Best Applicant Tracking Systems

Applicant Tracking Systems Reviews

To find the best applicant tracking systems, we looked at 85 vendors before narrowing it down to the list of top picks you see here. There were a lot of great options to choose from, but the following companies stood out for having comprehensive features, transparent pricing, helpful customer support, and great reputations.

Our reviews and comparisons can help you determine which ATS is best for you. From the best free applicant tracking systems to the most expensive, we’ve evaluated them all. Read our full methodology to learn about the research that went into making our picks.

BambooHR – Best Applicant Tracking System for Small Businesses

While advertising itself as HR for companies at every stage of growth, we found BambooHR a particularly nice fit for growing small businesses. It helps handle onboarding, hiring, and payroll requirements to turn what was once a smaller business into a mid-range company. You can get started for free.

Start Free Trial Link: Visit BambooHR’s website for a free trial

BambooHR features

• Onboarding
• Job posting
• E-Verify/I-9 forms
• HIPAA compliant
• Payroll management

What markets does BambooHR serve?

There is nothing about BambooHR aimed specifically at small businesses—in fact, it’s aimed at businesses of every size. If you’re hiring for the first time, you’ll find it useful. If you’re a large business trying to streamline your hiring process—ditto. But we put it here because it’s particularly great at helping small businesses scale up their hiring.

Read our full BambooHR review

Greenhouse – Best for Candidate and Workflow Management

Greenhouse is an excellent ATS that can work as part of an ongoing system to replace talent, hire new talent, and generally grow or maintain an active company.

Get Started Link: Visit Greenhouse’s website to get started

Greenhouse features

• Onboarding
• Job posting
• Structured interview process

What markets does Greenhouse serve?

With offerings for both enterprise and small- and mid-sized businesses, there isn’t much of a gap here. Where Greenhouse succeeds is in helping your company build an effective hiring process that results in a winning candidate experience. This makes it a great piece of software for getting the daily work of hiring done.

Read our full Greenhouse review

Transformify — Best for ATS with Workforce Management

Transformify’s Applicant Tracking System (ATS) plan streamlines the hiring process from job postings to hiring, providing data-driven insights for decision-making. With features like one-click job posting on over 150 job boards, AI-powered analytics, compliance coverage, easy candidate communication, and integration with external programs, Transformify’s ATS plan offers a robust solution for efficient and effective hiring processes and beyond.

TFY’s workforce management system is trusted by businesses on four continents. It streamlines contractor management and fully automates onboarding, compliance, billing, and payments to independent contractors, freelancers, and employees.

Get Started Visit Transformify’s website.

Transformify features

• Onboarding
• Job posting integration
• Compliance
• Resume parsing

What markets does Transformify serve?

Businesses hiring a range of workers, from remote employees to contractors and freelancers, will succeed in identifying and recruiting the best candidates and managing and paying their global workforce with Transformify. You can effectively grow and manage your international team with a freelance management-specific plan, cross-border hiring, global compliance solutions, automated contractor payments, and HR support.

Read our full Transformify review

Pinpoint— Best for Candidate Engagement

Pinpoint is a great applicant tracking system that focuses on streamlining the hiring process from start to finish. Its fast and flexible ATS helps you stay ahead of the competition and identify top candidates on multiple job boards while maintaining consistent company branding. Pinpoint offers highly customizable dashboards to track and manage candidates in the way nest suited to you.

Get Started Visit Pinpoint’s website.

Pinpoint features

• Employee attraction, hiring, and onboarding
• Personalized onboarding platforms
• Training and support
• Responsive customer service
• Data and insights for active jobs
• Scheduling interviews through Pinpoint

What markets does Pinpoint serve?

Pinpoint serves small to medium-sized businesses across all industries in the US and the UK. If you’re looking for an ATS with a candidate-first approach that enhances engagement and communication, the Pinpoint is worth looking into. It’s not the cheapest ATS on the list, and the exact pricing is variable, but Pinpoint strives to return on investment through high-quality service.

Teamtailor – Best for Branded Recruiting

Teamtailor is a highly focused ATS software that emphasizes recruiting and making a good first impression in order to help you find and hire top talent. The easy-to-use app allows you to set up attractive career sites, utilize campaigns, and market jobs to specific demographics. Those looking to up their recruiting game will find Teamtailor very helpful. However, those needing further HR support beyond recruiting and hiring will need to look elsewhere.

Get Started Link: Visit Teamtailor’s website for a free trial

Teamtailor features

• Onboarding
• Job posting
• Resume parsing
• Mobile hiring app
• Branded career page
• Hiring analytics

What markets does Teamtailor serve?

Teamtailor puts a big emphasis on marketing and branding your company and the first impression you make on potential hires. Those looking to make a big first impression and up their recruiting game to attract top talent should consider Teamtailor.

Read our full Teamtailor review

ApplicantPro – Best All-In-One Applicant Tracking System

Small to mid-size businesses looking for an ATS that offers above and beyond just applicant tracking should check out ApplicantPro. Designed to take the stress out of recruiting and hiring ApplicantPro handles all your hiring needs from creating a job posting and posting it to job boards to background checks and onboarding.

Get Started Link: Visit ApplicantPro’s website for a free trial

ApplicantPro features

• Onboarding
• Job posting
• E-Verify/I-9 forms
• Payroll management

What markets does ApplicantPro serve?

ApplicantPro can take over much of the work of recruiting and hiring and is designed for small to mid-size companies without a dedicated HR team. It takes the stress off hiring managers with many other duties besides recruiting, hiring, and onboarding.

Read our full ApplicantPro review

Tracker – Best ATS for Staffing Agencies

Tracker RMS is an applicant tracking system and a customer relationship management system rolled into one. Tracker has a culture of relationships first and enables recruiting firms to build better relationships and better business while their recruiters discover, nurture, and align candidates and applicants with better matches. The feature rich platform includes an array of functionalities like job board posting, resume parsing, skill profiling, and more.

Get Started Link: Visit Tracker’s website to schedule your demo

Tracker features

• Onboarding
• Job posting integration
• CRM
• Compliance
• Resume parsing

What markets does Tracker serve?

Tracker RMS is designed to help recruiting firms source, nurture, and match candidates better. With a relationship-first focus, recruiting and staffing companies will find they can collaborate better, streamline workflows, build better relationships, and increase ROI.

Read our full Tracker review

Rippling – Best Applicant Tracking System for Growing Businesses

Rippling is a full-service applicant tracking system that, like BambooHR, goes above and beyond its status as “applicant tracking” software. Payroll, benefits, onboarding—Rippling has it all, along with an affordable scaling price for companies that want their entire HR department using the same software.

Rippling features

• Onboarding
• Job posting
• E-Verify/I-9 forms
• HIPAA compliant
• Resume parsing
• Payroll management
• Benefits management

What markets does Rippling serve?

There’s no reason you can’t use Rippling if you’re a smaller business, but we think the comprehensive list of features here is too good for big businesses to pass up. It may be the best for medium-tier businesses, too—those businesses who can afford employee benefits but may wonder how to best manage them.

Read our full Rippling review

Freshteam by Freshworks – Best for New Hirers

Freshworks’ HR Software is part of a suite of software you can use for accounting, HR, and general business administration. What we particularly like about Freshworks is that it’s simple to onboard, which means it can work well if it’s the “first” HR software you ever use.

Freshteam features

• Onboarding
• Job posting
• E-Verify/I-9 forms
• Payroll management
• Integrate with other Freshworks software

What markets does Freshteam serve?

Freshworks is ostensibly for any business that needs to get its books—and its job hiring process—straightened out. However, we find that it works great for first-time hirers and small companies. Their customer support received a full rating on our list, which also helps people with less experience using ATS tools for recruitment. If you’re looking for an applicant tracking system free download, Freshworks might be the best place to start.

Read our full FreshTeam review

Avature – Best for Enterprise-Level Recruiters

Avature emphasizes sourcing and attracting talent, making it a cutting-edge tool for enterprise-level recruiters who need to combine candidate sourcing, applicant tracking, and interviewing under one highly configurable system. Going beyond your average ATS, Avature’s talent management software also offers tools for onboarding, branded employee engagement, performance management, and contingent workforce management.

Avature features

• Onboarding
• Job posting
• E-Verify/I-9 forms
• Resume parsing
• Employee referrals

What markets does Avature serve?

Avature focuses on enterprise organizations and many of its enterprise customers use its full suite of talent acquisition features. It’s especially useful for global teams hiring international employees that need a customizable and strategic HR system to find, hire, and retain talent. It’s used in more than 164 countries and 32 languages by some of the world’s largest companies, including 110 of the Fortune 500 and 7 of the Top 10 Fortune 500.

Read our full Avature review

Workable – Best for Large Teams

Workable is a fairly standard hiring platform, but it stands out from the competition due to its outstanding ease of use. 24/7 support and powerful automation tools make it a good investment for most companies that are struggling with recruiting and hiring. However, the price tag of $129 per month may be a little steep for some users.

Workable features

• Onboarding
• Job posting
• Resume parsing
• Mobile hiring app
• Branded career page
• Hiring analytics

What markets does Workable serve?

Workable is a great applicant tracking system for any small or medium-sized business that needs help with hiring and new hire onboarding. The simplicity of its platform appeals to both small and large recruiting teams. Of all the applicant tracking systems on our list, we say Workable is one of the easiest to use, making it especially ideal for teams that need a user-friendly ATS.

Read our full Workable review

Paycor – Best ATS to Grow and Scale

Paycor is an HCM that streamlines payroll and HR services to make it possible for small businesses to grow and scale as needed. As an ATS, Paycor offers recruiting, hiring, and onboarding services that allow frontline leaders to build winning teams. One stand-out feature is Paycor Smart Sourcing, an AI recruiting tool that automates and seeks out diverse passive and actively looking candidates.

Get Started Visit Paycor’s website.

Paycor features

• Onboarding
• Job posting
• E-Verify/I-9 forms

What markets does Paycor serve?

Paycor caters to small to mid-size businesses looking to build their talent pool to grow and scale as they grow. By offering in-depth HR features and payroll, Paycor can seamlessly support companies from the recruiting and hiring stages to the termination and offboarding stages.

Read our full Paycor review

Compare the best applicant tracking systems options side-by-side

What are applicant tracking systems?

Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) are software tools used by human resources departments, recruiting agencies, small businesses, and corporations to manage and streamline the hiring process.

These systems help to organize, track, and sort job applicants while also assisting with the transition to onboarding new hires and getting them connected with human resources. A good applicant tracking system is more than a tracker—it’s a way to manage the hiring process from start to finish.

Who are applicant tracking systems for?

• Large businesses. This may be the audience who gets the most value out of applicant tracking systems. Large businesses have the highest volume of applicants to sort through. And large organizations may sometimes have the slowest reaction time to a bad hire—not knowing what went wrong in the process.
• Small businesses. Gauging the best ATS for small businesses is still important, as even small businesses can have a lot of applicants to sort through.
• First-time hirers. Maybe you’ve been a one-person business and you’re making your first hire. Or maybe you’re a new HR professional, and you need to bring an applicant tracking system into the fold. Which are the best introductory tracking systems for you?

What do applicant tracking systems do?

• Onboarding. As a modern HR tool, ATS systems help introduce a lot of new hires to the business. A scalable onboarding system can make it possible to add a lot of qualified candidates.
• Resume parsing. The flood of resumes a business receives can be overwhelming. Resume parsing helps organize and prioritize them according to the job description.
• Job posting. Not all applicant tracking systems offer job posting features, such as cross-posting across job boards. For small businesses, it can be a key way to get the word out without the resources of a larger business.
• E-verify and HIPAA compliance. When you’re making a hire for the first time, you can sometimes forget the important line items to check off for each candidate. Good applicant tracking systems can help fill that void.

Benefits of using an applicant tracking system

What kinds of benefits do applicant tracking systems offer? When we surveyed HR professionals about their ATS software, they said reporting, resume parsing, and applicant ranking were the top benefits. Here are some other benefits you might get out of an ATS:

• Organizing resumes. What if you have 102 resumes to review? Organizing them becomes paramount. Look for the “resume parsing” feature in this review to see which tracking software offers that.
• Onboarding new hires. Once you make a decision, what happens next? The best applicant tracking systems can help streamline the onboarding experience by integrating with other tech and systems being used by your organization, creating a seamless experience for both new hires and managers.
• Promoting your job post. If you have a big-time ad budget with a large company, this isn’t as big a concern. But for small companies, you can also use ATS tools for recruitment to help get the word out.

How much do applicant tracking systems cost?

In our recent survey, HR professionals reported spending anywhere from $1,300 a month on ATS software all the way up to $6k a month.

During our research, we found prices all over the place—from free applicant tracking systems you could sign up for today to completely non-transparent enterprise-level solutions. Rippling’s $8/month/user tier is a pretty straightforward approach that scales up with the size of your business. Another option like Workable, for example, is more static at $129/month per job you use. We recommend evaluating pricing on a case-by-case basis, especially with applicant tracking systems.

Who should use applicant tracking systems, and what are the different types?

According to a Columbia study on applicant tracking systems, 90% of Fortune 500 companies use ATS. Anyone making a hire should at least consider applicant tracking systems for their business. But applicant tracking systems for recruiters are especially important to use. Recruiters have a lot on their plate with any given hire. They have to make sure their job postings are visible, they have to find where the talent is, and when the talent does apply, recruiters have to sift that down into a manageable interviewing process.

We found there were a few different types of applicant tracking systems to consider. Some are solely built for promoting a job posting, while others are more comprehensive, HR-type offerings that can also handle onboarding, employee benefits, and even payroll. Which you choose will depend on your business needs. Generally speaking, if you’re making the first hires for your business, you should choose the robust options that can help manage employment concerns after your hire.

Applicant tracking systems FAQs

What is the most popular applicant tracking system?

On our list, we found stellar reputations for BambooHR, Rippling, and Greenhouse.

What is an applicant tracking system in HR?

The Applicant Tracking System, or ATS, is software to help manage potential recruits for hiring into a company. It can include parsing and organizing resumes, streamlining the interviewing process, and onboarding new potential employees into a company’s existing system.

What makes a good applicant tracking system?

A good applicant tracking system should make your life simpler and easier to manage anytime you need to make a new hire. HR leaders we spoke to said a system that automates recruits through the process and encompasses everything from recruiting to hiring and payroll is the best fit for them. For some companies, ATS software must play well with other features, such as employee onboarding. For others, it might mean a focus on getting the word out about the job that’s being filled. Either way, a good applicant tracking system will help you facilitate a good hire without having to perform every step of the process manually.

Do recruiters really use ATS?

Yes—in fact, many swear by it. You’ll find there is some difference of opinion as to which ATS to use, but that’s what we’re here to resolve today.

How we chose the best applicant tracking systems

There are some major factors we incorporate into what you see today, including:

• Customer service. We rated customer service and support for the top-performing ATS on our list, and while this didn’t form a final opinion, it helped us to rate the quality of the programs you see here.
• Onboarding and organization. One of the key elements for determining how good an ATS will be at helping a specific company? How well it handles onboarding and organization within a lengthy and complex recruiting process. Chances are, big companies need extensive organizational features to isolate the best candidates out of lists of hundreds.
• Hiring workflows. The ability to turn a recruitment effort into a streamlined hiring process is one of the key aspects of ATS software. We looked for systems that allow you to seamlessly progress through the entire hiring process from job posting to signed offer letter to onboarding.
• Brand reputation. One of the key factors in our approach was to discern which of the finalists had the best reputations in the marketplace. This reputation—along with the list of features available—was one of the elements that helped point us to the best ATS, especially rating them for specific audiences, like small or large businesses.

From a list of over 80 software solutions, down to a list of 15 final candidates, we whittled down the best applicant tracking system software available. Constructing a side-by-side comparison of features, pricing, and offerings, as well as customer support, we could then conduct a review of which software worked best for which audience.

As for the next step—hiring—well, that one’s up to you. Once you choose your ATS, you won’t be far removed from choosing the best candidate for your open position.

We collect information about vendors and verify it through:

• Interviews
• Video and live demos
• Vendor and parent company websites

The B2B Reviews editorial team consists of researchers, writers and editors who cover all aspects of business-to-business software and services across a wide variety of industries. Our research takes hours, days and weeks to compile and analyze the data that backs our recommendations. Our goal is to make this painstaking process our job so you can get back to doing yours.