.webp?dpl=dpl_GgXrM8K3m697JJ25jBeTrw4SFNvy)
Greenhouse vs Lever for a small company
Greenhouse and Lever on what sets each price, structured interviews, AI for interview questions and notes, scheduling, and AI agent access, all taken from the vendors' own pages on November 6, 2026. Yardstick is our product and has one section, as a third option near the end.
How this page works.
- 1Every fact is from the vendor's own page, checked on November 6, 2026.Vendors change pages. Check the vendor's pricing page before you sign anything.
- 2We do not pick a winner.Neither Greenhouse nor Lever publishes a price, so the cost comparison stops at what sets each quote. The rest of the page compares what each vendor lists, with a small company in mind.
- 3Yardstick is our product.It has one section, near the end, as a third option, and the summary at the top points to it. Everything else above that section is about the two of them.
What each one is.
Greenhouse
Greenhouse is an applicant tracking system sold in three plans: Core, Plus, and Pro. It publishes no price. It says the cost depends on the plan, your hiring volume and organizational complexity, and the features you need, and every plan offers a demo.
Core lists sourcing and CRM, structured interview kits and scorecards, the AI Notetaker, scheduling, reporting, and SSO. Interview question suggestions and scorecard attribute suggestions are on every plan. Email automation, texting, and auto-advance start on Plus, and the audit log and developer sandbox are on Pro.
Greenhouse has a page for early-stage businesses, and Greenhouse MCP, in open beta, connects approved AI tools such as Claude, ChatGPT, and Gemini on every plan.
Lever
Lever is an applicant tracking system with a built-in candidate relationship manager. Its packages include Lever Basic and LeverTRM. It is part of Employ Inc., alongside JazzHR and Jobvite. Lever publishes no price. It says pricing is available upon request and tailored to your organization's size and hiring needs.
Lever says every plan includes the core applicant tracking system, CRM, advanced reporting and analytics, and key integrations. Its core platform also lists AI-powered screening, unlimited AI interview transcripts and summaries, and AI-powered fraud prevention signals. Interview plans with feedback forms handle structured interviews.
Candidate Insights, AI Screening by VONQ, and Onboarding are add-ons, each quoted, and Employ Interview Intelligence, which builds interview plans and guides, is a paid add-on. Lever says most customers are fully implemented within weeks.
Side by side, as published on November 6, 2026.
The table scrolls sideways on a phone.
| Dimension | Greenhouse | Lever |
|---|---|---|
| Published price | Not published. Greenhouse says pricing is customized, and the cost depends on the plan, your hiring volume and organizational complexity, and the features you need. | Not published. Lever says pricing is available upon request and tailored to your organization's size and hiring needs. |
| Plans | Core, Plus, and Pro. Greenhouse says you can upgrade at any time. | Lever's help center lists interview plans on Lever Basic, LeverTRM, and LeverTRM for Enterprise. The pricing page says every plan includes the core ATS, CRM, advanced reporting and analytics, and key integrations. |
| Free plan or trial | None listed on the pricing page. Every plan says Get a demo. | None listed on the pricing page. It offers a quote form. |
| Who it says it is for | Greenhouse has a page for early-stage businesses. It says you can start with the essentials, whether you are hiring your first ten employees or moving to enterprise scale. | Lever's own Greenhouse comparison page calls Lever "the best talent acquisition software for mid-market businesses." |
| Structured interviews and scorecards | Structured interview kits and scorecards are on Core, so on every plan. | Interview plans set the interviewers, feedback forms, and durations for each interview kit, on Lever Basic, LeverTRM, and LeverTRM for Enterprise. Every feedback form starts with a four-point rating that has no neutral option. The LeverTRM page lists structured scorecards. |
| AI for interview questions and scorecards | Interview question suggestions and scorecard attribute suggestions are on Core, Plus, and Pro. Greenhouse's AI page says it generates structured interview stages, questions, and scorecard attributes for every interviewer. | Employ Interview Intelligence records the intake meeting, then builds an interview plan and interviewer guides. Lever's help center says it is an add-on at additional cost, and your account manager quotes the price. |
| Interview notes and transcripts | AI Notetaker on Core, Plus, and Pro. It records and transcribes interviews and maps the notes to scorecard questions. | AI interview transcripts and summaries are in the core Lever ATS package at no additional cost, with unlimited monthly use, on Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and Google Meet calls. Lever's help center says the transcript shown in Lever is an AI-generated summary, and the full transcript comes with the paid Interview Companion feature. |
| Scheduling | Scheduling links, candidate self-scheduling, scheduling suggestions, and interviewer availability on every plan. | Automated interview scheduling and self-service interview scheduling for candidates, per the LeverTRM page. |
| What starts above the entry plan | Email automation, texting, auto-reject and auto-advance, and automated user management start on Plus. The audit log, developer sandbox, and resume anonymization are on Pro. | The pricing page does not split features by plan. Candidate Insights, AI Screening by VONQ, and Onboarding are add-ons, each quoted. |
| SSO and security | SSO on every plan. The audit log is on Pro. | Lever says it is SOC 2 Type II certified. The pricing page does not mention SSO. |
| API and AI agent access | Greenhouse MCP is in open beta for all users on Core, Plus, and Pro. It connects approved AI tools such as Claude, ChatGPT, and Gemini to Greenhouse. | The Lever API takes API keys created in your Lever settings. When we checked on November 6, 2026, we found no MCP server in Lever's developer documentation. |
| Time to set up | Not stated on the pages we read. | Lever says most customers are fully implemented within weeks, not months, and its Greenhouse comparison page says typical migrations take about six weeks. |
Where the two differ for a small team.
Neither one publishes a price.
Greenhouse says its cost depends on the plan, your hiring volume and organizational complexity, and the features you need. Lever says its price is tailored to your organization's size and hiring needs. Neither pricing page lists a free plan or a trial, or how long a contract runs, or whether hiring managers and interviewers change the price.
Greenhouse includes AI for interview questions on every plan. Lever sells automated interview planning as an add-on.
Greenhouse lists interview question suggestions and scorecard attribute suggestions on Core, Plus, and Pro. At Lever, the tool that builds an interview plan and interviewer guides is Employ Interview Intelligence, which Lever's help center describes as an add-on at additional cost. Both give you structured interview plans and scorecards without it.
Both include AI interview notes.
Greenhouse puts AI Notetaker on every plan, and it maps the notes to scorecard questions. Lever includes AI interview transcripts and summaries in its core package with unlimited monthly use, on Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and Google Meet calls. Lever's help center says the transcript shown in Lever is an AI-generated summary, and the full transcript comes with its paid Interview Companion feature.
On Greenhouse Core, some automation waits for Plus.
Email automation, texting, and auto-reject and auto-advance start on Greenhouse Plus. A small team on Core still gets structured interview kits, scorecards, scheduling links, the AI Notetaker, and SSO. Lever's pricing page does not split features by plan.
Greenhouse lists an MCP server for AI tools. Lever lists an API.
Greenhouse MCP, in open beta on Core, Plus, and Pro, is a governed way to connect approved AI tools such as Claude, ChatGPT, and Gemini to Greenhouse. Lever publishes an API that you reach with API keys from your Lever settings, and when we checked on November 6, 2026, we found no MCP server in its developer documentation. If you want your own AI agent connected to your ATS, this row matters.
If neither fits: a third option.
Greenhouse and Lever both quote a price that depends on your company and your hiring. If you hire a few roles a year and want a published bill that follows the roles you have open, and the interview designed for each role on the first free account, Yardstick is built for that shape.
Yardstick designs the interview guide and scorecard for the role you are hiring, so every candidate has the same important conversation, is scored on the same scale, and the interview produces evidence about who will perform in this job. The AI drafts the guide and the scorecard, and your team edits both. Interviewers open the guide on a magic link, with no paid seats to buy. Structured interviews, scorecards, scheduling, a talent CRM, and the public API are on every account, including the free one.
Yardstick pricing is a monthly plan fee plus each open role. The first three Jobs are free, then Yardstick Core is $49 a month plus $29 per open role, billed monthly, and Yardstick Scale is $149 a month plus $19 per open role. One open role on Yardstick Core is $78 a month and three are $136, at any headcount. A role you close stops billing the next month, and there is no annual plan. Interviewers and hiring managers are never charged as seats.
The agent path is your own AI agent. You chat with Claude Code or Codex, it runs the yardstick CLI, and the actions that matter wait for your approval. They include publishing a job, advancing or rejecting a candidate, and emailing one outside a sequence you approved. Claude and ChatGPT can connect over MCP on every account, free included.
Yardstick is not built for a thousand-person organization standardizing a global process. SSO, SCIM, and advanced audit logs are on the Enterprise plan.
For each of them against the field, see Greenhouse alternatives and Lever alternatives. What each one publishes about its quote is on Greenhouse pricing and Lever pricing, and Greenhouse against Ashby is on Greenhouse vs Ashby. For Yardstick against Greenhouse directly, see Yardstick vs Greenhouse. Full Yardstick pricing is on the pricing page, and the import paths are at switch from Greenhouse and switch from Lever.
Common questions about Greenhouse vs Lever.
Is Greenhouse or Lever better for a small company?
We do not pick one. Neither publishes a price, so you need a quote from each. Greenhouse has a page for early-stage businesses and puts structured interview kits, scorecards, and AI interview question suggestions on its entry plan, Core. Lever's own comparison page pitches it at mid-market businesses, and its core package includes unlimited AI interview transcripts and summaries. All facts are from the vendors' pages, checked on November 6, 2026.
How much does Greenhouse cost?
Greenhouse does not publish a price. Its pricing page, checked on November 6, 2026, says pricing is customized and depends on the plan you choose (Core, Plus, or Pro), your hiring volume and organizational complexity, and the features you need. Each plan offers a demo, and no free plan or trial is listed.
How much does Lever cost?
Lever does not publish a price. Its pricing page, checked on November 6, 2026, says pricing is available upon request and tailored to your organization's size and hiring needs. Every plan includes the core ATS, CRM, advanced reporting and analytics, and key integrations. Candidate Insights, AI Screening by VONQ, and Onboarding are add-ons, each quoted.
Do Greenhouse and Lever both have structured interviews and scorecards?
Yes. Greenhouse lists structured interview kits and scorecards on Core, its entry plan. Lever's help center says interview plans, which set the interviewers, feedback forms, and durations for each interview kit, are on Lever Basic, LeverTRM, and LeverTRM for Enterprise, and every Lever feedback form starts with a four-point rating. Both as published on November 6, 2026.
Does Greenhouse or Lever use AI to write interview questions?
Greenhouse lists interview question suggestions and scorecard attribute suggestions on Core, Plus, and Pro. Lever's help center describes Employ Interview Intelligence, which builds an interview plan and interviewer guides from a recorded intake meeting, as an add-on at additional cost. Both as published on November 6, 2026.
Can I connect Claude or ChatGPT to Greenhouse or Lever?
Greenhouse connects them through Greenhouse MCP, which is in open beta for all users on Core, Plus, and Pro and connects approved AI tools such as Claude, ChatGPT, and Gemini. Lever publishes an API that uses API keys from your Lever settings, and we found no MCP server in its developer documentation. Both checked on November 6, 2026.
What if neither fits?
Yardstick, our product, bills a monthly plan fee plus each open role. The first three Jobs are free, then $49 a month plus $29 per open role, billed monthly with no annual plan. Interviewers and hiring managers are never charged as seats. The AI-designed interview guide and scorecard, the public API, CLI, and MCP are on every account, including free.
How current is this comparison?
Every fact was read from the vendor's own pricing, product, or help page on November 6, 2026. We recheck quarterly. If a vendor's page and this page disagree, the vendor's page wins.
Want the interview designed for the role, and a price you can read today?
Start free. The first three Jobs are free, no seats to count, and the public API, CLI, and MCP are on from day one.