4 Best Free Applicant Tracking Systems in 2023
This article is part of a larger series onHiring.
The best free applicant tracking systems (ATS) simplify job postings, filter incoming resumes and applications, and improve candidate-employer communication. A good ATS can store resumes for future reference, screen applicants, and organize and manage referral programs to boost recruitment efforts.
In this guide, we evaluated 11 free applicant tracking systems and narrowed them down to our top six recommendations:
- MightyRecruiter:Best overall for small businesses in industries vulnerable to discriminatory hiring processes
- Indeed:Best for companies that want unlimited job postings over advanced ATS tools to support hiring increase
- JobScore:Best for recruiters and companies that need multichannel job posting and referral programs
- SmartRecruiters:Best for fast-growing firms with professional recruiters planning to upgrade talent acquisition features
Do you want to use a spreadsheet to manage applicants while you’re deciding on an ATS?Download ourfree applicant tracking spreadsheet.
Free Applicant Tracking Systems Compared
Pricing |
Unlimited Jobs |
Offer Management |
New Hire Onboarding |
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$0 |
✓ |
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$0 to $5 per day pay-per-click (PPC) advertising
$120 to $300 to contact candidates |
✓ |
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$0 to $449-plus per month |
✕ |
✓ |
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$0 for 10 user seats; also has custom pricing |
✕ |
✓ |
✓ |
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In addition to the features highlighted above, all our bestapplicant tracking systemsoffer:
- Job posting
- Customizable career page branding
- Applicant tracking and screening
- Applicant assessment
- Interview scheduling
- Mobile access
Are you interested in learning about other recruiting systems?Explore our guide on thebest recruitment software.
MightyRecruiter: Best Overall for Small Businesses in Industries Vulnerable to Discriminatory Hiring Practices
Pros
- User-friendly and highly accessible
- Free full-featured ATS
- Resume database with more than 22 million candidate profiles
Cons
- Job posting approvals take 24 to 48 hours
- Unresponsive customer support
- Limited free job boards
MightyRecruiter Pricing
- Free:Includes unlimited jobs, resume searches, and user accounts.
MightyRecruiter is a free end-to-end ATS that can post to 29 job boards and social networks with just one click. It enables you to manage candidates and keep you compliant with theEqual Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC)andOffice of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP)via its reporting features. You can create screening questions for candidates, review and rank them, and communicate with them using customizable email templates—all in a single platform.
平台获得的总分4.43 of 5 in our evaluation for its strong applicant tracking features, transparent pricing, and ease of use. Access to a dedicated account manager also contributed to its high score. However, it took a hit in popularity because of its limited online reviews. It also scored lower on reporting as it doesn’t allow customization.
MightyRecruiter has around 9,200 global candidates.
- JobPromote:If you need help finding qualified applicants in highly competitive job markets, MightyRecruiter’s JobPromote can help. It gets your work opportunities in front of the right candidates and fills your position in no time—a unique function only MightyRecruiter offers.
- Searchable resume database:MightyRecruiter has a database of more than 22 million resumes that can help you找到员工from those unique, opted-in candidates.
- Prescreening:For the application process, you can include screening questions from MightyRecruiter’s Question Library or customized ones to eliminate applicants who fail to meet predetermined requirements, such as location or age requirements and certifications and essential skills.
- Reporting and analytics: You can generate reports for job postings, candidate sourcing, job advertising costs, and even data to comply with the EEOC and OFCCP in the case of an audit, which is a function JobScore also offers.
- Customer support:Only MightyRecruiter has a dedicated account manager available for all customers. You can also contact MightyRecruiter’s support team via chat, phone, and email for basic troubleshooting and quick questions from Monday until Friday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Central time.
Indeed: Best for Companies That Need Unlimited Job Postings to Support High Turnover or Hiring Increase
Pros
- Post unlimited jobs for free
- Indeed Assessments evaluates candidates’ on-the-job skills and qualities
- Access to 200 million resumes
Cons
- Have to submit a ticket to get support
- Some jobs sponsored on desktop may not be sponsored on mobile
- Software sometimes glitches when posting a job
Indeed Pricing
- Free(unlimited jobs)
- Optional:$5 per day PPC advertising fee for job promotion
- Indeed Resume:$120 or $300 monthly to email 30 or 100 candidates, respectively
Indeed is a free job board site with more than 3 million job seekers each month. It’s great for any business that wants to maximize its reach with free unlimited job postings and basic applicant tracking. Its management tools allow you to message candidates throughout each stage of the hiring process, schedule interviews, and send assessments—and it updates the candidate’s status automatically. Meanwhile, itssalary toolsprovide employers information about current pay rates based on the job title.
The provider received an overall score of 4.11 out of 5 in our evaluation because it is easy to use and navigate. Even though it earned mixed reviews, it is popular with online reviewers. Indeed also scored low on pricing as it lacks multiple tiers, and its paid option for contacting potential candidates in its Indeed Resume plan is costly at $120 per month (for 30 contact credits).
- Careers page and employer branding:Your free Indeed company page informs job seekers what it’s like to work for your company. You can add photos, and employees can leave reviews about your company. Unlike Freshteam, you don’t have to upgrade to customize your careers page.
- Sponsored job postings:Indeed’s Sponsored Jobs is the only PPC plan to boost your job postings in this guide. You can post jobs directly on its platform for free, but you can also pay a small fee (starts at $5 per day) to sponsor jobs. Sponsoring your ad is one way to maximize yourjob post on Indeed. If you have an existing company career site, you can post a job for free in the general search results or pay to advertise.
- Mobile recruiting:Like Freshteam and SmartRecruiters, you can cast a wider net for qualified applicants since Indeed job postings automatically receive applications via Indeed Apply, even on mobile. Indeed Apply is a feature that allows job seekers to quickly send their applications using an Indeed Resume or a traditional resume file.
- 申请人的筛选:Like MightyRecruiter and Homebase, you can add screening questions to the job application form, such as “How many years of experience do you have?” You can also ask job seekers to complete online exams to verify their skills, like customer support, typing, or Excel.
- Third-party integration:Only Indeed works seamlessly with more than 200 third-party platforms, such as Applicant Pro, Breezy HR, Greenhouse, Hirebridge, JazzHR, TalentReef, Workable, and Zoho Recruit.
JobScore: Ideal for Recruiters & Companies That Want to Develop Referral Programs
Pros
- User-friendly and highly accessible
- Customizable career page and application forms
- Reward referral for employees
Cons
- Advanced features cost extra
- Takes more than 48 hours for customer service to respond
- Filters need improvement
Job Score Monthly Pricing
- Free:One active job post
- Start:$149; five active job posts
- Scale:$449; 10 active job posts
- Enterprise:Custom priced
JobScore is an all-in-one recruitment platform great for recruiters and companies that need a multichannel job posting site with a strongemployee referral program. Its free plan allows you to post an unlimited number of paid and unpaid job ads to access an unlimited number of candidates.
If you want to take advantage of employee relationships to find and hire talent, then JobScore can help you do that. With it, you can quickly see who is referring, how often, and how their referrals are moving through the hiring process. You can also evaluate how your employee referral program performs over time by looking at the total referrals and the number of referral hires.
The platform earned an overall score of 4.06 out of 5 in our evaluation and received high marks for its robust ATS. However, it did not do well in popularity since it has a limited number of online reviews on third-party sites. In addition, you have to upgrade to its pricey enterprise version if you want premium features, such as custom data exports, account analysis and insights, and a dedicated account manager.
JobScore has more than 1,000 active employers, holds 15 million-plus job applications, and serves more than 150 countries.
- Social recruiting:JobScore promotes jobs via social media. However, instead of cross-posting the open jobs to social media platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter, you’ll have to send a referral campaign email to prompt your employees to share open positions through their social media networks.
- Overdue reports:With JobScore’s Scale and Enterprise plans, you can set the maximum time a candidate should be in eachworkflow stage—or else their status will be “overdue.” The Overdue Report shows how many people are overdue in each stage and prompts you to take action.
- Employee referral portal:Like Freshteam, JobScore lets your employees take part in your hiring process by using their networks for referrals. There will be an employee referral portal so your team can easily send resumes and track their referrals in the hiring process.
- Reward referral:To motivate your employees more, you can make rewards available when they have a successful referral. Just input the email addresses of your employees, draft your message requesting for referrals, and then blast it through your company—watch the referrals come in. You can also add a monetary reward for extra incentive. JobScore then tracks the referrals you receive, and employees can also monitor the status of their referrals.
- Search firms management:With JobScore’s Enterprise plan, you can invite search firms to submit candidates for open positions via email with detailed submission instructions. When agencies submit candidates, JobScore parses and sends the resumes to the hiring team. Search firms will be kept in the loop in every communication between you and the candidates.
- Interviews:Among the other providers, only JobScore’s Scale and Enterprise plans help you prepare interview templates that you can use at each stage of the hiring process. Scheduled interviews link to these templates, so your team can always be prepared.
- EEOC- and OFCCP-compliant:类似于MightyRecruiter, JobScore帮助你stay in compliance with state laws and regulations with its disclaimer that gives applicants the option to volunteer their gender, ethnicity, disability, and veteran status. Its self-identification form also matches the recommended OFCCP font and layout. JobScore has configurable “disposition codes” to disclose the reason for declined and withdrawn candidates.
SmartRecruiters: Ideal for Fast-growing Firms With Professional Recruiters Planning to Upgrade Talent Acquisition Features
Pros
- Easy to set up, use, and deploy in multiple locations
- Unlimited number of users and candidates
- Mobile-optimized career site
- Candidate database management
Cons
- Pricing is not transparent
- Self-scheduling feature is glitchy sometimes
- Job posting approval process for the free version takes longer than usual
SmartRecruiters Pricing
- Free:Up to 10 active job posts
- SmartRecruit:Custom priced
SmartRecruiters is a scalable end-to-end talent acquisition software with seamless integration and collaboration, making it ideal for fast-growing firms. It helps recruiters and hiring managers by augmenting their HR functions and has a free version that supports multiboard job postings, pre-integrated assessments, candidate management, applicant screening, interview scheduling, offer management, and onboarding. Its SmartGlobal tool, which comes with multilanguage customer support, enables you to recruit globally and hire locally.
The solution earned an overall score of 4.06 out of 5 because it has efficient applicant tracking and reporting features. Also, it has more than 400 online reviews with a lot of positive feedback; users commented that it is user-friendly and that its free version supports an unlimited number of users and candidates. However, it lost points on pricing because it lacks transparency; you need to contact its sales team for a quote to upgrade from the free plan.
Many popular brands, including Visa, Etsy, Verisk, Marc Jacobs, Skechers, and Gameloft, use SmartRecruiters.
- Multiboard job posting:With one click, SmartRecruiters can post jobs on more than 300 job boards. Its SmartDistribute tracking reports and post-to-hire metrics even identify which job boards are helping you fill your talent pipeline, a function only SmartRecruiters offer.
- Workflow management:SmartRecruiters’ unique workflow management is one of the best in the market as it’s so simple to configure, unlike other providers where inexperienced users may need guidance. This solution, similar to JobScore’s overdue reports, prevents workflow stagnation with configurable tasks and reminders, easy approvals, and real-time dashboards.
- 申请人的筛选:SmartRecruiters已定制的应用cation forms that let you identify qualified candidates quickly—a function JobScore also has. It even has fully integrated assessments and skills tests to predict if a candidate is fit for the role and if they will stay with the company for a long time—something Freshteam and Indeed can also do.
- Hiring plans:You can set hiring goals and monitor and improve the hiring team’s performance during the recruitment process.
- Offer management and onboarding:只有SmartRecruiters你能扩展的及时fers to applicants using integrated and configurable offer letter templates and forms and automated approvals via any mobile device. You can even let candidates view, sign, and accept their offers quickly and from any device using SmartRecruiters’ DocuSign integration. It also has an automated onboarding process complete with background checks for new hires.
How We Evaluated the Best Free Applicant Tracking Systems
We compared each ATS on price and ease of use. Also, we looked for essential features like free job board postings, candidate management and tracking, team collaboration, referral programs, integration options, and a careers page. We excluded those that only offered a free trial and demo.
To see our full evaluation criteria for the top applicant tracking software, click through the tabs in the box below:
25% of Overall Score
We selected providers that offer free plans and transparent pricing for paid tiers. Additional points were also given if the software has no setup fee and its paid plans are less than $30 monthly. Among the shortlisted solutions, only MightyRecruiter is free forever and caters to an unlimited number of users, job postings, and candidates.
25% of Overall Score
We awarded more points to free applicant tracking solutions that allow you to post jobs on multiple job boards. Plus points are given if the provider has communication features for both applicants and hiring teams, a document management functionality for resumes and application attachments, and a customizable career page where you can track the entire recruitment process. Out of the seven ATS in this guide, Freshteam, JobScore, SmartRecruiters, and MightyRecruiter have the most robust applicant tracking functionalities that many can utilize to their advantage.
25% of Overall Score
We gave high scores to free systems that real users find intuitive and easy to learn and navigate. We also considered solutions with quick response turnaround via live phone support, how-to guides, and multiple third-party integration options. Additional points were awarded if a user can export documents into a CSV file. Indeed and MightyRecruiter got perfect scores because they are easy to navigate and have tutorials and how-to guides for new users.
15% of Overall Score
For this criterion, solutions with an average score of 4+ stars from online user reviews on sites like Capterra and G2 get high scores. Additionally, points were also given if the software has 200 or more reviews on third-party sites. Only JobScore and MightyRecruiter did not get perfect marks in this criterion.
10% of Overall Score
Aside from having access to standard reports, users should be able to create their own reports and view information within their recruitment system. Freshteam, JobScore, and SmartRecruiters have a list of very useful pre-built reports that help users track the candidates’ progress accurately and efficiently.
Do you need more help with the hiring process?Use ourstep-by-step guide on how to hire employeesto make it easy.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Free applicant tracking systems aren’t suitable for everyone because they have feature limitations. For other organizations, paying for upgraded features is more cost-efficient. If the following situations fit you, then using a free ATS is recommended:
- You have a simple hiring process.If your recruiting process is simple and works for you, then a free ATS should be all you need to iron things out and save time.
- You have a limited recruiting budget or only hire occasionally.If you’re not hiring year-round, getting a paid ATS may not be worth it, especially if a free ATS can already get the job done.
Applicant tracking systems come in different price ranges and features. Free applicant tracking systems come with limits, but the best free ATS should, at the very least, help streamline job posting, manage and store resumes, and enable hiring members to communicate and collaborate.
For businesses, the primary advantage of using an ATS is to reduce the time spent on mundane data entry tasks and streamline the hiring process as a whole. It helps save time, especially if you’re regularly managing a huge volume of applicants.
While you can’t expect to get the same features of paid software, the best free ATS should at least let you:
- Create a careers website
- Sort applications
- Parse resumes
- Collaborate with other hiring members
- 与候选人沟通
- Import or export resumes
- Add screening questions
- Create basic hiring reports
Bottom Line
An ATS not only streamlines your recruitment process but also saves you time. All the solutions on our list offer free options, simplify job postings, filter resumes and applications, screen applicants, and improve candidate-employer communication.
Among the providers in this guide, MightyRecruiter is the best option. If you need a job-specific hiring team that you can collaborate with to screen, track, and communicate with applicants using both a web and mobile app at no cost, then it is the perfect solution. Sign up for its free plan today.