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Recruitment · head to head

Bullhorn vs Manatal

Bullhorn logo

Bullhorn

Recruitment

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

From
On request
Rated
-
Manatal logo

Manatal

Recruitment

Low-cost applicant tracking and recruitment CRM with candidate enrichment, sold to both in-house teams and agencies

From
On request
Rated
-

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.; Manatal pricing is per recruiter seat, so putting every hiring manager into the system to review candidates multiplies the licence count and erases the price advantage.
  • They diverge on capability: Bullhorn covers Applicant tracking, Manatal covers Candidate enrichment.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Bullhorn and Manatal actually diverge.

Attributes where Bullhorn and Manatal differ
AttributeBullhornManatal
Pricing modelquotePer user per month
PlatformsWeb, iOS, AndroidWeb

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

  • Applicant tracking
  • Pay and bill
  • Bullhorn Automation
  • Analytics
  • Onboarding
  • Executive search
  • Salesforce edition

Only in Manatal

  • Candidate enrichment
  • AI candidate scoring
  • Multi-board posting
  • CV parsing
  • Careers page builder
  • Custom pipelines
  • Reporting

Both cover

  • Recruitment CRM

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 Manatal
  • A recruitment firm where consultants sell to clients and manage candidates in the same working daynot Manatal
  • An agency consolidating several acquired offices onto one system of recordnot Manatal
  • An executive search practice needing assignment-based workflow rather than requisition-based trackingnot Manatal

Manatal

  • A small recruitment agency that needs client, candidate and placement tracking without an enterprise contractnot Bullhorn
  • An in-house team in Asia Pacific that wants candidate enrichment without paying enterprise ATS pricesnot Bullhorn
  • A company processing high applicant volume that needs automated ranking to triage a shortlistnot Bullhorn
  • A recruiter running both contingent search and internal hiring from one databasenot 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.

Manatal

  • Pricing is per recruiter seat, so putting every hiring manager into the system to review candidates multiplies the licence count and erases the price advantage.
  • Candidate enrichment depends on public profile data, so accuracy drops sharply in markets where professional networking sites have low penetration and the scores become misleading rather than useful.
  • Integrations with major HRIS and payroll systems are limited compared with Western competitors, so new hire handover is frequently a CSV export rather than a sync.
  • Support operates on Indochina business hours, which leaves European afternoons and all of North American working hours outside the responsive window.
  • Reporting covers recruiter activity and source data but lacks the cohort and quality-of-hire analysis a mature talent function expects, and custom analysis means exporting to a spreadsheet.

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

Manatal

On request
  • Professional$undefined/month
    • Per recruiter seat
    • Unlimited jobs and candidates
    • Candidate enrichment and AI scoring
  • Enterprise$undefined/month
    • Per recruiter seat at a higher rate
    • Custom fields and advanced permissions
    • Recruitment CRM for agency use
  • Custom$undefined/year
    • Negotiated terms for larger teams
    • Single sign-on and security review
    • Dedicated account management

Which should you pick?

Choose Bullhorn if

  • You need applicant tracking.
  • You work on Web, iOS, Android.
  • You also want pay and bill.

Choose Manatal if

  • You need candidate enrichment.
  • You also want ai candidate scoring.

Questions people ask

Is Bullhorn or Manatal better?
Neither clearly leads. Bullhorn starts at On request and Manatal at On request, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Bullhorn or Manatal?
Bullhorn starts at On request and Manatal at On request.
Does Bullhorn or Manatal run on more platforms?
Bullhorn runs on Web, iOS, Android. Manatal runs on Web.
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 Manatal is typically brought in for.
What can Bullhorn do that Manatal cannot?
Bullhorn covers Applicant tracking, Pay and bill, Bullhorn Automation, Analytics. Manatal covers Candidate enrichment, AI candidate scoring, Multi-board posting, CV parsing. Both handle Recruitment CRM.

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.

Manatal: Is it for agencies or in-house teams?

Both. The agency mode adds client and placement management; the corporate mode is a conventional ATS. Buying the wrong mode means paying for modules you never open.

Bullhorn: Who owns Bullhorn?

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

Manatal: How is it priced compared with other ATS products?

Per recruiter seat per month. That is not comparable with vendors that charge per active job slot or per employee, so model your real user count before comparing headline numbers.

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.

Manatal: Where is candidate data hosted?

On cloud infrastructure with GDPR commitments, but region-specific residency guarantees are weaker than EU-native vendors offer, which matters for regulated European buyers.

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.

Manatal: Does the AI scoring actually work?

It ranks reliably against structured requirements such as skills and experience length. It is far less reliable where enrichment data is sparse.

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