Quick answer: The cheapest paid ATS that still handles agency work (clients, contacts, submittals and placements) is Manatal at $15 per user per month on annual billing, followed by Giig Hire at $16.70 and the Zoho Recruit Staffing edition at $25. If you need $0, Giig Hire and Zoho Recruit both have permanent free plans for one user. Prices are as listed in September 2026.
Who it suits: solo recruiters and two to five person agencies that want client and candidate records in one place and are paying for software out of their own placement fees.
What to check: job limits, parsing credits, job board fees, migration charges and whether the low number only applies to an annual contract. Those five things decide whether a cheap ATS stays cheap.
What is the cheapest ATS for a recruitment agency in 2026?
Manatal is the cheapest paid ATS on this list that includes a client CRM. The Manatal pricing page lists the Professional plan at $15 per user per month billed annually and $19 per user per month billed monthly, with a cap of 15 jobs and 10,000 candidates per account.
The question gets asked constantly on Reddit. One r/Recruitment thread from an independent recruiter set a budget of $25 or less per user, and the replies pointed mostly at Manatal and Zoho Recruit. A long running r/RecruitmentAgencies thread from two founders starting a US agency ended the same way: the original poster came back later to say they had chosen Manatal because it was cheap and covered what they needed.
This guide is about cost only. If you are still deciding which system fits the way a new desk works, read our new agency ATS guide first, then come back here to price the shortlist.
Which agency ATS has the lowest price per user?
The table below ranks tools that are built for agency work, meaning they store clients and hiring contacts alongside candidates and let you submit people to a client job. Every price was taken from the vendor’s own pricing page in September 2026. Where a vendor shows two numbers, the lower one is the annual billing rate.
| Rank | Tool and entry plan | Lowest published price | Main limit on that plan |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Manatal Professional | $15 per user per month annual, $19 monthly | 15 jobs per account, 10,000 candidates |
| 2 | Giig Hire Starter | $16.70 per user per month (£12.50 plus VAT in the UK) | 50 CV parsing credits, careers page capped at 10 jobs |
| 3 | Zoho Recruit Staffing Standard | $25 per recruiter per month annual, $30 monthly | 100 active jobs, 250 resume parses a day |
| 4 | Top Echelon TE Recruit Standard | $79 per month annual, $95 monthly (seat basis not spelled out) | No automations or sequences on Standard |
| 5 | Crelate Essentials | $85 per user per month, paid annually | Up to 2 users and 20,000 contacts |
| 6 | CATS Pro | $89 per user per month, shown against a struck through $110 | Data migration is a $500 extra |
| 7 | Recruit CRM Pro | $95 per user per month annual, $109 monthly | 1 email sequence, 15 custom fields |
| 8 | PCRecruiter | Around $115 per user per month | One time setup and training fee on top |
| 9 | Spott Core | $139 per user per month billed annually, $169 monthly | Enrichment credits cost extra |
| 10 | Recruiterflow Platform | $149 per user per month, lower on annual billing | AI agents sit in a separate custom plan |
| 10 | Loxo Core | $149 per user per month, billed annually | Annual plans paid up front |
Two agency tools are missing from the ranking because they publish no comparable per user number. The JobAdder pricing page asks you to request a tailored proposal, and Recruitee’s pricing page tells agencies to contact sales for a custom quote. Vincere publishes a starting figure but splits it into two parts, which the next section covers.
Where does Vincere fit on price?
Vincere starts at £69 per user per month for the CRM and ATS licence, according to the Vincere pricing page. The AI features are sold separately as packs priced per agency per month, from £25 for Base up to £349 for Elite. The page also says Vincere contracts run for one, two or three years. Our Vincere pricing breakdown goes through the packs in detail.
Why is Zoho Recruit priced differently for agencies?
Zoho Recruit sells separate editions for corporate HR teams and staffing agencies. The Staffing plan comparison is the one that includes clients, contacts and a submit to client step, and it lists Standard at $25, Professional at $50 and Enterprise at $75 per recruiter per month on annual billing. Monthly billing is $30, $60 and $90. The prices only render in a browser, so check the page yourself before you quote a number to a partner.
What does a three recruiter agency actually pay per year?
Per user prices are hard to compare in your head, so here is the same list multiplied out for a three person desk on the lowest published rate. This is list price only, before tax, add ons, credits or migration.
| Tool and plan | 3 seats per month | 3 seats per year |
|---|---|---|
| Manatal Professional (annual) | $45 | $540 |
| Zoho Recruit Staffing Standard (annual) | $75 | $900 |
| Giig Hire Plus | $147.60 | $1,771.20 |
| Top Echelon TE Recruit Standard (annual, assuming per seat) | $237 | $2,844 |
| CATS Pro | $267 | $3,204 |
| Recruit CRM Pro (annual) | $285 | $3,420 |
| Crelate Business | $357 | $4,284 |
| Spott Core (annual) | $417 | $5,004 |
| Loxo Core (annual) | $447 | $5,364 |
Giig Hire is shown on its Plus plan at $49.20 per user because the cheaper Starter plan has only 50 parsing credits and no Chrome extension, bulk email or custom fields. Crelate is shown on Business at $119 because Essentials stops at two users. Those swaps are the point of the exercise: the entry plan is not always the plan an agency ends up on.
For context, the Work Insiders recruiting CRM directory lists 65 tools, and the 31 that publish a US dollar starting price have a median of about $95. Our pricing statistics study puts the median ATS starting price at $85 per month across 45 tools that publish one. Manatal, Giig Hire and Zoho Recruit sit well below both medians.
Which recruitment ATS tools have a free plan?
Only a handful of agency systems have a permanent free plan rather than a timed trial. The Work Insiders ATS directory counts 10 of 119 ATS tools with a free plan, and most of those are built for in house hiring rather than agencies.
| Tool | Free plan | What it caps |
|---|---|---|
| Giig Hire | Free Forever | 1 user only, careers page limited to 3 jobs, no CV parsing until you pay |
| Zoho Recruit (Staffing) | Free | 1 active job, 5,000 records in total, no resume parsing, no mass email, 256MB storage |
| Breezy HR | Bootstrap | 1 active position or pool; built for in house teams, not client work |
| Manatal, Recruit CRM, Loxo, Spott | None | Trial or demo only |
Giig Hire’s free plan is the most usable for a solo agency recruiter. The Giig Hire pricing page says the Free Forever plan includes unlimited candidates, CVs, jobs and client companies, plus job, business development and interview pipelines. The catch is one user and no resume parsing, so every candidate is typed in or imported by hand.
Zoho Recruit’s free plan is really a demo that never expires. The Zoho Recruit pricing page explains that the 15 day trial gives you Enterprise features and then drops you to the free plan, where one active job makes it impractical for an agency working several briefs at once.
Breezy HR appears in a lot of “free ATS” lists, but it is an in house tool. The Breezy pricing page shows a free Bootstrap plan with one active position, then flat company plans from $157 per month on annual billing, and it has no client or placement records.
What hidden costs make a cheap ATS expensive?
The sticker price is rarely the invoice. A 2026 r/recruiting thread is a good example: a buyer pricing an 8 to 10 seat team was surprised to be quoted the top tier per seat plus a separate migration fee. These are the five costs to ask about before signing.
Do job board postings cost extra?
Job board postings often cost extra, and it varies a lot. Manatal lists posting through your own premium job board contracts as an add on, and its FAQ says free job board posting needs account verification that can take up to three working days after you subscribe. Recruit CRM’s comparison table routes job posting through a LogicMelon integration, and its multiposting credits (10 jobs per user per month) are only included by default on Enterprise. Crelate includes 50 free job board distributions but lists sponsored postings separately. JobAdder sells Broadbean multiposting as an add on.
Are resume parsing and enrichment credits limited?
Parsing and enrichment are the most common metered features. Giig Hire Starter includes 50 CV parsing credits, while Plus includes 5,000. Zoho Recruit Staffing Standard parses 250 resumes a day. Crelate’s plan table shows 100 premium parses on Business. Recruit CRM gives 25 free enrichment credits on all plans and 500 per user per month only on Enterprise, and Spott’s pricing FAQ says enrichment credits are the one thing it charges extra for.
How much does data migration cost?
Migration is free if you do it yourself with a CSV import and paid if the vendor does it. CATS lists data migration at $500 on its CATS pricing page. The Recruit CRM pricing page says paid migration is priced by data volume and takes 10 to 14 business days. The Recruiterflow pricing page quotes six to eight weeks for its paid service. The Loxo pricing page offers free migration for teams of three or more seats. The PCRecruiter FAQ adds a one time setup and training fee as well as migration costs.
Does the low price require an annual contract?
Most headline prices are annual rates. Manatal is $15 on annual billing and $19 month to month. Recruit CRM Pro is $95 annual and $109 monthly. Loxo says its plans are annual and paid up front, and Vincere offers one to three year terms with a committed annual spend. Zoho Recruit is the friendliest here: its pricing page says there are no forced contracts and offers a 45 day money back guarantee.
Are there seat minimums or user caps?
Few agency tools publish a seat minimum, but several cap the cheap plan instead. The Crelate pricing page limits Essentials to two users and 20,000 contacts. JobAdder’s Lite plan is marked as a maximum of five users. Manatal Professional stops at 15 jobs per account, and Giig Hire’s free plan is one user only. When you outgrow the cap, the per user price jumps with it.
Is the cheapest ATS the right choice for a new agency?
The cheapest ATS is the right choice when your main job is tracking candidates against a handful of client roles. It is the wrong choice when outbound business development drives your revenue, because sequences and automation usually sit on higher tiers. Recruit CRM limits Pro to one email sequence, and Top Echelon keeps sequences for its $95 Professional plan.
Reddit is honest about the trade off. In an r/Recruitment cost thread asking why recruitment systems are so expensive, a long time Manatal user said it covered nearly everything except deeper search, such as searching by geography. In the new agency thread, another early Manatal user said it was good for candidates but weak for sales. Both are fair descriptions of what a $15 seat buys.
A practical path for a solo founder is to start on a free or very low cost plan, keep your data clean and exportable, and move up once billings justify it. Giig Hire’s FAQ says data can be exported even on the free plan. If you already expect to outgrow the cheap tier within a year, compare Recruit CRM pricing, Crelate pricing and Loxo pricing now so you only migrate once.
If you are unsure whether you need an ATS, a CRM or both, our ATS vs CRM explainer covers the difference. Agencies leaving an expensive incumbent can also read our guide to Bullhorn alternatives for small agencies.
Quick answers
What is the cheapest ATS for a recruitment agency?
Manatal Professional is the cheapest paid agency capable ATS at $15 per user per month on annual billing, as listed in September 2026. Giig Hire Starter at $16.70 and Zoho Recruit Staffing Standard at $25 are next.
Is there a free ATS for recruitment agencies?
Yes. Giig Hire has a Free Forever plan for one user with unlimited candidates, jobs and clients, and Zoho Recruit has a free plan limited to one active job. Neither includes resume parsing on the free tier.
Does Loxo have a free plan?
No free plan appears on the Loxo pricing page in September 2026. Loxo Core starts at $149 per user per month, billed annually and paid up front.
How much should a small agency budget for an ATS?
A three recruiter agency pays roughly $540 to $5,400 a year at list price, depending on the tool. Budget extra for job board postings, enrichment credits and any paid migration.
Is Manatal good for agencies or only in house teams?
Manatal serves both. Its feature list includes a CRM module and imports for clients and contacts, and several agency owners on Reddit report using it, though some say its business development tools are thin.
Which cheap ATS has no annual contract?
Zoho Recruit advertises no forced contracts and a 45 day money back guarantee. Manatal, Recruit CRM and Top Echelon also show monthly billing, at a higher rate than their annual price.
Why do some agency ATS vendors hide their price?
Vendors such as JobAdder quote after a sales call so they can tailor seats and add ons. Our pricing study found 45 percent of ATS platforms in the directory are quote based.
The bottom line
For a cost led agency, Manatal at $15, Giig Hire at $16.70 and Zoho Recruit Staffing at $25 per user are the cheapest real options in September 2026, and Giig Hire and Zoho Recruit both let a solo recruiter start at $0. Check job caps, parsing credits, job board fees, migration and contract length before you commit, then use our new agency ATS guide to confirm the fit.
Sources: Manatal pricing, Giig Hire pricing, Zoho Recruit Staffing plans, Zoho Recruit pricing, Top Echelon pricing, Crelate pricing, CATS pricing, Recruit CRM pricing, PCRecruiter FAQ, Spott pricing, Recruiterflow pricing, Loxo pricing, Vincere pricing, JobAdder pricing, Recruitee pricing, Breezy HR pricing, r/Recruitment cheap ATS, r/RecruitmentAgencies new agency, r/recruiting ATS pricing, r/Recruitment system costs