ATS pricing: build a budget your team can review.

A useful ATS quote describes the work your team intends to put into the system. Write down your current headcount, anticipated hires, peak number of open vacancies and the people who need to administer hiring. Include the hiring managers and interviewers who need more limited access. Keep these categories separate because the supplier may charge for one category and include another.

For a company with 125 to 250 employees, the employee count alone does not tell the supplier how much recruitment you plan. A stable team filling a few replacement roles has a different workload from a team opening several departments. Your budget should explain the planned activity rather than assuming that company size determines the correct package. Use an agreed base plan and a higher-volume scenario from your own hiring forecast.

List the workflow the price must cover: publishing vacancies, managing applications, keeping communication with the candidate record, arranging interviews and recording feedback after interviews. Then list the requirements that need separate confirmation, such as identity controls, connected systems or a data migration service. Ask the recruiter and hiring manager to review the scope before Finance compares the totals. A lower price for a narrower workflow does not answer the same buying question.

Employee-based pricing links the quote to an organisation size band. Workable’s official pricing guidance says its monthly Standard and annual plans use employee numbers to calculate or tailor pricing. This is an example of a billing model, not a recommendation or a current price quote. Ask which people count, when headcount is measured and what happens when your organisation moves into another band.^[1]

Other plans organise their offer around package scope and capacity. Breezy’s official pricing page lists annual and monthly billing, a free Bootstrap package limited to one active position or candidate pool, and paid packages with unlimited positions. Check what the selected package includes rather than treating a free plan as equivalent to the workflow you are buying. Model descriptions were checked on 10 October 2026; review the supplier’s current terms before purchasing.^[2]

A seat-based proposal needs equally precise definitions. Ask whether the price counts recruiters, administrators, hiring managers or everyone who can sign in. For a vacancy-based proposal, ask whether the limit counts active vacancies at one time or a total over the contract. For a usage-based proposal, ask what event consumes the allowance and whether unused capacity carries forward. These are questions to resolve in the written quote, not assumptions to fill with an industry average.

Keep the billing unit in its own worksheet column. Record the quantity, unit price, billing period and included allowance beside it. If a supplier gives you only an annual total, request enough detail to explain the scope and future changes. You can compare an annual package with a monthly package once you understand both; you cannot compare them fairly by looking only at the smallest number displayed on a pricing page.

The CSV worksheet has blank buyer-input rows and separate hypothetical example rows. Copy it into your usual spreadsheet tool, choose one planning currency and replace the blanks with dated supplier quotes and estimates from named internal owners. Calculate each subtotal using the cost equations in this guide. The CSV contains no automatic formulas; its calculation-basis column explains the multiplication or addition you need to perform.

Use one copy for each supplier and scope. Record the source of every external amount and mark an unanswered item as unconfirmed. Keep the example rows out of your approved budget totals. The worksheet includes subscription, extras, supplier setup, internal effort, old-system overlap and year-two recurring cost, together with a place to record tax treatment and the next review date. It is usable without submitting a form or booking a call.

Use twelve months as the common planning period for the example in this guide. For a monthly subscription that stays unchanged, multiply the monthly fee by twelve. For a prepaid annual subscription, use the actual annual fee from the quote. An advertised monthly equivalent under an annual commitment may describe the annual fee divided by twelve, so do not assume that the supplier will invoice you monthly.

Record the currency and tax treatment next to each total. Compare quotes in the same currency using a rate and date agreed with Finance if conversion is necessary. Keep recoverable tax treatment with the people who own that decision. Avoid mixing a tax-exclusive quote with a tax-inclusive quote or adding a currency conversion that nobody can reproduce. The worksheet leaves these decisions visible for your team to complete.

Split cash payments from internal effort. A supplier invoice and the cost of employee time belong in different columns, even when you combine them for a planning view. This lets Finance see what requires a payment and what consumes available team capacity. It also prevents a budget owner from treating time returned to a recruiter as cash that will automatically disappear from payroll.

The working equation is: first-year external cost = subscription + recurring paid extras + one-time supplier services. First-year planning cost = external cost + internal setup hours × agreed loaded hourly cost. Add the cost of any confirmed overlap with your current system as a separate line. These equations are budgeting conventions used in this guide; they do not establish market prices or a return on investment.

Ask the supplier to separate software access from services. A written implementation scope should name the configuration work, data scope, acceptance checks and training that the supplier will deliver. Assign an internal owner to each dependency. If the quote says implementation is included, ask what included means for your proposed workflow rather than assuming every historical record and connected tool will be covered.

For candidate migration, list the records you intend to move and the records that need a retention or deletion decision first. Estimate the work to clean duplicate entries, align hiring stages and review representative records after transfer. The budget is a place to record the effort; your privacy and security owners still decide the appropriate handling of candidate information. Do not move old data merely because its import would be inexpensive.

For connected services, distinguish the ATS subscription from any separate account, licence, setup work or ongoing usage charge. Ask who owns the connection and who will investigate a failure after launch. Keep job advertising and other recruitment services outside the software line unless the written quote expressly includes them. An annual hiring budget may contain both categories, but combining them hides which decision changes which cost.

Your internal setup estimate should include time for the recruiter who configures the workflow, the hiring managers who check it and the administrator who approves access. A short pilot can help you revise that estimate before a broader rollout. Record the estimate as hours with an owner and a basis, not an unexplained implementation percentage. If the work is not yet scoped, leave an open question and a review date.

The following amounts are invented solely to demonstrate the arithmetic in euros. They are not CapoFine prices, competitor prices, market averages or customer results. Suppose a buying group receives an illustrative monthly subscription of €300, chooses €40 of recurring paid extras per month and scopes a one-time supplier setup service at €800. Assume sixty internal setup hours at a Finance-approved loaded cost of €45 per hour.

The subscription is €300 × 12 = €3,600. Recurring paid extras are €40 × 12 = €480. External first-year cost is therefore €3,600 + €480 + €800 = €4,880. Internal setup effort is 60 × €45 = €2,700. Combined first-year planning cost is €4,880 + €2,700 = €7,580 before tax, currency conversion, contingency or old-system overlap. The external and internal subtotals remain separate in the worksheet.

For the next year, the same subscription and recurring extras would total €4,080 if their prices and scope remained unchanged. That number excludes the one-time setup service and assumes no further internal implementation work. It is a scenario, not a renewal forecast. Ask the supplier about renewal pricing, changes in package scope and the effect of your planned hiring volume before using it in an approved budget.

Change one assumption at a time. If the monthly subscription in this hypothetical example rose to €450, the subscription subtotal would become €5,400 and the first-year planning cost would become €9,380, with all other inputs held constant. If internal setup instead required ninety hours, the original subscription scenario would reach €8,930. Neither change proves that a more expensive package is poor value; each shows which assumption the buying group needs to examine.

Use a second column for the busiest hiring period you actually expect. Include headcount at renewal, simultaneous vacancies, administrators and any forecast usage allowance. Ask the supplier to confirm how those inputs affect the package. A price that fits today can still be suitable, but the buying group needs to understand the next threshold and the available response before adopting it.

Ask when a threshold is measured and whether the response is an overage charge, an upgrade or a new quote. Establish who in your team will watch the relevant quantity and when they should revisit the budget. Keep the answer tied to the contract or pricing source. Avoid recording unlimited capacity without also recording which capacity is unlimited and which features remain subject to package scope.

Model a narrow first rollout where it makes sense. A pilot for one hiring team can clarify workflow and implementation requirements, but it should have an agreed purpose and an end condition. Confirm whether the commercial offer supports that pilot, what must be paid up front and how expansion would be priced. Do not label a pilot low risk solely because its monthly equivalent looks small.

CapoFine’s EUR monthly starting prices are €99 for Essentials and €299 for One Product. Essentials lists ten hires per year and one HR administrator, with self-serve setup and standard support. One Product offers a complete selected product with core access to the other two. Check the live pricing page for current currency, billing-period, usage and package details before comparing a quote.^[3]

Hire supports hiring stages, candidate records and communication, interview coordination and structured feedback after interviews. Ask for a scope that covers your intended hiring workflow and the relevant package requirements. Recruiters and hiring managers retain hiring decisions. Keep any proposed expansion into onboarding or learning as a separate budget decision until the buying group has named the work it needs those products to support.^[4]

Before approving a purchase, have Talent Acquisition confirm the workflow, Finance confirm the arithmetic and commercial assumptions, and the relevant technical and privacy owners resolve their open questions. Put the proposed start date, quote expiry, payment timing and next budget review beside the recommendation. A reviewer should be able to trace every amount to a quote, an internal estimate or a clearly labelled assumption.

Use the ATS comparison checklist for demonstrated workflow fit and the ATS business-case template for the separate question of whether change is justified. Keep the pricing worksheet focused on what the proposed scope costs. Bring the completed scope and outstanding commercial questions to a Hire discussion so the next conversation can confirm the package and implementation work your team needs.