Recruit CRM vs Bullhorn: What Agencies Pick 2026

Key Takeaways

• Recruit CRM's Pro plan is $95 per user per month, the Business plan is $135, and the Enterprise plan is $215. Bullhorn's Starter plan is $99 per user per month and the Core plan is $165. Higher Bullhorn tiers are quote-based.

• Companies, contacts, and deal pipelines are listed on Recruit CRM's lowest published plan. On Bullhorn's small-agency cards, the recruitment CRM sales pipeline is listed on the quote-only Pro plan.

• The Pro plan on Recruit CRM allows 1 hiring pipeline, 15 custom fields, 1 mailbox connection, and 1 sequence. The Business plan raises pipelines and custom fields to 100 and adds open API access.

• Bullhorn's Core plan adds a marketplace of 300+ partners, custom fields and workflows, and LinkedIn Recruiter System Connect and Apply Connect. Amplify search, process automation, and the sales pipeline are listed on quote-only plans.

• Recruit CRM meters sourcing, enrichment, texting, multiposting, and workflow automation with pooled credits. Running out of included credits means a second bill even when the seat price looked complete.

• Bullhorn states that a free trial is not currently offered, and that implementation is free on Starter, Core, and Pro. Recruit CRM states a 30-day trial, a free import, and a paid assisted migration.

What you are actually choosing

A recruiting CRM is the system an agency uses to keep candidates, client contacts, open jobs, and the activity around a placement on one record. An applicant tracking system, usually called an ATS, is the pipeline those people move through from application to submission. The search "recruit crm vs bullhorn" is a buying search: you already know you want both jobs in one product, and you are close to signing.

TL;DR: if you need a client deal pipeline, more than one hiring pipeline, and an open API at a price printed on the page, Recruit CRM's Business plan is the published fit. If you need a large partner marketplace and LinkedIn Recruiter System Connect, and you can operate without that sales pipeline until you accept a quote, Bullhorn's Core plan is the published fit. If you need Amplify, pay and bill, or agentic outreach, you are in quote territory on Bullhorn.

Neither name has been discontinued. Bullhorn still sells Bullhorn. Its automation product is labeled Bullhorn Automation, formerly Herefish. Starter plan: $99 per user per month according to Bullhorn (2026), where the Core plan is $165 per user per month, Core lists an app marketplace of 300+ partners, Pro and Max say talk to us, Bullhorn Automation is labeled formerly Herefish, and a quoted VMS Automation product lists 110+ vendor management system integrations.

The market around that choice is moving again, slowly. Q2 staffing revenue: up 3.3% according to American Staffing Association (2026). Staffing employment in that quarter rose 0.6% from a year earlier, about 12,000 jobs, and the association called it the first year-over-year growth its quarterly survey had recorded since late 2022, according to American Staffing Association (2026). A single software seat will not create that demand. It does decide whether a small desk can see the client, the candidate, and the fee without a second system.

Who this is for

This comparison is for the owner of a small recruiting or staffing agency, and for the person who will run the system after the contract is signed. You are choosing between a published per-user price and a platform whose upper tiers are quoted. You care about jobs, candidates, client contacts, submissions, and whether automation and an API are in the seat you can actually buy.

Red flags: You need payroll, time capture, and client invoicing as the main system on the first contract, and you will not add a quoted back-office product. You will stay on Recruit CRM's Pro plan even though you need more than one hiring pipeline or an open API. You require a no-cost trial of Bullhorn before a paid month, and the vendor states that a free trial is not currently offered.

A permanent-placement desk and a light contract desk can both use the facts below. A high-volume temp operation that lives in timesheets and vendor management systems should read the back-office lines before comparing the $95 and $99 seats. If you are also weighing other agency systems with published comparisons, the separate notes on Bullhorn and JobAdder and Bullhorn and Vincere cover those pairings. They are not substitutes for the prices on these two vendors' own pages.

How we evaluated these two platforms

The weights below are buying weights for a small agency owner. They are not review-site scores, and they are not a ranking either vendor published. They sum to 100%. Seat price and the client pipeline each take 20% because that is what this search is trying to settle. Room for more than one desk, automation, and a connection to other tools take 15% each, because those three decide whether the second year looks like the first invoice. A trial takes 10%. Back office takes 5%, because many small permanent desks do not run payroll inside the ATS, and pretending otherwise would hide the real fork.

Printed prices matter more here than in a category where almost every vendor hides the number. Quote-only ATS share: 49% according to Work Insiders (2026), across 181 ATS platforms in that directory. The same directory counts 1,031 recruiting and HR tools and says 40% hide a price, according to Work Insiders (2026). Bullhorn publishing two small-agency prices, and quoting the rest, matches that split. Recruit CRM publishing three prices is the exception you can actually calculate.

A miss on the client-pipeline row is a different product, not a missing bell. A miss on the API row means the agency will export spreadsheets or buy a higher plan the month someone wants a second tool. A miss on back office matters only if temp payroll is the business. We did not award points for slogans, review badges, or customer stories printed on a pricing page.

Prices printed on October 10, 2026

Pricing checked October 10, 2026. Pro plan: $95 per user per month according to Recruit CRM (2026), where the Business plan is $135 per user per month, the Enterprise plan is $215 per user per month, and annual billing is listed as saving up to 17%. The page shows a monthly and annual toggle. The figures above are the ones rendered with that annual saving called out. A separate monthly-billed rate was not printed in the view opened for this guide, so none is stated here.

Bullhorn's Starter plan costs $99 per user per month and the Core plan on Bullhorn costs $165 per user per month, on the pricing page cited above. Pro, Max, Front Office Growth, Front Office Enterprise, Bullhorn One, Amplify products, Recruitment Automation, Middle Office, Onboarding, Messaging, Analytics, and the Recruitment Cloud editions are quote-based. The small-agency page says there are no setup fees, that prices exclude VAT, and that onboarding and back office stay optional and priced separately.

Five users is an illustration so the seat price can be read as a year, not a claim about how many people an agency should have. The five-user year on Recruit CRM's Pro plan is $5,700. The five-user year on Bullhorn's Starter plan is $5,940. The gap is $240 a year, or $20 a month. The five-user year on the Business plan is $8,100. The five-user year on Core is $9,900. That gap is $1,800 a year. Those totals are list price times seats times 12. They leave out credits, VAT, assisted migration, and every quote-based module.

Recruit CRM's Pro card includes credits worth $10, the Business card credits worth $20, and the Enterprise card credits worth $200. Credits are pooled across the account. The page says extra credits can be purchased. It does not print a per-action credit price in the section opened here, so this guide does not invent one. Treat the seat as the floor and the credit pool as a second meter for sourcing, enrichment, workflow automation, multiposting, texting, calling, LinkedIn messaging, and advanced analytics.

Bullhorn's page marks the quote-only Pro plan as most popular. Recruit CRM's page marks the Business plan as most popular. Popular, on these pages, means the vendor's badge, not a count of agencies on that tier.

Limits that change a five-person bill

The same pricing page caps hiring pipelines at 1 on the Pro plan and 100 on the Business plan, includes 100 credits per user per month on Pro, 200 on Business, and 2,000 on Enterprise, and states a 30-day trial, according to Recruit CRM (2026). AI sourcing is described there as search across 800 million-plus profiles, and job multiposting as 3,000-plus channels. Both consume credits. Workflow automation is described as reaching 1,000-plus apps and also consumes credits.

A five-person firm on the Pro plan has 500 pooled credits a month, because 100 credits per user times 5 users is 500, and the page says credits are shared at the account level. The same firm on the Business plan has 1,000 pooled credits. On Enterprise it has 10,000. That arithmetic is the inclusion, not a promise about how long the pool lasts. One multiposted job, one enrichment, and one automated step can draw the pool down together. Ask for the credit sheet before you compare $95 with $99.

The single hiring pipeline on the Pro plan is the limit that catches multi-desk agencies. One permanent desk can live inside one pipeline. A second desk, or a contract desk beside a permanent desk, needs another pipeline or a lot of discipline with lists. The Business plan's 100 pipelines and 100 custom fields are the published answer. Custom fields at 15 on the Pro plan run out quickly once you store a fee type, a visa status, a shift, and a compliance flag.

Open API access is listed on the Business and Enterprise plans, not on the Pro plan. Zapier is listed on every plan. A firm that wants a native token for its own scripts is buying the Business plan even when one pipeline would have been enough. Audit logs are described on the Business card as 30-day activity history, with single sign-on, IP allowlisting, and custom roles on that plan and on Enterprise. The Enterprise card adds a named account manager, quarterly business reviews, and Recruit Craft. Recruit Craft is described as free on Enterprise and priced separately on the lower plans, with no dollar amount printed on the page opened here.

Bullhorn's pricing page does not print pipeline counts, custom-field counts, or sequence caps for Starter or Core. Absence from the card is not proof the product lacks a feature. It does mean you cannot verify the cap without a quote. What the cards do list is specific enough to choose: Starter lists applicant tracking, resume parsing, client management, job posting with a career portal, and expert support. The small-agency FAQ adds email and calendar sync for Outlook and Gmail, mass mailing, and performance reports on Starter. Core adds the marketplace, custom fields and workflows, LinkedIn integrations, and the email sidebar.

Side-by-side capabilities

Job distribution is where a small agency feels the credit meter first. Posting a job to your own portal is listed on both entry plans. Fanning that job out to many boards is a credit event on Recruit CRM, and it is a separate quoted product or a marketplace partner on Bullhorn. If Indeed and ZipRecruiter are the boards you actually use, the practical question is which connector writes the applicant back onto the person record. A separate note on ATS integrations for Indeed and ZipRecruiter covers that handoff. It does not change the seat prices above.

For a temp desk, the back-office row dominates the feature row. Recruit CRM says contractors log hours, managers approve them, and approved time flows into invoicing, with credits consumed per active contractor each month. The page says each rate applies inside its tier rather than retroactively to the whole count. It does not print those dollar steps in the view opened here. Bullhorn lists timesheet management, time interpretation, invoicing, and pay-and-bill automation on Bullhorn One and on Middle Office. Both are quote-based. Comparing $95 with $99 does not answer a payroll question.

Recruit CRM for a desk that wants the number on the page

Best fit: a small permanent or executive-search desk that wants the price, the trial, and the client pipeline on a page it can reload. The Business plan fits when the firm has more than one hiring motion, needs custom roles, or intends to connect another system with the open API. The Pro plan fits a single desk that can live with one pipeline, 15 custom fields, one mailbox, one sequence, and Zapier rather than the open API. Enterprise fits when the credit pool, Recruit Craft, and a named account manager are worth $215 per user per month.

Limitations: the Pro plan's caps are real, and the credit meter sits on the features agencies often assume are included. Workflow automation, data enrichment, LinkedIn messaging, SMS, calling, advanced analytics, AI sourcing, and multiposting all consume credits on every plan, including Enterprise. The included pool is larger on Enterprise. It is still a pool. Assisted data migration is paid even though a standard import is free. The pricing page does not print the assisted fee. Support is described as 24/7 live chat on the plans compared here, and the Enterprise card is the one that lists the named account manager and quarterly reviews.

Implementation: start the 30-day trial against one live job, not a demo database. Import a slice of candidates and contacts, build the one pipeline the Pro plan allows, and send one real sequence before you add seats. If the second desk appears during the trial, price the Business plan immediately rather than inventing a workaround inside a single pipeline. Map custom fields while you still have spare slots. Fifteen fills up on compliance-heavy roles. Confirm the open API is on the contract if a developer, or a later automation, needs a token. The Business plan is the first tier that lists it.

Primary evidence is the vendor pricing page cited above. Use that page for the seat price and the limits. Use the trial to confirm screen layout, which this guide does not pretend to have tested.

Choose Recruit CRM's Business plan when the client pipeline, more than one hiring pipeline, and an API must be on the same published invoice. Choose the Pro plan only after you have written down that one pipeline and 15 custom fields are enough for the year you are buying.

Bullhorn for a desk that may need the marketplace

Best fit: an agency that wants the staffing product its clients and partners already know, with a marketplace on the Core plan and a path to AI and back office later. Core, at $165 per user per month, is the published tier that adds custom fields, workflows, the email sidebar, and LinkedIn Recruiter System Connect and Apply Connect. Starter, at $99, is the published ATS with parsing, client records, and a career portal. Pro and Max are the quote-only tiers that add the sales pipeline and Amplify. Larger firms looking at Front Office or Bullhorn One are also in quote territory. A staffing desk comparing other full platforms can read Bullhorn and Vincere for staffing agencies beside this one. The prices in this article stay the ones printed on Bullhorn's own pages.

That small-agency page also states that 4,500+ small staffing agencies run on Bullhorn, that implementation is free on Starter, Core, and Pro, that a free trial is not currently offered, and that agencies using Bullhorn report 24% more placements per recruiter, according to Bullhorn (2026). Read the 24% as the vendor's own statement on that page. It is not an independent audit reproduced here. The same page says there is no re-implementation when you move from Starter to Core or Pro, and that candidate records carry forward.

Limitations: the sales pipeline, AI search and match, Amplify Chat, data enrichment, process automation, call transcription, real-time analytics, and a dedicated account manager are listed on Pro, which has no printed price. Max adds agentic screening, matching, enrichment, and multi-step outreach, also quoted, and its implementation is scoped in the quote rather than included at no cost. Starter does not list the marketplace or custom fields. A firm that knows it needs those should price Core, a $66 step up per user per month, before it signs Starter. Pay and bill are not on the small-agency seat. They are separate quoted products. VAT is excluded from the printed prices.

Implementation: Bullhorn says Starter, Core, and Pro include free implementation and that a small agency can be operational within days with guided setup. Ask what "free" covers in hours, which objects are migrated, and whether historical notes and submissions move or only current candidates. A free implementation that imports names, and leaves submissions behind, still costs recruiter time. Because there is no trial, the working session before signature is the only look you get. Bring one real job, one client, and one messy resume.

Choose Bullhorn's Core plan when the marketplace and LinkedIn connections are the reason you came, and the sales pipeline can wait for a quote. Choose a quoted Pro or Max plan when Amplify or the CRM pipeline is the requirement, and refuse to compare that unknown number with a $95 seat as if they were the same product. Choose Bullhorn One or Middle Office, both quote-based, when the business is hours, pay, and invoices.

A five-seat year on published prices

A five-person permanent desk that stays on published list prices pays 5 times $95, which is $475 a month and $5,700 a year, on Recruit CRM's Pro plan, against 5 times $99, which is $495 a month and $5,940 a year, on Bullhorn's Starter plan. The difference is $20 a month, or $240 a year. The same five people on the Business plan pay 5 times $135, which is $675 a month and $8,100 a year, and that is the first Recruit CRM tier that lists the open API, 100 custom fields, and 100 hiring pipelines. Five people on Core pay 5 times $165, which is $825 a month and $9,900 a year. If the desk later creates candidates through Bullhorn's REST API, the candidate example on Bullhorn's REST API reference returns an address object, and a blank address.address1 still has to be caught by a person before that record is submitted to a client. These figures are list-price arithmetic from the pages cited above. They are not a quote, not a tax invoice, and not a result from a live desk.

The $240 gap does not pay for a second pipeline. The $1,800 gap between a five-seat Business year and a five-seat Core year is the published cost of moving from an API-backed CRM seat to a marketplace seat that still does not list the sales pipeline. Add a credit purchase or a quoted Amplify module and both totals move. Do that addition with the vendor's current credit sheet or quote, not with a guessed rate.

Work that sits above either system

The painful moment is not the empty pipeline. It is the hour after a recruiter decides a person is ready for the client. The resume is parsed, the fee is still in someone's head, and the submission note is a paste from the last job. A proposed US Tech Automations workflow starts when a candidate is moved to a client-submission stage. The action reads a scheduled export or, where the plan allows it, the API. Open API access on Recruit CRM is listed from the Business plan upward. Bullhorn's REST login returns a session token, BhRestToken, that later calls must send. The output is a draft submission packet and a queue row that names any missing field, including a blank address line. A recruiter reviews that row before any note is written back and before any email goes to the hiring manager. This is a configuration, not a live customer and not a measured time save. It stays off until the field map and the reviewer are named.

A second configurable pass fits the placement, which is where small agencies lose the fee. When a job moves to filled, the workflow checks that the fee or the bill rate is present and opens a task for the person who invoices. US Tech Automations would stop at that task when the fee field is blank, rather than creating an invoice on its own. The prerequisite is the same export or API right, plus a short list of fields a human must confirm. The recruiter, not the workflow, decides the number the client sees.

Zapier, Make, and n8n can sit on the same events. Configured with care, those tools can keep a run history, retry a failed step, branch when a call errors, and store an audit trail. The agency still designs and owns the rest: a repeated event must not create a second submission, someone must see the failure, access to candidate records has to stay limited, and the scenario has to be maintained when a field is renamed. A proposed US Tech Automations design would put the review stop and the required-field check into the configuration, with the API or export prerequisite and a named reviewer on the client-facing step. It does not remove that reviewer, and it does not replace the ATS.

When NOT to use US Tech Automations: leave it aside when one recruiter already updates the pipeline by hand and does not send a client packet from the system. Leave it aside when Bullhorn's quoted Pro automation, or Recruit CRM's own credit-metered workflows, already cover the only handoff you run and nobody needs a separate review queue. Leave it aside when you will not grant an export or an API token, because the workflow cannot check a record it is not allowed to read.

Before you sign, walk this list once. Count the hiring motions that need their own pipeline, and if there is more than one, price Recruit CRM's Business plan rather than the Pro plan. Write down whether the client fee has to live on a deal record this year. If it does, the printed Bullhorn options are Starter and Core, and the pipeline you want is on a quote. Decide whether another tool must connect. Zapier is listed on every Recruit CRM plan. The open API starts on Business. Bullhorn's 300+ partner marketplace starts on Core. Ask for the credit price sheet so the $95 seat is not treated as the whole Recruit CRM bill. If pay and bill are part of the first contract, get that quote before you compare seat prices. Confirm the trial or the working session: 30 days on Recruit CRM, and a guided setup with no trial on Bullhorn.

Mistakes that make the cheap seat the expensive one

The first mistake is comparing Bullhorn's Starter plan with Recruit CRM's Business plan and calling the $99 seat "almost the same." Starter is an ATS with client records. The Business plan is an ATS plus a higher pipeline cap, custom roles, and an open API. The fair published pair for a CRM-plus-API requirement is the Business plan at $135 against a Bullhorn quote, not against $99.

The second mistake is buying the Pro plan because it is $95 and discovering in month two that the second desk has no pipeline of its own. Moving to the Business plan is allowed. The page says you can change plans. The wasted month is the jobs you forced into one board.

The third mistake is ignoring credits. Workflow automation is listed on every Recruit CRM plan, and it consumes credits. A firm that turns on several automations, enriches every new resume, and multiposts every job can spend the included pool and still be inside the seat they thought was the full price. Get the overage in writing.

The fourth mistake is assuming Core includes Amplify. AI search, the sales pipeline, and process automation are on the Pro card. Core's printed value is the marketplace, custom fields, and LinkedIn. Paying $165 and then discovering that the AI demo belonged to a quote is a purchasing error, not a product surprise, if you read the card.

The fifth mistake is treating free implementation as free cleanup. Bullhorn includes implementation on Starter, Core, and Pro. Recruit CRM includes a free import and charges for assisted migration. Neither sentence tells you whether five years of notes will move. Ask for the object list.

Glossary

Applicant tracking system (ATS): the pipeline and the candidate record used to move a person from application to submission to placement.

Recruiting CRM: the client side of the same system, including companies, contacts, and the deals or jobs those clients give you. On Bullhorn's small-agency cards, this sales pipeline is a Pro feature.

Hiring pipeline: the set of stages for one recruiting motion. Recruit CRM's Pro plan includes 1. The Business plan includes 100.

Credit: a pooled unit on Recruit CRM that pays for metered actions such as enrichment, automation, and multiposting. Included amounts are 100, 200, or 2,000 per user per month depending on plan.

Open API: a token your own tools can use to read and write records. On Recruit CRM it is listed from the Business plan up.

Vendor management system (VMS): the client system that sends contract jobs to agencies. Bullhorn lists 110+ of these connections on a quoted VMS Automation product.

Sequence enrolment: one person actively running inside an outreach sequence. The Business plan lists 1,000 sequences and 500 active enrolments.

BhRestToken: the session token Bullhorn's REST login returns. Later API calls have to send it. It is a technical prerequisite, not a plan feature by itself.

Questions to settle before you sign

How much does Recruit CRM cost?

Recruit CRM's Pro plan costs $95 per user per month, the Business plan costs $135 per user per month, and the Enterprise plan costs $215 per user per month on the pricing page opened for this guide, with annual billing listed as saving up to 17%. Credits, and any extra credit purchase, sit on top of those seats. A five-user year at those list prices is $5,700, $8,100, or $12,900 before credits and before a paid assisted migration.

How much does Bullhorn cost?

Bullhorn's Starter plan costs $99 per user per month and the Core plan costs $165 per user per month. Pro, Max, the larger Front Office tiers, Bullhorn One, and the add-on automation and back-office products are quote-based. A five-user year is $5,940 on Starter and $9,900 on Core, before VAT, which the vendor says is excluded.

Does the lowest Bullhorn plan include a sales CRM?

The recruitment CRM sales pipeline is listed on Bullhorn's Pro plan, which is quote-based, and on the quote-based Front Office Growth plan. It is not listed on the Starter or Core cards. Client management, meaning client records, is listed on Starter. That is a contact list, not the sales pipeline.

Can you try either product before paying?

Recruit CRM's pricing page states a 30-day trial. Bullhorn's small-agency pricing page states that a free trial is not currently offered, and it points agencies to a guided look and to Starter as the paid way to get operational. Plan on a working session with your own job if you shortlist Bullhorn.

Which plan includes an API?

Open API access on Recruit CRM is listed on the Business and Enterprise plans, not on the Pro plan. Zapier is listed on all three. Bullhorn publishes a REST API, and the Core plan is where the 300+ partner marketplace is included. Confirm on the order form that the token you need is part of the tier you are buying.

Can a temp desk run pay and bill on the entry plan?

Invoicing is listed on every Recruit CRM plan, and timesheets are listed as a credit-metered feature with a per-contractor rate that was not printed as a dollar table on the page opened here. Bullhorn places timesheets, pay, and bill on quote-only products, including Bullhorn One and Middle Office. A temp desk should get that quote before it treats either entry seat as the whole system.

The choice is a plan, not a logo. If the client pipeline and a printed API price are the requirement, price Recruit CRM's Business plan and read the credit sheet. If the marketplace and LinkedIn Recruiter System Connect are the requirement, price Bullhorn's Core plan and ask what the sales pipeline will add. If the work after the ATS is a reviewed handoff rather than another seat, see how US Tech Automations configures this.