Recruitment · alternatives
Alternatives to Karat
19 recruitment tools sit alongside Karat in this directory. Below is what separates each from Karat on the figures we hold, price, model, tier count and rating, and a direct comparison for every one.
- Alternatives listed
- 19
- With a free tier
- 3
- Cheaper to start
- -
- Karat starts at
- On request
Why people look past Karat
Only what the record supports. Each point below is a figure on the Karat entry measured against the tools listed beside it.
There is no free tier
The record for Karat carries no free tier, so evaluating it means paying first. 3 of the 19 alternatives below can be used without paying.
There is only one tier
Karat publishes a single plan, Karat at On request. There is no smaller tier to drop to if the fit is wrong or the budget moves.
What each alternative does differently
Ordered by the aggregated rating on each catalogue entry. Differences are drawn from price, pricing model, tier count and rating, the fields the category listing carries. For a feature-level difference, follow the head-to-head link on each card: those pages read both full records.
AI candidate search across a claimed billion-plus profile database, with a published self-serve price
- Sold on a Per user per month, self-serve entry tier then per seat by quote model rather than quote.
- 2 tiers to Karat's 1.
Recruiting CRM and AI sourcing tool that layers onto an existing ATS or replaces it
- Sold on a Per user per month, by company size and seat type model rather than quote.
- 2 tiers to Karat's 1.
Employer review and salary transparency app owned by Recruit Holdings, the same parent as Indeed
- Can be used without paying; Karat cannot.
- Sold on a Free for job seekers, employers pay for branding and recruiting products model rather than quote.
Job search app aggregating listings, owned by Recruit Holdings, the same parent as Glassdoor
- Can be used without paying; Karat cannot.
- Sold on a Free for job seekers, employers pay for sponsored listings model rather than quote.
AI notetaking and sourcing agents for recruiters, priced per agent rather than per platform
- Can be used without paying; Karat cannot.
- Publishes an entry price of $100/month, where Karat does not.
- Sold on a Per user per month, per agent model rather than quote.
- 4 tiers to Karat's 1.
Technical coding assessment platform priced by annual invite volume, not by seat count alone
- Sold on a Per year by candidate invite volume, with platform user limits per tier model rather than quote.
- 3 tiers to Karat's 1.
Every Karat alternative at a glance
A dash means the catalogue entry carries no figure, not that the answer is nothing.
| Tool | Entry price | Model | Tiers | Head to head |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Karat (this page) | On request | Quote | 1 | |
| SeekOutFor sourcing and building candidate pipelines rather than outsourcing the interview itself | On request | Per user per month, self-serve entry tier then per seat by quote | 2 | vs Karat |
| GemFor a recruiting CRM that manages sourcing and outreach rather than interview delivery | On request | Per user per month, by company size and seat type | 2 | vs Karat |
| Glassdoor | Free | Free for job seekers, employers pay for branding and recruiting products | 1 | vs Karat |
| Indeed | Free | Free for job seekers, employers pay for sponsored listings | 1 | vs Karat |
| Metaview | Free, then $100/month | Per user per month, per agent | 4 | vs Karat |
| Codility | On request | Per year by candidate invite volume, with platform user limits per tier | 3 | vs Karat |
| Findem | On request | Quote | 1 | vs Karat |
| HackerRank | On request | Per month by tier, with a metered annual candidate attempt allowance and per-attempt overage on Starter | 3 | vs Karat |
| ZipRecruiter | On request | Per active job slot per month, quoted individually | 3 | vs Karat |
| Fetcher | On request | Per user per month, tiered by lead volume and sourcer support | 4 | vs Karat |
| hireEZ | On request | Quote, enterprise pricing set against the tool stack replaced | 2 | vs Karat |
| Oracle Taleo | On request | Quote | 1 | vs Karat |
| Checkr | On request | Per report, plus pass-through court and database fees | 3 | vs Karat |
| Occupop | On request | Quote | 1 | vs Karat |
| Recruitee | On request | Quote | 3 | vs Karat |
| BrightHire | On request | Quote | 4 | vs Karat |
| Comeet | On request | Quote | 1 | vs Karat |
| Bullhorn | On request | Quote | 1 | vs Karat |
| JobAdder | On request | Quote | 1 | vs Karat |
Ratings are aggregated from third-party sources and imported with each catalogue entry; Softwr hosts no reviews of these products. How each figure is used is set out on the Karat badges page.
Cheaper ways to solve the same problem
What you would be giving up
Karat is most often brought in for a company scaling engineering headcount quickly and unable to free up enough internal engineer time for first-round technical interviews, a hiring team wanting a consistent bar across interviewers when growth has diluted interview quality, a seasonal hiring push, such as a new-grad or intern cohort, that needs a large volume of structured interviews in a short window, a company that has measured interviewer no-shows or inconsistent scoring as a source of candidate drop-off. Anything replacing it has to cover the ones you actually depend on, and a cheaper tool that misses one of them is not cheaper.
Two things this page cannot settle. It compares on price, model, tier count and rating, because those are the fields the category listing carries, feature-level differences need both full records, which is what the head-to-head pages load. And the ratings are third-party aggregates imported with each entry rather than reviews written here, so a 0.2 difference between two tools is noise rather than a finding.
If Karat is broadly right and the question is cost, the Karat pricing breakdown covers every tier and what each one adds. If you want the whole field rather than a shortlist, the Recruitment category lists everything the directory holds, and best recruitment tools ranks them.
Karat runs on web. Platform coverage is not carried on the category listing for the alternatives, so it is one more thing to check on each head-to-head page rather than here.
Questions about Karat alternatives
- What are the main alternatives to Karat?
- 19 other recruitment tools are listed in this directory, led by SeekOut, Gem, Glassdoor, Indeed. They are ordered by the aggregated rating on each catalogue entry, not by any Softwr ranking.
- What is the best free alternative to Karat?
- 3 of the alternatives listed here can be used without paying: Glassdoor, Indeed, Metaview.
- Why do people look for an alternative to Karat?
- On the figures on record, 2 things stand out: there is no free tier; there is only one tier. Each is set out with the numbers behind it above.
- What would I give up by switching from Karat?
- Karat is most often brought in for a company scaling engineering headcount quickly and unable to free up enough internal engineer time for first-round technical interviews, a hiring team wanting a consistent bar across interviewers when growth has diluted interview quality, a seasonal hiring push, such as a new-grad or intern cohort, that needs a large volume of structured interviews in a short window, a company that has measured interviewer no-shows or inconsistent scoring as a source of candidate drop-off. Anything you replace it with has to cover the ones you actually rely on, the side-by-side comparisons linked from each alternative below put the two feature records against each other.
- Is there an open-source alternative to Karat?
- None of the recruitment tools listed here are recorded as open source. That is what the licence field on each entry says, and the field is not always filled in, so it is worth checking directly for any tool you are serious about.
- How were these Karat alternatives chosen?
- They are the tools filed in the same category, Recruitment, ordered by the aggregated rating on each entry. There is no editorial shortlist, and nothing on this page is paid: no sponsored placement runs on alternatives pages and the order cannot be bought. Softwr has not used these products.
- Where can I compare Karat against one of these directly?
- Every alternative below has a side-by-side page against Karat covering price, platforms, features and what each one is used for. Those pages read the full record for both products rather than the summary shown here.
- Does this list cover every recruitment tool?
- No. It covers what this directory holds in the Recruitment category, 19 tools beside Karat. The category page lists the rest of the catalogue as it grows.