Manatal vs Recruit CRM Pricing and AI Screening

Short answer: Manatal is the cheaper way to get AI candidate scoring and Recruit CRM is the deeper agency CRM with a metered AI layer on top. Manatal charges $15, $35 or $55 per user a month billed annually and scores candidates automatically on all three plans. Recruit CRM now prints $95, $135 and $215 per user a month and bills its AI sourcing and matching from a monthly credit pool. For a five-recruiter agency on the entry plans, that is about $900 a year on Manatal against about $5,700 on Recruit CRM before any annual discount.

The two products land on the same shortlist because both sell to small and mid-sized recruiting agencies, both run a free trial without a sales call, and both charge per recruiter seat. Past that they are built for different buyers. Manatal is a low-cost ATS with AI included. Recruit CRM is a staffing CRM with client management, sequencing and a long list of AI agents that draw on credits. We read manatal.com/pricing on October 5, 2026 and recruitcrm.io/pricing on October 6, 2026, and every figure below says where it came from.

Manatal vs Recruit CRM at a glance

Manatal vs Recruit CRM pricing

Manatal sells three published plans and a custom one. Professional is $15 per user a month billed annually and stops at 15 jobs per account and 10,000 candidates. Enterprise is $35 and lifts both limits. Enterprise Plus is $55 and adds a candidate portal, internal mobility and custom permissions. Paid monthly, the same plans cost $19, $39 and $59. The job cap counts per account, so a second recruiter on Professional does not add jobs. Our Manatal pricing page covers each plan and the AI Interviewer, which Manatal sells separately without a printed rate.

Recruit CRM changed its pricing page this year. It used to show plan features with no figures at all. Read on October 6, 2026, it prints Pro at $95, Business at $135 and Enterprise at $215 per user a month, with a toggle that advertises up to 17 percent off for annual billing. Each seat brings a monthly credit allowance, 100 on Pro, 200 on Business and 2,000 on Enterprise, which Recruit CRM values at $10, $20 and $200. Credits are pooled across the account and expire at the end of each cycle. Extra credits can be bought, and Auto Reload top-ups do not expire. The full breakdown is on our Recruit CRM pricing page.

Is Manatal cheaper than Recruit CRM?

Yes, by a wide margin at every team size. The entry seat costs $15 on Manatal against $95 on Recruit CRM, and Manatal's AI scoring is already inside that $15. Even Manatal's top published plan, Enterprise Plus at $55, costs less per seat than Recruit CRM Pro. The cost math below uses Manatal's annual rates and Recruit CRM's printed rates, because its annual per-seat figure is calculated in the browser rather than printed on the page. Take up to 17 percent off the Recruit CRM column if you commit for a year.

The gap is real, and it is not the whole story. Recruit CRM's seat price buys things Manatal either leaves out or puts on higher tiers: unlimited jobs on the entry plan, outreach sequencing, calling, contractor timesheets and billing, and a no-code automation builder. An agency that would otherwise pay for a separate sequencing tool and a timesheet product can close some of the distance. An in-house team or a small desk that mainly needs to track candidates and see who fits will not.

How do Manatal and Recruit CRM charge for AI?

Manatal includes it. Its pricing page lists automatic AI candidate scoring, AI recommendations of candidates against the job description and AI summaries of how each candidate meets your requirements on every plan, with adjustable weighting of the criteria. You do not count anything. If 400 people apply, 400 people are scored.

Recruit CRM meters it. AI candidate matching and AI sourcing are listed as included on all three plans, but both consume credits, and the page rates AI sourcing and matching at 3 credits per 100 profiles across more than 800 million external profiles, with consumption varying by country and region. The same pool pays for data enrichment (1 credit for a work email, 3 for a personal email), workflow automation runs, job multiposting, SMS, WhatsApp, calling numbers and the meeting notetaker. On Pro, 100 credits a seat is a modest monthly budget once enrichment and multiposting draw on it too, and unused credits do not roll over.

The practical difference is predictability. On Manatal the AI bill is the seat bill. On Recruit CRM the AI bill is the seat bill plus whatever your team spends from the pool, which depends on how hard recruiters lean on sourcing and enrichment in a given month. Ask for a month of real usage data from the trial before you size a plan.

Which is better for AI resume screening?

For screening inbound applicants, Manatal. Its AI scores each candidate against the job automatically, which is the screening task most small teams are trying to buy. Recruit CRM's AI is pointed at different jobs: finding people in a large external database, enriching contact details, formatting resumes for client submittals, and pitching candidates you have already picked. Its AI resume parser on every plan turns a CV into structured fields, which is useful, but parsing is not ranking.

What neither vendor shows on its pricing page is a written reason for each candidate's position that a hiring manager can check line by line. A match percentage tells you who the system preferred. It does not tell you that a candidate sits in fourth place because they lack a license your knockout rule requires. Ask both to show that on applicants from a role you already screened by hand.

Manatal vs Recruit CRM for staffing agencies

Recruit CRM is the agency product. It is built around client companies, contacts, deals, submittals and placements, with sequencing for business development, LinkedIn and WhatsApp messaging, and contractor timesheets that flow into invoicing. If your desk earns its money by winning and managing client accounts, those features are the reason to pay $95 or more a seat. Filling roles is half of an agency's work and winning the next client is the other half, and if that half is mostly phone work, an AI caller that qualifies hiring managers and books the meeting can carry the prospecting that no ATS does.

Manatal also sells to agencies, with a recruitment CRM, client records and a Chrome sourcing extension, and it is faster to set up. The choice comes down to whether you would rather pay a fraction of the price for a simpler agency model with AI included, or pay for a full staffing CRM and meter the AI. For more options, our guides to the best ATS for recruiters and Manatal vs Zoho Recruit run the same comparison against Bullhorn, Loxo, Ceipal and Zoho.

What if the real problem is the applicant pile?

Many teams comparing Manatal and Recruit CRM already have a system that holds candidates fine. What they lack is the time to read every application. Switching to a new seat-priced system does not fix that by itself, and on a credit-metered one the AI budget shrinks exactly when a posting goes well.

Prescreener does that one job and runs next to either system. It reads every inbound resume as it arrives, applies your knockout and eligibility rules the same way to every applicant, scores role-fit with the written evidence behind each score, and ranks the pile so recruiters open the strongest matches first. It never auto-rejects anyone, and the scoring is bias-audited for EEOC guidance and NYC Local Law 144. Plans are priced on applicants screened, not seats or credits, from $199 a month or $99 a month billed yearly, on the Prescreener pricing page. The candidate scoring software page shows how each score is explained.

Manatal vs Recruit CRM, frequently asked questions

Is Manatal better than Recruit CRM?

Manatal is better if you want AI candidate scoring at the lowest seat price, since it is included on every plan from $15 a user a month billed annually. Recruit CRM is better if you run a staffing agency that needs client management, outreach sequencing and contractor billing in one system, and you accept $95 or more a seat plus metered AI credits.

How much does Recruit CRM cost per user?

Recruit CRM prints Pro at $95, Business at $135 and Enterprise at $215 per user a month on its pricing page, read October 6, 2026, with up to 17 percent off for annual billing. Each seat includes 100, 200 or 2,000 monthly credits for AI sourcing, matching, enrichment and other metered features.

Does Recruit CRM charge for AI matching?

Yes, through credits. AI candidate matching and AI sourcing appear on all three plans but consume credits from a pool shared across the account, rated at 3 credits per 100 profiles. Credits included with the plan expire at the end of each cycle, and extra credits can be bought.

Does Manatal charge per user or per job?

Per user. Manatal's plans cost $15, $35 or $55 per user a month billed annually, or $19, $39 and $59 monthly. Jobs are limited per account rather than charged: Professional allows 15 jobs and 10,000 candidates for the whole account, and the higher plans remove both limits.

Can I try Manatal and Recruit CRM for free?

Yes. Manatal offers a 14-day trial with no credit card. Recruit CRM offers a 30-day free trial on Pro and Business, while Enterprise starts with a demo. Load applicants from a role you already screened by hand and compare which candidates each one puts at the top.