Loxo vs Bullhorn Decision Guide for Agency Owners 2026

Neither name was retired, so compare the contract

Choose the agency system of record before you compare logos. An agency system of record is the database where the job, the person, the client company, and the submission history stay together, so the desk is not split across a spreadsheet and a second login. Loxo still sells that database as an ATS plus a recruiting CRM, and it adds a talent graph only on the higher published plan. Bullhorn still sells that database as an applicant tracking system, and it adds a marketplace, AI, and pay-and-bill only as you step up the public cards. Neither product page read for this guide says the product was shut down or folded into another brand.

Loxo is still named Loxo. Growth investment: $115 million according to PR Newswire (2025). That February 20, 2025 release says Tritium Partners led the growth investment, names Matt Chambers as CEO, and names Paul Bartlett as executive chairman. It is a growth investment in the same company, not a notice that the product was renamed or discontinued.

Bullhorn is still on sale under that name, but older edition labels moved. The knowledge base lists ATS Growth as formerly Team and Bullhorn ATS as formerly Corporate, says the legacy Enterprise edition was upgraded to Front Office Growth, checks email sync from Outlook or Gmail and marketplace integrations on every edition in that table, caps mass mailing at 500 recipients, and marks custom API integrations only on Front Office Growth and Front Office Enterprise, according to Bullhorn (2026). On September 8, 2020, Bullhorn announced that Stone Point Capital would become lead investor, with Insight Partners and Genstar remaining investors, according to Willkie Farr & Gallagher (2020). No later ownership change was on the pages opened for this guide, so this is the latest ownership event those pages support.

TL;DR: pick Loxo's published stack when the pain is a separate sourcing database beside the ATS, and pick Bullhorn's published stack when the pain is staffing operations that may later include pay-and-bill, then match the edition name on the contract before you compare a monthly rate.

Key Takeaways

• Loxo is still Loxo after the 2025 growth investment, and Bullhorn is still Bullhorn, with Team, Corporate, and legacy Enterprise labels remapped in its knowledge base.

• The money comparison is a published starting rate and a credit-block figure on Loxo against two printed small-agency rates on Bullhorn, with the higher AI tiers Quote-based.

• Loxo's entry card includes ATS, CRM, and natural-language search. The talent graph and the agent workforce are on the higher card, not the entry card.

• Bullhorn's entry card is an ATS with resume parsing, client records, and a career portal. The marketplace sits on the next printed card. AI search and the recruitment CRM sit on quote-based cards.

• Pay-and-bill is not on Loxo's pricing page. On Bullhorn it is a separate quoted product, not the entry ATS.

• A workflow above either database still needs API or export access and a person reviewing the packet before a client sees it. List math later in this guide is arithmetic, not a quote.

Who this shortlist is for

This guide is for the owner of a recruiting or staffing agency who already knows the desk needs one system of record and is choosing between these two names. You are close enough to a contract that plan contents, billing term, and what is not included matter more than a feature slogan. It is also for the owner whose current Bullhorn contract still says Team, Corporate, or Enterprise, because those labels do not match today's price-card names. It is a weaker fit for a corporate talent team buying an in-house HR suite, and for a solo search firm that only needs a mailbox and a spreadsheet.

Red flags: you need timesheets and client invoices inside the same published plan, and those modules are not on Loxo's pricing page; you cannot prepay an annual Loxo term; you are matching an old Bullhorn Team, Corporate, or Enterprise contract to today's $99 card without reading the edition rename.

Staffing demand is not a reason to skip the contract details. Q2 staffing revenue: up 3.3% according to American Staffing Association (2026). The same September 22, 2026 release says staffing employment rose 0.6% year over year in that quarter, about 12,000 jobs, that quarter-to-quarter employment rose 5.0%, and that quarter-to-quarter sales rose 6.7%, the first year-over-year growth that survey has recorded since late 2022. A growing temp book and a cautious direct-hire book can sit in the same agency, which is why pay-and-bill scope belongs in the comparison even when the search that brought you here was only "loxo vs bullhorn".

How we evaluated these tools

The weights below are a buying rubric for an agency owner, not a vendor score and not a rank. Price transparency is heavy because a quote-only AI tier can double the project after the demo. Sourcing is equally heavy because a graph bundled into the seat replaces a second database bill, and a graph that is missing puts that bill back. Client CRM matters because an agency sells to companies, not only to candidates. Temp pay and billing matter if the desk runs contract work. Agents and credits matter once the entry search is not enough. API and marketplace matter when the system of record must feed a site, a phone system, or a review step. Trial and governance are real, and they are last because a trial does not fix a missing module.

A floor of 4 means the criterion can knock a plan out if the page is vague. A floor of 2 means the criterion is a tie-break after the desk already fits. Scores in that table are the minimum we would want before recommending a plan for that criterion. They are not measured product scores. No page opened for this guide published a head-to-head score of these two products, so none is invented here.

The same rubric explains the disqualifiers. A direct-hire desk that will never run payroll can ignore the temp-billing floor and still make a sound choice. A light-industrial desk that lives on timesheets cannot. A firm that already paid for a sourcing seat somewhere else should not pay again for a bundled graph unless the second login is the actual pain. A firm that cannot get an admin API key should not buy on the promise of an outside workflow.

Published scope, side by side

Read the cells as published claims, then read the notes under the table as analysis. "Not on this card" means the pricing or knowledge-base page did not list the item for that plan. It is not a claim that a salesperson cannot add it.

The factual split is narrower than the marketing. Both entry cards store candidates, clients, and jobs. Both talk about email. Loxo's Core card adds a Chrome extension, pipelines, reporting, unlimited jobs, candidates, and companies, and a connector it calls MCP. Bullhorn's Starter card adds resume parsing, a career portal, and expert support, with free implementation printed on that card. Neither entry card is an empty address book.

The analysis split is the second login. Loxo's Professional card is where the graph, the agent workforce, contact data when available, and API access show up together. Bullhorn's Core card is where custom fields, LinkedIn Recruiter System Connect, Apply Connect, the email sidebar, and the 300+ partner marketplace show up, still without AI search. Bullhorn's Pro card is where the recruitment CRM and Amplify AI show up, and that card is Quote-based. If your shortlist is "entry price versus entry price," you are comparing an ATS-and-CRM with search against an ATS without the graph and without Amplify. That is a fair comparison only if you say so.

The two Bullhorn maps do not use the same names. The commercial cards say Starter, Core, Pro, and Max. The knowledge base says ATS Growth, Bullhorn ATS, Front Office Growth, and Front Office Enterprise. Marketplace integrations are checked on every knowledge-base edition, including the one formerly called Team, while the commercial Core card is the first card that prints the 300+ partner marketplace. Custom API integrations are blank on the two lower knowledge-base editions and checked on the two Front Office editions. Do not assume the $99 card is the old Team edition, or that a Front Office contract is the $165 card. Ask which edition string is on the order form.

Loxo's own page also draws a line inside AI. Natural-language search is on every plan. The agent workforce, Full Agentic Mode, the Agent Impact Center, and three Data Agents under the records are Professional items. Deduplication and scheduling are marked coming soon on that page, so they are not current modules. A full-market search is described as screening up to 10,000 candidates, and the same page says capacity figures are figurative and standard usage may vary. Treat 10,000 as Loxo's description of a search, not as a guaranteed monthly throughput.

What the seats cost at list

Pricing checked October 10, 2026.

Core starting rate: $149 per user according to Loxo (2026). On that page Loxo's Core plan starts at $149 per user per month, billed annually and paid up front, and the page labels the offer a new-customer limited-time offer, while the Professional credit block prints 2,500 credits per user per month as included in $199, Boost 2× as 5,000 credits per user per month, and Boost 5× as 12,500 credits per user per month, with Boost price left to the account team, so Boost is Quote-based. The same page puts a graph of 850M+ professionals, the full agent workforce, contact information when available, and API access on Professional, puts SSO/SAML on a custom Enterprise agreement, lists a 7-day trial of the full Professional platform with no credit card, lists free migration for Core teams of 3 or more seats, and describes 50+ proprietary algorithms on 14 years of infrastructure. The Professional card also tells the buyer to see pricing for the team, so $199 is the figure printed beside the included credits, not a self-serve checkout button. Enterprise is Quote-based.

Starter rate: $99 per user according to Bullhorn (2026). On that page the Starter plan is $99 per user per month and the Core plan is $165 per user per month, the Core card adds a marketplace of 300+ partners plus custom fields, LinkedIn integrations, and the email sidebar, and the Pro and Max cards say to talk to Bullhorn, so those two are Quote-based. The same page prints free implementation on Starter, Core, and Pro, does not print it on Max, lists Amplify Digital Workers as a quoted product with over 15 skills, lists VMS automation as a quoted product with 110+ vendor-management connections, lists Front Office Growth, Front Office Enterprise, and Bullhorn One as quote flows, and lists Middle Office, Onboarding, Messaging, Analytics, and the Salesforce Recruitment Cloud editions as quote flows. The login menu on that page still says Bullhorn Automation, formerly Herefish, so an old Herefish contract is a renamed module, not a separate company. The page also says more than 10,000 companies rely on the platform. That is Bullhorn's own statement, not a census counted for this guide.

The year column below is the published monthly figure times the seat count times 12. It is not a second sticker price, not tax, and not a Boost. Loxo's Core math uses the starting rate, which the page says can sit under a limited-time offer. Loxo's Professional math uses the $199 printed beside the credits. Bullhorn's math uses the two printed rates and ignores Pro and Max because those are Quote-based.

A six-seat Starter list is $3,600 less across 12 months than a six-seat Loxo Core list at the starting rate. A six-seat Bullhorn Core list is $1,152 more than that Loxo Core list. The comparison flips if the desk needs the graph: six Professional seats at the $199 figure are $14,328, which is $2,448 more than six Bullhorn Core seats. None of those gaps includes Boost, onboarding, middle office, VMS, or a sourcing database bought from someone else. Add those only when a page prints them. Boost did not print a price, so it stays Quote-based.

A six-seat year on paper

Take six seats and only the rates already cited. Loxo's Core plan starts at $149 per user per month, which is $894 in a month and $10,728 across 12 months at that starting rate. The credit-block figure of $199 is $1,194 in a month and $14,328 across 12 months, and 2,500 credits on each of those six seats pool to 15,000 credits in the month. Bullhorn's Starter plan at $99 per user per month is $594 in a month and $7,128 across 12 months, while the Core plan at $165 per user per month is $990 in a month and $11,880 across 12 months. The Starter list is $3,600 below the Loxo Core list for the year, and the Bullhorn Core list is $1,152 above it. Before a stage name is treated as permission to email a client, that desk can call activity_types on Loxo, which the help center, updated August 6, 2026, describes as the list of progression triggers in the account's workflows, according to Loxo Help Center (2026). The call returns labels. It does not send the packet. A person still decides what leaves the firm. The products in this paragraph are list math from published monthly figures, not a quote, and the Core rate remains a starting rate under the limited-time label.

Where Loxo is the better fit

Loxo fits a direct-hire or search desk that wants the ATS, the recruiting CRM, and, on the higher plan, the sourcing graph in one published stack, and that can pay the year up front. The Core card is the honest fit when recruiters will keep sourcing themselves and want search, email, calendar, a Chrome extension, and unlimited jobs, candidates, and companies inside the system of record. The Professional card is the honest fit when the second database bill is the pain and the desk will actually spend the included credits. Enterprise is the fit when SSO, advanced roles, and a named success team have to be in the agreement rather than an add-on. If you are also weighing a lighter agency CRM, the Loxo and Crelate comparison is the next page to read, because the graph is not the only way to buy an agency database.

The limits are in the same pages. The Core price is a starting rate and a new-customer offer, so a renewal can differ from the first invoice. The Professional card does not stand alone as a public checkout price even though the credit block prints $199. Boost has published credit counts and no published price. Deduplication and scheduling are marked coming soon. The pricing page does not list timesheets, worker pay, or client invoicing, so a contract desk that needs those in the same login is outside what that page sells. API access is a Professional line, and the help center says the open API is a paid feature, that only admins can open the API keys page, and that support may have to turn the menu on. Profiles pulled from Loxo Source through that API are limited to person_name, person_id, and custom_field results. Your own imported records are described as retrievable. A webhook item_type is limited to a published set that includes person, job, company, placement, and placement_split, and the action is create, update, or destroy. That is enough to wake a review step. It is not a license to export the graph.

Implementation, as published, is lighter on Core than on the higher plans. Core teams of three or more seats are offered free migration, with guided self-serve below that size. Professional and Enterprise migrations are scoped as fixed packages before signature. The 7-day trial is the full Professional platform, with no card required, which is the practical way to see whether the credit meter matches a real search before the annual prepay. Plan on an admin owning the bearer token, a named recruiter checking the first shortlists, and a second person checking any field an agent writes back onto a record. Loxo says the workforce is autonomous through the shortlist and not through the decision. Hold the vendor to that sentence in the workflow you actually turn on.

Where Bullhorn is the better fit

Bullhorn fits a staffing desk that wants a known ATS price, a marketplace on the next card, and a contractual path into time, pay, and billing without changing vendors. Starter is the fit when the desk needs applicant tracking, resume parsing, client management, job posting, and a career portal, and does not need LinkedIn or custom fields yet. Core is the fit when those extras, plus the email sidebar, are the real gap and AI can wait. Pro is the fit when the recruitment CRM and Amplify have to be in the first contract, and you accept that the price is Quote-based. Max is the fit only if you want the agentic layer and will scope implementation inside the quote. Bullhorn One is the fit when timesheets, time interpretation, invoicing, and pay-and-bill have to be on the same quote as the front office. Recruitment Cloud is a separate Salesforce path, also Quote-based, for a firm that already lives in that CRM. Owners comparing other agency ATS brands can use the Bullhorn and JobAdder comparison and the Bullhorn and Vincere comparison for the neighboring shortlists, plus the longer Vincere write-up if the question is configuration depth rather than AI packaging.

The limits are the quote wall and the name mismatch. AI search, Amplify Chat, data enrichment, process automation, resume formatting, call transcription, and a dedicated account manager are Pro items, not Starter or Core items. Agentic screening, omni-channel engagement, and interview scheduling are Max items. Onboarding, middle office, messaging, analytics, VMS, and Digital Workers are separate quoted products, so a verbal "it is on the platform" is not the same as a line on the $99 or $165 card. Free implementation is printed on Starter, Core, and Pro and is not printed on Max. The knowledge-base editions do not line up one-for-one with those commercial names, and custom API access is marked only on the Front Office editions. Shift scheduling is marked NA only on those Front Office editions, and credentialing is marked NA/UKI only. A buyer outside those regions should not assume the module is in the license. Herefish is the old name of the automation module, still printed beside the current name.

2026 market forecast: $183.1 billion according to Work Insiders (2026). That October 2026 brief says Staffing Industry Analysts expects the U.S. staffing market to grow 2.4% in 2026 to that figure. The forecast is why a temp desk should not buy a direct-hire interface and hope payroll appears later. It is not a forecast of either vendor's revenue, and the Staffing Industry Analysts page itself did not open in this session, so the figure is carried from the brief that quoted it.

Implementation on the printed small-agency cards is "free implementation" plus a quote button, which means the rate is public and the paperwork is not a shopping-cart checkout. Move edition by edition only after someone reads the contract label back to you. If the label says Team, Corporate, or Enterprise, use the knowledge-base map before you accept an upgrade quote. Plan a human check on the first parsed resumes, the first LinkedIn applications if you buy Core, and the first pay file if you later add Bullhorn One. Marketplace apps are a second contract with each partner, not a promise that every one of the 300+ is included in the seat.

After the shortlist, someone still has to send it

The database decision does not finish the week. The painful step is the moment a name becomes a client packet, a reference request, or a placement record. Agencies that skip that gate are the ones who later chase references too late, which is why the timing in reference checks before the offer belongs in the same buying conversation as the ATS.

A proposed workflow from US Tech Automations starts when a recruiter moves a person to a client-ready stage in the system of record. On Loxo, the prerequisite is a Professional subscription, an admin bearer token, and the API keys menu actually enabled. The workflow reads activity_types so the stage label matches the firm's own progression triggers, then reads the job and the person attached to that stage. The output is a submission-packet draft in a review queue, not an email to the client. A named recruiter approves the packet, and a second person approves it if the role is a retained search or a contract rate is on the page. This is a configurable design. It is not a live deployment, and it is not a measured result.

US Tech Automations would be configured, in that same proposal, to wake on a webhook whose item type is a person, a job, or a placement and whose action is create or update, then to write a one-page brief the reviewer can accept or return. On Bullhorn the prerequisite is different: the knowledge base marks custom API integrations on Front Office Growth and Front Office Enterprise, so a Starter contract may have to use an export instead of a live call. The output is the same review brief, plus a held status that does not move until a person clears it. A second review point sits before any placement is treated as final, because a webhook for placement_split can record a fee split without proving the start date. Nothing in this design is a current customer story.

When NOT to use US Tech Automations: stay inside the ATS when the only handoff is a status email that Bullhorn process automation or a Loxo sequence already sends and a recruiter already reads; stay there when the firm will not turn on an API key or a scheduled export, because there is nothing for an outside step to read; stay there when a two-step mailbox rule is the whole process and the owner is willing to watch failures personally.

The real alternative is often stitching the same handoff in Zapier, Make, or n8n, or building it in-house. Those tools can keep run histories, retries, error branches, and audit evidence when someone configures them. The buyer then owns observability, idempotency, escalation, access controls, and maintenance, including what happens when a token expires or the same webhook arrives twice. A proposed US Tech Automations design can put the review gate, the retry, and the held status in one configured path, with the API or export prerequisite above and with a person still approving the client send. It does not remove the need for an owner of the token, a written list of who may release a packet, or a periodic check that failed runs are visible. If the firm enjoys owning that plumbing, the generic automation tool is the honest choice.

Mistakes that make the first year expensive

Treat the Core starting rate as a ceiling. The page says "starts at" and puts a new-customer limited-time label under the annual, paid-up-front line. Ask what year two costs before you compare it with a Bullhorn rate that is printed as a per-user monthly figure.

Do not read $199 as a checkout price. It is the figure beside the included credits. The Professional card still sends the buyer to team pricing. Get the order form to say whether $199 is the seat, the credit bundle, or both.

Do not compare Starter with Professional as if both included a graph and agents. Starter is an ATS card. Professional is the graph, the workforce, and the credits. The fair Bullhorn pair for Professional is Pro or Max, and both of those are Quote-based, so the fair sentence is "printed ATS versus printed ATS" or "quote the AI tier on both sides."

Do not ignore the edition rename. A Team, Corporate, or Enterprise label on an old Bullhorn contract is not automatically the Starter or Core card. The knowledge base is the map. The order form is the authority.

Do not buy agents and skip the human gate. Loxo's own page says the decision stays with the recruiter. A packet that leaves because an agent finished a shortlist is a process choice, not a software requirement.

Do not assume Boost, onboarding, VMS, or middle office are in the seat. Their prices were not on the entry cards. If the salesperson names a module, ask which card it sits on and whether the price is Quote-based.

Glossary for the two contracts

System of record. The database that holds jobs, people, companies, and submissions so every other tool is a copy.

Talent graph. Loxo's published network of 850M+ professionals, listed on the Professional plan, searched with the firm's own private database.

Credit. Loxo's meter for agent work. Professional includes 2,500 per user per month, pooled, refreshing each cycle. Unused credits do not roll, according to the same pricing page. Capacity examples on that page are labeled figurative.

Amplify. Bullhorn's name for the AI layer. Search and match, chat, enrichment, and transcription show up on the Pro card. Agentic workflows show up on Max. Digital Workers are a separate quoted product.

Front Office. Bullhorn's name for the larger-firm editions that add CRM pipeline, automation, and analytics. Front Office Growth is also the upgrade target of the legacy Enterprise edition.

Pay-and-bill. Timesheets, pay, and client invoices. On the pages opened, that scope is Bullhorn One or Middle Office, both Quote-based, and it is absent from Loxo's pricing page.

Bearer token. The admin-created key Loxo's help center requires in the authorization header. Only admins see the keys page, and support may have to enable it.

Marketplace. Bullhorn's partner catalog. The Core price card says 300+ partners. A partner app can still have its own contract.

Questions owners ask before they sign

Is Loxo cheaper than Bullhorn?

No single public rate settles it, because the bundles differ. Bullhorn's Starter plan is $99 per user per month and Loxo's Core plan starts at $149 per user per month, so the printed ATS entry is lower on Bullhorn. Six seats make that gap $3,600 across 12 months at those rates. The gap narrows or flips once you add Bullhorn's Core plan at $165, or once you need Loxo's Professional credits at the $199 figure. Pro, Max, Enterprise, and Boost are Quote-based, so any comparison that includes them is incomplete until the quotes arrive.

Were Loxo or Bullhorn renamed or shut down?

Neither product was shut down on the pages opened for this guide. Loxo kept its name through the February 20, 2025 growth investment. Bullhorn kept its name, while the knowledge base says Team is now ATS Growth, Corporate is now Bullhorn ATS, and the legacy Enterprise edition was upgraded to Front Office Growth. Automation is labeled as formerly Herefish on the pricing page. If a contract uses an old label, map it before you accept a new rate.

Which published plan includes a sourcing database?

Loxo's Professional plan includes Loxo Source on the 850M+ graph, together with the private database you already have. The Core plan includes natural-language search and does not include that graph. Bullhorn's Starter and Core cards do not publish a bundled external graph. AI search and match appears on Pro and Max, which are Quote-based, and external search appears on the quoted Amplify Search and Match product and on Recruitment Cloud's front-office card. If the graph is the reason you are switching, price Professional against a quoted Bullhorn AI tier, not against Starter.

Does either vendor publish pay-and-bill pricing?

No. Loxo's pricing page does not list timesheets, pay, or client invoicing. Bullhorn lists timesheet management, time interpretation, invoicing, and pay-and-bill automation on Bullhorn One and again on Middle Office, and both are Quote-based. The small-agency ATS cards do not include those lines. A contract desk should get that quote before it celebrates a lower ATS seat.

What does a six-seat year cost at list?

At the published monthly figures times 12, six Loxo Core seats are $10,728 at the $149 starting rate, six seats at the $199 credit-block figure are $14,328, six Bullhorn Starter seats are $7,128, and six Bullhorn Core seats are $11,880. Those totals exclude Boost, taxes, marketplace apps, onboarding, VMS, and middle office. They also assume the printed monthly figure is the figure you pay every month of the year. Loxo's limited-time label means you should not assume that about year two.

When should the desk stay inside the ATS instead of adding a workflow?

Stay inside the ATS when the handoff is one email the product already sends and a recruiter already reviews it, when you will not enable an API key or an export, or when you are willing to own retries and failed runs yourself in Zapier, Make, n8n, or an in-house script. Add a separate configured path when the packet has to wait for a person, when the same event can arrive twice, and when more than one system must see that the send was approved. The ATS remains the system of record either way.

Sign the system of record, then wire the review

Sign the database that matches the work. A direct-hire desk that is tired of a second sourcing login, and that can prepay a year, should price Loxo's Core plan against Professional and ask whether the $199 figure is the seat it will actually invoice. A staffing desk that may need marketplace apps now and pay-and-bill later should price Bullhorn's Starter plan against Core, then get Quote-based numbers for Pro or Bullhorn One before it calls the entry card a full platform. In both cases the order form should name the edition, the billing term, what happens after a limited-time rate, and which modules are outside the seat.

After that signature, the remaining work is the handoff. Configure the read of the stage list, hold the packet, and let a person release it. You can see how US Tech Automations configures this only as a proposed layer on top of the API or export you already have, with the review points named before anything is turned on. The system of record you just chose still stores the job, the person, and the placement. The workflow does not replace it.