Is Bullhorn or Gem better?

Neither clearly leads. Bullhorn starts at On request and Gem at On request, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.

Which is cheaper, Bullhorn or Gem?

Bullhorn starts at On request and Gem at On request.

Does Bullhorn or Gem run on more platforms?

Bullhorn runs on Web, iOS, Android. Gem runs on Web, Chrome Extension.

What is Bullhorn best used for?

Bullhorn is most often used for a contract staffing agency that needs worked hours to become both a worker payment and a client invoice against one placement record, a recruitment firm where consultants sell to clients and manage candidates in the same working day, an agency consolidating several acquired offices onto one system of record, an executive search practice needing assignment-based workflow rather than requisition-based tracking. Of those, a contract staffing agency that needs worked hours to become both a worker payment and a client invoice against one placement record and a recruitment firm where consultants sell to clients and manage candidates in the same working day are not what Gem is typically brought in for.

What can Bullhorn do that Gem cannot?

Bullhorn covers Recruitment CRM, Applicant tracking, Pay and bill, Bullhorn Automation. Gem covers AI sourcing, Outreach sequences, ATS sync or replace, Talent rediscovery. Both handle Analytics.

Recruitment · head to head

Bullhorn vs Gem

Bullhorn

Recruitment

Applicant tracking and CRM for staffing and recruitment agencies, including contract placement, timesheets and pay-bill

From: On request
Rated: -

Full review Website

Gem

Recruitment

Recruiting CRM and AI sourcing tool that layers onto an existing ATS or replaces it

From: On request
Rated: -

Full review Website

The short version

Each has a real cost: Bullhorn pricing is per user on annual contracts with minimum seat counts, so agencies with seasonal consultants pay for licences that sit idle for months.; Gem pricing outside the small-startup tier is entirely custom and not published, so mid-size and enterprise buyers cannot benchmark cost before a sales call
They diverge on capability: Bullhorn covers Recruitment CRM, Gem covers AI sourcing.
Prices and features above were last checked on 1 September 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Bullhorn and Gem actually diverge.

Attributes where Bullhorn and Gem differ
Attribute	Bullhorn	Gem
Pricing model	quote	Per user per month, by company size and seat type
Platforms	Web, iOS, Android	Web, Chrome Extension

Identical on both: starting price (On request), free tier (No), user rating (Not yet rated), category (Recruitment).

What each one covers

Drawn from each product's published feature list. An absence here means we hold no record of it - not that the product lacks it.

Only in Bullhorn

Recruitment CRM
Applicant tracking
Pay and bill
Bullhorn Automation
Onboarding
Executive search
Salesforce edition

Only in Gem

AI sourcing
Outreach sequences
ATS sync or replace
Talent rediscovery

Both cover

Analytics

What people use each for

The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.

Bullhorn

A contract staffing agency that needs worked hours to become both a worker payment and a client invoice against one placement recordnot Gem
A recruitment firm where consultants sell to clients and manage candidates in the same working daynot Gem
An agency consolidating several acquired offices onto one system of recordnot Gem
An executive search practice needing assignment-based workflow rather than requisition-based trackingnot Gem

Gem

A talent acquisition team that wants sourcing, outreach and pipeline analytics without replacing an existing ATS such as Greenhouse or Workdaynot Bullhorn
An early-stage startup under 30 employees that qualifies for Gem's startup discount programme and wants sourcing tooling from day onenot Bullhorn
A company evaluating whether to consolidate its recruiting stack by moving off a separate ATS entirely onto Gem All-in-Onenot Bullhorn
A recruiting team that wants to resurface past applicants already in their data before opening a new external sourcing campaignnot Bullhorn

Where each one falls short

Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.

Bullhorn

Pricing is per user on annual contracts with minimum seat counts, so agencies with seasonal consultants pay for licences that sit idle for months.
The product estate has been assembled through a decade of acquisitions, which leaves overlapping modules, inconsistent interfaces and more than one supported way to do the same task.
Implementation and data migration are multi-month projects requiring paid services, and agencies moving from another system routinely underestimate the effort of cleaning candidate and client records first.
The interface is dated relative to newer recruitment tools, and consultants coming from consumer-grade software need real training rather than picking it up unaided.
It is built for agency economics and is a poor fit for corporate in-house hiring, where the client and margin concepts are meaningless and the licence cost buys capability that will never be used.

Gem

Pricing outside the small-startup tier is entirely custom and not published, so mid-size and enterprise buyers cannot benchmark cost before a sales call
Choosing Gem All-in-One as an ATS replacement is a much larger migration decision than adding a sourcing layer, and the sales process does not surface that distinction clearly upfront
Seat types (standard versus AI-powered) gate which features a given recruiter can use, so a team can under-provision seats and lose access to sourcing features they assumed were included
The startup discount programme has eligibility cutoffs by employee count and age of company, so growing past 30 employees or beyond early stage removes the cheaper pricing path
Outreach effectiveness depends on email deliverability and candidate response rates that Gem does not control, so ROI varies by how saturated a company's target talent pool already is with recruiter outreach
Switching from Gem back to a standalone ATS after adopting All-in-One means re-migrating hiring pipeline data a second time, which is a cost most buyers do not model at signup

Pricing, plan by plan

Bullhorn

On request

Bullhorn ATS and CRM$undefined/year
- Priced per user per month on an annual contract
- Minimum user counts apply
- Implementation and data migration quoted separately

Gem

On request

Startup (1-10 FTE)$130/month
- AI sourcing and CRM
- Analytics
- Scheduling
Gem + Your ATS / All-in-One$undefined/year
- Custom pricing by FTE count and seat type

Which should you pick?

Choose Bullhorn if

You need recruitment crm.
You work on Web, iOS, Android.
You also want applicant tracking.

Bullhorn review

Choose Gem if

You need ai sourcing.
You work on Web, Chrome Extension.
You also want outreach sequences.

Gem review

Questions people ask

Is Bullhorn or Gem better?: Neither clearly leads. Bullhorn starts at On request and Gem at On request, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Bullhorn or Gem?: Bullhorn starts at On request and Gem at On request.
Does Bullhorn or Gem run on more platforms?: Bullhorn runs on Web, iOS, Android. Gem runs on Web, Chrome Extension.
What is Bullhorn best used for?: Bullhorn is most often used for a contract staffing agency that needs worked hours to become both a worker payment and a client invoice against one placement record, a recruitment firm where consultants sell to clients and manage candidates in the same working day, an agency consolidating several acquired offices onto one system of record, an executive search practice needing assignment-based workflow rather than requisition-based tracking. Of those, a contract staffing agency that needs worked hours to become both a worker payment and a client invoice against one placement record and a recruitment firm where consultants sell to clients and manage candidates in the same working day are not what Gem is typically brought in for.
What can Bullhorn do that Gem cannot?: Bullhorn covers Recruitment CRM, Applicant tracking, Pay and bill, Bullhorn Automation. Gem covers AI sourcing, Outreach sequences, ATS sync or replace, Talent rediscovery. Both handle Analytics.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Bullhorn: Is Bullhorn suitable for in-house corporate recruiting?

No. It is built around client relationships, margins and placements. Corporate teams should buy a requisition-based ATS instead.

Gem: Do we need to replace our ATS to use Gem?

No, Gem can run alongside an existing ATS purely for sourcing and CRM; Gem All-in-One is a separate option that includes its own ATS.

Bullhorn: Who owns Bullhorn?

Insight Partners has held a majority stake since 2012, and the company has grown substantially through acquisition since then.

Gem: Is there a published price for larger teams?

Only the 1-10 employee startup tier has a public price; larger teams are quoted based on FTE count and seat mix.

Bullhorn: Does it handle temporary worker payroll?

It captures time, calculates pay and bill rates and produces payroll and invoicing outputs. Actual payroll processing is done by a payroll provider it exports to.

Gem: What is the difference between a standard and AI-powered seat?

Standard seats cover core sourcing, email-finding and ATS sync; AI-powered seats add sourcing agents, application review and fraud detection.

Bullhorn: What does implementation involve?

Data migration, workflow configuration and training, typically several months for an established agency, with services charged on top of the licence.

Bullhorn vs Gem

Bullhorn

Gem

The short version

Where they differ

What each one covers

Only in Bullhorn

Only in Gem

Both cover

What people use each for

Bullhorn

Gem

Where each one falls short

Bullhorn

Gem

Pricing, plan by plan

Bullhorn

Gem

Which should you pick?

Choose Bullhorn if

Choose Gem if

Questions people ask

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Related pages

More on Bullhorn

More on Gem

Keep looking

Other head to heads