6 Best SmartRecruiters Competitors and Alternatives in 2023

Trusted by corporate giants like McDonald’s, LinkedIn, and Visa, SmartRecruiters is truly next-generation talent acquisition and recruiting software. However, it is not suited for anyone because of its clunky interface that’s difficult to navigate.

We have gone over dozens of recruiting and HR tools in our search for user-friendly, affordable and feature-rich Smartrecruiters competitors and alternatives

As a result of testing, we have come up with these 6 best alternatives:

SmartRecruiters competitor #1: Recruiteze
SmartRecruiters competitor #2: Zoho Recruit
SmartRecruiters competitor #3: SageHR
SmartRecruiters competitor #4: BambooHR
SmartRecruiters competitor #5:Homerun ATS
SmartRecruiters competitor #6: QPage

During the testing, we relied on several indicators, and our rating system was based on:

User experience – How easy is it compared to SmartRecruiters?
Standout features – What are they, and are they worth it?
Pricing – Does the software justify its price?
Customer support effectiveness – How is the company’s customer support?

Overview of SmartRecruiters ATS

Before getting into discussing SmartRecruiters competitors and alternatives, let’s briefly look over its strengths and weaknesses.

Advantages of using SmartRecruiters

Great candidate experience – SmartRecruiters focuses a lot on providing excellent candidates experience, and it shows since their conversion rates on job openings are high.
Mobile responsive – Experience is seamless and straightforward on mobile devices as well.

Mobile app – SmartRecruiters offers native mobile applications for both iOS and Android devices.
Lead generation – SmartRecruiters have great lead capture forms for prospecting.
Integrations – Besides numerous job aggregators, SmartRecruiters integrates with LinkedIn Recruiter, Outlook, Scheduling, ratings, and many more.

Shortcomings of SmartRecruiters

Some of these shortcomings might be on the list of reasons why users decide to switch from SmartRecruiters to another tool:

High costs – Costs are not shown on their website, and you have to contact them to get a quote. However, prices offered are too high and very unsuitable for small businesses.
No free trial – This is a con because every user should be able to test out the product themselves before deciding to use it. This is why many people, later on, have to switch to another software and find an alternative since demos are not enough.
Resume reviewing – When you try to open .docx or .doc files, they don’t open in the software but instead download to your computer. This is highly annoying since your downloads file will very soon become crumpled. Instead, PDF files open in a new tab, so that is more bearable.
Slow customer support and no customizations – Customer support isn’t the greatest, and you can’t get much of tailormade functionalities according to the ex-user’s experience.

SmartRecruiters pricing

SmartRecruiters’ pricing system is quote-based, and there is also no free trial.

SmartRecruiters Competitors #1: Recruiteze – Best Small Bussiness ATS

Recruiteze is an applicant tracking software designed for small businesses and staffing agencies. It is created to be cost-effective and time-saving for all the recruiters.

It allows recruiters to manage their job ads, candidates, and application forms from a single user-friendly and intuitive platform.

It is not a surprise for us when people who have used SmartRecruiters decide to switch to Recruiteze. Unfortunately, most of the time, small or mid-sized businesses and staffing agencies made the wrong decision. If you find yourself here, then keep on reading.

Advantages of using Recruiteze

Tailored to fit SMB and staffing agency needs – Recruiteze is wholly created with SMB and staffing agencies in mind. Hence all the features it has are there to help those businesses scale while cutting down on costs and being more productive.
Intuitive and modern UI – As previously stated, Recruiteze is designed to make you more time-efficient, so navigation through the software is straightforward recurring minimal scrolling and clicking. In addition, information is presented in a scannable manner so that you don’t have to waste more than a few seconds per tab.
Career page widgets – People browsing your website might passively look for a job but won’t visit the careers page. You can embed our career page widget directly onto the website’s homepage so no one can miss it.

Effective management – Recruitize is packed with CRM functionalities. Thanks to that, you can keep all of your candidate, client, and hiring managers’ communications in one place. This way, the whole team can stay up to date with progress.
iReformat – Recruiteze offers a resume reformatting service, iReformat, which is complementary with Recruiteze ATS and a complete game-changer for staffing agencies. iReformat supports blind hiring and has an iOS mobile app. It also supports .docx, PDF, and text formats.

Customize your recruiting workflow — Recruiteze adapts to your needs. You can quickly and easily design a workflow based on your company’s existing hiring process — you don’t need to adapt to what is offered. In addition, you can effectively track candidates that apply through your various hiring stages and create multiple recruiting workflows.
Filters, tags, notes, and tasks — Avoid overlapping, duplicity and organize your candidates better. For example, you can tag candidates and filter them by those tags. You can also leave notes and create custom tasks for each candidate, especially if your recruitment team is bigger.

Shortcomings of using Recruiteze

Mainly built for small businesses – Sadly, Recruiteze is not the best solution for enterprises yet.

Recruiteze pricing

Recruiteze offers a 15-day free trial, which is great for testing out all the features offered and seeing yourself if it is the right fit.

There are 3 different scalable pricing plans offered, including the custom plan:

$49 per month – Excellent for small businesses wanting to utilize a pack of most essential features.
$99 per month – Designed for businesses with multiple recruiters and a heavier workload.
Enterprise custom plan – If you need a bigger customized plan make sure to contact us.

Test out Recruiteze for free now!

SmartRecruiters Competitors #2: Zoho Recruit

Zoho Recruit positions itself as an ATS for small and mid-sized businesses and staffing agencies.

Advantages of using Zoho Recruit

Affordable price – When in doubt, many businesses opt for Zoho Recruit, thanks to their very reasonable price and a free plan.
Zoho ecosystem – If you are already using other Zoho tools, opting for Zoho Recruit is a good choice. You can access all of the tools with a single sign-on, plus you will save up along the way.
Resume formatting – Zoho recruit has an in-built resume formatting feature, which is very helpful for recruiting agencies.
UI – Many consider this an advantage, and many disadvantages. Zoho’s UI may be a pro because it sorts information so that it is comprehensive and packed. But that is also the exact reason why most users complain about it. Menus are too cramped with data and pages, which just makes you scroll and click infinitely until you get to the information you need. This can overwhelm the majority of users. The design is a bit outdated too.

Shortcomings of using Zoho Recruit

Customer support — Users have noted that the customer support is slower than usual when fixing user problems.
Outdated, overwhelming design – As previously mentioned, the design is pretty outdated and not so user-friendly.
Smartphone incompatible – ZohoRecruit isn’t compatible with smartphones, making for a bad candidate experience over mobile. This is a massive problem since the majority of people search for jobs via their mobile phones.
Mainly for bigger businesses – If you won’t be hiring more than 15 people over the next year, then Zoho isn’t the best option for you. Opting for a specialized SMB recruiting system like Recruiteze would be much better and cost-effective.

Zoho Recruit pricing

Zoho Recruit offers three pricing plans for staffing agencies:

1. Forever free plan — Basic features and 1 active job available.
2. Standard plan , 20GBP/mo (27,64USD); it features candidate sourcing, tracing, and resume management.
3. Standard 25 EUR/mo (26,83USD) — Includes extra features such as candidate sourcing and 50+ integrations
4. Professional plan 50 EUR/mon (53,65) — Includes automation features such as AI Candidate Matching and Advanced Analytics
5. Enterprise 75 EUR/mo (80,48) — Includes 750 active jobs and staffing/client portals.

For corporates, there are 3 plans — Free, Standard and Enterprise.

You can also buy add-ons for video interviews or vendor portals separately, the price ranges from $6-$12.

SmartRecruiters Competitor #3: SageHR

Known as CakeHR, sage HR is recruiting that offers modern solutions to SMBs that are ready to give up on spreadsheets. While some software on this list is great for applicant tracking and more suitable for hiring, Sage HR is more for in-house HR management.

Advantages of using SageHR

Great customer support – Customer support is quick to answer and kind. They always follow-up with an email to ensure that everything was resolved.
Day-off requests – Approving day-off requests and tracking vacation times is straightforward in SageHR. The calendar view is well optimized to make this plain and simple.
360 feedback – This is a fantastic feature that allows employees to leave a holistic view of their performance. Peers, subordinates, and managers can all leave their own reviews throughout the year to have an unbiased report.
Customization – You can easily tailor the software to suit your HR needs.
Great tool for in-house HR management – From leave tracking, surveys, scheduling, managing company expenses, and advanced reporting, SageHR is an excellent solution for in-house HR teams.
Free trial – Users have 30 days to test the tool before deciding if it’s the right one for them.

Shortcomings of using SageHR

Suitable for general HR management – SageHR is great when it comes to general HR management. However, it lacks when it comes to hiring functionalities. Many users have reported that they are not a fan of using SageHR for hiring and use separate software for that.
Admin UX and UI – Since the interface isn’t completely intuitive, the user experience can overwhelm and feel crumpled.
Very light on recruiting features – As stated above, SageHR is heavy on HR features and light on recruitment. On the other hand, Recuiteze is heavy on recruitment and light on HR, so they can turn out very complementary to each other.
Pricing model — The price for SageHR depends on the number of employees, which can be costly for bigger companies.

SageHR pricing

It starts at $5.50 per user per month.

However, the price easily ads up, and if you need it for serious recruitment processes, or as a staffing agency, the price for only one user is really high:

If you are a staffing agency, then software as Recruiteze is a much better option. It gives you everything to completely optimize your work and performance while saving time and energy for a lower price.

SmartRecruiters Competitor #4: BambooHR

BambooHR is primarily HR software that offers basic applicant tracking system functionality, time tracking, payroll processing, benefits administration, employee engagement and employee satisfaction tools, automated reminders, and workforce data analytics.

Advantages of using BambooHR

Intuitive UI – BambooHR has a very easy-to-navigate user interface, so even if you are a first-time user, you will quickly get around. The platform is straightforward for the employee experience too.
Performance management modules – BambooHR eliminates subjectivity and any possible speculations by using a few quick questions to encourage action. This allows you to address problems faster than usually, which is most of the times around six months since that is the standard time between performance reviews.
Employee onboarding – BambooHR is a good solution for employee onboarding, as it provides a seamless experience.

Shortcomings of using BambooHR

Mobile app – Even though they have a mobile app, which many would automatically consider a pro, it really isn’t. The app is limited and doesn’t have all the functionalities that the software has on the web. Therefore, if you want a good ATS with an app, choosing BambooHR isn’t the best decision. However, if you need it for the most superficial features like approving requests and checking vacation times, then it’s ok.
Primarily HR tool – Just like SageHR, BambooHR is heavy on human resources functionalities and light on recruiting.
Nontransparent pricing – To get the price, users need to reach out for a quote, which is an extra step towards finding out if the software fits the budget.

BambooHR pricing

There is a 7-day free trial offered for BambooHR. However, if you want to subscribe, you will need to contact them to get a quote.

SmartRecruiters competitor #5: Homerun ATS

Homerun is a new ATS software for smaller and mid-sized companies that want to hire effectively by streaming their entire hiring process. Homerun ATS has divided its features into the hiring overview, communication, and hiring process.

Users get a centralized dashboard with a clear candidate profile, a shared email inbox and templates for faster communication, and auto-confirmation and event scheduler to replace those tedious tasks.

Advantages of using Homerun ATS

Easy setup – The platform is user-friendly, so you don’t have to waste time on training manuals and demos for setting it up.
Centralized data – All the candidate information is on one page, so you have it all sorted out for you.
Good customer services – Users have noticed their customer service is outstanding and always ready to help out.
Collaborative – This tool is perfect for teams because it allows everyone to collaborate on hiring efforts.

Shortcomings of using Homerun ATS

The job posting feature – Some users have noticed issues with the job posting feature in terms of unsaved data and the complexity of posting a job.
Lack of customization – Even though Homerun has all the necessary features small businesses need, it lacks customization options that cater to different needs.
No integrations – Homerun ATS doesn’t publicly disclose any integrations, so users aren’t sure if they can automatically post on job platforms such as Indeed.

Homerun ATS pricing

Homerun has a free trial and 4 different paid plans that vary from $25 to $200, depending on the features included. The most popular one that includes the full Homerun package and an unlimited number of candidates is $129.

SmartRecruiters competitor #6: QPage

QPage is an ATS that offers workspace customization, job posting design, workflow automation, and candidate evaluation to help make hiring decisions faster.

QPage is very focused on personalization and candidate experience, enabling companies to create a company profile, invite internal team members, and set up a career site with SSL for security.

Advantages of using QPage

Easy set up – The user-friendly interface and the setup that takes 15 minutes of your time is perfect for beginners and non-tech-savvy users.
Popular integrations – QPage has various integrations that companies use for posting jobs and conducting interviews, such as Calendy, LinkedIn, Jooble, and Monster.
AI search –The platform has its own candidate database and matches potential candidates with your company based on your open position.
Customization – Users can set up custom actions and steps during different stages of the funnel, which is super helpful for some specific job postings.

Shortcomings of using QPage

Customer support – Even though QPage offers documentation and customer support during working hours, the live chat option is missing, which most other software alternatives have.
CV parsing feature – Some users have noted occasional issues with this feature, leading to incorrect information when different formats of resumes are used. This is one of the most important features for staffing agencies, so it may pose a problem.

QPage pricing

QPage offers a forever free plan with unlimited candidates and a 14-day trial for their paid plans that have extra features. Still, the price for the paid plans isn’t publicly disclosed, so users can’t decide without contacting their sales team.

So, what is the best SmartRecruiters competitor?

Here we have condensed all our findings into bite-sized takeaways.

Who should use Zoho Recruit?

Zoho Recruit is good for bigger businesses and staffing agencies.

Who should use SageHR?

SageHR is an excellent solution for in-house HR management for SMBs.

Who should use BambooHR?

BambooHR is great for managing daily human resources tasks and overall goals.

Who should use Homerun ATS?

Homerun ATS is great for small businesses that don’t need customization or integrations.

Who should use QPage?

QPage is a good option for businesses that want to automate their hiring process and need customizable features.

Who should use Recruiteze?

Recruitieze is designed for SMBs and staffing agencies looking to optimize their hiring process and reduce the cost of hire.

Try Recruiteze for free today.

Using other recruitment tools? Check the recommended alternatives for them too:

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