The seat price is only one part of a recruitment software budget. Add usage charges, setup and migration, the tools you will keep, and any minimum commitment. The worked examples show how the calculation changes at one, five and twenty seats. Longlist publishes this guide and sells one of the products; vendor prices were checked October 16, 2026.
Recruitment software cost worksheet (CSV)A blank worksheet for comparing seats, usage, services and retained tools side by side, with a column for each vendor’s source and quote date.DownloadPublished prices, October 2026
Rates below are per user per month. Where shown, ‘annual’ is the effective rate with annual billing and ‘monthly’ is the month-to-month rate. The billing column records minimum commitments; a monthly invoice does not necessarily mean a monthly contract. Prices come from vendor pages checked October 16, 2026.
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| Vendor | Published per-user price (per month) | Billing and terms | Quoted tiers |
|---|---|---|---|
| Longlist | Growth: $47 annual / $59 monthly; Plus: $65 annual / $79 monthly | Monthly or annual; 30-day refund | Enterprise (SSO, white-labeling) |
| Manatal | $15 annual / $19 monthly Professional; $35 annual / $39 monthly Enterprise | Monthly or annual | Higher tiers |
| Zoho Recruit | Free (1 recruiter); $25 annual / $30 monthly Standard; $50 annual / $60 monthly Professional; $75 annual / $90 monthly Enterprise | Monthly or annual; 45-day money-back | None listed |
| Tracker | $79 Launch; $99 Core | Monthly, 6-month minimum on every plan | Professional, Enterprise |
| Crelate | $85 Essentials; $119 Business | Essentials annual; Business monthly or annual | Business Plus |
| Recruit CRM | $95 annual / $109 monthly Pro; $135 annual / $159 monthly Business; $215 annual / $259 monthly Enterprise | Monthly or annual; credits included per user | None |
| Vincere (GBP) | £95 Core, for 2–7 users | 30-day rolling on Startup and Core | Startup, Pro |
| Bullhorn | $99 Starter; $165 Core | Billing term not published | Pro, Max |
| Loxo | $149 Core | Annual, paid up front | Professional, Enterprise |
| Recruiterflow | $149 Platform | Same price monthly or annual | AIRA |
| Atlas | $125 annual / $150 monthly Basic; $165 annual / $200 monthly Premium | 12-month commitment on every plan | Agency & Enterprise |
| JobAdder | Not published | Not published | All plans (Lite, Essential, Pro) |
| Firefish (GBP) | Not published; add-on modules From £150 | Set in your agreement | All plans |
For what each platform includes at those prices, see our comparison of the best recruitment agency software.
The five layers of cost
1. Seats. The per-user rate for the tier you need, multiplied by the users who need a login. Check whether admins, researchers and part-time resourcers count as full seats.
2. Usage. Some platforms meter activity. Recruit CRM’s texting, phone numbers, multiposting, enrichment, AI sourcing, resume formatting and contractor timesheets draw on a monthly credit allowance. Zoho Recruit caps parsing at 250 CVs a day on Standard and 500 on Professional. Crelate caps premium parses at 100 on Business. Loxo’s AI agents are credit-metered. Price those allowances at your expected monthly usage. (Longlist includes AI CV parsing on every plan with no per-CV charge.)
3. Services. Migration in, onboarding and training, and the export out when you leave. Tracker charges $250 per file for a self-serve direct import. Recruiterflow prices white-glove migration by volume. Loxo includes free migration for Core teams of three or more. Longlist migrates data at no charge.
4. Retained tools. The subscriptions that sit around the CRM: contact data, job boards and a multiposter, calling if it isn’t built in, e-signature, accounting and payroll. Our recruitment tech stack guide lists the usual suspects.
5. Team time. Include the team’s time as well as the invoices. Double entry between a CRM and a separate ATS, copying contacts from a data tool, building CVs by hand in Word: each is a few minutes, many times a day.
Worked example 1: a solo recruiter
A fictional independent recruiter in Denver, placing perm accountants. She needs a candidate database, a client list, email sequences and a way to send branded CVs. She is not sure she will hire in the next year.
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| Line item | Option | Arithmetic |
|---|---|---|
| CRM + ATS, monthly billing | Longlist Growth | 1 seat × $59 × 12 months |
| CRM + ATS, annual billing | Longlist Growth | 1 seat × $47 × 12, billed up front |
| Alternative | Tracker Launch | 1 seat × $79, minimum 6 months |
| Alternative | Zoho Recruit Free | $0, but 1 active job and no resume parser |
| Contact data | Free tiers (Lusha, Hunter) | $0 for small volumes; paid plan if she calls a lot |
| Job advertising | Paid boards per role | Her own budget, per job |
What we’d tell her: pay monthly for the first two or three months. If she is still using it daily on live jobs, annual billing saves the difference between $59 and $47 on every month of the year. The free plan is a good place to learn, but one active job doesn’t fit a recruiter running four searches at once. See what free recruiting software can really do.
Worked example 2: a five-desk agency
A fictional five-consultant perm and contract agency in Manchester. Everyone needs a seat. Two consultants spend most of the day on the phone.
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| Plan and billing | Effective cost per month for five people | Amount billed | Subscription cost over 12 months |
|---|---|---|---|
| Growth, monthly | $295 | $295 each month | $3,540 |
| Growth, annual | $235 | $2,820 annually | $2,820 |
| Plus, monthly | $395 | $395 each month | $4,740 |
| Plus, annual | $325 | $3,900 annually | $3,900 |
The arithmetic: Growth annual is 5 seats × $47 = $235 a month, × 12 = $2,820, billed once. Growth monthly is 5 × $59 = $295 a month, which comes to $3,540 over a year. The gap between those two annual figures is the price of flexibility.
A mixed option. The agency doesn’t need calling on every seat, so ask each vendor whether plans can be mixed on one account. Then compare Plus, which adds calling, SMS and WhatsApp, for all five ($3,900 a year on annual billing) with Growth for all five plus a separate dialer for the two phone-heavy consultants. Include the time spent logging calls by hand if the dialer doesn’t write back to the CRM.
Then add retained tools. Contact data, paid job boards and any timesheet tool for contractors. The agency’s contractors are paid through umbrella companies, so it doesn’t need payroll software. If yours does, read our guide to recruitment timesheet software.
Worked example 3: a twenty-seat agency
A fictional twenty-consultant IT and engineering agency in Dallas, with a perm team, a contract team and a two-person BD team.
At this size, three things change:
- Tier cliffs start to bite. Several platforms change plan at a fixed headcount (see the chart below). Price the tier you’ll be on at 20 and at 25 users, not the one on the homepage.
- Annual billing becomes a big number. On Longlist Growth, 20 seats is four times the five-seat example: 4 × $2,820 on annual billing, or 4 × $3,540 over a year on monthly billing. On Plus it is 4 × $3,900 annually. At that size, ask for the renewal terms in writing.
- Usage scales with people. Twenty people sending texts, enriching contacts and parsing CVs will use far more credits than five. Ask each vendor for last year’s typical usage for an agency your size.
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| Line item (20 seats) | Question to price |
|---|---|
| Seats | Which tier at 20 users? At 25? |
| Calling and SMS | Built in on the plan, per-credit, or a separate dialer at its own seat price? |
| Contact data | Team plan or individual seats? Shared credit pool? |
| Job advertising | Multiposter subscription plus board contracts |
| Back office | Timesheets and payroll for the contract team, in or out of the CRM? |
| Migration | Fixed fee, per file, or included? Who maps the data? |
| Exit | Cost and format of a full export, including CV files |
Hidden costs, with real examples
Migration deserves its own line. A clean import of candidates, contacts, jobs and CV files is what makes the new system useful on day one, and the CRM migration checklist explains what to test.
The return side of the equation
Use your own activity to estimate the time a system could save. The following figures are fictional and show the calculation.
Time. Suppose double entry between a separate CRM and ATS costs each consultant 30 minutes a day. That’s 2.5 hours a week. Over 46 working weeks, it is 115 hours a year per consultant, or nearly three working weeks. For a five-desk agency, that’s 575 hours.
Fees. Suppose an average perm fee of 20% on an $80,000 salary: $16,000. On those assumptions, one extra placement a year covers a five-seat Growth subscription ($2,820 on annual billing) several times over.
The catch. Neither number happens by itself. The return comes from consultants using sequences, searching the database before LinkedIn, and logging calls. Measure it with the weekly KPI scorecard: CVs sent, interviews and BD activity per consultant, before and after the switch.
Questions to settle before you sign
- Is the price per user, per recruiter, or per account? Do admins and researchers need paid seats?
- Is the quoted rate monthly or annual, and is annual paid up front?
- What is the minimum term, and what notice do we need to give?
- Which features we need sit on a higher tier, or use credits?
- What does a typical agency of our size spend on credits or usage each month?
- What is included in migration, and what does it cost?
- What did renewal prices do last year? Is there a cap on increases?
- What does a full export, including CV files, cost if we leave?
- Is there a refund window if it doesn’t work for us?
Pricing questions to send a vendor before the demo
Hi [name],
Before our demo on [date], could you confirm the following in writing so we can compare like for like?
- Per-user price for [plan] at [X] users today and [Y] users in 12 months, monthly and annual.
- Minimum term, notice period and any renewal increase cap.
- Any usage credits, caps or add-ons we’d need for: email sequences, calling/SMS, CV parsing, CV formatting, job posting.
- Migration scope and cost from [current system], including CV files.
- Cost and format of a full data export if we leave.
Thanks, [your name]
The best value per seat for agencies
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