What eight applicant tracking systems actually cost

Greenhouse, Ashby, Lever, Workable, JazzHR, Recruitee, Pinpoint, and Yardstick, priced off their own pages on October 1, 2026. Four publish a number. Four will not. And the four that do are counting four different things.

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Four things to settle before you compare a price to a price.

  1. 1Start with the unit, not the numberWorkable bills against your employee count. Ashby's published tier is banded by company size. JazzHR charges a flat fee, monthly or yearly, with a cap on job postings. Yardstick charges per role you have open. Four published prices, four different things being counted, so the headline figures do not line up against each other.
  2. 2Check which tier your must-have actually starts onTwo of the eight put structured interviewing above the entry tier, and one puts its developer sandbox on the top tier only. The cheapest published price is often not the price of the product you came to buy.
  3. 3Ask for the contract term in the first emailOnly one of the eight publishes a minimum term. Everyone else settles it in the contract, which is late in your process to discover you are committing to a year.
  4. 4Expect a call before a number from half the fieldFour of these will not tell you what they cost until you have spoken to someone, which adds a week or two to your evaluation before you have anything to compare.

If you want the same field with an opinion attached, our best ATS for startups list ranks a shorter set for a specific kind of team. If your budget is the constraint, the ATS under $100 a month list prices eight systems at one open role and again at three. For a company of about 20 people, the ATS for a 20-person startup page prices six systems at that size.

What each one charges, and for what.

The first four publish a price. The last four quote on request.

  • Ashby — publishes one tier at $300 to $900 a month by headcount and quotes the two above it

    Best for: a company under 100 employees that wants a real number without a call, and structured interviewing on the tier it can actually see.

    • Ashby Foundations is $300 to $900 a month, published by headcount band, for companies up to 100 employees. Ashby Plus (101 to 1,000 employees) and Ashby Enterprise (1,000+) are quoted, so two of Ashby's three tiers have no number on them.
    • The unit is company size. Your bill moves when your headcount crosses a band, not when your hiring picks up or slows down.
    • Ashby Foundations can be paid monthly or yearly, and Ashby states a “10% discount for annual commitments available”. No minimum term is published.
    • Structured interview plans and public API access are listed on every tier, including the published one. Foundations also carries 1,500 AI credits a month.

    Watch-out: One published number out of three tiers. If you are over 100 employees, you are back to a sales conversation to find out what it costs. Our Yardstick vs Ashby page puts the two side by side.

  • JazzHR — has the lowest published price of the eight at $1,000 a year, and structured interviewing is not on that tier

    Best for: a small team posting a handful of roles a year that wants to buy an ATS without talking to anyone.

    • JazzHR Hero is $1,000 a year, JazzHR Plus is $3,480 a year, and JazzHR Pro is $5,508 a year, billed yearly. Billed monthly, they are $110, $350, and $549 a month. JazzHR is the only one of the eight you can price and check out on the website.
    • JazzHR's unit is a flat fee per plan, not your headcount. JazzHR Hero caps job postings at “Starting at 3/month”; JazzHR Plus allows “Up to 200 active jobs”.
    • JazzHR's “Structured Interviews & Assessments” arrive at JazzHR Plus, at $3,480 a year. If structured interviewing is the reason you are buying an ATS, your JazzHR entry price is three and a half times the headline.
    • JazzHR documents its API publicly, at apidoc.jazzhrapis.com. Which plans include it is not published.

    Watch-out: JazzHR's $1,000 a year buys posting and tracking. Read the tier your must-have features sit on before you anchor on the headline.

  • Workable — publishes all three tier prices, banded by how many employees you have

    Best for: a team that wants the entire price list visible up front and is comfortable being billed against headcount.

    • Workable Standard is $299 a month for 1 to 20 employees, Workable Premier is $599 a month, and Workable Enterprise is $719 a month at that same band. Workable's bands run 1–20, 21–50, 51–100, 101–200, 201–400, 401–600, 601–800, 801–1000, and 1000+.
    • Those are annual rates, so Workable Standard is $3,588 a year. Workable Standard can also be paid monthly, at $360 a month, while Workable Premier and Workable Enterprise are paid annually only.
    • Workable puts “Interview kits and scorecards”, “API access”, and the “Talent CRM database” all in Workable Standard, its cheapest tier.
    • Workable prices texting, video interviews, and assessments separately on Workable Standard ($89, $109, and $59 a month, paid annually) and builds them into Workable Premier. Workable's AI runs on credits: 3,000 free, then $0.095 to $0.12 each.

    Watch-out: Workable's price is set by your employee count rather than your hiring. A 300-person company with two open roles pays the band built for 300 people. Our Yardstick vs Workable page has the fuller comparison.

  • Yardstick — prices per open role rather than per employee or per seat, from $49 a month plus $29 for each open role

    Best for: teams that want to be charged for the hiring they are actually doing, and want the interview itself built to predict performance in the specific role.

    • Yardstick is free for your first 3 Jobs. Yardstick Core is $49 a month plus $29 per open role, Yardstick Scale is $149 a month plus $19 per open role, and Yardstick Enterprise is quoted. Yardstick's two paid tiers cross over at 10 open roles.
    • Yardstick bills monthly, with no annual contract and no paid seats. When a Job stops being active, the Yardstick charge for it stops the next month.
    • Before anyone is scheduled, you design the interview guide for the role jointly with AI: what the job actually demands, and what evidence would show a candidate can deliver it. The scorecards attached to it hold that evidence in one place.
    • Scorecards, the talent CRM, and the public API are on every account, including the free one, not gated to a higher tier. What Yardstick is covers the rest.

    Watch-out: Yardstick is a focused structured-interview ATS with a talent CRM built in. It is not an HRIS. If you need performance reviews and engagement in the same system, that is a different shopping list.

  • Greenhouse — does not publish a price, and says it is customized based on your company's hiring needs

    Best for: larger teams standardizing hiring across many requisitions, with a procurement process that expects a quote anyway.

    • Three tiers are named, Core, Plus, and Pro, with no figure against any of them. Greenhouse says pricing is “customized based on your company's hiring needs”.
    • No pricing unit and no minimum term are published, so there is nothing to compare against the four published prices above until you have had the call.
    • “Structured interview kits & scorecards” are in Core, the entry tier, along with AI scorecard attribute suggestions and interview question suggestions.
    • “Developer sandbox & sync” appears at Pro, the top tier, and CRM events go from 1 at Core to unlimited at Pro. The Harvest API is documented publicly, but the pricing page does not say which plans include it.

    Watch-out: You cannot budget from the website, and if you need a developer sandbox it sits on the most expensive tier. Our Yardstick vs Greenhouse page goes deeper than a table cell can, and if the other quote on your desk is from Rippling, see Rippling Recruiting vs Greenhouse.

  • Lever — publishes no price, no tier names, and no feature-by-tier breakdown

    Best for: teams that want applicant tracking and nurture in one system and are willing to run a sales cycle to price it.

    • Pricing is “available upon request”. There are no tier names, no figures, and no feature grid on the pricing page, so it offers the least to evaluate on before a call of any of the eight.
    • Lever says its pricing “scales based on your team size and hiring needs”, but publishes no figure and no minimum term.
    • The API is documented publicly, at hire.lever.co/developer/documentation. Which plans include it is not published.
    • Scorecards are not addressed on the pricing page, so this page does not state anything about them either way.

    Watch-out: Budget a discovery call before you can put Lever into a spreadsheet next to a published price.

  • Pinpoint — does not publish a price, and says company size does not always correlate with hiring complexity

    Best for: teams that want every hiring manager in the system and would rather be priced on how they hire than on headcount.

    • No figure and no tier names are published. Pinpoint asks for “a short conversation with you to better understand your company, hiring process, and how we can help so we can provide you with an accurate price”.
    • The stated reasoning is that “company size doesn't always correlate with hiring complexity”, which is the same objection to headcount pricing that the per-role model answers with a published number.
    • Candidate scorecards are published as a product capability.
    • “Over 100 native integrations, plus an open API for anything custom”. No tier requirement is published, because no tiers are.

    Watch-out: As with the other three quoted vendors, there is no number to put in your comparison until you have taken the call.

  • Recruitee — names three tiers, shows no prices, and is the only one of the eight that publishes a minimum contract term

    Best for: teams that want a careers site and pipeline in one place and can commit to a year.

    • Start, Advance, and Optimize are named with no figure against any of them. Recruitee says the price depends on the plan, your employee count, and your billing period.
    • “Our contracts have a minimum commitment of one year.” Monthly payment is possible, and annual payment takes 20% off. No other vendor here publishes a term at all.
    • “Structured evaluation forms” start at Advance, the middle tier, not at Start.
    • “API access” is in Start; Optimize adds “API support” and a testing environment. The AI matching assistant runs 3 searches a month at Advance and 65 at Optimize.

    Watch-out: A one-year minimum with no published price is the combination that is hardest to evaluate quickly, and structured evaluation forms are not on the entry tier.

All eight prices in one table.

Checked October 1, 2026 on each vendor's own pricing page. Where a cell reads “Not published”, the vendor does not state that detail, and we have left it rather than filled it with an estimate. Each row stands on its own: every figure in a row belongs to the vendor named at the start of that row, and to no other vendor.

The table scrolls sideways. The tool name stays put.

ToolPublished priceWhat you are billed forMinimum termStructured interviewing fromAPI from
AshbyAshby Foundations $300 to $900/monthCompany size band, up to 100 employeesNot published. Monthly or yearly, 10% off yearlyAll tiersAll tiers
JazzHRJazzHR Hero $1,000/year, Plus $3,480, Pro $5,508 (or $110, $350, $549/month billed monthly)Flat fee per plan, with a job-posting allowanceNot published. Monthly or yearly, up to 24% off yearlyJazzHR Plus, at $3,480/yearDocumented publicly, tier not published
WorkableWorkable Standard $299/month, Premier $599, Enterprise $719Employee count band, from 1 to 20 upwardNot published. Standard monthly or annual, Premier and Enterprise annual onlyStandardStandard
YardstickYardstick $0 for the first 3 Jobs, then $49/month plus $29 per open roleNumber of open roles, billed monthlyNone. Monthly, cancel by going inactiveEvery account, including freeEvery account, including free
GreenhouseNot publishedNot publishedNot publishedCoreHarvest API documented publicly, tier not published. Sandbox & sync at Pro
LeverNot publishedTeam size and hiring needs, no figureNot publishedNot publishedDocumented publicly, tier not published
PinpointNot publishedNot publishedNot publishedPublished, no tiers published“An open API for anything custom”
RecruiteeNot publishedPlan, employee count, and billing period, no figureOne year minimum. 20% off annualAdvance, the middle tierStart, with more at Optimize

Which of these is an ATS that charges per open job?

Per open job means the bill follows the number of roles you are hiring for right now, not how many people work at your company and not how many people log in. On this list, Yardstick is priced that way: Yardstick is free for the first 3 Jobs, then $49 a month plus $29 per open role, billed monthly, with no paid seats. Open a search and the Yardstick bill goes up by $29; close it and that $29 stops the next month.

The other three published prices count something else. Workable Standard at $299 a month is set by employee count. Ashby Foundations at $300 to $900 a month is set by company size. JazzHR Hero at $1,000 a year is a flat fee with an allowance of job postings, which caps how many jobs you can run rather than charging for each one. Greenhouse, Lever, Pinpoint, and Recruitee publish no price per unit, so whether a quote follows your open roles is a question for the call.

Which of these have no annual contract?

The minimum-term column above is short because most vendors do not put the term on the pricing page. What is published, as of October 1, 2026: Recruitee states that its contracts have a minimum commitment of one year, with monthly payment possible. Yardstick bills monthly with no annual contract; a Yardstick account that goes inactive is not charged for any role the next month. Workable and Ashby publish no minimum term. Workable Standard can be paid monthly, while Workable Premier and Enterprise are paid annually, and Ashby Foundations can be paid monthly or yearly with 10% off yearly. JazzHR publishes monthly and yearly prices, with up to 24% off yearly. Greenhouse, Lever, and Pinpoint publish no term at all.

An unpublished term is not the same as no term. If a year-long commitment would be a problem, ask each vendor for the minimum term in the first email, before the demo, and get the answer in writing.

The entry price is often not the price of what you came to buy.

Most people shortlist on the headline number, then find that the feature they were buying for sits a tier or two up. Three cases on this list, all published by the vendors themselves:

  • JazzHR: structured interviewing starts at 3.5 times the headline

    JazzHR Hero is $1,000 a year, the lowest published price of the eight. JazzHR's “Structured Interviews & Assessments” appear on JazzHR Plus, at $3,480 a year. If structured interviewing is the reason you are replacing a spreadsheet, that is your real JazzHR entry price.

  • Recruitee: evaluation forms start on the middle tier

    “Structured evaluation forms” begin at Advance, not at Start. No price is published for either tier, and contracts carry a one-year minimum, so this is worth settling on the first call rather than the last. How that compares with Teamtailor, another quote-based European system, is on Teamtailor vs Recruitee.

  • Greenhouse: the developer sandbox is a top-tier item

    “Developer sandbox & sync” appears at Pro. If you plan to drive your ATS from anything other than its own interface, confirm which tier that needs before you budget.

The check that saves the most time is a boring one: write down the three things you will not run hiring without, then find the cheapest tier at each vendor that has all three. That number, not the headline, is the one to compare.

The AI can be metered separately from the plan.

A newer wrinkle in ATS pricing: the plan price and the AI price can be two different bills. Workable now publishes the economics of its Workable Agent as a credit-metered add-on on its own pricing page. 3,000 AI credits are included free, and further credits are sold in packs at $600 for 5,000, $1,000 for 10,000, and $4,750 for 50,000. Credits expire one year after purchase. That is Workable stating its own numbers plainly, which is more than most vendors publish about their AI pricing.

The buying question it raises is the same unit question as the rest of this page: if you expect AI to do a lot of your screening and sourcing, estimate the credits that usage burns and add it to the plan price before you compare. Yardstick currently prices this differently: its AI features, including the AI-designed interview guides, scorecards, and decision briefs, are part of the plan price, with nothing metered on top (as of September 2026). Neither model is automatically cheaper. Metered credits can cost less if you barely use the AI, and a flat price can cost less if the AI is the reason you are buying. Run your own expected usage through both.

What to check before your ATS contract renews.

Annual ATS contracts renew on their own. The renewal date is the day the decision gets made for you, so find it first, then the notice period: how many days before that date the vendor needs your cancellation in writing. JazzHR's terms, read September 16, 2026, renew the agreement for another term of the same length unless either party asks to end it in writing at least 30 days before the term ends. Workable's terms, read the same day, renew for a further year on each anniversary unless you give written notice before that date, and promise 45 days' notice of a price increase. For the other vendors here, ask for the renewal clause before you sign, and put both dates in your calendar.

Then check what you can take with you. Ask, in writing, for an export of candidates, jobs, applications, interview notes, scorecards, and attachments such as resumes, and what format each comes in. A list of names without the notes and scorecards is not your hiring history.

Moving to per-open-job pricing removes the renewal date, because there is no annual term: the bill follows the roles you have open and drops when hiring slows, instead of holding at a headcount band for a year. Yardstick is priced that way, at $49 a month plus $29 per open role, with the first 3 Jobs free, billed monthly with no annual contract. Close a role and its charge stops the next month. If you leave, your data stays in the account to export, read-only for at least 30 days after the account ends.

Two things worth weighing before the price.

Most of these bill you for headcount, not for hiring. Two of the four published prices scale with how many people work at your company, and a third is a flat fee, cheapest as a year bought up front. Hiring plans do not hold still for a year. Yardstick charges for the roles you actually have open, billed monthly, so the bill goes up when you open a search and back down when you close one. The first 3 Jobs are free, which is enough to run a real search before you decide anything.

You want the interview to change who you hire, not just record it. An applicant tracking system tracks applicants. Seven of the eight vendors here list scorecards, which give you somewhere to put what you heard. Yardstick starts a step earlier: before anyone is scheduled, you design the interview guide for the role jointly with AI, working out what this job actually demands and what evidence would show a candidate can deliver it. Plenty of candidates are high performers somewhere, and the guide is built to surface which of them will perform in this role. AI turns the finished scorecards into a decision brief, and the hiring team makes the call.

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Questions buyers ask about ATS pricing.

Which ATS charges per open job instead of per employee?

Yardstick. It is priced per open role: free for the first 3 Jobs, then $49 a month plus $29 for each role you have open, billed monthly, with no paid seats. When a role closes, the Yardstick charge for it stops the next month. None of the other seven published grids checked on October 1, 2026 is priced per open job. Workable's pricing page lists Standard at $299, Premier at $599 and Enterprise at $719 a month for 1 to 20 employees, and no pay-per-job plan. Ashby Foundations, at $300 to $900 a month depending on company size, is set by headcount. JazzHR Hero at $1,000 a year is a flat fee with a job-posting allowance, which is a cap on jobs rather than a charge per job. Greenhouse, Lever, Pinpoint, and Recruitee publish no price at all.

How much does an applicant tracking system cost?

Of the eight checked here on October 1, 2026, four publish a price. JazzHR Hero is $1,000 a year, JazzHR Plus is $3,480 a year, and JazzHR Pro is $5,508 a year, or $110, $350, and $549 a month billed monthly. Workable Standard is $299 a month for 1 to 20 employees billed annually, and Workable Premier and Workable Enterprise are $599 and $719 a month at that band. Ashby Foundations is $300 to $900 a month for companies up to 100 employees, depending on headcount. Yardstick is free for the first 3 Jobs, then $49 a month plus $29 per open role. Greenhouse, Lever, Pinpoint, and Recruitee do not publish a price at all. The four published figures are not directly comparable, because each vendor bills for a different unit: employee count, company size, a flat fee per plan, or the number of roles you have open.

Which applicant tracking systems publish their pricing?

Four of these eight publish a price. JazzHR, Workable, and Yardstick publish their full tier lists, and Ashby publishes its entry tier and quotes the two above it. Greenhouse, Lever, Pinpoint, and Recruitee quote on request, and Lever publishes no tier names or feature grid either. Recruitee is the only one of the eight that publishes a minimum contract term, which it states as one year.

What is the cheapest applicant tracking system?

By published headline price, JazzHR Hero at $1,000 a year is the lowest paid tier of the eight. Yardstick is free for the first 3 Jobs, then $49 a month plus $29 per open role. The headline is not the whole answer, though: JazzHR's structured interviews and assessments start on JazzHR Plus at $3,480 a year, so the cheapest tier that includes structured interviewing costs three and a half times the entry price. Recruitee's structured evaluation forms also start above its entry tier. Price the tier that contains what you actually need, not the first row of the table.

Why can't I compare these prices directly?

Because they measure different things. Workable Standard at $299 a month is set by how many employees your company has. Ashby Foundations at $300 to $900 a month is set by company size, up to 100 employees. JazzHR Hero at $1,000 a year is a flat fee with a cap of about three job postings a month on that tier. Yardstick at $49 a month plus $29 per open role is set by how many roles you have open. A 300-person company hiring for two roles and a 30-person company hiring for twelve will rank these four in completely different orders, so work out which unit matches your own hiring before you compare any numbers.

Which of these include scorecards and structured interviewing?

Seven of the eight publish scorecards or structured evaluation of some kind, and Lever's pricing page does not address it. What differs is the tier it starts on: Ashby, Workable, Greenhouse, and Yardstick include it on their entry tier, JazzHR starts it at Plus, and Recruitee starts it at Advance. Worth asking beyond the checkbox is whether the interview that fills the scorecard was designed for the specific role. A form for recording impressions is not the same thing as an interview built to show whether this candidate can do this job. In Yardstick you design that interview guide with AI before anyone is scheduled, and the scorecards hang off it.

Which of these have a public API, and on which tier?

Ashby lists public developer API access on all tiers, Workable includes API access in Standard, Recruitee includes API access from Start and adds API support and a testing environment at Optimize, and Yardstick ships a public API on every account including the free one. Greenhouse publishes developer sandbox and sync at Pro, its top tier, and documents its Harvest API publicly without stating which plans include it. Pinpoint describes an open API without publishing tiers. Lever and JazzHR publish API documentation without stating which plans include it.

Which of these applicant tracking systems bill month to month?

Only one of the eight publishes a minimum term, and only one publishes that there is none. Recruitee states that its contracts have a minimum commitment of one year, with monthly payment possible. Yardstick bills monthly with no annual contract, so you can stop when your hiring stops. Workable lets you pay monthly on Standard, while Premier and Enterprise are paid annually. Ashby Foundations and JazzHR can be paid monthly or yearly, with a discount for paying yearly. Greenhouse, Lever, and Pinpoint publish no term at all, so ask for it in the first email rather than the contract.

How do I cancel an ATS contract before it auto-renews?

Find the renewal date and the notice period in your order form or the vendor's terms, send written notice before the deadline, and keep the confirmation. JazzHR's terms, read September 16, 2026, renew the agreement for another term of the same length unless either party asks to end it in writing at least 30 days before the term ends. Workable's terms, read the same day, renew for a further year on each anniversary unless you give written notice before that date. For the other vendors here, ask for the renewal clause before you sign. Yardstick bills monthly with no annual contract, so there is no renewal date to catch: close a role and its charge stops the next month.

What data should I export before leaving an ATS?

Ask for candidates, jobs, applications, interview notes, scorecards, and attachments such as resumes, and ask what format each comes in, because some exports leave out attachments or notes. Get the export before you give notice, not after. If you leave Yardstick, your data stays in the account to export, read-only for at least 30 days after the account ends.

How current are these prices?

Every figure here was read on the vendor's own pricing page on October 1, 2026, and the date is on the table so you can see how fresh it is. ATS pricing moves, and most of these vendors will quote you something specific to your company anyway, so treat any number here as a starting point and confirm it with the vendor before you sign.

Pay for the roles you are hiring for.

You are charged for the roles you actually have open, billed monthly, with no year-long commitment to guess at. And for each of those roles you design the interview guide with AI, so the interview is built to show who will perform in that job. Your first 3 Jobs are free.

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