Make this comparison fit your situation
Three quick choices. No extra page and no hidden score shown.
You work as
Recruitment team
Budget pressure
The static comparison stays the source; this only re-weights the fit for your context.
Ashby
All-in-one recruiting platform for in-house teams, combining applicant tracking, sourcing CRM, scheduling and reporting. Priced by company size rather than per recruiter.
Dover
Applicant tracking with a genuinely free core tier: unlimited users, unlimited jobs, job-board posting and Gmail or Outlook integration at no cost, with a single $199 monthly Premium tier adding AI applicant scoring and AI note taking. Dover's Recruiter Marketplace is a separate recruiting service on deposits and hourly rates, not part of the ATS price.
Ashby vs Dover
Dover gives the applicant tracking system away with unlimited users and unlimited jobs and charges USD 199 a month for an AI layer on top; Ashby charges USD 300 to 900 a month by company size and puts sourcing, scheduling and a reporting layer inside the same product.
Quick verdict
ClearThe evidence points firmly at one of the two for the situations below.
Choose Ashby if
- A real share of your hiring is outbound and you would rather have sequences, a sourcing extension and candidate search inside the ATS than as a second subscription
- You need reporting you can act on rather than an export — Ashby sells its analytics layer on its own to companies that keep a different ATS
- Your security review will ask about access control and certification, and you need a vendor conversation rather than an unanswered question
Choose Dover if
- You are five people hiring three roles and the honest budget for recruiting software this year is nothing — the free tier is a working ATS, not a capped demo
- You keep hitting the open-job cap on free tiers elsewhere: users and jobs are both unlimited here, on the free tier and the paid one alike
- You want one paid step rather than a ladder — Premium is a single USD 199 monthly tier, with nothing above it to be upsold into
Neither, if
- You are a recruitment agency: neither carries placements, client billing or a consultant desk, and that wall arrives in the first month
- You are past a few hundred employees: Ashby's published bands stop at 100 and become a negotiation, and Dover's review base is thin at that scale
- You need a documented compliance answer before adoption: neither product publishes an implementation timeline, and Dover's security posture is unresolved
Summary
Choosing the first real applicant tracking system for a company that has outgrown a spreadsheet
What they have in common
Both are in-house products for companies hiring into their own headcount, not for agencies billing placements. Both price by something other than the number of recruiters, so involving a hiring manager costs nothing on either side, and neither documents an implementation timeline.
Where they really differ
How much system you are buying, and when you pay for it. One removes the reason a small company stays in a spreadsheet by charging nothing for the core; the other assumes you will want reporting and outbound sourcing in the same tool and prices from the first month accordingly.
Who this decision is for
A company somewhere between its first ten and its first hundred employees, deciding whether its hiring problem is tracking at all or already measuring and sourcing.
Side by side, on what decides it
The deciding criterion here is: Whether you need a system of record today or a recruiting operation you can measure and source from
| Decision factor | Ashby | Dover |
|---|---|---|
| What the entry tier costs | USD 300 to 900 per month by company-size band, up to 100 employees | Nothing. The free tier is the applicant tracking system |
| What the paid step adds | Nothing to add — every band is the whole product; Plus and Enterprise above 100 employees are quoted | Premium at USD 199 a month: AI applicant scoring, AI note taking, premium support and extra job posting |
| Open jobs and users | Unlimited people; the band is set by company size, not by jobs or recruiters | Unlimited users and unlimited jobs, on the free tier as well as Premium |
| Outbound sourcing inside the tool | Multi-touch sequences across email and InMail, a sourcing extension, projects and candidate search | Not established in Dover's brief; the paid tier's additions are scoring, notes and posting |
| What a security review will find | A sales conversation on every plan, including the entry tier | Single sign-on, enterprise access control and certification are recorded as unknown |
| The thing most often mispriced | Crossing a headcount band raises the bill with no change in hiring activity | The Recruiter Marketplace is a separate service on deposits and hourly rates, not the software price |
Also weighs on it: How much of your hiring is outbound · Whether a security review stands between you and adoption · How fast the headcount is moving
Commercial facts
Only compare claims that SourcrLab can currently support. Unknowns stay unknown; verify buyer-critical details before purchase.
| Decision factor | Ashby | Dover |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | Paid (from From $300/month) | Freemium (from Free, then $199/month (Premium)) |
| Free plan | No | Yes |
| Free trial | No | No |
Where Ashby wins
Outbound does not need a second subscription
Sequences across email and InMail, a sourcing Chrome extension, sourcing projects and candidate search sit inside the applicant tracking system. For a company doing genuine outbound, the alternative is a separate sourcing tool whose monthly price often exceeds the entire ATS band being compared here.
Analytics good enough to sell on its own
The vendor sells its reporting layer separately to companies that keep a different applicant tracking system. That a competitor's customer would buy it is a stronger signal of where the engineering went than any feature list, and it is a different proposition from a monthly export into a spreadsheet.
Where Dover wins
The free tier is not a countdown or a cage
Unlimited users, unlimited jobs, candidate tracking, job-board posting and a connected Gmail or Outlook mailbox, at no cost. Most free applicant tracking tiers cap open roles, which is the exact limit a growing company hits first, and removing it removes the usual reason a five-person team stays in a spreadsheet.
One paid step instead of a ladder to climb
Premium is a single monthly tier at USD 199 with nothing above it. The decision is binary and stays decided, where a banded or tiered competitor turns every stage of growth into another conversation with a salesperson about which features you are now allowed to want.
Nobody has to be left out of the system
Users are unlimited on both tiers, so adding a hiring manager, an interviewer or a founder costs nothing and needs no approval. On per-seat products that same decision is a budget conversation, which is how hiring managers end up reviewing candidates over email instead of in the tool.
Trade-offs that apply either way
Neither tells you how long going live takes
Implementation time is recorded as unknown on both sides, and neither publishes a self-serve trial of the full product. For a system several departments will touch daily, the gap between deciding and actually running your hiring on it is a real cost you will have to source from references.
Both stop being priceable at the size you are heading for
Ashby's published bands end at 100 employees and become a negotiation above it; Dover's review base is 28 entries weighted to small and mid-market companies, which is a real signal and a thin one. Neither product is evidenced here at the scale a fast-growing company reaches in year three.
Reading the two price models
- The gap here is unusually wide and unusually honest: nothing against USD 300 to 900 a month for the entry position. Both figures are published, so this is one of the few comparisons in the catalogue where the arithmetic can simply be done.
- Never put a Recruiter Marketplace figure in that comparison. It is a people-delivered service billed on deposits and hourly rates, priced nowhere near the software, and treating one of those numbers as the ATS price gets the answer wrong by a wide margin.
- Ashby quotes in USD from Europe and meters personal-email lookups against a plan allotment with extra batches sold separately, so currency, VAT and enrichment volume belong in your own arithmetic rather than in the band you were quoted.
Best by scenario
A twelve-person company making its first four hires
At this size the competitor is a spreadsheet, not another ATS, and a free working system with unlimited jobs wins that comparison without a budget conversation.
An 80-person company with a recruiter who sources full time
The sourcing engine and the reporting layer are the reason to pay, and at this headcount both still sit inside a published band rather than behind a quote.
A regulated company whose security team signs off on tooling
One documents no certification publicly and the other answers only in a sales call. Get single sign-on and access control in writing before either product reaches a shortlist.
What this comparison does not know
Unknowns stay unknown. Verify these with the vendor before deciding — they are the gaps that would change the answer.
- Whether Dover offers single sign-on, enterprise access control or a named certification
- What Ashby charges above 100 employees on Plus and Enterprise
- Whether Dover offers outbound sourcing at all
- How long either takes to implement — SourcrLab has used neither