Best recruitment software for small business

Hiring doesn't have to be hectic. Whether you're bringing on your first employee or building a growing team, using recruitment software for your small business saves time, cuts through the clutter, and helps you find top talent—without the big-business price tag.

The best part? You don’t need to juggle a million apps to do it well. Great all-in-one hiring software keeps everything (and everyone) in sync. Let’s dive into the best recruitment platforms for SMBs, and why each one stands out.

TL;DR: Need hiring help fast? Here’s the best recruitment software for small businesses at a glance.

1. Homebase: Best all-in-one hiring software for hourly teams

2. Breezy: Best for career sites & employer branding

3. BambooHR: Best for startups & growing teams

4. Workable:Best for video iInterviews & assessments

5. JazzHR: Best for franchise hiring & text communication

6. Zoho Recruit: Best for freelancers & remote hiring

7. Manatal: Best for AI-powered candidate matching

8. GoHire: Best for high-volume, mobile-first recruiting

What is recruitment software?

Recruitment software is like your digital hiring assistant. It’s a software tool that helps businesses manage the hiring process—it keeps everything organized, saves time by automating repetitive tasks, and makes it easier to find the right candidates. 

Recruitment software helps you:

• Find great people (even the ones not looking): The software helps you uncover top talent—including those who aren’t actively job hunting—by scanning databases and online platforms.
• Say goodbye to resume overload: It sorts through stacks of resumes for you, filtering by skills, experience, and more—so you only see the good stuff.
• Keep candidates in the loop (without losing your mind): Automated messages, interview reminders, and friendly follow-ups help you stay connected and professional without lifting a finger.
• Pick the right person, faster: With built-in assessments and AI tools, you get a clearer picture of who’s really the best fit—no guesswork required.
• Make job offers in a snap: Easy-to-use templates fill in all the details so you can send polished offer letters fast—and get those “yes” responses quicker.
• Automate the boring bits: Let the software handle scheduling, status updates, and reporting so you can focus on the fun part: hiring awesome people.
• Plug into the rest of your systems: It plays nicely with your HR, payroll, and even marketing tools, creating a smooth, connected hiring experience.
• Get smart with your data: Track what’s working (and what’s not) with built-in reports on time-to-hire, cost-per-hire, and more.

Best recruitment software for small businesses in 2025 (Free + paid options)

What makes these 8 small business recruitment software options sing? Let’s dig into their standout features, pricing, and who they’re for.

1. Homebase (Best all-in-one hiring software for hourly teams)

• Perfect for busy small business owners (especially if you pay hourly): Homebase is a free, easy-to-use option packed with features that go way beyond just hiring. It’s built with hourly teams in mind but works just as well for salaried staff, too.
• Your all-in-one team management sidekick: Homebase doesn’t just help you hire—it takes care of everything from recruiting and onboarding to scheduling shifts, tracking time, messaging your team, and even running payroll. 
• It’s free to access their recruitment, hiring, and onboarding features, even with the Basic Plan. Pricing includes:
  
  • Basic at $0, for up to 20 employees
  • Essentials at $16/month/location
  • Plus at $40/month/location
  • Al- in-One at $80/month/location

2. Breezy (Best for career sites & employer branding)

• Best for small business owners who want to create a dedicated career website: You can create customizable career sites for interested candidates to visit and apply for jobs, and you can host the sites on your website or on Breezy’s platform.
• Access to premium and niche job boards: submit your open positions to dozens of popular and niche job board sites so that you can get more local attention from qualified candidates.
• Pricing includes:
  
  • The Bootstrap Plan at $0, for one job posting
  • The Startup Plan at $157/month
  • The Growth Plan at $273/month
  • The Business Plan at $439 per month

3. BambooHR (Best for startups & growing teams)

• Best for startups and small accounting, tech, legal, or consulting firms and companies: BambooHR is a great solution for small companies who want to grow and who have some experience with recruiting.
• Collaborative applicant tracking and hiring: For startups and growing small businesses, BambooHR’s recruiting CRM (candidate relationship management) software lets you communicate with your team about the applicant tracking process and collaborate on hiring decisions.
• BambooHR offers a free trial. You have to contact BambooHR for a custom quote after that, but software review sites say that BambooHR pricing starts at:
  
  • About $6.19 PEPM (per employee per month) for their Essentials Plan.
  • About $8.25 PEPM for their Advantage Plan.

4. Workable (Best for video interviews & assessments) 

• Best for small companies interested in video interviews: Their premium screening tool lets applicants record videos of themselves answering your interview question.
• Give your candidates assessments to see if they’re a good fit: Workable’s recruiting system gives you access to cognitive and personality tests that you can assign to candidates to see how their values and skills match up with your needs.
• You can access a 15-day trial when you sign up, but after that, pricing includes:
  
  • $169/month for the Starter Plan, up to 2 active job postings.
  • $360/month for the Standard Plan, unlimited job postings, 1–20 employees.
  • $599/month for the Premier Plan, includes everything in Standard plus hiring plans, SSO, account manager, premium support, video interviews, texting, and assessments.

5. JazzHR (Best for franchise hiring & text communication)

• Great for small companies and businesses who want advanced recruiting features without extra HR tools.
• JazzHR is all about hiring: It gives you powerful applicant tracking, custom workflows, and robust job posting tools tailored just for recruiting.
• Reach out to your candidate via text: You can avoid emailing candidates back and forth and communicate by text with JazzHR’s texting tool.
• You can access a 21-day trial when you sign up, but after that, pricing includes:
  
  • The Hero Plan for $99/month (or $75/month if you pay annually), up to 3 active jobs
  • The Plus Plan for $325/month (or $269/month if you pay annually), up to 200 open jobs
  • The Pro Plan for $499/month (or $420/month if you pay annually), includes all Plus Plan features plus offer letter templates, compliance reports, and phone support

6. Zoho Recruit (Best for freelancers & remote hiring)

• Best for freelance recruiters and recruitment startups who are just getting started with recruiting: Their free plan gives new recruiters access to free job boards, candidate management, email management, and interview scheduling.
• Conduct video interviews in real time: Like Workable, ZohoRecruit lets candidates record their interviews, but you can also conduct live interviews with their platform.
• Like Breezy, ZohoRecruit’s Forever Free plan extends to one job posting, but then pricing goes up: Pricing depends on whether you’re an internal HR team or staffing agency using ZohoRecruit. For internal HR teams, pricing includes:
  
  • The Forever Free plan for 1 active job
  • The Standard Plan at $30 per recruiter per month (billed annually at $25/month), 10 active jobs
  • The Enterprise Plan at $60 per recruiter per month, 20 active jobs

7. Manatal (Best for AI-Powered Candidate Matching)

• Manatal's platform leverages AI to automatically suggest candidates who best match your job descriptions, streamlining the hiring process. ​
• You can pull data from various social media platforms, giving you a comprehensive view of each applicant. ​
• Tailor your recruitment process with customizable pipelines and workflows; make team collaboration easier with shared notes, activity scheduling, and in-app messaging. ​
• Create a customized career page to showcase your company.
• Manatal doesn’t have a free plan, but it gives you a 14-day free trial. After that, pricing includes:
  
  • $15 per user/month for up to 15 jobs and 10,000 candidates
  • $35 per user/month for unlimited jobs and candidates, plus access to workflow automation
  • $55 per user/month for additional offerings of user groups, advanced report builder, single sign-on, open API, priority support, and access to beta features

8. GoHire (Best for High-Volume, Mobile-First Recruiting)

• GoHire's platform prioritizes mobile-first recruiting, letting candidates apply over text.
• AI-powered candidate matching makes it easier to find high-quality applicants. ​
• Create a customized career page to showcase your company.
• Sync with calendars to let people self-schedule interviews, reducing your admin workload. ​
• Collaborative hiring tools like team inboxes and @ mentions make it easier for different hiring teams to communicate. 
• GoHire doesn’t have a free plan, but it gives you a 14-day free trial. After that, pricing includes:
  
  • $89/month for 3 active job posts and 25 AI candidate matches
  • $139/month for 10 active job posts, 50 AI candidate matches, and additional features like customizable pipelines
  • $279/month for unlimited job posts and advanced features like video questionnaires and priority support

How to choose recruitment software for your small business 

When you’re looking for the right recruitment software for your SMB, keep your needs front and center.

Aim for something easy to use that covers all your bases—whether that’s hiring only, or onboarding and keeping great people, too. Here are the biggest things to keep in mind:

Make sure it’s user friendly. The time it takes to learn a new tool matters. As a small business owner, your time is gold—the right tool should make hiring easier, not add more to your plate.

Start with free or low-cost tools. They’re perfect for testing the waters, getting some practice, and getting your team on board without breaking the bank. Paid tools can come with some great extras, but it’s usually smart to hold off on investing in them too soon.

Consider scalability. Pick something that can grow with you—because even if you’re small now, that won’t last forever! You don’t want to switch systems just when things start taking off.

Job board integrations are a must. Any good recruitment software should play nice with job boards—especially the big ones like Indeed, Google, ZipRecruiter, Craigslist, LinkedIn, and Glassdoor. If it doesn’t connect easily (and for free), it might not be worth your time. Bonus points if it comes with handy job description templates to save you time when you're posting.

Consider built-in onboarding tools. If your onboarding’s vague, it’s more likely to land you with higher training costs and higher turnover in the long term. All-in-one software helps you clarify your expectations—giving you templates and a roadmap for each onboarding step. Some platforms even let you send out an employee handbook, helping you communicate:

• Your mission and values
• Your policies, rules, and mandatory legal information
• Wages, work hours, and time off
• Your safety practices and protocols

Look for ATS (Applicant Tracking System) features. Opt for a tool that does more than just collect resumes—good recruitment software saves time with things like interview scheduling, team feedback, and candidate tracking. When hiring gets busier, you’ll thank yourself.

Think about HR and compliance features. Stay on top of hiring laws and record-keeping to save yourself major headaches down the road. Consider software that lets people fill out and e-sign federal and state forms online, gives you secure document storage, and lets you send out automated welcome packets.

Take it for a spin first. The best way to know if a tool fits your flow is to actually use it. A free trial gives you a no-pressure way to test the waters—better to find out early than commit and regret it later.

How Homebase supports small business hiring

If you’re building an hourly team, Homebase is a great choice for everything you need to manage hourly work—and it’s free. 

We’ve got a lot of fans—100,000+ small businesses trust us with their teams—and our hiring and onboarding feature saves you a ton of precious time.

Get a head start with pre-filled, customizable job descriptions, post to top job boards like Indeed and ZipRecruiter with one click, make a branded career page to show off your business, and even let walk-ins apply instantly with QR codes. 

With Homebase, you also have built-in applicant tracking, custom screening questions, and in-app messaging that lets you schedule interviews and chat with people. Track every candidate’s status, run background checks without leaving the platform, and get clear reports to make better decisions for your business—no extra tools needed.

Once you’ve found the right hire, Homebase makes onboarding a breeze. Send digital welcome packets, collect tax forms and e-signatures before day one, securely store everything in one place, and track hiring metrics. Plus, on top of its free hiring and onboarding tools, Homebase’s free plan gives you:

• Integrated time tracking + payroll
• Compliance and HR features

If you need more features as you grow, it’s easy to upgrade to a paid plan—our Essentials plan is only $20 per month per location, for unlimited employees.

Ready to give every new hire the same smooth start? Try Homebase free today, and start hiring on all cylinders.

Small business recruitment software FAQs

How does recruitment software help small businesses?

Recruitment software helps small businesses by posting jobs to multiple sites at once, organizing all your applicants in one spot, auto-sorting resumes, scheduling interviews, and sending updates to candidates.

Some recruiting software options—even free ones like Homebase—go further with things like HR and compliance support, integrated time tracking and payroll, and more.

‍Is there free recruiting software for startups?

Absolutely! There are some great free recruiting software options tailored for startups. If you’re a growing an hourly team, Homebase is a standout choice.​ The Basic plan—which includes hiring, onboarding, time clocks, scheduling, messaging, and more—is free for up to 20 employees.

What’s the difference between ATS and recruitment software?

An ATS (Applicant Tracking System) is actually a type of recruitment software. It’s software that tracks candidates through the hiring pipeline, helping you collect resumes, manage applications, and organize interviews.

Recruitment software is broader: it can often include ATS features, plus extras like job board posting, onboarding tools, employee handbooks, even compliance and HR.

Can recruiting software help with onboarding?

It definitely can. The best recruiting software tools include onboarding features like sending offer letters, collecting tax forms (W-4, W-9, and I-9 forms), setting up e-signatures, and sharing welcome packets or employee handbooks. Recruiting software helps get new hires settled in faster, saving you from chasing down paperwork.

How do you optimize recruiting and onboarding?

To optimize recruiting and onboarding, keep it simple, consistent, and tech-friendly:

• Set clear expectations early, so new hires know what success looks like from the jump
• Use recruiting software to post jobs everywhere at once, screen candidates quickly, and stay organized
• Create clear job descriptions so you attract the right people from the start
• Standardize your interview process with templates to keep things fair and fast
• Automate onboarding—send digital welcome packets, tax forms, and handbooks before day one

The smoother it all runs, the better experience for your new hires—and your entire business.

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