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.
Workable
All-in-one recruiting software with AI-powered sourcing, automated actions, and built-in assessments for growing companies.
Ashby vs Workable
Both bill by how many employees you have rather than how many recruiters or hires you have, so the decision is not per-seat economics but direction: Ashby spends the money on depth inside recruiting, Workable spends it on breadth that continues after the hire.
Quick verdict
CloseBoth are defensible. A small number of criteria decide it.
Choose Ashby if
- Reporting on hiring is a requirement rather than a nice-to-have: the analytics layer is sold separately to companies that keep their existing ATS, which says where the engineering went
- You run outbound sourcing alongside inbound applications and would rather not buy a second subscription for sequences, a sourcing extension and candidate search
- You want to see the price at the size you will actually be next year: the ladder is published in five steps from USD 300 at 1 to 10 employees up to USD 900 at 76 to 100
- Adding hiring managers and interviewers to the system must not move the bill, because users are unlimited inside a company-size band
Choose Workable if
- You have no HR system at all and would rather not buy one separately later: onboarding, time off and e-signature come in the same subscription as the ATS
- Getting the vacancy in front of people is the hard part, because posting to 200+ job boards is included rather than configured or bought as a bolt-on
- You want to try the product before a sales conversation: there is a 15-day trial with no credit card, which is long enough to run one real vacancy end to end
- Video interviews, candidate texting or assessments are part of your process and you would rather buy them from the same vendor, bundled from Premier at USD 599 a month
Neither, if
- You are an agency: neither product carries a placement, client or billing model, and headcount pricing has nothing to attach to in a business whose growth is measured in placements
- You hire in short bursts: both bills follow headcount rather than hiring, so a year with two vacancies costs the same as a year with forty and the model works against you either way
- You are well past a hundred employees and need a published number before you shortlist: one ladder stops at 100 and the other publishes only the 1 to 20 band, so both become a negotiation
Both vendors publish real figures at the small end and the split in what they cover is documented rather than inferred, so a buyer under about twenty employees can decide this on evidence. Above that the ground gives way: one ladder stops at 100 employees and the other publishes only its first band, neither states implementation or migration cost, and SourcrLab has used neither product.
Summary
Choosing the system an in-house team hires through, when both candidates price on company headcount and the question is what that headcount money is buying
What they have in common
Two all-in-one platforms for in-house hiring teams, both priced in US dollars by company size rather than by recruiter seat, both offering a discount for an annual commitment, and both publishing figures only at the small end of the ladder. Neither is built for agency work, and SourcrLab has used neither product.
Where they really differ
What the subscription reaches. Ashby puts the sourcing CRM, multi-touch sequences, scheduling and an analytics layer it sells as a standalone product inside one recruiting tool. Workable puts distribution to 200+ job boards, an HRIS, onboarding, time off and e-signature in one subscription, and prices texting, video interviews and assessments separately until Premier.
Who this decision is for
An in-house team under roughly a hundred employees choosing its first or second real hiring system, with no agency placement or billing requirement, and with an opinion about whether the next gap it has to fill is reporting on hiring or administering people after they are hired.
Decision guidance
Choose Ashby if native analytics and an all-in-one recruiting stack are your priority. Choose Workable if you want AI sourcing, built-in assessments, and the fastest path to publishing jobs.
Summary
Ashby is a modern all-in-one recruiting platform with best-in-class native analytics, built-in scheduling, and CRM. Workable offers AI-powered sourcing, built-in assessments, and one-click job posting to 200+ boards. Ashby targets data-driven teams that want deep pipeline visibility, while Workable is a more turnkey solution for growing companies.
Side by side, on what decides it
The deciding criterion here is: Whether the next gap in your stack is depth inside recruiting or breadth that continues after the offer is signed, because both vendors charge the same way and spend the money differently
| Decision factor | Ashby | Workable |
|---|---|---|
| How far the published price ladder runs | Five steps to 100 employees: USD 300, 400, 500, 700 and 900 a month | One band, 1 to 20 employees: Standard USD 299, Premier USD 599, Enterprise USD 719 a month |
| What an annual commitment takes off | 10 percent, so the same bands run USD 270 to 810 a month | 20 percent off annual billing |
| What the platform does after the offer is accepted | Nothing: the product ends at the hire, and reporting on it | HRIS, onboarding, time off and e-signature in the same subscription |
| Outbound sourcing | Sourcing CRM, multi-touch email and LinkedIn InMail sequences, a Chrome extension and candidate search, inside the ATS | Sourcing is present alongside job distribution to 200+ boards; no sequence tooling is established |
| What costs extra on the entry plan | Personal email lookups run on a monthly allotment set by plan, with extra batches sold separately | Texting USD 89, video interviews USD 109 and assessments USD 59 a month, bundled from Premier; the AI agent consumes credits per action |
| How you get to try it | No free plan and no published trial; every plan routes through a Get in Touch button | A 15-day free trial, with no card asked for up front |
| Reporting | Built in, and sold separately as a layer on top of another ATS | Part of the platform; no equivalent standalone analytics product is established |
Also weighs on it: How far up the ladder your headcount will be in a year · Whether you can commit before trying the product · Which parts of the process are separately priced on the plan you would buy
Commercial facts
Only compare claims that SourcrLab can currently support. Unknowns stay unknown; verify buyer-critical details before purchase.
| Decision factor | Ashby | Workable |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | Paid (from From $300/month) | Paid (from From $299/month) |
| Free plan | No | No |
| Free trial | No | Yes |
Where Ashby wins
The reporting is a product, not an export
The analytics layer is sold on its own to companies that keep their existing applicant tracking system, which is an unusual thing for a vendor to be able to do and a reasonable signal of where the engineering went. A team that has to explain its funnel to a board every quarter is buying that, not a spreadsheet template.
Outbound does not need a second subscription
Sequences across email and LinkedIn InMail, a sourcing extension, sourcing projects and candidate search sit in the same tool as the pipeline. For a team that has to go and find people rather than wait for applications, that removes a line from the budget and a handover from the workflow.
The price is visible five bands further up
Every step to 100 employees is published, so a company at thirty can see what fifty and eighty will cost before it signs anything. On the other side only the first band is published, which means a growing company is negotiating the second year without a reference point.
Where Workable wins
It keeps working after the candidate says yes
Onboarding, time off and e-signature in the same subscription is genuinely useful to a company too small to justify a human resources information system on its own, and it removes the second procurement conversation that usually follows six months after the first hire.
Distribution is included rather than assembled
Posting to more than two hundred job boards from the same place the applicants land removes the copy-and-paste step that costs an afternoon per vacancy. For a team whose problem is reach rather than process, that is the single largest hour saving on offer here.
You can run a real vacancy before you talk to anyone
Fifteen days without a credit card is long enough to take one requisition from posting to offer, and that is the only test that tells a buyer anything about a hiring system. The alternative here has no free plan and no published trial, so every evaluation starts with a sales conversation.
Trade-offs that apply either way
Both bills follow headcount, and hiring volume is what varies
A company of thirty pays the same in a year with two vacancies as in a year with forty, and crossing a band boundary raises the bill without any change in recruiting activity at all. If your hiring is lumpy, this pricing axis is working against you on both paths and it is worth saying so before either demo.
The published ladder ends well before the contract gets large
One vendor stops publishing above 100 employees, where Plus and Enterprise are described as based on company size, usage and commitment; the other publishes only the 1 to 20 band and states that prices scale with employee count. Above those lines, budget for a negotiation rather than a number.
The list price is not the bill on either side
One meters personal email lookups on a plan-set allotment and sells extra batches; the other charges separately for texting, video interviews and assessments until you move up a tier and runs its artificial intelligence agent on credits per action. Price the process you actually run, not the plan name.
Dollar prices, and no independent account of daily use
Both pages quote United States dollars, so currency and value added tax are the European buyer's side of the conversation on either path. SourcrLab has used neither product and found no independent account of how either feels in daily work, so nothing on this page speaks to the experience of using them.
Reading the two price models
- Compare them at the headcount you will have, not the one you have. At 1 to 10 employees the entry figures are USD 300 and USD 299 and effectively identical; at 20 employees one has stepped to USD 400 while the other is still publishing USD 299 for that band.
- Add the add-ons before you compare tiers. On the entry plan, texting is USD 89, video interviews USD 109 and assessments USD 59 a month, so a process needing all three is closer to the Premier figure of USD 599 than to the Standard figure of USD 299.
- The annual discounts are not the same size: 10 percent on one side against 20 percent on the other, which changes the ranking at some headcounts and is worth recomputing rather than assuming.
- Neither page states implementation, migration or onboarding fees, and neither states a minimum contract term. Ask for both in writing, because on a system of record they are the costs that surprise people.
Best by scenario
A 40-person software company hiring engineers all year
Continuous outbound and a board that asks about the funnel are exactly what the sourcing CRM and the analytics layer are for, and the published band at that size is USD 500 a month.
A 15-person company making its first three hires and running HR on a spreadsheet
The HR layer is the gap that will be filled anyway within a year, distribution matters more than sourcing at this volume, and the 15-day trial answers the question before any commitment.
A recruitment agency placing candidates with client companies
Neither carries a placement, client or billing model, and pricing on your own headcount makes no sense in a business that grows by placing people somewhere else.
A 200-person company replacing an incumbent system
Both published ladders have ended well below that size, so the comparison stops being about list prices and becomes a negotiation on process fit, migration and term.
Switching and migration
- This is a system-of-record move on either path: candidate history, notes, scorecards and job data all have to come across, and neither vendor publishes what migration costs or how long it takes.
- Moving away from the broader platform also means finding a home for the human resources records it held, which is a second migration nobody budgets for at the time of the first.
- Settle data export terms and who owns the reporting history before signing on either side; a reporting layer is worth much less if its history cannot leave with you.
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.
- What either platform costs above its published band
- Implementation, migration and onboarding fees on both sides
- The minimum contract term on either product
- What an artificial intelligence credit costs once the included allowance runs out
- How large the personal email lookup allotment is per plan
- How either system feels to interviewers and hiring managers day to day