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Recruitment · head to head

Bullhorn vs SeekOut

Bullhorn logo

Bullhorn

Recruitment

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

From
On request
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
SeekOut logo

SeekOut

Recruitment

AI candidate search across a claimed billion-plus profile database, with a published self-serve price

From
On request
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

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.; SeekOut the self-serve Recruit Core tier caps monthly contacts at 500 and exports at 1,000, which an active recruiter can exhaust well before the month ends
  • They diverge on capability: Bullhorn covers Recruitment CRM, SeekOut covers Candidate database search.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 1 September 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Bullhorn and SeekOut actually diverge.

Attributes where Bullhorn and SeekOut differ
AttributeBullhornSeekOut
Pricing modelquotePer user per month, self-serve entry tier then per seat by quote
PlatformsWeb, iOS, AndroidWeb, 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
  • Analytics
  • Onboarding
  • Executive search
  • Salesforce edition

Only in SeekOut

  • Candidate database search
  • Outreach sequencing
  • Talent rediscovery
  • Market intelligence
  • SeekOut Spot

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

SeekOut

  • An individual recruiter or small agency wanting to start sourcing immediately on a card without a sales callnot Bullhorn
  • A talent acquisition team that has outgrown a self-serve seat cap and needs ATS-integrated sourcing across the teamnot Bullhorn
  • An employer benchmarking compensation and talent pool size for a hard-to-fill role before opening a searchnot Bullhorn
  • A company wanting to try an AI-assisted sourcing service billed per role, as an alternative to paying a recruiting agency percentage feenot 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.

SeekOut

  • The self-serve Recruit Core tier caps monthly contacts at 500 and exports at 1,000, which an active recruiter can exhaust well before the month ends
  • Moving from Recruit Core to team-level plans reverts to custom quoting, so the published entry price does not scale predictably as a team grows
  • Candidate data is aggregated from public and licensed sources, so contact accuracy and freshness vary by role type and can lag for less public roles
  • ATS integration and market intelligence, the features larger teams actually need, sit behind the quoted tiers rather than the published price
  • SeekOut Spot's per-role pricing model still requires a sales conversation to size, despite being marketed as a lower-cost alternative to agencies
  • A large claimed database size does not guarantee coverage in every geography or niche technical skill, and buyers cannot verify coverage for their specific roles before purchase

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

SeekOut

On request
  • Recruit Core$149/month
    • Unlimited searches
    • 500 monthly contacts
    • 1,000 exports/month
  • Recruit Sourcing / Full Funnel$undefined/year
    • ATS integration
    • Talent rediscovery
    • Market intelligence

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 SeekOut if

  • You need candidate database search.
  • You work on Web, Chrome Extension.
  • You also want outreach sequencing.
SeekOut review

Questions people ask

Is Bullhorn or SeekOut better?
Neither clearly leads. Bullhorn starts at On request and SeekOut at On request, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Bullhorn or SeekOut?
Bullhorn starts at On request and SeekOut at On request.
Does Bullhorn or SeekOut run on more platforms?
Bullhorn runs on Web, iOS, Android. SeekOut 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 SeekOut is typically brought in for.
What can Bullhorn do that SeekOut cannot?
Bullhorn covers Recruitment CRM, Applicant tracking, Pay and bill, Bullhorn Automation. SeekOut covers Candidate database search, Outreach sequencing, Talent rediscovery, Market intelligence.

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.

SeekOut: Is there a genuinely self-serve price?

Yes, Recruit Core is $149/month billed annually or $179/month billed monthly, purchasable without a sales call, with a 14-day free trial.

Bullhorn: Who owns Bullhorn?

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

SeekOut: What happens when I hit the monthly contact limit?

Recruit Core caps at 500 monthly contacts and 1,000 exports; exceeding that requires upgrading to a quoted team tier.

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.

SeekOut: Is SeekOut Spot the same product as Recruit?

No, Spot is a separate AI-assisted, human-reviewed sourcing service billed per role or per contractor rather than a seat-based search tool.

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.

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