Prefer a published price. If the only CTA is “Get a demo,” it is not a small-business default.
- Add the add-ons you will actually turn on (Breezy Intelligence credits, Workable texting/video, Zoho HM packs). Do not treat the landing sticker as the invoice.
- Apply to your own test job on a phone before you pay annual.
FAQs
How much does an ATS cost for a small business in 2026?
Verified 2026-08-28 floors: $0 (Breezy Bootstrap / Zoho Forever Free), $15/user/mo annual (Manatal Professional), $29.99/mo (ApplicantStack Starter), $59/mo (Plural Hire), $157/mo annual (Breezy Startup), $1,000/yr (JazzHR Hero), $299/mo (Workable Standard, 1–20 employees). Your real number is the 3-person column.
Is per-user or flat-fee ATS cheaper?
For one recruiter, per-user wins on the published pages we opened (Manatal $15, Zoho $25). For three recruiter seats, Manatal is $45 and Zoho Corporate Standard is $75, while Breezy Startup stays $157 and JazzHR Hero stays $1,000/yr. Flat wins when hiring managers must log in and the vendor would bill them as users.
Is there a free ATS for small business?
Yes. Breezy Bootstrap (one active pool or position; 30-day candidate window) and Zoho Recruit Forever Free (one active job). Plural is free to start. Manatal, JazzHR, Workable, ApplicantStack, and Recruiterflow Platform are paid after trial or with no forever-free plan on the pages we opened.
Do I need an ATS if I already pay for an HRIS?
Often no, until you fill roles every month and more than one person needs a pipeline. An ATS tracks candidates and jobs. An HRIS tracks employees after they accept. Stay on the HRIS to about 10 hires/year unless the hiring UI is already broken.
Why are Greenhouse, Recruitee, and Recruit CRM missing from the cost tables?
We only table dollars we can see on a live vendor page. Recruitee and Greenhouse did not print prices on 2026-08-28. Recruit CRM listed plans and a 20% annual toggle; no dollar amounts appeared in the HTML or schema Offer we fetched that day.
How much does an ATS cost for three people vs one?
On 2026-08-28 published rates: Manatal Professional $15 vs $15–$45; Zoho Corporate Standard $25 vs $75; Recruiterflow Platform $119 vs $357; Breezy Startup $157 vs $157; JazzHR Hero $1,000/yr vs $1,000/yr; Workable Standard 1–20 $299 vs $299; Plural Hire $59 vs $59; ApplicantStack Starter $29.99 vs $29.99 (1 admin + HM seats, 1 job).
When should a small business not buy an ATS?
Skip a standalone ATS if you hire fewer than about 10 people a year and already have an HRIS, if one free-plan job covers you, or if the vendor will only quote. Do not buy Greenhouse as a 20-person first ATS. Picks by hire volume: best ATS for small business.
Close
Price the model, not the logo. Free (Breezy or Zoho) if you have one role. Per-seat (Manatal Professional, or Zoho if you already live in Zoho) if one recruiter runs the board. Flat (Breezy Startup, JazzHR yearly, Plural, ApplicantStack) if three people will log in. Headcount (Workable) only if you will use the sourcing suite at 1–20 employees. Agency desks: Recruiterflow Platform is a printed per-user number; Recruit CRM was not, on the day we opened it.
Next: best ATS for small business, Manatal vs Recruit CRM, JazzHR vs Workable vs Breezy, Greenhouse alternatives, agency ATS, AI-native ATS, AI resume screening, solo recruiting CRM, Bullhorn alternatives.