Looking for an affordable and powerful applicant tracking system? Check out this list of the five best free ATS solutions for 2026 and find the perfect one for your business.
A free applicant tracking system (ATS) helps businesses collect applications, organize candidates, and manage basic hiring workflows without paying for software. However, most free ATS plans come with trade-offs, such as limits on users, active jobs, resume parsing, reporting, automations, or career site features.
ATS platforms are used by companies of all sizes to organize, search for, and communicate with large groups of applicants. However, many of the best applicant tracking systems are geared toward large corporations that juggle hundreds of applicants. However, small businesses on a budget need fully featured, affordable ATS software as well. Below, I reviewed the top free ATS software so you can find the right one.
After evaluating multiple providers, here are the top five on my list:
| monday work management | Best overall | Hiring templates, candidate forms, custom boards |
| Zoho Recruit | Best for customization | Custom workflows, candidate scoring, interview scheduling |
| Breezy HR | Best for automated workflows | Stage Actions, automated messages |
| Jobsoid | Best for candidate management | Candidate database, Smart Filter, email and text tools |
| Loxo | Best for ATS features | Applicant tracking, recruiting CRM, client portal |
| Name | Our rating (out of 5) | Starting price for paid plans | Candidate scoring | Resume parsing | Mobile app |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| monday work management | 4.58 | $9 per seat per month | Yes | No | Yes |
| Zoho Recruit | 4.30 | $25 per user per month | Yes | Yes* | Yes |
| Breezy HR | 3.80 | $157 per month | Yes** | Yes | Yes |
| Jobsoid | 3.48 | $49 per month | Yes | Yes* | Yes |
| Loxo | 3.30 | $169 per user per month | Yes | Yes* | Yes |
*Zoho Recruit: Resume parsing only available in paid tiers; Jobsoid: Resume parsing available with Standard and Pro paid plans only; Loxo: Resume parsing only available with paid plans |
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Our rating: 4.58 out of 5
monday work management is a project management tool that helps improve cross-functional collaboration within one workspace. While it is not a traditional ATS, it can be set up to function like a lightweight applicant tracking tool, allowing you to create workflows and hiring pipeline tracking.
By using the applicant tracking template, you can set up your board to track inbound applications through a form. This allows candidates to provide self-identifying information, upload their resumes, add skills, and choose the role they are applying for. From there, HR can rate each candidate and move them through the interviewing and hiring process.
monday work management offers a forever free plan available for up to two seats, which is perfect for individuals who need to keep track of their work. Although its paid tiers are priced per seat, it has one of the lowest monthly pricing than any other on our list.
monday work management pros and cons
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monday work management is best overall due to the large array of templates available for managing candidates and moving them through the hiring pipeline. I especially like how easy it is to see where each candidate is in the hiring process and update them accordingly.
In addition, monday work management is affordable, even with its paid plans. Plus, as you migrate candidates from interviewing to hired, you can use its boards to tailor onboarding, track time, and manage projects. This makes it ideal for overall work management beyond just hiring.
Our rating: 4.30 out of 5
Zoho Recruit is an online applicant tracking system that helps you manage every aspect of your recruitment process. It allows you to create job requisitions, post jobs on multiple channels, parse resumes, track candidates, schedule interviews, send emails, and generate reports.
This platform is also highly customizable, allowing you to categorize and track various aspects of your recruitment process. Zoho Recruit offers more than ten predefined modules that come with a set of default fields and layouts. Plus, you can publish job openings on your career site directly through Zoho Recruit.
Zoho Recruit offers a free forever plan. However, it only comes with one seat and limited candidate management. To get the full applicant tracking experience, you are required to upgrade to one of its paid tiers, which are pricier than most on our list. Zoho Recruit does offer a 15-day free trial to test out its product and a 45-day money-back guarantee.
Zoho Recruit pros and cons
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Zoho Recruit is customizable across its entire platform, allowing users to tailor workflows and create templates. It scored well in my assessment for its ability to sort and filter candidates and candidate scoring within its free plan.
Another thing I like best about Zoho Recruit is the availability of a career site within its dashboard. This allows you to post open positions through your company website and populate candidates directly into your Zoho Recruit dashboard. However, this service is not available in the free version, so you will have to upgrade to a paid plan in order to access this feature.
Our rating: 3.80 out of 5
Breezy HR is a modern hiring and applicant tracking system that helps you attract, interview, and hire talent. It has a free Bootstrap plan that supports up to one active job and unlimited users. The free plan also includes unlimited candidates, multiple languages, customer support, a drag-and-drop interface, and a Chrome extension.
With Breezy’s Stage Actions, you can automate everything from questionnaires, messages, and assessments to scheduling interviews and logging team feedback. Plus, Breezy can automatically advance or disqualify candidates based on prescreening questions.
Breezy’s Bootstrap plan is free forever and allows unlimited users, unlike the others in our list, which are limited to one or two seats with their free plans. Its paid plans also include unlimited users and a discounted price when paid annually. Plus, you can try any paid plan for free for 14 days.
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What I particularly like about Breezy HR is how easy it is to integrate with HR software systems, including BambooHR, ADP Workforce Now, and Paylocity, so you can easily move new hires into your HR system of choice. Breezy HR’s free plan is free forever, as long as you don’t exceed the limits of one active job and one user, similar to Loxo and Jobsoid.
Breezy HR made this list because it integrates well with popular communication tools, like LinkedIn and Slack, and its automated workflows save your recruiting team valuable time when reviewing candidates.
Learn more: Breezy HR overview.
Our rating: 3.48 out of 5
Jobsoid is an applicant tracking solution that lets you source, engage, and recruit the best people. It gives you an overview of your recruiting performance using dashboards and intelligent reports. In addition, you can engage candidates with personalized emails and texts and improve candidate experience with timely updates.
Jobsoid’s candidate management allows you to communicate with candidates on a centralized platform, track applicant progress through a custom recruitment pipeline, collaborate with team members on candidates and assign tasks, and send automated messages. Plus, you can shortlist best-fit candidates with Jobsoid’s Smart Filter.
Jobsoid has a free forever plan. However, it is limited to one job posting and one user. This may be all that is needed for startups, but for small or growing companies, an upgrade to a paid plan will allow more job postings and unlimited users. You can upgrade or downgrade your plan as your needs change at any time. Plus, Jobsoid offers a free 14-day trial of its Standard plan.
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I chose Jobsoid for this list because, although it is limited to only one job post and one user, its free plan gives you access to everything you need to move candidates through your hiring pipeline. Plus, upgrading to a paid plan is affordable and provides additional benefits, like resume parsing and reporting.
I particularly like that a Chrome plug-in can help you source leads from LinkedIn and import them into your database for easy candidate management. This feature is available with Jobsoid’s free plan, unlike Breezy HR, where you must upgrade to its paid plans to source candidates.
Our rating: 3.30 out of 5
Loxo is an easy-to-use ATS, where you can create new candidates or import existing ones from a CSV file. Once candidates are added you have the option to review, shortlist your top choices, send emails, schedule, interview, and provide an offer. You can also move candidates to rejected or hired folders for future review.
Loxo’s free forever plan is one of the best on our list in terms of features available, offering an applicant tracking system, recruiting CRM, Loxo Boost feature, unlimited jobs/projects, and a client portal for one user. For even more features, including an onboarding specialist, resume parsing, and priority support, you can upgrade to one of its paid plans. Plus, it offers a free 7-day trial.
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Although a fairly simple ATS, I added Loxo to this shortlist because of how inclusive the free plan is. You can handle all aspects of the recruiting and hiring process directly through the app, all for free. However, if you want Loxo to provide a list of potential candidates, you’ll need to upgrade to its paid plan.
Plus, its simplicity is good for first-time recruiters because it is easy to navigate. When you’re ready, you can also upgrade to Loxo’s Talent Intelligence Platform, where you will have access to its full candidate relationship management tools.
Yes, there are plenty of free applicant tracking systems. Some, like Recruit CRM, have fully functional free plans that support up to 50 candidates. Others, like Ceipal ATS, offer fully featured free trials that let prospective customers test their software before committing to a paid plan.
Free applicant tracking systems allow small and midsize businesses to post jobs, track resumes, search for new hires, and reach out to potential candidates at no cost. Sometimes, however, its capabilities and features are limited, so be sure when choosing a free ATS that it offers everything your business needs.
That depends on the features needed. A free ATS is perfect for a small budget. However, what you can accomplish is generally limited. A paid ATS, on the other hand, will come with a higher price tag but offers full access to all features and may allow for more or unlimited users.
To determine the best applicant tracking software for this list, I looked at ATS software that was completely free to use and then evaluated each based on scores from third-party users, pricing on their paid tiers, support available, interface, and candidate sourcing and management features. I then rated each based on my expert experience and opinion of the software and its alignment with small businesses.
I evaluated seven of the top applicant tracking software systems and narrowed it down to the best five using the following criteria:
Jennifer Soper has 25+ years of writing and content design experience, working with small businesses and Fortune 100 companies. For over a decade, Jennifer worked as an HR generalist, providing expertise in accounting, payroll, and HR by implementing payroll and benefits best practices and creating onboarding and employee-relations documentation.
