Ashby vs Greenhouse vs Lever (2026): Which Applicant Tracking System to Buy at Your Company Size
By Jascha Kaykas-Wolff, CEO of Visiting Media, former CMO of Mozilla and BitTorrent
Last updated November 6, 2026 · 7 min read
Choose Ashby if you have fewer than 100 employees: it is the only one of the three with a published price ($400 a month), and that price already covers the ATS, a candidate CRM, interview scheduling and recruiting analytics. Choose Greenhouse if you are past a few hundred employees and hiring across several departments, because its structured scorecards and 400-plus integrations hold up when 60 interviewers touch the process. Choose Lever only if your recruiters live in outbound sourcing and you are comfortable buying from Employ, the private equity-backed company that has owned it since 2022.
Thursday, 4:40 p.m. The hiring manager pings you asking where the backend candidate from last week stands. You check the spreadsheet, then a Gmail thread, then the Calendly invites. Two interviewers never submitted feedback. The candidate accepted another offer at noon.
That is usually the week someone gets budget for an applicant tracking system. Ashby, Greenhouse and Lever are the three names that come up first at venture-backed companies, and all three will store candidates, run interview stages and post to job boards. Where they differ is who they were built for and how much they tell you about price before you talk to sales.
Plans and limits come from the Ashby, Greenhouse and Lever pricing pages, checked November 6, 2026. Integration counts come from each vendor’s integrations directory. Greenhouse and Lever quote every deal privately, so this page gives no list price for them. SaaS Versus does not sell recruiting software, and the site footer notes that some links may be affiliate links.
Ashby vs Greenhouse vs Lever at a glance
| Feature | Ashby | Greenhouse | Lever |
|---|---|---|---|
| Starting price | $400/month (Foundations, up to 100 employees); 10% off on annual terms | Not published; quote only | Not published; quote only |
| Free plan | No | No | No |
| Plans | Foundations (up to 100 employees), Plus (101 to 1,000), Enterprise (1,000+) | Core, Plus, Pro | One core platform plus quoted add-ons |
| Pricing model | Company-size bands; Plus and Enterprise priced on size, usage and commitment | Customized to hiring needs | Available upon request |
| Built in without add-ons | ATS, candidate CRM, scheduling, analytics | Core: ATS, sourcing and CRM, scorecards, scheduling, reporting, SSO | ATS and CRM, dashboards, AI interview transcripts |
| SSO | $100/month extra | Included in Core | Not listed on the pricing page |
| Integrations claimed | 250+ | Over 400 | No count published |
| Best for | Startups under 100 employees and data-minded recruiting teams up to about 1,000 | Companies of 300+ with many hiring managers and a long list of HR tools | Sourcing-heavy teams that want ATS and CRM in one record |
| Biggest drawback | Usage meters (texts, AI credits, email lookups) can add charges | No price until a demo, and the best controls sit in Pro | Private equity ownership alongside two sister ATS products |
What you can know about price before the first sales call
| Vendor | Published price | What is metered or extra | What you have to ask for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ashby | Foundations: $400/month, or $4,320/year with the 10% annual discount | Foundations includes 1,000 candidate texts and 1,500 AI credits a month; extra texts are $90 per 1,000; SSO is $100/month; AI Notetaker and Advanced Scheduling are paid add-ons | Plus and Enterprise pricing, and what the add-ons cost |
| Greenhouse | None | Texting, the BI connector and sourcing automation start at Plus; audit log and developer sandbox are in Pro | Everything, including which plan you need and the renewal increase cap |
| Lever | None | Candidate Insights, AI Screening by VONQ and Onboarding are separate quoted add-ons | Everything, including add-on pricing and the product roadmap under Employ |
One honest caveat on Greenhouse. Procurement-data sites publish buyer-reported Greenhouse contracts, and most of what they report for mid-size companies sits somewhere in the five figures per year. We could not check those numbers against any list price, so use them as leverage in the negotiation and leave them out of the budget. Ask for a cap on renewal increases in writing before you sign year one.
Ashby: the one with a price tag
Ashby sells to the kind of startup that used to cobble together Greenhouse, a sourcing tool, a scheduling tool and a BI dashboard, and its pitch is that one product does all four. The analytics are the real reason recruiting leads switch: you can build a report on pass-through rate by interviewer, or time-in-stage by department, without exporting anything to a spreadsheet.
The Foundations price is the other reason. $400 a month for a company of 40 people is a number a founder can approve in Slack. Watch the meters, though. Candidate texts come with an allowance of 1,000 a month on Foundations, and the overage is $90 per 1,000; AI credits are capped too. A team running high-volume hourly hiring will hit those caps faster than a team hiring six engineers a quarter.
SSO for $100 a month on top of a $400 plan is an odd line item. Most security teams will make you buy it anyway.
Greenhouse: the default for companies with a hiring process
Greenhouse built its name on structured hiring: interview kits and scorecards tied to a defined list of attributes for each role. That discipline is what a company of 800 with 40 open roles across sales, engineering and support actually needs. The integration list is the longest of the three, at over 400, which matters once the ATS has to talk to an HRIS, a background check vendor, an assessment tool and a payroll system.
The trade is opacity. No price on the page, three plans whose differences you learn on a demo call, and the features a larger company asks for first (an audit log and a developer sandbox) live in Pro. For a 30-person startup, Greenhouse is a lot of process to buy before there is a process to manage.
Lever: an ATS and a CRM in one record
Lever treats a candidate as a relationship before they are an applicant. Its core product puts the ATS and the sourcing CRM on one record, so a recruiter who first emailed an engineer in March sees the whole history when that engineer applies in October. Every plan includes the core ATS, CRM, reporting and integrations, plus unlimited AI interview transcripts and summaries.
Our hesitation is ownership. Employ Inc. bought Lever in 2022 and also owns Jobvite and JazzHR, three overlapping applicant tracking systems under one private equity-backed parent. Employ said at the time it had no plans to merge the products. Four years on, that is still a question worth asking your Lever rep directly: which product gets the engineers next year?
If the answer is vague, believe the vagueness.
Where each option fits (and where it does not)
| Option | Fits | Does not fit |
|---|---|---|
| Ashby | Startups under 100 employees that want one tool for ATS, sourcing, scheduling and reporting at a known price, and recruiting teams up to roughly 1,000 employees that care about funnel data | High-volume hourly hiring where text and AI usage caps get hit every month, and enterprises that need a long tail of niche HR integrations on day one |
| Greenhouse | Companies past a few hundred employees with many hiring managers, a structured interview culture to enforce, and an HR stack that needs 400-plus integrations | Early startups that need a price before a demo, and small teams who will never use half the configuration they pay for |
| Lever | Recruiting teams that source most candidates outbound and want CRM history on the same record as the application | Buyers who want a public price, or who are nervous about a product sitting next to two sister ATS brands under one parent |
Ashby: Strengths and Weaknesses
✓Pros
- ✓Published $400/month price for companies up to 100 employees
- ✓ATS, CRM, scheduling and analytics in one product, with reporting deep enough to replace a separate recruiting BI tool
✗Cons
- ✗SSO costs an extra $100/month
- ✗Usage allowances on candidate texts and AI credits
- ✗Plus and Enterprise are quote-only, so the price jumps into the unknown at 101 employees
- ✗Fewer integrations than Greenhouse (250+ against 400+)
Greenhouse: Strengths and Weaknesses
✓Pros
- ✓Structured interview kits and scorecards that scale to large interviewer pools
- ✓Over 400 pre-built integrations
✗Cons
- ✗No published pricing on any plan
- ✗Audit log and developer sandbox are Pro-only
Lever: Strengths and Weaknesses
✓Pros
- ✓ATS and sourcing CRM share one candidate record
- ✓Unlimited AI interview transcripts and summaries on the core platform
✗Cons
- ✗No published pricing, and add-ons are quoted separately
- ✗Owned by Employ alongside Jobvite and JazzHR, which clouds the roadmap
The Verdict
Under 100 employees, buy Ashby. It is the only one of the three that tells you what it costs, $400 a month covers the work a small team actually does, and the reporting will still be useful when you are 300 people. Between roughly 300 and several thousand employees, with dozens of hiring managers and an HR stack to connect, Greenhouse is the safer choice even though you will have to negotiate blind. We would put Lever third for a new buyer today, because of who owns it. The product itself is fine: if your recruiters are outbound-first and the Employ roadmap answer satisfies you, it is a perfectly good ATS.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much does Ashby cost in 2026?
Ashby publishes one price. All-In-One Foundations, for companies with up to 100 employees, is listed at $400 a month, with a 10% discount for an annual commitment. That is $4,800 a year on monthly terms or $4,320 a year paid annually. SSO is an extra $100 a month. Plus (101 to 1,000 employees) and Enterprise (1,000 and up) are quoted on company size, usage and commitment.
How much does Greenhouse cost?
Greenhouse does not publish prices. Its pricing page lists three plans (Core, Plus and Pro) with a demo button on each, and its FAQ says pricing is customized based on your company's hiring needs. Buyer-reported contract data on procurement sites mostly lands in the five figures per year for mid-size companies, but those numbers are secondhand and you will only get a real figure from a quote.
How much does Lever cost?
Lever does not publish prices either. Its pricing page shows one core platform, combining ATS and CRM, with a quote button, and says pricing is available upon request. Add-ons such as Candidate Insights, AI screening by VONQ and Onboarding are also quoted separately.
Who owns Lever?
Employ Inc. Employ announced its acquisition of Lever on August 5, 2022. Employ also owns Jobvite and JazzHR, and the three products are still sold under their own brands. The lever.co footer reads Lever by Employ.
Is Ashby better than Greenhouse for a startup?
For a company under 100 employees, yes in most cases. Ashby includes the ATS, a candidate CRM, scheduling and analytics in one product at a published $400 a month, so you can budget before the first sales call. Greenhouse is the stronger pick once you need its 400-plus integrations, a developer sandbox or the audit log in its Pro plan, which tends to matter at several hundred employees and up.
Which ATS has the most integrations?
Greenhouse. Its integrations directory claims over 400 pre-built integrations. Ashby claims 250-plus. Lever runs a partner marketplace but does not state a count on it.
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