Manatal vs Zoho Recruit Pricing and AI Screening

Short answer: Manatal is the cheaper way to get AI candidate scoring and Zoho Recruit is the cheaper way to get a large, configurable staffing ATS. Manatal charges $15, $35 or $55 per user a month billed annually and puts automatic AI candidate scoring on all three plans. Zoho Recruit charges $25, $50 or $75 per recruiter a month on its Staffing Agency edition, and its AI screening features start at $50, one tier above the entry price. For a five-recruiter agency, AI screening costs about $900 a year on Manatal and $3,000 a year on Zoho Recruit.

Both products end up on the same shortlist because both publish their prices, both offer a free trial without a sales call, and both charge per recruiter rather than per employee. That makes them the two easiest applicant tracking systems for a small US agency or in-house team to price on a Tuesday afternoon. They differ on where the AI sits, how hard the job and parsing limits bite, and how much configuration you get. We read manatal.com/pricing and Zoho Recruit's pricing data on October 5, 2026, and every figure below says where it came from.

Manatal vs Zoho Recruit at a glance

Manatal vs Zoho Recruit 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 limit counts per account, not per user, so adding a second recruiter on Professional does not add jobs. Our Manatal pricing page goes through every plan and the AI Interviewer, which Manatal sells separately without printing a rate on its pricing page.

Zoho Recruit runs two editions with separate price lists, and picking the wrong one is the costliest mistake on the page. Staffing Agency, built for firms placing candidates with clients, charges $25 for Standard, $50 for Professional and $75 for Enterprise per recruiter a month billed annually, or $30, $60 and $90 monthly. Corporate HR, built for internal hiring, charges $25 for Standard and $50 for Enterprise. Both editions have a Forever Free tier, and add-ons are billed on top: extra job openings, mass mail, video interview credits and an employee referral portal sold in packs of ten. The full list, and the $1,000 to $3,000 Jumpstart onboarding packages, are on our Zoho Recruit pricing page.

Is Manatal cheaper than Zoho Recruit?

At the entry price, yes: $15 against $25 per seat. For AI screening the gap is wider, because Manatal scores candidates on its $15 plan and Zoho Recruit's screening starts on its $50 plans. The exception is a team that needs many open jobs on a budget, where Manatal's 15-job cap on Professional pushes you to $35 while Zoho's Staffing Standard allows 100.

Here is what that looks like over a year for the team sizes most agencies actually have. All figures use annual billing and the cheapest plan on each side that includes AI screening.

Two caveats keep this honest. Seats grow faster than anything else on both bills, so price the team you expect in two years, not the one you have. And neither number includes the add-ons you are likely to buy: Manatal's AI Interviewer has no published rate, and Zoho's extra job openings, mass mail and referral licenses are billed monthly on top.

Which is better for AI resume screening, Manatal or Zoho Recruit?

Manatal, if the question is how much AI you get for the money. Its pricing page lists automatic AI candidate scoring, AI recommendations of candidates against the job description, AI summaries that show how each candidate matches your requirements, and adjustable weighting of the criteria behind those recommendations, all on every plan. It also enriches profiles from public social data and indexes CV and LinkedIn skills, which helps when you search your own database later.

Zoho Recruit keeps the comparable features higher up. On the Staffing Agency edition, Pre Screening and Semantic Search first appear on Professional at $50 a seat. On Corporate HR, AI Candidate Matching sits on Enterprise, also $50. Resume parsing has a daily limit on the lower Staffing tiers: 250 a day on Standard and 500 on Professional, unlimited only on Enterprise. A daily cap does not cost extra. It just means that when a posting pulls 900 applications over a weekend, part of the pile waits until the next day.

What neither vendor publishes is a written reason for each candidate's position that a hiring manager can check line by line. A match score tells you who the system liked. It does not tell you that a candidate ranked third because they lack the forklift certification your knockout rule requires. Ask both vendors to show you that on your own applicants during the trial.

Manatal vs Zoho Recruit for staffing agencies

Agencies are where the choice gets less obvious. Zoho Recruit's Staffing Agency edition is built around client companies, client contacts, submissions and placements, and it ties into the rest of Zoho if you already run Zoho CRM, Books or Mail. The configuration ceiling is high, with Jumpstart packages that set up custom fields, views, roles and layout rules for you. If your desk runs complex submittal workflows across many clients, that depth is worth the higher seat price.

Manatal also sells to agencies, with a recruitment CRM, client and contact records and a Chrome extension for sourcing, and it is the faster product to get running. The question is whether you would rather pay less per seat and accept a simpler model, or pay more and get room to grow into. Both systems track a placement up to the hire. Collecting the fee is a separate job, and if clients regularly sit on placement invoices past 30 days, software that chases every unpaid invoice by email and text is a cheaper fix than any ATS upgrade.

For a broader field, our guide to the best ATS for recruiters compares Bullhorn, Loxo, Recruit CRM, Ceipal and others on the same basis, and the ATS pricing comparison lists every system that publishes a rate.

What if the real problem is the applicant pile?

Many teams comparing Manatal and Zoho Recruit already have an ATS that works. What they lack is time to read every application. Moving systems does not fix that on its own, because the screening you need sits behind a seat price that rises with every recruiter you hire, and on Zoho behind a daily parsing limit as 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. Plans are priced on applicants screened, not seats, from $199 a month or $99 a month billed yearly, on the Prescreener pricing page. Our candidate scoring software page shows how each score is explained.

Manatal vs Zoho Recruit, frequently asked questions

Is Manatal better than Zoho Recruit?

Manatal is better if you want AI candidate scoring at the lowest seat price, since it is on every plan from $15 a user a month. Zoho Recruit is better if you need a deeply configurable staffing ATS, more open jobs on the entry plan, or a free tier, and you are willing to pay $50 a seat for its AI screening.

How much does Zoho Recruit cost per user?

Zoho Recruit charges per recruiter. The Staffing Agency edition is $25, $50 or $75 a recruiter a month billed annually, or $30, $60 or $90 monthly. The Corporate HR edition is $25 or $50 annually. Both have a Forever Free tier, and add-ons such as extra job openings and mass mail are billed separately.

Does Manatal charge per user or per job?

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

Can I try Manatal and Zoho Recruit for free?

Yes. Manatal offers a 14-day trial with no credit card. Zoho Recruit offers a 15-day trial of its Enterprise features, after which the account drops to the Forever Free plan, and it backs paid plans with a 45-day money-back guarantee. Load real applicants from a role you already screened by hand and compare the rankings.

Which is easier to switch away from later?

Neither locks you into a long contract on its published plans, but any ATS becomes your system of record once candidates, notes and placements live in it. If the main reason you are switching is screening, adding a screening layer next to your current ATS is easier to reverse than a migration.