Top 5 Zoho Recruit Competitors and Alternatives 2023 [Tested by Experts]

Zoho Recruit is a well-established applicant tracking system commonly used by staffing agencies and small to mid-sized businesses. Even though their feature list has grown over the years, users have reported a lack of technical support when facing certain problems.

Apart from the customer support, one notable drawback that prompts users to consider Zoho Recruit alternatives is the fact that additional features that need to be bought separately as add-ons.

Our HR team has tested dozens of applicant tracking systems to present you with the best 5 alternatives that don’t lack useful features and ease of use, but offer better support and packages:

1. Zoho Recruit Competitor #1: Recruiteze – SMB and staffing agency’s best friend
2. Zoho Recruit Competitor #2: Manatal – ATS for large-sized businesses
3. Zoho Recruit Competitor #3: Workable – Tech-savy solution for enterprises
4. Zoho Recruit Competitor #4 BullHorn – Feature-rich software
5. Zoho Recruit Competitor #5 WebHR – Full HR product suite

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

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

So let’s get into our findings.

Overview of Zoho Recruit ATS

Before we get down to discussing Zoho Recruit alternatives, let’s quickly skim over some of its most prominent advantages and disadvantages.

Zoho Recruit advantages

• Price – Price is one of the most significant advantages of Zoho Recruit, which is most of the time a reason businesses opt for Zoho. They offer a free plan, which is sufficient for testing the software.
• Fluid integration with other Zoho software – If you are using other Zoho software, you can access all of them with a single sign-on, plus you will save on costs this way. Zoho ecosystem is another feature people love using Zoho recruit for.
• Resume formatting – Zoho recruit has an in-built resume formatting feature, which is very helpful for staffing agencies.
• UI – Whether this is an advantage or a disadvantage depends on personal preference. There are loads of information presented on one screen, meaning you will be doing lots of scrolling, whereas other ATSes might be presented information in separate tabs. Some users reported they liked the thorough information Zoho offers, but many others complained that it is hard to navigate and feels too crumpled and overwhelming.

Zoho Recruit shortcomings

• Mainly for enterprises – Zoho Recruit is not for someone looking to hire less than 15 people over the next year. Hence, some small business ATS can be better in this case. Recruiteze is designed specifically for small businesses, so you should read the section about it carefully if you are an SMB.
• Not well compatible with smartphones – Besides not sending direct messages to candidates via smartphone through the platform, the website is not mobile-friendly.
• Slow customer support – They could be more proactive and fast with their replies. Sometimes waiting for just a few hours can be highly annoying and stressful.

Zoho Recruit pricing

There are several options to choose from when it comes to pricing, depending on the business needs.

Zoho Recruit offers three pricing plans for staffing agencies:

1. 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 2 plans, Enterprise and Standard.

Now, if you need something similar to Zohorecruit , Recruiteze’s Startup or Pro Business plan might be a better option since you get a solid ATS with CRM functionalities, meaning better candidate, talent, and client management for far less costs.

Zoho Recruit Alternative #1: Recruiteze

Recruiteze is an applicant tracking software designed with small businesses and staffing agencies in mind. 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.

We have lots of ex Zoho users in Recruiteze family so we will include some of the advantages of Recruiteze they have mentioned themselves.

Recruiteze advantages

• Email address integration – If you liked Zoho’s “integrate your inbox” feature, then you will like Recruiteze since it allows you to seamlessly integrate your email address with the ATS and receive and send all the emails from the software itself.
• Seamless integration with iReformat – iReformat is a resume formatting software by Recruiteze that is every staffing agency’s dream. It allows you to format dozens of resumes in just a few seconds precisely the way you want.

• Intuitive and modern UI – What is great about switching to Recruiteze from Zoho Recruit is that you will never be confused and overwhelmed when using it. Recruiteze is designed to make you more time-efficient, so navigation through the software is straightforward. Information is presented in a scannable manner so that you don’t have to waste more than a few seconds per tab.

• Effective management – Recruitize is packed with CRM functionalities, which allow you to keep all of your candidate, client, and hiring managers’ communications in one place. With this, the whole team can stay up to date with progress.
• Scaling with ease – Recruiteze is designed to make recruiters more productive by saving them time on manual and time-consuming tasks. While Recruiteze handles all the tedious tasks, recruiters get to focus on what truly matters, and that is networking. Building relationships with clients and candidates and creating a positive experience for everyone.
• Recruiting workflow customization – Each company has a different hiring process; however, not all recruiting software accommodates that. Many require you to modify your hiring process to keep up with the software. With Recruiteze, you can quickly and easily design a workflow based on your company’s existing hiring process. You can then use Recruiteze to track candidates that apply through your various hiring stages effectively.

Recruiteze shortcomings

• Mainly built for small businesses – Recruiteze is an ATS designed for SMB and staffing agencies; therefore, it may not be very suitable for big enterprises. But, if you are a small business, then choosing Recruiteze is a no-brainer.

Recruiteze pricing

Recruiteze offers 3 pricing plans:

1. $49 per month – Excellent for small businesses wanting to utilize a pack of most essential features, including careers pages, candidate workflows, and online job application functions.
2. $99 per month – Designed for businesses with multiple recruiters and a heavier workload.
3. Enterprise custom plan – If you need a bigger customized plan make sure to contact us.

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

Test out Recruiteze for free now!

Zoho Recruit Alternative #2: Manatal

Manatal is easy to implement and using applicant tracking software for both agencies and in-house teams. However, this software is best for medium and large-sized companies and recruiting agencies.

Manatal advantages

• LinkedIn Indexation – This feature allows you to import skills from candidates’ LinkedIn profiles into your candidate database. Also, finding and importing candidates from LinkedIn is very easy with their LinkedIn Chrome extension.
• Very organized and easy to navigate – Manatals interface and database are very organized and systematic,the drag and drop candidate funnel saves time.

• Affordable price – Price is where Manatal shines the most. It is one of the most affordable applicant tracking systems for bigger businesses with all the core features, from candidate sourcing all the way to onboarding.
• Artificial intelligence tool – Manatal offers automatic AI-based candidates scoring and recommendation based on the job description. So far, they have been pretty satisfying but keep in mind AI bias when relying on these features.
• Constant updates – They frequently add new features and refine the old ones, which you should look for when choosing an ATS. You want to have reliable and proactive developers that are constantly working on enhancing the software you are using.

Manatal shortcomings

• Limited resume imports – You can only import 1000 resumes at a time, which can pose a problem for bigger staffing agencies that have more campaigns going on simultaneously, as it is easy to exceed that number. However, Manatal states that you can launch multiple mass imports at the same time. It is not the smoothest experience, and you will need to wait and check for all the imports to be completed, which is inconvenient, mainly because Manatal positions itself as a mid to big-sized business ATS.

Manatal pricing

Manatal offers a Professional plan of $15 per user per month and a $35 Enterprise plan per month. You can get a custom plan tailormade for big teams with custom requests too. Keep in mind that it can quickly build up and become quite expensive since the price goes per user.

During the 14-day free trial, you will have access to all the available features in the professional and enterprise packages apart from the job board posting feature, sending emails using the Manatal inbox, email automation, and the GDPR consent request tool.

Zoho Recruit Alternative #3: Workable

Workable positioned itself as a hiring solution for all types and sorts of organizations around the world. They state that their services are equally helpful to both tech-savvy and traditional businesses.

However, based on our research, we believe it is better suited for tech-savvy, and IT businesses since the features are advanced, like AI recruiter, mobile application, and video recruiting.

In order to determine whether this is suitable for your hiring needs, make sure to read further.

Workable advantages

• AI Recruiter – This fantastic feature finds the professionals that match the job’s skills, industry, level of experience, and locations as soon as you publish new jobs. We have found that Workable does this better than Manatal, but still, do keep in mind that checking candidates up manually after the AI has scooped them is recommended.
• Mobile app – Workable is the only ATS on the list that offers a mobile application, and we loved it. Busy recruiters are often on the go, and having everything on your smartphone is great for keeping you updated and productive.
• Career page builder – Workable allows you to build and customize career pages natively in the tool. There are also ready-made pre-built templates you can choose from.

• Video recruiting – Workable offers native video interviews, which come in handy in today’s remote world. And if you are busy, you can experiment with their AI-generated interview to create a complete video interview for you.

Workable shortcomings

• Costs – Costs are a big con here. They can quickly add up as you upgrade to get more features. Most of the time, you have lots of other costs besides the ATS fees, so you should carefully consider and put into your costs of hiring before making a final decision.
• Blind hiring – Workable doesn’t support blind hiring. If you need it, their customer support will try to help you cover identifying information; however, that will just make costs pile up even more. If blind hiring is a must for you, do check Recruiteze’s iRefromat.

Workable pricing

It is a no-brainer that Workable is an excellent software for businesses that can afford it and make use of all their fancy features.

However, pricing can get high for enterprises and big businesses, and if you are looking for the best value buy, you should get a quote from Manatal too and test it out during the free trial to see if it suits your needs before settling for Workable.

Also, when talking to ex-users of Workable, we have encountered a few of them that were overpriced and had to pay for features they never used. Therefore this is why we recommend this software to mainly enterprises and big creative recruiting companies.

If you are a mid or small-sized business and a recruiting agency then opting for Recruiteze is a much wiser choice if you need an excellent recruiting and managing system.

Zoho Recruit Alternative #3 Bullhorn

Bullhorn is an ATS and CRM for staffing and recruiting agencies, with different customizable features that streamline the team’s operations while ensuring a positive candidate experience. Their user-friendly interface and robust features are good for agencies that require additional features for resume screening and candidate communication.

Advantages 

• Resume management — Upload resumes and parse contact information automatically, saving time on manual data entry.
• Task creation — Create recruitment process tasks and assign them to selected candidates during various stages so you filter out the best candidates early on.
• Collaboration — Easily present your notes and scores with your team, so you can discuss the candidate with all information on one screen.
• Communication with candidates — Inform your candidates of their status or future steps with various email templates and notifications/alerts.
• Integrations — The software offers multiple integrations options, such as with social media, job boards, and email marketing tools, which streamlines recruiting even more.

Shortcomings

• No free trial — Bullhorn offers a live demo, but there is no free trial for you to test the tool on your own, making it difficult to decide on the tool and the paid plans.
• Complexity — Due to the various customizable features, Bullhorn may feel overwhelming for new users. Some users have noted that the training and documentation Bullhorn offers for onboarding isn’t sufficient for starting off easily.
• Data storage — Compared to other software, users have noticed that there isn’t enough data storage provided, which poses a problem if you have a large pool of candidates.
• Nontransparent pricing — To get the prices for their paid plans, users need to reach out for a quote, which is an extra step.

Pricing

Bullhorn offers 4 pricing plans: Team, Corporate, Enterprise, and Enterprise Plus. To get the price of each plan, you need to request a quote.

Zoho Recruit Alternative #4 WebHR

WebHR is a cloud-based HR software solution that has a set of tools that help manage employees from recruitment to payroll and leave. WebHR helps staffing agencies create job postings, track applicants, and conduct interviews on one platform, while larger organizations can benefit from performance reviews and onboarding functionality.

Advantages 

• Customer support — The customer support team is responsive and willing to assist when you have questions or issues. There is a live chat option, which is very helpful for users that need urgent assistance.

• Easy to use — With its user-friendly interface, WebHR helps non-technical users navigate the tool easily. Since WebHR isn’t only built and used by the HR team but by the whole company, ease of use is very important.
• Robust feature list — Onboarding, attendance tracking, payroll, performance review, and other features that will help not only during the recruitment phase but later on as well.
• Detailed reporting and analytics — This feature makes it easy for businesses to keep track of their own data.
  

Shortocmings

• Pricing plan — With its per employee pricing model, so the costs can easily add up for larger organizations.
• Customization options — Even though WebHR has an extensive list of features, there is a lack of customization  options that some other tools have.
• Compatibility with mobile devices — Quite poor compatibility, so this is a feature WebHR should improve.
• No free trial — WebHR offers a free demo, but a free trial provides a more  personal  experience.

Pricing

WebHR has a slightly different pricing plan than other software to accommodate to organizations of different sizes and scales. They charge $2 per employee per month, so your paid plan will depend on your company size.

So, what is the best Zoho Recruit competitor?

We didn’t come all the way here, just to leave you without an actionable conclusion. We condensed all the information gathered into bite-sized takeaways for you:

Choose Manatal if:

• You are a medium or large-sized company.
• You would like to experiment with affordable artificial intelligence tools.
• You are okay with paying quite a hefty amount each time per new user.

Choose Workable if:

• You are an enterprise or big staffing agency with tech-savvy recruiters.
• Money is not an issue.
• You are constantly implementing creative recruiting techniques.

Choose Bullhorn if:

• Your agency requires more features that other software solutions don’t offer.
• Your team is experienced with recruiting software and doesn’t need support or onboarding documentation.
• If your budget isn’t tight, you can request a quote from Bullhorn.

Choose WebHR If:

• You don’t have a strict budget and can afford higher prices with the increase of employees.
• You want an all-in-one HR suite with robust features that will be used by various departments.
• You don’t mind the lack of customization options that don’t come with the price.

Choose Recruiteze if:

• You want a scalable modern ATS with which you can grow and maintain your business.
• You are a staffing agency or HR team that needs compatible resume reformatting and blind hiring solutions alongside their ATS.
• You are a small business looking to streamline your income while cutting down costs and being time efficient.
• You love being able to check out what you are buying before typing in your credit card number.

Start your free trial at Recruiteze today!

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

1. 4 best Lever Alternatives
2. Top 3 Bullhorn Alternatives
3. Best Avature Alternatives
4. JazzHR Alternatives
5. Breezy HR Alternatives
6. Workable Alternatives
7. Recruiterbox Alternatives
8. SmartRecruiters Alternatives
9. BambooHR Alternatives
10. Jobvite Alternatives