Spark Hire vs HireVue Pricing and AI Screening

Short answer: Spark Hire is the one you can price today and HireVue is the one you have to negotiate. Spark Hire sells one-way and live video interviews from $249 a month billed annually, and its Recruit ATS from $335 a month with a published cap of 6,000 AI resume reviews a year. HireVue publishes no rate; its own pricing page said "Starts at $35K" a year until early 2024. Spark Hire fits small and mid-sized teams that want video interviews and an ATS on one bill. HireVue fits enterprises that want AI to run and score the interview itself.

Both vendors get compared because both are "video interviewing software", but by 2026 they have moved apart. HireVue now sells an AI Interviewer that holds a two-way conversation with the candidate and scores each answer against your rubric. Spark Hire kept video interviews as a tool your team reviews, added AI summaries, and built an applicant tracking system around them. We read sparkhire.com/pricing and HireVue's pricing, AI Interviewer and Match and Apply pages for this comparison. Every figure says where it came from.

Spark Hire vs HireVue at a glance

How much does Spark Hire cost compared with HireVue?

Spark Hire costs $249 to $499 a month on its published plans, and HireVue does not publish a figure at all. On Spark Hire, one-way and live video interviews on their own cost $249 a month billed annually with unlimited jobs and users, or $299 a month with no contract, limited to five jobs at a time and five users. The ATS, Recruit, is $335 a month on Pro and $499 on Growth, both billed annually, with Enterprise by quote.

Read the footnote before you budget, though. Spark Hire's FAQ says the Recruit rates apply to companies with up to 50 employees and that pricing scales with headcount above that, while Pro is sold up to 200 employees and Growth up to 500. So a 300-person company should expect a quote above $499. The video interview card also says pricing varies by company size. Our Spark Hire pricing page walks through every plan and cap.

HireVue removed its last public number in 2024. Archived copies of hirevue.com/pricing show "Starts at $35K*" for companies of 2,500 to 7,500 employees in 2022, narrowed to 2,500 to 5,000 by January 2024, and gone by August 2024. Today the page names Essential and Premium packages and offers a demo. Procurement data from Vendr has put the average contract near $50,000 a year from a small sample. Some comparison sites quote "$35,000 a month" for HireVue; that misreads an annual figure. The full history is in our HireVue pricing breakdown.

Which one screens applicants with AI?

Both do, but at different points in the funnel, and that difference matters more than price. HireVue's AI acts on something the candidate completes. Its AI Interviewer asks your questions in a natural two-way conversation, probes with follow-ups, evaluates each response against role-specific criteria, says whether it meets them and explains why, then sends scores to your ATS. HireVue says every model passes adverse impact testing before going live and offers candidates an AI opt-out. What HireVue does not do is read and rank the resumes that arrive. Its newer Match and Apply assistant takes a candidate's skills or resume on your careers site and recommends roles to that candidate; its own FAQ says hiring decisions stay with recruiters.

Spark Hire's AI is lighter at the interview stage and broader at the front. AI Video Review and AI summaries of one-way interviews help a reviewer get through recordings faster, but a person still watches and rates them. At the front of the funnel, Recruit includes AI Resume Review, capped at 6,000 reviews a year on Pro, 24,000 on Growth and 36,000 on Enterprise, with more credits sold on request. Six thousand a year is about 500 applicants a month, which one busy hourly posting can use up.

Spark Hire vs HireVue for high-volume hiring

Volume is where the two split hardest. HireVue was built for it: its AI Interviewer page describes a healthcare team buried under more than 10,000 screening interviews for registered nurse roles, and the pitch is to screen every applicant rather than a shortlist. If you hire thousands of hourly or campus candidates a year and can carry an enterprise contract, that is the job HireVue is priced for.

Spark Hire handles volume up to the point where its caps bind. Unlimited one-way interviews on the annual video plan is generous. The constraint is earlier: deciding whom to invite. With 500 AI resume reviews a month on Pro, a team receiving 2,000 applications a month is either on Growth, buying extra credits, or reading most resumes by hand. Before you choose, count the applications you received last quarter and divide by three. Our high-volume recruiting software page shows how ranking every applicant changes that math.

Paperwork has caps too. Spark Hire's Recruit plans include 100 e-signature offer documents a year on Pro, 200 on Growth and 300 on Enterprise. A seasonal team making 400 offers will run out, and rather than moving up a tier for that alone, many send overflow offers through a standalone online document e-signing service at a per-document cost.

Which should you choose?

Choose Spark Hire if you are a small or mid-sized US team that wants video interviews now, with a price you can approve without a procurement cycle, and you are comfortable with an annual ATS contract if you add Recruit. Choose HireVue if you are an enterprise that wants AI to conduct and score structured interviews at scale, needs adverse impact documentation for every model, and has the budget for a negotiated contract. If HireVue would sit behind an enterprise ATS, our HireVue vs SmartRecruiters comparison shows how the two plug into each other.

Choose neither first if your real bottleneck sits before the interview. Both tools assume you already know whom to invite. When applications arrive by the hundreds and nobody has time to read them, the expensive step is deciding which 30 of 600 applicants get a video invite. Prescreener does that step: it reads every inbound resume and application, applies your knockout and eligibility rules, scores role-fit and ranks the pile with a written reason for each applicant, with no yearly review cap. It runs next to Spark Hire, HireVue or any ATS, at a published price from $99 a month billed yearly. See how the ranking works on AI candidate screening software, and compare other options on our Spark Hire alternative and HireVue alternative pages.

Frequently asked questions

Is Spark Hire cheaper than HireVue?

Yes, by a wide margin for most buyers. Spark Hire's video interviews start at $249 a month billed annually, about $3,000 a year. HireVue publishes no rate, but its own pricing page said its packages started at $35,000 a year until 2024, and buyer-reported contracts average near $50,000.

Does Spark Hire use AI to score candidates?

Partly. Spark Hire's Recruit ATS includes AI Resume Review, capped at 6,000 to 36,000 reviews a year by plan, and AI summaries of one-way video interviews. A person still watches and rates the video answers. HireVue's AI Interviewer, by contrast, scores each interview answer against your criteria.

Does HireVue screen resumes?

No. HireVue's AI evaluates what a candidate completes, such as an AI-run interview or an assessment. Its Match and Apply assistant reads a candidate's skills or resume to recommend roles to that candidate, but it does not rank your applicant pile for recruiters. Resume screening happens in your ATS or a separate tool.

Can you use Spark Hire without the ATS?

Yes. Spark Hire sells video interviews and its behavioral assessment as standalone products from $249 a month billed annually, or $299 a month with no contract and a five-job limit. Spark Hire integrates with more than 50 HR and applicant tracking systems.

What is a good alternative to both Spark Hire and HireVue?

It depends on the gap. If you need interviews, Willo and VidCruiter are the usual alternatives. If the problem is too many applicants to read before anyone is invited, a screening layer such as Prescreener ranks every applicant with written reasons and feeds the shortlist to whichever interview tool you keep.