Juggling high volumes of applications, coordinating with multiple teams, and maintaining candidate engagement can quickly turn recruitment into a daunting task. That’s where a free applicant tracking system (ATS) can be a game-changer.

These tools simplify everything from posting jobs and managing candidate pipelines to improving communication and team collaboration—all without the cost of a subscription.

In this blog, we’ll explore the 10 best free applicant tracking systems for recruiters in 2025, breaking down their key features, and why they’re great options for modern recruiters.

Top 10 ATS Software: At A Glance

Company

Best for 

Main Features 

Pricing 

Breezy HR 

Best For Small Businesses On A Budget 

Job postings 

Candidate pipelines 

Branded career pages 

Free plan. Paid plans pricing starts at $189/month

SmartRecruiters 

Best For Growing Teams With High Volume Hiring 

AI-driven ATS 

300 job boards 

Scheduling interviews 

Free plan and paid plans available

Zoho Recruit 

Best For Small Hiring Agencies 

Time-to-hire 

Advanced AI 

Automations 

Free plan. Paid plans pricing starts at $30/user/month

GoHire 

Best For Automated Hiring 

Pre-built templates 

15 job boards 

Automatic reminders 

No free plan but comes with a free trial. Paid plans pricing starts at $99/month

monday.com  

Best For Customizable Recruitment Workflows 

Customizable application forms 

Personalized recruitment pipelines 

Automation 

Free plan. Paid plans pricing starts at $9/seat/month

Workable 

Best For AI-Powered Recruitment And Global Hiring 

AI-Powered Recruitment 

Career page builder 

200 free and premium job boards 

No free plan but comes with a free trial. Paid plans pricing starts at $169/month

Dover  

Best For Streamlined Candidate Management 

Review page 

Centralized candidate tracking 

Automated communication 

Free plan

MightyRecruiter 

Best For End-To-End Recruiting With Resume Database Access 

Candidate sourcing 

Multiple job boards 

Tailored screening questions 

Free plan

Recruitee 

Best For Collaborative Hiring And Workflow Automation 

Workflow automation 

Interview templates 

Personalized hiring pipeline 

No free plan but comes with a free trial. Paid plans pricing starts at $270/month

iKrut 

Best For Multi-Channel Job Posting 

Free job boards 

Careers page 

Applicant monitoring 

Free plan. Paid plans pricing starts at $300/month

1. Breezy HR – Best For Small Businesses On A Budget

Breezy HR provides a free Bootstrap plan tailored for small businesses, offering essential ATS features without the cost. It's known for its intuitive interface and powerful feature set. It enables you to post jobs across multiple boards, manage candidate pipelines efficiently, and collaborate seamlessly with your team.

The platform offers a Bootstrap plan that is free forever for unlimited users with unlimited candidates. Paid plans pricing starts from $189/month.

Disclaimer: The pricing is subject to change.

Standout Features

  • Easily distribute job postings to over 50 popular job boards with a single click, significantly increasing your reach and attracting a wider pool of candidates
  • Automatically scan and extract key information from resumes to speed up the screening process and reduce time spent on manual data entry
  • Build branded career pages that reflect your company’s identity, promote your culture, and provide an engaging candidate experience—all without needing to code

Why Choose Breezy HR?

Breezy HR is perfect for small businesses seeking a cost-effective ATS that doesn't compromise on essential features. As a cloud-based solution, it’s quick to set up and easy to navigate. It also integrates smoothly with popular HR and productivity tools, enhancing its functionality.

2. SmartRecruiters – Best For Growing Teams With High Volume Hiring

SmartRecruiters is an AI-driven ATS and talent acquisition platform designed to enhance and streamline the hiring process for organizations of all sizes. It offers a free SmartStart plan for companies with up to 250 employees and 10 active job postings, providing robust features for growing teams.

Standout Features

  • Oversees the entire hiring lifecycle, from sourcing and attracting candidates to scheduling interviews, managing offers, and onboarding—all within one platform
  • Facilitates smooth communication and teamwork among hiring teams, offering features for leaving notes and sharing feedback
  • Post job listings to over 300 job boards and social media platforms with just a single click, streamlining your recruiting efforts and expanding your job’s reach to a broader audience

Why Choose SmartRecruiters?

SmartRecruiters is ideal for companies experiencing rapid growth and needing a scalable ATS to manage increased hiring demands. Known for its efficiency, cost-effectiveness, and scalability, the platform stands out as a comprehensive and modern solution for recruiters.

3. Zoho Recruit – Best For Small Hiring Agencies

Zoho Recruit serves the needs of both internal hiring teams and staffing agencies, offering end-to-end features from sourcing to hiring, removing the hassle of switching between multiple tools. The platform covers job posting, candidate tracking, and interview scheduling, while its integration options let you connect effortlessly with other Zoho apps for a smooth, unified workflow.

Zoho Recruit offers a free forever plan with basic features for candidates and email management. Paid plans pricing starts at $30/user with a 15-day free trial.

Disclaimer: The pricing is subject to change.

Standout Features

  • Gain valuable insights through detailed analytics on key hiring metrics such as time-to-hire and source effectiveness, empowering smarter recruitment decisions
  • Offers smart hiring using advanced AI to intelligently match candidates’ skills and experience with job requirements, helping recruiters quickly pinpoint top talent
  • Recruiters can design hiring workflows tailored to their processes and automate repetitive tasks, significantly reducing manual workload

Why Choose Zoho Recruit?

Zoho Recruit is a versatile recruitment solution built to support both staffing agencies and growing businesses. Its powerful combination of AI-driven matching, customizable workflows, and automation tools makes the hiring process faster and more efficient.

4. GoHire – Best For Automated Hiring

GoHire is a budget-friendly ATS that's simple to use and packed with pre-built templates and AI-powered tools to support every stage of the hiring process. The platform streamlines time-consuming recruitment tasks through automation, while preserving the personal interaction essential for attracting top talent.

The platform doesn’t offer a free plan, but users can get started for free with the software’s 14-day free trial. Plans pricing starts from $99/month with unlimited users.

Disclaimer: The pricing is subject to change.

Standout Features

  • Post to over 15 job boards with a single click, allowing you to quickly reach a wide audience and attract more candidates in less time
  • Integrates with Google calendars to enable candidates to self-schedule interviews and receive automatic reminders, improving coordination and the overall candidate experience
  • Access a comprehensive collection of pre-optimized job description templates to accelerate the job posting process and maintain consistent quality

Why Choose GoHire?

GoHire is an ideal choice for startups and growing businesses looking for a simple yet powerful hiring solution. Its clean interface, automation capabilities, and scalable features significantly reduce administrative workload.

5. Recruitee – Best For Collaborative Hiring And Workflow Automation

Recruitee is a modern ATS built to simplify recruitment through automation and team-driven collaboration. Companies of all sizes, from growing mid-sized businesses to international enterprises, use its features to attract and manage applicants, strengthen their employer brand, and gain valuable insights into their hiring pipeline.

While there’s no free plan available, the software offers an 18-day free trial so users can explore its features before committing. Paid plans begin at $270/month.

Disclaimer: The pricing is subject to change.

Standout Features

  • Streamlined workflow automation system that enables teams to assign tasks, hand off reviews, and manage hiring steps efficiently
  • Recruiters can build personalized hiring pipelines with configurable stages, filters, and views, offering greater control and visibility throughout the recruitment process
  • Standardized interview templates to ensure consistent, fair, and unbiased candidate assessments across hiring team

Why Choose Recruitee?

Recruitee distinguishes itself with a strong focus on collaborative hiring and streamlined workflow automation. Its customizable pipelines and automation tools help minimize manual tasks, while multi-channel job posting expands reach to top candidates.

6. Workable – Best For AI-Powered Recruitment And Global Hiring

Workable ATS is an all-in-one HR platform built to simplify and accelerate the hiring process for companies of all sizes. It offers businesses AI-powered tools and support for global hiring. The platform helps teams efficiently source, evaluate, and hire candidates across different industries.   

The platform doesn’t include a free plan, but you can test it out with a 15-day free trial. Pricing starts at $169/month (up to 20 employees). 

Disclaimer: The pricing is subject to change. 

Standout Features

  • Customizable career page builder that requires no coding and offers a range of design options
  • Passive candidate sourcing through AI to scan over 400 million candidate profiles, delivering high-quality matches tailored to your job requirements
  • Easily post openings to more than 200 free and premium job boards at once, helping expand your visibility and attract a wider talent pool

Why Choose Workable?

Workable excels in blending powerful AI tools with global hiring capabilities, making it a strong choice for businesses looking to modernize their recruitment strategy. It provides recruiters with active job postings, robust applicant tracking, and essential HR features such as onboarding, time tracking, e-signatures, and an employee directory.

7. monday.com – Best For Customizable Recruitment Workflows

monday.com software is a versatile ‘Work Operating System’ (Work OS) that offers a customizable platform for managing recruitment processes. It provides HR teams with tools to streamline hiring workflows, enhance collaboration, and automate repetitive tasks.

monday.com provides a free forever plan for up to 2 seats that includes basic features for like 200+ templates, unlimited docs, and up to 3 boards. Paid plans start at $9/seat/month and come with a free trial.

Disclaimer: The pricing is subject to change.

Standout Features

  • Recruiters can create and customize application forms that feed directly into the recruitment pipeline, facilitating seamless data collection and candidate tracking
  • Customizable recruitment pipelines allow recruiters to modify hiring pipelines to fit their unique processes, enabling a clear visualization of candidate progress through various stages
  • Automation of routine tasks such as sending follow-up emails, updating candidate statuses, and setting reminders, reducing manual workload, and improving efficiency

Why Choose monday.com?

monday work management is a versatile project management solution that enhances cross-functional collaboration within a unified workspace. It's considered one of the best overall options due to its extensive library of templates, which simplifies candidate management and helps teams seamlessly guide applicants through each stage of the hiring pipeline.

8. MightyRecruiter – Best For End-To-End Recruiting With Resume Database Access

MightyRecruiter ATS is designed to streamline job distribution and candidate sourcing. It enables users to post listings across multiple job boards and manage applicants with ease. With access to a resume database with over 25 million resumes from job seekers and smart automation features, MightyRecruiter is designed to boost the productivity and success of hiring teams.  

With MightyRecruiter, users can access a free forever plan offering features for resume searching, unlimited open jobs, and user accounts. 

Disclaimer: The pricing is subject to change. 

Standout Features 

  • Users can post unlimited job openings to over 29 job boards at no cost and tap into a resume database with more than 22 million candidate profiles
  • Build and reuse tailored screening questions to filter out unqualified applicants early in the process and streamline candidate evaluation
  • Develop customized, branded career pages without the need for coding, enhancing employer branding, and providing a seamless application experience for candidates

Why Choose MightyRecruiter?

MightyRecruiter delivers a feature-rich recruiting solution at an affordable price, making it ideal for budget-conscious companies. It’s smart automation, deep resume database, and integrated communication tools reduce manual workload and accelerate hiring.

9. Dover – Best For Streamlined Candidate Management

Dover provides a free ATS designed to simplify the recruitment process for startups and small businesses. Trusted by over 600 top companies, it offers tools to manage candidates efficiently and enhance employer branding. It streamlines the hiring process from application to offer by automating and centralizing essential recruiting tasks.

The platform offers a free plan which includes features like candidate tracking, AI applicant sorting, and many more. Paid plans come with customizable pricing.

Disclaimer: The pricing is subject to change.

Standout Features

  • A streamlined review page to view all candidates immediately, with AI-driven candidate sorting, career pages, and job descriptions to quickly identify top talent
  • Centralized candidate tracking with access to 50+ job boards to keep track of every applicant from start to finish in one place, so no candidate falls through the cracks
  • Automated communication to easily schedule interviews or send rejection emails with a single click, saving time and improving candidate experience

Why Choose Dover?

Dover is ideal for companies seeking a straightforward, free solution to manage their hiring pipeline and enhance their employer brand without complex setups. It automatically ranks applicants, making it easier to spot the best-fit candidates quickly. 

10. iKrut – Best For Multi-Channel Job Posting

iKrut is a cloud-based applicant tracking system offering essential recruitment features at no cost. Designed for small to mid-sized businesses, it offers quick setup, an intuitive interface, and core ATS functionality to streamline the hiring process without unnecessary complexity.

The software offers a free plan for unlimited users, job, and candidate management. Paid plans start at $300/month.

Disclaimer: The pricing is subject to change.

Standout Features

  • Easily post job openings to free job boards such as Indeed, SimplyHired, and Glassdoor, all from a single dashboard
  • Create a personalized, branded careers page hosted by iKrut to attract applicants and showcase your company
  • Monitor applicants at every stage using a drag-and-drop interface, providing quick progress updates and clear visibility into your hiring pipeline

Why Choose iKrut?

iKrut is an excellent choice for small teams looking for a simple ATS that covers the essentials—job posting, candidate tracking, and management—without the need for a complex setup. Its free tier offers surprisingly robust features, making it a valuable tool for lean recruiting teams needing immediate, effective functionality.

Which ATS Should You Use For Smarter Recruiting?

You now have a solid understanding of the leading applicant tracking systems that support recruiters through every phase of the hiring process. The tools featured above each bring something valuable to the table—whether it’s automation to streamline tasks, CRM capabilities for managing candidate relationships, or customizable workflows tailored to your hiring process. 

If you're looking to enhance your hiring process, these platforms offer a smart, reliable starting point. Still deciding? Visit our complete Applicant Tracking System software directory. You’ll find popular ATS, detailed feature breakdowns, and real user insights to help you choose the right solution.