The 6 Best CRM Systems for Recruitment Agencies

Candidates waiting to interview (featured image)

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Recruitment agency CRM software can streamline your processes, improve efficiency and increase productivity. CRM systems make it easier for your teams to collaborate, manage deadlines and follow-ups with ease. 

Our expert research has found the best CRM systems for recruitment agencies including Recruit CRM, best for data reporting and analytics, Zoho Recruit, best for its innovative features and Manatal, best for agencies on a limited budget. No two agencies are the same so we’ve put together the best of the bunch for you to browse and find your perfect match. 

Read through each of our reviews or skip to a specific provider to find out more about them. Alternatively, you can use our free quote tool to be matched with the best CRM systems for your business. We just need a few details from you and you’ll receive no-obligation quotes from trusted providers.

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Recruit CRM

Recruiterflow

Manatal

monday CRM

Zoho Recruit

Best For

Data reporting and analytics

Best For

Automation and candidate sourcing

Best For

Agencies on a tight budget

Best For

24/7 customer support

Best For

Targeting new candidates

Best For

Innovative features

Lowest Price (per user, per month)

$85

Lowest Price (per user, per month)

$99

Lowest Price (per user, per month)

$15

Lowest Price (per user, per month)

$9

Lowest Price (per user, per month)

$9

Lowest Price (per user, per month)

$25

Highest Price (per user, per month)

$165

Highest Price (per user, per month)

$129

Highest Price (per user, per month)

$35

Highest Price (per user, per month)

$19

Highest Price (per user, per month)

$120

Highest Price (per user, per month)

$75

Free Trial

Yes (length not specified)

Free Trial

14 days

Free Trial

14 days

Free Trial

14 days

Free Trial

Free version

Free Trial

Free version

Compare quotes Compare quotes Compare quotes Try monday CRM Try HubSpot Compare quotes

Recruit CRM – Best for data reporting and analytics

Suitable for recruitment agencies of all sizes

recruit crm logo
Recruit CRM
Pricing $85 - $165 per user, per month
Quick overview

Growing your recruitment agency isn’t always about securing more lucrative roles, or widening your client base. Often, it’s simply about understanding what’s not working, and what is – and doing more of the latter. Recruit CRM helps you do just that, with a series of live analytics dashboards designed to help you make better, more data-driven recruitment decisions. You can track the performance of individual team members with ease, and measure how you’ve been delivering against KPIs. You can also do a deep dive into the effort to revenue ratios for each of your clients, and get a simple, colorful visualization of how your candidates stack up (pictured below).

Recruit CRM reporting dashboards and interface
A simple, colorful visualization of how your candidates stack up.

Recruit CRM pricing

Recruit CRM offers a choice of three pricing plans: ‘Pro’, ‘Business’, or ‘Enterprise’.

ProBusinessEnterprise
$85 per user, per month$125 per user, per month$165 per user, per month

‘Pro’ ($85 per user, per month) starts at quite a steep price point, but you get a lot for your money. That includes job board posting, a fully integrated mailbox, and a sourcing Chrome extension, plus unlimited open jobs, bulk emails, and email templates. Basically, it’s an ideal CRM solution for small to medium-sized recruitment agencies with scalability on the brain.

‘Business’ ($125 per user, per month) has everything in the ‘Pro’ plan plus some other perks. It comes with resume/CV formatting, API access, and allows you to create custom fields for each entity.

‘Enterprise’ ($165 per user, per month) is for those recruitment agencies that are already there, and need a more customizable approach to CRM software. And boy, does it deliver.

As well as unlimited live training, your recruitment agency will receive a dedicated account manager to help you get the most out of the system. You’ll also score a CRM interface that you can personalize with your own branding, plus custom limits on companies and candidates.

While all that is cool, it still comes at a premium. So with that eye-watering price tag in mind, we’d only recommend Recruit CRM’s ‘Enterprise’ plan to… well, enterprises!

Recruit CRM also offers a free trial, though it limits the software’s functionality to:

  • Email templates
  • Four open jobs
  • 50 companies and contacts
  • 50 candidates

Pros

  • The basic plan offers generous limits on companies and candidates (10,000 each)
  • Works with Zapier to offer over 2,000 third-party app integrations
  • Straightforward, transparent pricing

Cons

  • You’ll pay more to be billed monthly, rather than annually
  • Its free trial is severely limited, and Recruit CRM doesn’t specify how long it’s for

Recruiterflow – Best for automation and intelligent candidate sourcing

Most suitable for medium-sized to large recruitment agencies

Recruiterflow
Pricing $99 - $129 per user, per month
Quick overview

Purpose-built for the recruitment industry, Recruiterflow CRM promises to help you automate and improve your workflow. How? Well, it eliminates the need for manual data entry, saving you time, headaches, and stiff fingers. And its innovative ‘one-click sourcing’ claims to increase the efficiency of your candidate search threefold. What’s more, there are a couple of pricing plans to choose from, based on the size of your agency – although the steep starting cost may exclude most smaller teams. That said, you can try before you buy – all of Recruiterflow’s plans offer a free 14-day trial.

Recruiterflow pricing

BasicProAdvanced
$99 per user, per month$109 per user, per month$129 per user, per month

Similar to Recruit CRM, who we just looked at, Recruiterflow presents three separate offerings: ‘Basic’, ‘Pro’ for growing businesses, and ‘Advanced’ for enterprise-level companies.

‘Basic’ ($99 per user, per month) offers most of the technical features you’ll need, such as custom fields and unlimited job openings. The real gem here, though, is the 24/5 email and chat support this plan offers – which, incidentally, happens to be some of the finest recruitment agency CRM support we found.

‘Pro’ ($109 per user, per month) is best suited for businesses looking to scale and grow. You get all the ‘basic’ plan features, unlimited custom fields, and API (Application Programming Interface) access.

‘Advanced’ ($129 per user, per month)  adds recruiting automation, priority support, and custom SLAs. We still say to stick to the ‘Pro’ plan if you can – it’ll do everything you need it to, and probably more!

Pros

  • Excellent candidate tracking capabilities
  • Highly customizable
  • Customer feedback suggests Recruiterflow’s LinkedIn integration is a winner…
  • ...as is its Chrome extension!

Cons

  • Its onboarding and training modules could use an improvement
  • The CRM’s interface is a little dated, but it’s not something that’ll interfere with your daily usage of it
Two suppliers in, and CRM pricing plans already got your head spinning? Head to our CRM price comparison guide to get to grips with the costs.

Manatal – Best for recruiters on a shoestring budget

Most suitable for very small recruitment agencies

Manatal logo
Manatal
Pricing $15 - $35 per user, per month
Quick overview

Talk about versatility! Manatal is a cloud-based CRM and ATS (Applicant Tracking System), all rolled into one. It also works seamlessly with wherever you post jobs – be it Monster, Indeed, LinkedIn, CareerBuilder, Glassdoor, or JobsDB – and pulls all the info you need to engage the right candidates into a single, vibrant, and user-friendly interface. Manatal’s integrations with Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter also allow you to reach into social media to automatically enrich your candidate profiles – giving your team a more holistic view of the individual, and helping you get them into a satisfying role.

Manatal pricing

Manatal offers three refreshingly affordable pricing plans for small recruitment agencies: ‘Professional’, ‘Enterprise’, and ‘Custom’.

ProfessionalEnterpriseCustom
$15 per user, per month$35 per user, per monthOn request

‘Professional’ ($15 per user, per month) buys you integration with social media platforms, as well as those powerful resumé parsing and candidate data enrichment tools we just spoke about. You’ll also benefit from AI (artificial intelligence)-driven applicant scoring, plus automated job recommendations and workflows.

‘Enterprise’ ($35 per user, per month) removes the limits on jobs per account (15) and candidates (10,000) that Manatal’s cheapest plan imposes. Apart from that, it doesn’t offer a huge amount of additional value, so you might as well save yourself some cash and stick with the ‘Professional’ plan.

A custom plan adds a few additional features and integrations (plus API access), but it’s mainly notable for introducing a dedicated account manager. Again, if you don’t feel like this alone is worth paying an undisclosed (but surely expensive!) price for, it’s worth sticking to the basic plan.

Manatal offers a 14-day free trial on its ‘Professional’ and ‘Enterprise’ plans.

Pros

  • Highly affordable
  • Integrates intuitively with G Suite applications
  • Boasts an interface that's available in both English and Spanish
  • Has an excellent desktop version...

Cons

  • ...is let down by a mediocre mobile app
  • Online reviews suggest Manatal’s support team could be more responsive
  • It may be a little too simplistic for the needs of expanding recruitment agencies

You’re almost finished with our list of the top 5 CRM systems for recruitment agencies in the US. Time to start comparing quotes?

Simply hit one of the buttons below to start our quick questionnaire. It takes just 30 seconds to do, and by telling us more about your business’ specific requirements, we can help ensure that you receive the best, most personalized rates on recruitment agency CRM software.

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monday CRM – Best for round-the-clock customer support

Most suitable for small and medium-sized recruitment agencies

New logo of monday CRM
monday CRM
Pricing $9 - $19 per user, per month
Quick overview

Not many CRM suppliers out there provide 24/7 customer support. Not many providers are a genuine pleasure to use, either. But then again, not all CRM companies are monday CRM. With both user-friendliness and budget-friendliness in spades, monday CRM is well-suited to small and medium-sized recruitment agencies looking to scale. Oh, and you’ll love it if you’re a visual learner. monday.com sports one of the most attractive CRM interfaces we’ve ever seen – making managing complex timelines of clients, candidates, and job openings a serious cinch.

There’s a lot to love about monday CRM, but we’re particularly enamored with its job recruitment template (pictured below). Via a cleverly color-coded display, monday CRM’s highly customizable template allows you to visualize every step of the recruiting management flow.

monday.com job recruitment template

You can add and remove columns to fit your agency’s specific needs, and easily export data to Excel. Better yet, you can integrate your template with LinkedIn to bolster candidate profiles, and help your recruitment team see the bigger picture.

monday CRM pricing

monday CRM offers three main plans: ‘Basic’, ‘Standard’, and ‘Pro’. Here’s how those packages shake down.

Starting at just $9 per user, per month (that’s $45 per month for five users), monday CRM’s ‘Basic’ plan is one of the most affordable CRM systems for recruitment agencies out there. It supports whiteboard collaboration, and its intuitive, drag-and-drop ‘Kanban-style’ dashboards support you throughout every step of the candidate journey.

Does this pricing seem a little steep? Why not take a look at Pipedrive vs monday CRM to see if you could save some dollars with a different CRM?

With monday CRM you’ll score 24/7 support, along with a slick mobile app that’s compatible with both iOS and Android.

However, you’ll want to be on at least the ‘Standard’ plan ($12 per user, per month) for the juiciest features. We’re talking about Zoom integration (crucial for vetting candidates during the COVID-19 era), as well as timeline and calendar views. Your file storage capacity will also get an upgrade, and you’ll benefit from integrations and automations being thrown into the mix, too.

For $19 per user, per month, the ‘Pro’ plan adds even more functionality – notably private boards, improved reporting and data visualization, and Google authentication. monday CRM also offers an ‘Enterprise’ plan with bespoke pricing, however this should be beyond the needs of most recruitment agencies.

Pros

  • It's so, so, so easy to use
  • monday CRM offers daily webinars for support, as well as promising a response time of less than an hour
  • All plans boast unlimited free viewers and boards
  • Stunning mobile app

Cons

  • monday CRM isn’t technically CRM – it’s more like project management software
  • It isn’t built specifically for the needs of recruitment agencies, either

monday CRM offers a free 14-day trial across all of its pricing plans. 


HubSpot – Best for targeting and engaging applicants

Most suitable for growing recruitment agencies

HubSpot Logo
HubSpot
Pricing $9 - $120 per user, per month
Quick overview

OK, so HubSpot – unlike most of the other CRM suppliers on this list – doesn’t offer specialized software for recruitment agencies. HubSpot is primarily a great CRM for sales, service, and (most prominently) marketing. But what’s actually that different between marketing a product and recruiting for a role? Not all that much, really – which is why HubSpot’s best-in-class marketing automation tools can still help your recruitment agency out.

Instead of targeting potential new customers, you’re marketing to potential new candidates. You’re focusing less on leads, and more on applicants. And, instead of selling a product, you’re selling an opportunity.

Basically, what we’re trying to say is that HubSpot is one of the foremost tools recruitment agencies can employ – regardless of whether it was made for them or not. It offers a free plan, plus one of the slickest, most stylish interfaces we’ve seen – as well as affordable solutions for sales, marketing and customer service teams.

HubSpot personalized email
HubSpot allowed us to add specific categories to personalize our emails. Their email marketing features can be especially helpful when reaching out to potential applicants.

HubSpot pricing

HubSpot is made up of three products, or ‘hubs’:

  • Marketing Hub: Contains all the features you need for capturing leads and turning them into candidates with engaging, targeted role marketing
  • Sales Hub: Perfect for busy sales teams, this product helps your team win clients, and secure more lucrative roles for your applicants
  • Customer Service Hub: Empowers your agency to provide excellent customer support, and turn clients and candidates into ambassadors of your brand
  • CMS (Content Management System) Hub: Allows you to create captivating websites and manage all aspects of the conversion funnel.
  • Operations Hub: A unified toolset that lets businesses automate their processes and centralize their data.

Each product is available in three ascending tiers: Starter, Professional, and Enterprise. Which one you go for will depend on the number of paid users you require, as well as the level of features. It’ll also depend on your budget, because HubSpot’s pricing plans get pricey – and fast. Let’s take a look at the damage.

Marketing HubSales HubCustomer Service HubCMS HubOperations HubTry it now
Starter (1 paid user, 1,000 contacts included)$45 per month$45 per month$45 per month$23 per month$45 per monthTry HubSpot Starter
Professional (5 paid users, 1,000 contacts included)$800 per month$450 per month$450 per month$360 per month$720 per monthTry HubSpot Professional
Enterprise (10 paid users, 10,000 contacts included)$3,600 per month$1,200 per month$1,200 per month$1,200 per month$2,000 per monthTry HubSpot Enterprise

HubSpot’s CRM Suite gives you the Marketing, Sales, Customer Service, CMS, and Operations Hubs all rolled into a single package, and with a 25% discount. 

Regardless of the specific ‘hub’ or pricing tier you select, what you pay will depend on the amount of contacts you plan to store, as well as the number of people you’ll need using the software.

HubSpot also offers a completely free plan. As well as unlimited users, unlimited data, and a contact storage limit of up to 1,000,000, it’s packed with features to help grow your business. Among others, that includes:

  • Deal, prospect, and pipeline management
  • Reporting and company insights
  • Email tracking and notifications
  • Live chat and meeting scheduling features

Want to start mixing and matching, and put together the HubSpot CRM package that’s right for your business? Head to HubSpot’s website to get started.

Pros

  • Sports a generous free plan for fresh-faced recruitment agencies
  • Smooth user experience (UX)
  • Workflows are easy to set up, and can automate key (albeit boring) administrative processes

Cons

  • Additional one-time fees may apply for onboarding and implementation
  • Complicated pricing!

Zoho Recruit – Best for innovative features at an affordable cost

Most suitable for small recruitment agencies

Zoho logo
Zoho Recruit
Pricing $25 - $75 per user, per month
Quick overview

Payroll, event management, expense tracking… Zoho has made its name providing productivity-enhancing software for small businesses. So, when it entered the recruitment space in 2009 with an industry-specific CRM tool, you knew it was going to be good. And (spoiler alert) it is. With customizable resumé templatesLinkedIn integration, and savvy candidate background screening functionality, Zoho Recruit is innovative recruitment agency CRM at its finest. Better still are Zoho’s “Source Boosters” – its proprietary, state-of-the-art system to help you source America’s best talent (and give your bottom line a boost, too!).

Zoho Recruit pricing

Zoho Recruit lets you pick from its three pricing tiers:

StandardProfessionalEnterprise
$25 per user, per month$50 per user, per month$75 per user, per month

At $25 per user, per month, Zoho Recruit’s ‘Standard’ plan isn’t only inexpensive – it’s downright feature-rich, too. Strong candidate sourcing and tracking capabilities underpin even better resumé management tools. Perhaps the only let down comes in the form of the plan’s app integrations, which are limited to just Google, Microsoft, and Zoho’s (admittedly impressive) range of productivity tools.

Upgrading to the ‘Professional’ plan ($50 per user, per month) unlocks a litany of applicant-focused features. A candidate portal allows them to see a summary of the jobs they’re in the frame for, while – from your end – a series of behavioral and background screening tools enables you to match the right people to the right roles.

Then there’s the ‘Enterprise’ plan ($75 per user, per month). If you’ve read our reviews of the five recruitment agency CRM software suppliers above, you’ll have seen we don’t tend to endorse most enterprise-level plans. With Zoho, we’re more enthusiastic.

Zoho Recruit’s ‘Enterprise’ plan adds both a client and a vendor portal to the table, as well as a recruitment territory management feature. You’ll also be able to create custom, organization-specific roles permissions and profiles, and help ensure consistency in your recruitment workflow.

This plan is also the most affordable enterprise-level recruitment agency CRM we’ve found. Head to Zoho’s website to try it out – it’s free for 15 days.

Pros

  • ‘Zia’, Zoho Recruit’s AI-powered personal assistant bot, helps you find the right hires faster
  • Extremely user-friendly
  • Visualizes your agency’s key data on a range of colorful reporting dashboards

Cons

  • Lacks 24/7 support
  • Some reviews suggest the setup process can be a little painful

Next steps

So, how do you select the right CRM software for your recruitment agency? Well, since your decision will probably come down to both features and price, let’s recap our list of the best CRM systems for recruiters:

  • Recruit CRM: Best for data reporting and analytics | from $85
  • Recruiterflow: Best for automation and candidate sourcing | from $99
  • Manatal: Best for the budget-conscious | from $15
  • monday CRM: Best for 24/7 customer support | from $9
  • HubSpot: Best for targeting new candidates | from $45 (or for free!)
  • Zoho Recruit: Best for its innovative approach to CRM | from $25

Be mindful, though, that choosing a system based on price and features alone doesn’t always work. You’ll also want software that’s scalable, that’s suitable for the size of your team, and that works with the applications your recruitment agency already uses every day.

Finding a CRM system that does all that isn’t always easy. But we can help.

Simply provide us with a few details about your recruitment agency’s CRM requirements. This helps us get to know you a little better – so we can further understand your agency’s unique needs, and match you with only the CRM suppliers that fit those needs to a tee.

Once we’ve matched you up, you’ll receive tailored quotes from suppliers that fit the bill, and who’ll also be able to offer advice about CRM implementation and setup. The whole process is free, too – and the quotes come with absolutely no obligation. The only catch, perhaps, is that you have to be based in the US to be eligible. Sorry, Canada!

How We Test CRM Systems for Businesses

We tested 13 market-leading CRM systems to evaluate them in terms of functionality, usability, cost, scalability, and more so we can make the most useful recommendations to US businesses.

Our rigorous testing process means these products have been scored and rated in six main categories of investigation and 13 subcategories – in fact, we covered 84 areas of investigation in total. We then gave each category score a ‘relevance weighting' to ensure the product's final score perfectly reflects the needs and requirements of Expert Market readers – and that's our product testing algorithm in a nutshell!

Our main testing categories for CRM systems are:

Features: the functionalities and capabilities provided by the CRM software, such as contact management, lead and opportunity tracking, and task and activity management.

Help and Support: the resources and assistance available to users when they encounter issues or require guidance while using the CRM software.

Customization: the ability to tailor the CRM software to suit the specific needs and processes of the organization, e.g. customizing fields, layouts, and workflows.

Scalability: the ability of the CRM software to accommodate the growth and changing needs of the organization, such as the capacity to handle a growing customer database.

Price: the cost associated with using the CRM software. It includes factors such as licensing fees, subscription plans, and additional charges for add-on modules or features.

Team Structure – Sales CRM: determining if a platform makes it easier to manage large sales teams, including team dashboards, team hierarchies, and team inboxes.

Usability – Small Business CRM: assessing the simplicity of the interface, the ease of navigating through menus and options, and the overall user experience.

 

Written by:
Rob Binns
Rob writes mainly about the payments industry, but also brings to the table industry-specific knowledge of CRM software, business loans, fulfilment, and invoice finance. When not exasperating his editor with bad puns, he can be found relaxing in a sunny (socially-distanced) corner, with a beer and a battered copy of Dostoevsky.
Reviewed by:
James draws on his 4+ years experience as a researcher to offer specialized advice on a wide range of categories from CRM to Fleet Management. He believes all businesses can grow if they use the right tools and services.