Gusto - Best all-in-one payroll and hiring software for small business

Overview

Gusto tops our list for best hiring software for small business with a wealth of powerful features and user-friendly functionality. Their intuitive interface simplifies even the most complex tasks, and their easy-to-use hiring tools integrate seamlessly with their best-in-class onboarding workflows and robust payroll and people management tools. Using an all-in-one solution for hiring, onboarding, and paying your team reduces your admin burden and streamlines your tech stack, all while saving you money.  

You can access basic hiring tools such as e-signing, offer letters, and secure document storage with their Simple plan, but to access their full suite of advanced tools, including their applicant tracking system (ATS), you’ll need to go for the Plus plan. Since their pricing is transparent and all-inclusive, you won’t have to pay extra when you start hiring, and transitioning candidates to full-time employees happens with a single click. As many other standalone hiring platforms cost hundreds of dollars each month, Gusto’s ease and affordability make it a top pick.

Gusto automatically shares postings on hundreds of job boards including LinkedIn, Indeed, and ZipRecruiter, and hiring workflows include candidate comments and interview scorecards to provide a single source of truth throughout the hiring process. AI-powered job descriptions save hours of tedious work while keeping you compliant with federal and state hiring law, and Gusto’s team of HR experts are always on-call should you have any more complex compliance questions.   

Once you’ve found the right candidate, Gusto offers best-in-class hiring and onboarding tools to welcome new members to the team and increase retention rates, including custom offer letters and app provisioning. Background checks are available through Checkr, and unlike most competitors, Gusto handles state tax registration and compliance for new hires in all 50 states. Employee self-onboarding makes it easy to upload documents, e-sign contracts, select a benefits package, and gives employees lifetime access to paystubs, W-2s, and more. Both you and your new hires will get friendly dashboard reminders helping you stay on top of time-sensitive tasks.

All of Gusto’s tools feel designed with humans in mind, easily handling the full employee lifecycle from recruiting and onboarding, to engagement and growth, to an employee’s last day. Overall, they offer more fully integrated functionality from posting a job to bringing a new team member on board at an attractive price, giving them the top spot for best hiring software for small business.

Key Features

• Seamlessly integrated ATS, hiring, onboarding, payroll, and benefits
• AI-powered job descriptions
• Free syndication to 100+ job boards
• User-friendly recruiting dashboard
• Candidate notes and scorecards
• Built-in compliance with state and federal hiring law
• New-hire reporting in all 50 states
• Hiring documents, e-signing and storage, onboarding checklists, custom offer letters and welcome cards, and benefits administration included with all plans
• Built-in background checks through Checkr
• Dedicated support from certified HR experts available
• Hundreds of software integrations  

Pros and Cons

Pricing

Gusto offers three pricing plans, with the Simple plan starting at $40 per month plus $6 per person per month. The Simple plan comes loaded with basic support for hiring and onboarding as well as benefits administration, but it doesn’t include the applicant tracking system software.

To access the full suite of hiring tools, you’ll need the Plus plan, at $80 per month plus $12 per person per month. It includes the ATS along with all of their integrated hiring, onboarding, and team management tools. Plus plans also come loaded with popular features like next-day payroll and Gusto’s integrated time tracking.

Dedicated support from certified HR pros along with compliance alerts is available only with the Premium plan or through the HR add-on at $8 per person per month. 

Premium plans are priced exclusively, and include everything Gusto has to offer with no hidden monthly fees. For more info on Premium pricing, contact their sales team today.

Free Trial? Yes, Gusto is free until you run your first payroll.

Free Version: No.

Transform your HR processes with Gusto, a platform that’s already the choice of over 300,000 businesses.

Ceipal – Best AI-powered hiring software for small businesses

Overview

Ceipal is a powerful hiring solution for both large and small businesses alike with a feature-rich Applicant Tracking System (ATS) and integrated CRM. Ceipal’s ATS passively sources candidates for you, then matches and ranks them. Throughout the hiring process, it integrates with multiple communication platforms to maintain candidate engagement, including email, SMS, and chatbot functionalities, which all have options for automated workflows and responses.

Where Ceipal really stands out is their AI-powered holistic candidate assessment. They not only measure a candidate’s fit based on the job description itself, but also their work style, learning style, and workplace values, along with how likely they are to take the job (sourced from their presence across the internet). This gives you a more well-rounded idea of who the candidate is, not just as an employee but as a person. Ceipal’s AI can also help you write a job description in seconds, as well as generate role-based interview and assessment questions. 

Throughout the hiring process, Ceipal’s colorful dashboard helps you stay on top of critical metrics, KPIs, and hiring bottlenecks, and when you’re ready to hire, Ceipal comes fully loaded with onboarding tools including e-signing, secure document storage, and custom onboarding checklists.

If candidate sourcing is your #1 headache, Ceipal is a great tool to get more candidates in your pipeline, all with a wealth of AI-powered analysis. But the pricing adds up quickly, and some of their more powerful automations are only available on their advanced plan. 

Key Features

• 200+ pre-built productivity dashboards

• Feature-rich ATS
• Integrated CRM
• Automatically post to 50+ job boards
• Passive candidate sourcing
• Candidate matching and ranking
• Communications hub with integrations
• Branded career portal
• Integrated onboarding with document storage and e-signing
• In-depth analytics with recruitment/candidate dashboard metrics
• Vendor management and workforce management tools available

Pros and Cons

Pricing

Ceipal’s hiring software is priced at $24 per user per month, with a 5-user minimum. This includes job postings, integrations, resume parsing, a dedicated support representative, their integrated CRM, and 10 dashboards.

For their more powerful AI tools, you’ll need to upgrade to the Advanced Automation Bundle at $48 per user per month, also with a 5-user minimum. This includes mass emails, advanced marketing tools, and their signature feature: AI-based candidate matching and ranking. Passive candidate sourcing is an add-on no matter which plan you choose.

Free Trial? Yes, 14 days.

Free Plan: No.

 Learn more about Ceipal

JazzHR – Best small business hiring software for beginners

Overview

JazzHR is a highly rated and easy-to-use hiring platform that makes it easy for startups and small businesses to put their best foot forward in a competitive hiring market. Their entry-level pricing makes them accessible to businesses of any size, giving you access to aggregated job postings and a centralized hiring hub for your business.

While their base-level plan is bare bones to say the least, their higher tier plans provide more powerful hiring tools to scale with your business. Collaborative hiring workflows keep everyone on the same page allowing you to manage, rank, track, and discuss candidates every step of the way. Their candidate experience tools include branded messaging, automated candidate contact workflows, and email and messaging sync. 

Jazz HR also comes loaded with an applicant tracking system with interview and assessment tools to reduce bias and make sure interviews are conducted fairly and equally. Pre-planned questions, evaluation templates, and automated applicant scores help your team make better, more informed judgments.

For startups especially, integrating JazzHR with a powerful payroll and HR provider like Gusto is a great way to centralize and streamline all your people management needs.

Key Features

• Custom collaborative hiring workflows
• Custom branding for job postings and emails
• Integrated background checks
• Dozens of software integrations for HR, payroll, scheduling, and more
• Skills and coding tests
• 18 job boards included
• Interview design and evaluation tools
• Workflow, candidate, and compliance reporting

Pros and Cons

Pricing

JazzHR offers three pricing tiers, Hero, Plus, and Pro. The Hero plan is $49 per month (billed annually) and includes unlimited users and 3 open job postings. This plan does not include their applicant tracking tools, however, and is only used to manage job postings. The Plus plan jumps to $239 per month and includes job postings, ATS, and interviews & assessments for unlimited roles. The Pro plan adds on offers and e-signatures, and reporting and compliance for $359 per month.

Free Trial? 21 days.

Free Plan: No.

Learn more about JazzHR

BambooHR – Best small business hiring software for full-stack HR

Overview

BambooHR is great for both small- and medium-sized businesses who want to easily hire, onboard, and manage their teams. BambooHR is a Human Resources Management System (HRMS) at heart, with payroll, benefits, and time tracking as extras.

BambooHR’s hiring software provides all the bells and whistles you’d expect from a major HR platform including an applicant tracking system, collaborative workflows, messaging templates, syndicated job postings, social media integrations, and a powerful mobile app. Candidate experience is smooth and optimized, and managing the hiring pipeline is a breeze.

Adding custom permissions makes it easy to gather input from stakeholders and team members at any stage. Automatic alerts and in-system messaging keep things moving without drops in communication, and centralized candidate data pushes instantly to desktop and mobile, ensuring everyone involved is on the same page. 

Bamboo’s ATS is only included in their Advantage plan, but this also includes access to a wealth of their most powerful HR tools. Onboarding, offboarding, document storage, employee satisfaction, and robust reporting options are all built right in along with their employee self-service portal, new-hire packets, and e-signatures.

The onboarding process is easy, friendly, and people-focused, and their document and personal data storage, along with automated workflows, help your HR department run as smoothly as possible. Their onboarding suite is best-in-class with customizable pre-boarding packages and checklists along with a wealth of features to highlight personal connections for new employees. Unfortunately, they don’t offer software or hardware provisioning, and they don’t support background checks or new-hire state reporting.

While Bamboo's hiring software is both powerful and user-friendly, they are a better fit for businesses looking for a more robust, long-term HR solution, rather than a standalone hiring platform.

Key Features

• Fully integrated hiring, onboarding, and people management
• Collaborative workflows with automated alerts
• Syndicated job site + social media postings
• Customizable communication, offer letter, and email templates
• Powerful mobile hiring app
• Intuitive, user-friendly onboarding and offboarding workflows
• Employee self-service, e-signatures, and document storage
• Works with businesses in over 120 countries
• Payroll, benefits, time tracking, and performance management available as add-ons
• 350+ software integrations

Pros and Cons

Pricing

For fewer than 20 employees, BambooHR charges a flat rate based on which package you choose. Over 20 employees, and you’ll pay on a per-employee-per-month basis. Unfortunately, they no longer post pricing on their website, and you’ll need to reach out for a quote.

BambooHR has two available plans along with a handful of optional add-ons.

To access their Applicant Tracking System as well as their onboarding and offboarding tools, you’ll need the Advantage plan. This also includes advanced reporting, custom workflows, and employee wellness features.

BambooHR also offers four add-on packages: payroll, benefits administration, performance management, and time tracking. These modules all have volume discounts, so the per employee cost will drop as your business grows.

Free Trial? Yes, 7 days.

Free Plan: No

 Learn more about BambooHR

Greenhouse – Best hiring software for midsize businesses

Overview

Greenhouse is a sleek and powerful hiring platform built with both candidates and hiring teams in mind. Their workflows are welcoming, and they provide a centralized hub to keep everyone on track in the hiring process. Interview planning, prep kits, and candidate scorecards, along with automated tasks and reminders make sure everyone is on the same page and nothing falls through the cracks.

The job kick-off form helps you collaborate and align with hiring managers on what success looks like for new roles, and their “candidate experience” approach increases transparency and makes the hiring process smoother and more engaging for the talent you’re looking to attract.

Greenhouse also offers native onboarding once you’ve made a hiring decision. They provide personalized welcome experiences, new-hire goal setting and tracking, and task setting for stakeholders throughout the hiring process.

Overall, Greenhouse is a powerful and beautifully designed tool, but it may be more powerful than most small businesses need, and at a much higher price point. Unless you’re a growing business consistently hiring for multiple new roles each month, it’s likely you can get all the features you need from another hiring platform at a much more attractive price.

Key Features

• Custom, automated hiring workflows
• “Candidate experience” approach
• 1,000+ job boards included
• Powerful team collaboration tools
• Candidate scorecards
• Robust hiring pipeline reporting
• GDPR compliance
• Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion feature set
• Built-in onboarding tools

Pros and Cons

Pricing

Greenhouse offers three tiers for their recruiting tools, Essential, Advanced, and Expert, however they don’t list pricing on their website. The Essential tier includes their ATS, collaboration and structured hiring tools, candidate experience, GDPR and DE&I, access to their mobile app and software integrations, and their CRM + one event.

The Advanced plan adds on 10 events for the CRM, scalable workflows, SSO, and custom reporting. Finally, their Expert plan, targeted at Enterprise solutions, includes unlimited CRM events, expert data configuration, and a developer sandbox. 

Their onboarding tools are priced separately through the Greenhouse Welcome and Greenhouse Onboarding plans. If you’re looking for standard onboarding tools like e-signing documents and HR integration, you’ll need the higher-tier plan. 

Free Trial? No.

Free Plan: No.

Learn more about Greenhouse

Zoho Recruit – Best hiring software for rapidly growing teams

Overview

Zoho Recruit is a powerful and user-friendly platform that’s best-suited to businesses with regular, high-volume hiring needs or small businesses in a hiring surge. Their robust ATS in conjunction with their CRM and AI-powered candidate screening tools make it easy to manage hundreds of applicants for multiple roles and find the right person for the job.

The AI features can grade applicants according to your preferred requirements, helping your recruitment team narrow down applicant records. Their resume parser easily imports data from PDFs, LinkedIn, Gmail, and more, compiling candidates into a centralized database. Pre-screening assessments help you quickly rate and compare applicants, and Zoho also offers internal referral management, tapping into a valuable source of potential candidates.   

Zoho Recruit offers one of the most powerful suites of automated and AI-powered hiring tools on the market. For staffing companies or companies with high-volume hiring needs, they’re an easy choice at a respectable price. But for startups and very small businesses, it may be more than you need.

Key Features

• AI-powered candidate selection
• Customizable, automated recruitment workflows
• Automatic resume parsing
• Built-in background checks & pre-screening assessments
• Post to 300+ job boards
• Custom branded careers page
• Internal referrals
• Bias-reduction tools
• Recruiting analytics & KPIs
• Mobile app

Pros and Cons

Pricing

Zoho Recruit has two separate pricing structures, one for corporate HR and one for staffing agencies. For corporate HR, their forever free plan allows you to manage a single job posting, along with interview scheduling and candidate management. The Standard plan at $25 per recruiter per month includes 10 active jobs and comes loaded with standard hiring tools like candidate sourcing, resume management, premium job boards, customized reporting, and 50+ integrations. For their most powerful tools, you’ll need the enterprise plan at $50 per recruiter per month. This adds on their AI-powered recruitment tools along with advanced customization and reporting, and 20 active job postings.

For staffing agencies, pricing is based per user per month. The Standard plan is $25 per user per month and includes 100 job postings along with the same basic tools as their corporate Standard plan: candidate sourcing, resume management, premium job boards, talent pipeline, customized reporting, and 50+ integrations, but lacks their more powerful AI.

With the professional plan, at $50 per user per month, you get 250 postings, access to AI-powered tools, pre-screening assessments, background checks, and custom reports and dashboards. And finally, their Enterprise plan, at $75 per user per month, tacks on integrations with Google Meet and Microsoft Teams, and advanced customization for assignments, territories, roles, and profiles.

Free Trial? Yes, 15 days, plus a 45-day money-back guarantee.

Free Plan: Yes, for one active job posting.

Learn more about Zoho Recruit

BreezyHR - Best free hiring software for small business

Overview

BreezyHR is a fun and user-friendly platform with a forever free plan for one job posting along with unlimited users and candidates. While the free plan won’t get you access to their more powerful tools like candidate automations, questionnaires, and integrations, you still get one-click posting to 50+ job boards, a branded career site, and world-class resume parsing. For small businesses that only need to hire for the occasional open position, you won’t find a better option.

For those looking to spend a little more money, BreezyHR has some of the most powerful recruiting tools on the market. Their automated workflows, scheduling, and candidate management make managing the hiring pipeline a breeze, and candidate matching, interview guides, and scorecards help reduce bias and improve hiring decisions.

While BreezyHR does integrate with all the most popular HRIS and payroll platforms like BambooHR and Gusto, these integrations are only offered on their highest-tier plan, meaning you’ll need to manually onboard any new hires to your existing people management platform.   

Key Features

• Custom, automated hiring workflows
• Drag & drop pipelines
• Anti-bias and DE&I tools
• Background check integration
• Resume parsing
• Automated candidate matching
• Collaborative hiring & streamlined scheduling
• Internal referrals
• Interview guides
• Branded careers page
• Robust integrations

Pros and Cons

Pricing

BreezyHR offers transparent, straightforward pricing for each of their four pricing tiers. The forever free plan includes one active job posting along with unlimited users and candidates.

At $157 per month (billed annually), you can add unlimited positions along with access to candidate pipelines, questionnaires, automations, background screening, integrations, and  scheduling tools.

Their Growth plan, at $273 per month, tacks on reference checks, interview guides, scorecards, along with employee referrals and e-signatures.

And finally, their Business plan, at $439 per month, gives you access to HRIS and payroll integrations, advanced questionnaires, candidate nurturing, custom roles and permissions, and offer management.

Free Trial? Yes, 14-days.

Free Plan: Yes, unlimited users and candidates for one posting.

Learn more about BreezyHR