The Best Free ATS for Companies Hiring Their First 10 People

For most companies hiring their first 10 people, the best free ATS is Breezy HR's Bootstrap plan: free forever, unlimited users and candidates, but only one active position at a time. If you hire hourly staff, Homebase says hiring is free on every plan. All figures below are as of 13 October 2026 and come from each vendor's own pages, so they are the vendors' claims.

What does a free ATS actually give you?

A free ATS gives you a place to post a job, collect applicants and move them through stages. It does not give you everything. Every free tier reviewed here caps something: active jobs, stored records, how long candidates stay accessible, or which product you must use alongside it.

For a team with a few open roles a year, that trade is fine. For a team running three searches at once, the cap on active jobs is the deciding factor, so check it first.

Which free ATS tools exist in 2026?

Four tools publish a usable permanent free tier. Three well-known paid tools do not.

Sources: Breezy, Zoho, Homebase, Odoo, Workable, JazzHR, Recruitee.

Is Breezy HR's free plan good enough for a startup?

Yes, if you hire one role at a time. Breezy's Bootstrap plan includes a branded career site, distribution to 50+ job boards, GDPR tooling and resume parsing in 20+ languages, according to Breezy's pricing page. That is more than most free tiers offer.

The limits matter. You maintain "one active job opening or candidate pool at a time," and you must close or archive one before activating another. Breezy also says Bootstrap provides unlimited access to candidates added within the last 30 days. Export anything you want to keep.

Paid plans start at $157 or $189 a month (Startup), then $273 or $329 (Growth) and $439 or $529 (Business), depending on billing term. Breezy says annual pricing includes two months free. Add-ons such as SMS credits (from $41 a month) cost extra. A 14-day full-feature trial needs no credit card.

Is Zoho Recruit's free plan worth using?

It works for one role and a small candidate pool, and it fits best if you already use Zoho. The Free plan is described by Zoho as "Recruitment basics for startups looking to hire their first teams," with 1 active job per recruiter license, candidate management, email management and interview scheduling.

The plan comparison shows the real ceiling: 5,000 total records (1,000 per module), 256MB of file storage, 5 email templates and 500 API calls a day. Resume parsing, mass email and boolean search are not on Free. Standard allows 10 active jobs per recruiter license and Enterprise allows 20.

Zoho says a 15-day fully featured trial moves you to the Free plan afterward, so you can test paid features before falling back.

Should you use Homebase or Odoo instead?

Use Homebase if your first 10 hires are shift workers. Use Odoo if you want to run one business app for free and may later add others.

Homebase says hiring is "Free on every Homebase plan," including applicant tracking, a branded careers page, interview scheduling and one-click posting to Indeed, ZipRecruiter, Google, Facebook and Craigslist, per its hiring page. Its Basic plan is $0 for one location and up to 10 employees. An optional Hiring Assistant (AI screening and automated scheduling) costs $99 a month billed annually or $199 month to month.

Odoo's Recruitment page says the app is "Free, forever, with unlimited users," because your first app is always free. You pay once you install more applications, as Odoo's pricing page explains. If you plan to add accounting or inventory later, that trigger is worth planning for.

What do paid ATS tools cost when you outgrow the free tier?

Published entry prices start around $1,000 a year and climb quickly, and some vendors publish nothing at all.

JazzHR's fine print says standard pricing does not apply to staffing or recruiting agencies, HR service providers, multi-location businesses or organizations with over 250 employees. Recruitee tells agencies to ask for a custom quote and sets a one-year minimum contract, with monthly payment possible. Staffing agencies should compare agency-specific tools, and this site is affiliated with Sortinghat, an ATS/CRM for staffing agencies, as disclosed above.

For the wider stack around your ATS, see the HR tech stack for a 100-person startup.

Do free ATS limits create compliance risk?

They can, mostly around record retention. The EEOC says employers must keep "all personnel or employment records for one year," and that when a charge is filed, relevant records must be kept until final disposition of the charge or any lawsuit.

That rule sits awkwardly beside a plan that limits candidate access to 30 days. Breezy's wording is about access, and the page does not say whether data is deleted. Export applicant records on a schedule, and check how your tool treats older candidates. This is general information, not legal advice. Also check any AI screening features against local rules such as New York City Local Law 144 before switching them on.

What's still unclear?

• Homebase's pages disagree. The hiring page says hiring is free on every plan. The pricing page's Basic card lists no hiring item, and its FAQ points to the Plus plan for hiring tools. Confirm on signup which features your plan includes.
• Job limits for Homebase and Odoo are not stated on the pages reviewed, so a cap may exist.
• Odoo's pricing page shows the One App Free plan but does not name Recruitment. The Recruitment page does.
• Weakest point of this argument: all figures are vendor-reported, none are independently tested, and free tiers change often. Re-check the pricing page before you sign up.