The best recruiting software for small business owners helps in finding top employees by posting open positions on job boards and keeping track of applicants through the hiring process. These recruiting platforms may have full applicant tracking systems (ATS) or a few candidate management tools but integrate with outside systems.
In this guide, we evaluated more than a dozen small business recruiting software and narrowed our list down to the six best.
- Zoho Recruit: Best overall recruiting software for small business owners
- Manatal: Best for startups
- Workable: Best all-in-one platform to recruit and onboard employees
- Recruitee: Best for growing businesses
- Indeed: Best for occasional hires
- Breezy HR: Best for automating the hiring pipeline
Recruiting Software for Small Business Compared
All of the recruiting platforms for small businesses on this list offer career sites you can customize to promote your company culture and boost employer branding. Similar to an applicant tracking system, the above software can monitor candidates as they go through the hiring pipeline. Candidate screening and communication tools are also available to help you find and hire employees.
Why You Can Trust Us
I have over 5 years of experience evaluating payroll and HR software for Fit Small Business and 10 years of experience in human resources and handling HR systems. As a result, I am deeply familiar with the needs of business owners and the HR solutions available on the market.
- Strict, unbiased editorial policy
- Evaluated alongside 18 recruiting solutions across 26 data points
- Regularly updated and fact-checked
See our full methodology below.
Payroll & HR Software Expert at FitSmallBusiness
Zoho Recruit: Best Overall Recruiting Software for Small Businesses
Pros
- Forever-free plan
- Separate recruiting packages for businesses and staffing firms
- Seamless integration with Zoho products
- Offers a 15-day free trial
Cons
- Most popular job boards cost extra
- Basic support only includes email assistance; you have to upgrade to paid support plans to get live chat and phone assistance
- Steeper learning curve than others on the list
Overview
Who should use it:
Zoho Recruit is a highly customizable recruiting management software that works great for staffing agencies and small to mid-sized businesses (SMBs) that either recruit infrequently or are in a hiring surge. Its temp plan, Workerly, is also a terrific option for hiring temp workers from a pool of candidates.
Why we like it:
Its free plan may only come with one active job slot but it has the basic features you need to promote job listings and track applicants. The paid plans also offer excellent tools not just for collaboration but also for balancing multiple jobs and candidates at the same time.
Further, its integration with Zoho products makes for easy data transfers, such as parsing candidate data from Zoho Mail to Zoho Recruit. However, it only distributes job posts to over 75 job sites; whereas the others on our list, such as Manatal and Recruitee, distribute open roles to thousands of job boards.
Plans for Corporate HRs/businesses
- Free: $0
- Includes candidate management, interview scheduling, email management, and one active job slot
- Standard: $30 per recruiter monthly ($25 per recruiter monthly if billed annually*)
- Free + candidate sourcing, resume parsing and management, premium job boards, branded career sites, assessments, hiring pipeline, integration options, standard reports, and 10 active job slots
- Enterprise: $60 per recruiter monthly ($50 per recruiter monthly if billed annually*)
- Standard + artificial intelligence (AI) candidate matching, applicant and staffing portals, custom reporting, Google Meet and Microsoft Teams integration, and 20 active job slots
Add-ons
- Video interviews: $12 per job opening
- Vendor portal: $6 per month (billed annually*)
- Includes an online portal for external recruiters to manage hiring leads
- Employee license: $10 per month for a pack of 10 licenses (billed annually*)
- Licenses can be used by employees and hiring managers to refer candidates and track the status of applicants they referred
*Plans that are billed annually require upfront and lump sum payment of all fees.
Zoho Recruit’s AI-powered resume parsing feature helps you get accurate data from candidate resumes. (Source: Zoho Recruit)
- 45-day money-back guarantee allows new clients who are unhappy with its services to get a refund (none of the providers on our list offer this).
- AI tool, Zia, instantly recommends candidates who match your hiring requirements and ranks them against other applicants who qualify for the role.
- Personalized portals for:
- Candidates to track their applications
- External recruiters to monitor the status of applicant placements
- Staffing agency clients to create job openings, review candidates, provide feedback, and make interview decisions
- Resume parser automatically screens candidate resumes and extracts applicable data from different sources, such as online resumes sent via email and from web pages like LinkedIn and Google Chrome.
- Customizable resume templates let you format and standardize candidate resumes to fit your brand.
- Zoho’s Workerly product allows staffing agencies to help clients find and hire temporary workers for their business (no other recruiting software on our list has a similar module).
- Report builder lets you select up to 25 data points, set up in-depth filters, and choose how the reports are displayed.
- Integration with ChatGPT helps you create job descriptions for your job postings.
Manatal: Best for Startups
Pros
- User-friendly
- AI-generated job descriptions for your job posts
- Offers a 14-day free trial
- Data migration services to transfer candidate information from your existing recruiting software
Cons
- No free plan
- Lacks integration with background check tools
- Access to free job board postings requires account verification (takes one working day on regular business days)
Overview
Who should use it:
Manatal’s AI-powered recruiting tools make it an excellent choice for businesses looking to streamline hiring processes. Its value-for-money plans are suitable for small businesses and startups with limited recruiting budgets.
Why we like it:
Manatal offers an excellent feature set not only for finding candidates but also for evaluating and tracking applicants. You can post to multiple boards in over 100 countries, use AI to parse resumes and collaborate with your hiring team. Manatal even scours social media to give you a fuller impression of your candidate.
However, if you don’t hire often, Manatal’s starter plan may be too much for you as it comes with up to 15 job slots. We recommend Zoho Recruit, Breezy HR, and Indeed, which all have a free plan for posting jobs and screening candidates.
- Professional: $19 per user monthly ($15 per user monthly if billed annually*)
- Includes unlimited hiring managers, up to 15 jobs per account and 10,000 candidates, resume parsing, candidate matching, AI-generated job descriptions, applicant tracking, screening questions, customizable career page, communication tools, integrations, chat service, and email support
- Enterprise: $39 per user monthly ($35 per user monthly if billed annually*)
- Professional + workflow automation tools and unlimited jobs and candidates
- Enterprise Plus: $59 per user monthly ($55 per user monthly if billed annually*)
- Enterprise + user groups, single sign-on, Zapier integration, priority support, and open application programming interface (API) access
- Custom: Call for a quote
- Enterprise Plus + dedicated account manager, custom compliance and reports, phone support, and custom integrations
*Plans that are billed annually require upfront and lump sum payment of all fees.
Once you enable your Careers Page in Manatal, you can start posting to job boards. (Source: Manatal)
- Modifies and tracks candidates’ data privacy consent status directly from applicant profiles.
- Kanban boards for tracking applicants through the hiring pipeline, with each board holding all the candidate’s information.
- Post to over 2,500 free and paid job sites—one of the largest job distribution networks on our list (aside from Recruitee).
- AI tool not only matches candidates based on your hiring requirements but also recommends open jobs based on the applicants’ profiles.
- Manatal is the only recruiting software for small business owners we reviewed that creates candidate profiles by searching for applicant data in over 20 social media and public platforms to give you information not found in paper and online resumes.
- If you are a hiring agency using Manatal, the software lets you watermark and even change resume contact information, so your clients go to you about a candidate rather than straight to the applicant themselves. We didn’t find another recruitment software with this feature.
Workable: Best All-in-One Platform to Recruit and Onboard Employees
Pros
- Offers a 15-day free trial
- Applicants can schedule own interviews
- Extensive library of interview questions, job descriptions, and email templates
- Feature-rich platform includes hiring, applicant tracking, onboarding, time-off monitoring, and employee data management tools
Cons
- No free plan
- Standard and Premier prices change by the size of your company; Premier plan also requires an annual subscription
- Video interviews, assessments, and texting features in lower plans cost extra
Overview
Who should use it:
Workable has more than just recruiting and ATS features. Businesses can use its platform to post jobs, screen qualified candidates, onboard new hires, manage employee data, and track time off. As of this writing, Workable is set to release new HR modules for tracking employee work hours and performance reviews.
Why we like it:
Workable’s automations, self-scheduling, and e-signature tools take a lot of back-and-forth out of the recruiting process. With an intuitive interface that real-world users say is easy to learn and use, it’s a great choice for new recruiters or harried HR officers who don’t have time to learn one more complicated software. It even provides access to an online academy with learning courses to help you gain the necessary skills to navigate, configure, and optimize hiring tasks through Workable.
However, if you’re looking for an affordable plan, Workable may not be a good fit. It lacks the free plan that Zoho Recruit, Breezy HR, and Indeed offer. It can also get pricey depending on the number of employees you have and the add-on features selected.
- Starter: $149 per month for up to 50 employees
- Includes two active jobs, postings to over 200 job boards, applicant tracking and screening, candidate self-scheduling, background checks (via integration), email communication, customizable career page, employee profiles, staff directory, and a referrals portal with reporting tools
- Add-ons:
- Video interviews: $49 per month
- Assessments: $29 per month
- Texting directly from the Workable platform: $39 per month
- Standard: Starts at $378 monthly for up to 20 employees ($313 monthly if paid annually*)
- Starter + offer letters, e-signature tool, onboarding, and time off management
- Add-ons:
- Video interviews: Starts at $120 per month ($99 monthly if paid annually*)
- Assessments: Starts at $70 per month ($59 monthly if paid annually*)
- Texting: Starts at $90 per month ($79 monthly if paid annually*)
- Premier: Starts at $628 per month for up to 20 employees (billed annually*)
- Standard + five language options, hiring plan, payroll integrations, premium support, single sign-on, custom account onboarding, video interviews, assessments, and texting features
*Plans that are billed annually require upfront and lump sum payment of all fees.
Post job listings to free and paid job boards.
(Source: SoftwareSuggest)
- Supports blind hiring through anonymized candidate screenings that hide identifiable details about the applicants from their resumes, which helps reduce hiring bias.
- Access to over 1,000 job description templates, more than 390 interview question guides, and over 50 recruiting email templates to keep candidates informed at every stage.
- AI tools not only recommend candidates and parse resumes but also generate the best interview questions to ask based on the specific role.
- Workable claims that in just minutes, it can scan its database of over 400 million resumes to provide a list of 50 candidates that match your job description.
- Referral dashboard with gamified rewards to boost participation and automated alerts so employees can track the status of their referrals.
- Easy-to-use career page builder with customizable templates to help you build a career site with advanced job search tools and one-click application buttons. What sets it apart from the others on our list is its capability to track site performance through a Google Analytics connection.
Recruitee: Best for Growing Businesses
Pros
- Has an 18-day free trial
- Access over 2,900 free and paid job boards (the widest coverage on our list of best recruiting software)
- Event scheduler allows candidates to easily select a time slot that suits everyone on the hiring team
Cons
- No free plan or phone support
- Its starter plan is more expensive than the others on our list
- Pricing for Grow package varies depending on the size of your workforce
- Requires at least a one-year contract
Overview
Who should use it:
Recruitee is a talent acquisition platform great for small businesses with plans to expand their workforce. Its Grow package covers more than 500 employees, supports multiple locations, and comes with unlimited job slots and user roles. These features, including its advanced tools for screening applicants, can help you close open roles faster and improve time-to-hire metrics.
Why we like it:
Unlike the other providers on our list, all of Recruitee’s plans include candidate videos—a great way to get a feel for the professionalism and personality of the applicant. It also allows unlimited users, so the whole hiring team can get involved without paying extra for recruiting accounts.
In addition, it offers an intuitive interface and tools to take you from posting job ads to hiring. Recruitee even compares well against Zoho Recruit for features, but it’s more expensive and lacks a free plan.
Recruitee may require new clients to sign up for annual contracts, but they can pay either on a monthly or yearly basis. There are three plans:
- Start: $249 monthly ($199 monthly if paid annually*)
- Includes five job slots, unlimited users and data storage, multi-job postings, single-page “CareersHub,” resume parsing, hiring pipeline automation, candidate pools, automated emails, customizable user access, compliance tools, mobile apps, standard reports, and third-party software integrations
- Grow: Starts at 311 per month for up to 20 employees ($249 monthly if paid annually*)
- Start + unlimited job slots and users, multi-page “CareersHub,” screening questions, a ReferralsHub, multi-language and location support, candidate self-scheduling, evaluation forms, and custom reporting
- Optimize: Call for a quote
- Grow + client onboarding support, single sign-on, API support, integration with business intelligence tools, and access to a customer success manager
Add-ons
- Single sign-on: Call for a quote
- Texting: Call for a quote
- Onboarding: Call for a quote
*Plans that are billed annually require upfront and lump sum payment of all fees.
Email templates are just one of the customizable tools that Recruitee offers. (Source: Recruitee)
- Recruitee posts jobs to over 2,900 job boards (the largest network on our list) and even uses AI to recommend the best job sites for your open roles.
- Single and multi-page career sites, which Recruitee calls CareerHubs, that support multiple languages. Recruitee has four installed—English, German, French, and Dutch—but you can add other languages. While others on our list also support several languages, Recruitee is the only one with multi-page career sites.
- AI tools can match candidates to your hiring requirements and help you create job descriptions to attract qualified applicants.
- Fair evaluations feature hides evaluations from hiring team members, allowing you to leave unbiased candidate feedback.
- Unlike the others on our list, Recruitee’s user permissions let you or system administrators set visibility options for viewing private notes and new hire salary offers.
Indeed: Best for Occasional Hires
Pros
- Free job posting (one position at a time)
- Extensive resume bank (has over 290 million resumes)
- 14-day free trial for its smart sourcing module; lets you contact five candidates for free
Cons
- Mobile app for job seekers only
- Free job posts quickly fall out of search results
- Doesn’t track applicants as they go through the hiring pipeline
Overview
Who should use it:
Indeed, which ranks first on our list of the best free job posting sites, is ideal for businesses with a limited recruiting budget and don’t hire often. It lets you post jobs on its job board for free (but only one job ad at a time). Even if you decide to promote your job post via Indeed’s sponsored jobs feature, the minimum budget for it is reasonable.
Why we like it:
Indeed serves more than 350 million job seekers a month and has over 290 million resumes on file. It features screening questions and basic skills tests, plus automated email tools to make evaluating your candidate easy. You can boost your job ads, reach out to passive job seekers, or purchase a subscription to its Smart Sourcing module, which grants you access to its resume bank to find qualified candidates even if they don’t apply.
However, its candidate management tools are limited, but integration with third-party ATS allows it to monitor applicants as they go through the hiring pipeline. While the other providers on our list are good alternatives, if you don’t want to invest in another system, you can use our applicant tracking sheet to track candidates.
Indeed does not charge to post a job, but it offers several paid services:
Sponsored job postings: This improves the visibility of your open positions. Fees depend on the budget you set. The minimum is $5 per day or $150 per month, and you only have to pay when candidates click on or apply to your job post.
Smart sourcing: This lets you access Indeed’s resume bank and search tools. There are two plans:
- Standard: $120 per month (or $1,150 per year*)
- For companies that hire one to 12 employees annually
- Includes 30 contacts monthly, unlimited resume search with basic filters, candidate matching, video and phone interview options, and customizable AI-generated messages to contact candidates
- Professional: $400 per month (or $3,840 per year*)
- For companies that hire over 12 employees annually
- Standard + 100 contacts monthly, advanced resume search filters, contact candidates via phone or text messages, sync candidate data to third-party ATS, and candidate engagement insights/reports
*Requires lump sum and upfront payment of annual fees
Indeed offers free job postings and limited ATS tools. (Source: Indeed)
- If you use Glassdoor, you can work through it to get premium branding on Indeed and Glassdoor, have your open jobs on Indeed pushed to your Glassdoor page, and target competitors on Glassdoor to post jobs on their page as well.
- Create several sponsored jobs in Indeed and combine them into one campaign with a single overall budget. Plus, you benefit from reports that track the performance of the campaign as a whole.
- Advanced search filters include options for finding candidates by job type or those who are willing to relocate.
- Manage job posts, filter applications, schedule interviews, and send candidate messages directly from your employer dashboard.
Breezy HR: Best for Automating the Hiring Pipeline
Pros
Cons
- Has the smallest job distribution network on our list (50+ job boards)
- Lacks phone support
- Candidate match scores and incognito apply tools to reduce hiring bias are paid add-ons
Overview
Who should use it:
While the other recruiting platforms for small business owners we reviewed have workflow automation features, Breezy HR takes it a step forward. It can automate nearly everything in the hiring process, from starting a campaign for engaging passive candidates to scheduling interviews. This is great for recruiters and HR teams that want to focus more on finding top talents and less time managing repetitive recruiting tasks.
Why we like it:
Breezy HR helps SMBs attract, screen, and hire qualified candidates. It features a user-friendly platform and robust customization options for creating career sites, candidate scorecards, recruiting pipeline stages, and offer letters. Its communication tools let users compare notes, create to-do tasks, and discuss candidates, making it easy for recruiting stakeholders to make an informed hiring decision.
- Bootstrap: $0
- Includes unlimited users, unlimited access to candidates added within a 30-day period, branded career site, job distribution to over 50 job boards, resume parsing, and email/web support
- Startup: $189 monthly ($157 monthly if paid annually*)
- Bootstrap + screening questions, customizable pipelines, video interviews, candidate self-scheduling, reporting, Slack and email/calendar integrations, task management, and unlimited candidates, candidate pools, and positions
- Growth: $329 monthly ($273 monthly if paid annually*)
- Startup + customizable interview guides, multiple hiring pipelines, employee, referrals, automated reference checking, a dedicated portal for external recruiters to submit candidates, and a messenger tool to engage passive candidates
- Business: $529 monthly ($439 monthly if paid annually*)
- Growth + advanced questionnaires, candidate comparisons, HRIS and assessment tool integrations, email campaigns, offer management, and priority support
- Pro: Call for a quote
- Business + advanced reporting, single sign on, data import/export tool, and access to a dedicated account manager
Add ons
- SMS/Text messaging: Starts at $41 per month
- This lets you send text messages directly from Breezy HR or the candidate’s profile
- Incognito Apply: Starts at $137 per month
- This removes identifiable details from candidate resumes at the first stage of hiring for bias-free recruitment
- Candidate match score: Starts at $137 monthly; $35 for one position
- Includes an AI-powered tool that scores candidates based on your recruiting requirements
*Plans that are billed annually require upfront and lump sum payment of all fees.
With Breezy HR, you add company perk icons to your career site to highlight up to six perks that you offer. (Source: Breezy HR)
- Candidate self-scheduling tool shows a side-by-side view of the interviewers’ availability and has a drag-and-drop functionality for easy scheduling.
- Resume parsing supports over 20 languages.
- Video screening tool requires candidates to record and submit video responses to screening questions.
- Automatically gather feedback from employee references using customizable questionnaires.
- “Hello Messenger” feature lets you connect with passive candidates via your career site.
- Breezy HR automatically disqualifies or advances candidates to the next stage based on their answers to application screening questions.
How to Choose the Best Recruiting Software
With the many options available in the market, finding a recruiting software that fits your needs can be challenging. To help you make the right purchasing decision, here are some tips for choosing the best recruitment platform for your business.
Step 1: Evaluate Your Business
Start by looking at your business, software budget, and recruiting needs. Identify the challenges you face in hiring employees as these will help you narrow down the features you need.
For example, you want to focus on diversity hiring to remove biases and create a workplace that welcomes top talents from different backgrounds and cultures. Then, look for a recruiting solution that removes identifiable information (such as names, photographs, and gender) from candidate resumes at the start of the hiring process.
Step 2: Differentiate Between Wants & Needs
A recruitment system is a business investment and may require a huge budget, especially if it has all the bells and whistles that a full-featured hiring platform can offer. To help you stay within budget and ensure that you make the most of the software you’re considering, determine which recruiting functionalities would fall under the nice-to-have and must-have categories.
Looking at your company’s workforce expansion plans will also help you differentiate between your hiring needs and wants. However, regardless of whether you recruit infrequently or are always hiring, the software you choose should have resume search and screening tools, hiring pipelines to track applicants, and candidate-sourcing solutions for attracting top talent.
Step 3: Research & Compare Systems
Knowing the hiring features you want will help you create a shortlist of recruitment software to consider. At this stage, it’s important to research pricing details, customer support options, and user reviews. If a software provider has a free demo or free trial, sign up for those as it will give you a better idea of what the system looks like and how the features work.
To compare recruitment platforms, create an Excel spreadsheet that lists the differences between the systems you found. This will make it easier for you to see and evaluate how each option stands up against the other.
Methodology: How We Evaluated the Best Recruitment Software
To find the best recruiting software for small business owners, we evaluated over a dozen options and looked for essential solutions for attracting and reaching qualified candidates. We also searched for applicant tracking and screening features, as well as reporting tools and a customizable career site. Lastly, we considered pricing, ease of use, and user reviews.
Click through the tabs below for our full evaluation criteria:
25%
Candidate management tools
20% of Overall Score
We looked for transparent pricing and affordable monthly plans. Providers that offer free tiers and don’t have plan requirements (like annual contracts) also get additional points.
25% of Overall Score
This criterion covers job postings, career sites, resume parsing, and access to a resume bank, including interview scheduling and video interview tools.
10% of Overall Score
Aside from having access to standard reports, this criterion looked at customization options and the availability of hiring templates.
20% of Overall Score
We looked at the software’s learning curve, integration options, customer support, online guides, and mobile apps. This criterion also considered user review scores from third-party review sites like Capterra and G2.
*Percentages of overall score
Bottom Line
Recruiting software helps you advertise for jobs, evaluate candidates (from resume parsing to interview notes), and track them through the process to make sure you find employees you’ll love. Some services focus on the job postings themselves, while others have more extensive features for evaluation and even onboarding.
Overall, we found Zoho Recruit to be the best recruiting software for small business owners. It’s an affordably priced yet complete recruiting system that has excellent tools for agencies or small businesses in a hiring surge. It offers a basic free plan and a free trial of its paid plans, so give it a try today.
