Best Applicant Tracking System (ATS) for Small Business

Last Updated on June 4, 2025 by Ewen Finser

When I first started my small business, we kept track of job applicants using spreadsheets. We know firsthand how challenging that can be. It quickly became overwhelming, especially when applicants filled out an application via email, and we needed to follow up to request a resume or additional information. 

This gets messy fast, and it’s easy to lose track of who’s who, especially when a couple of candidates have similar names. Before we know it, we’re tangled in a web of emails and spreadsheets, and I had a throbbing headache just trying to stay organized.

These days, companies are turning to Applicant Tracking Systems, or ATS for short, to streamline their hiring process. An ATS is a helpful tool that lets businesses organize and manage all the job applications they receive, track candidates throughout each stage of the hiring process, and easily sort through resumes. By using an ATS, it becomes much simpler for employers to find the best candidates for their open positions, saving both time and effort along the way.

Since we’ve been using an ATS for our small business, we’ve had no more throbbing spreadsheet headaches. There are many ATS platforms on the market, and here are the ones I think are best.

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Top Picks at a Glance

• Ninja Gig – Best for small businesses that want affordability.
• ZohoRecruit – Best for a combined ATS and CRM system.
• Workable – Best for scaling companies looking for a formal recruiting process.
• SmartRecruiters – Best for visually tracking candidates’ progress.
• BreezyHR – Best for companies wanting to try upscale their hiring process.

Best Applicant Tracking System (ATS) for Small Business

Ninja Gig – Best for Small Businesses That Want Affordability

Ninja Gig was the first ATS we tried out, and what I found was a seamless, affordable solution that’s made online recruiting so much easier for our company.

This platform is designed with businesses of all sizes in mind, but it’s particularly well-suited for small companies like ours. The interface is intuitive and simple to use, which makes creating and managing job applications a breeze. Both employers and candidates benefit from how smoothly everything runs.

Ever since we started using Ninja Gig, we’ve noticed a huge improvement in how efficiently we can handle recruiting tasks. Things that used to take us hours to sort out with emails and spreadsheets now only take a few minutes. It’s truly streamlined the whole hiring process for our business.

What I Like

Ninja Gig is super easy to use with a simple interface. We especially like how it posts to job boards automatically, without having to fuss with formatting. All applications received are tracked in a central repository, and the ability to use tags makes it handy to find who we want to reach back out to.

Their reporting analytics was just the right amount that we needed, with the ability to track site visits, number of applications, percentage applied, and Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) data.

What I don’t Like

Although Ninja Gig allows for unlimited users, it doesn’t offer role-based permissions like admin or viewer access, which means there’s less control over who can access or modify certain parts of the platform. Additionally, as our company grows, we might want more detailed analytics, such as time to hire or candidate quality, but these advanced data points aren’t currently available.

Pricing and Plans

It’s a very affordable ATS with a low, flat-fee structure that allows access to features. Additionally, Ninja Gig offers unlimited job postings and free syndication to major job boards, which maximizes our reach without straining our budget.

My Thoughts

If you’re looking to take the stress out of online recruiting and hiring for your small business, Ninja Gig offers a comprehensive, affordable, and effective solution to streamline your workflow. 

ZohoRecruit – Best for a Combined ATS and CRM System

ZohoRecruit offers the combination of ATS and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) in a single recruitment platform, as it integrates with ZohoCRM to assist with relationship building across clients and candidates.  

It’s an end-to-end solution that acts as a central hub for all our hiring activities, making it easy to collaborate with our team, automate repetitive tasks, and make more informed decisions during the recruitment process. Key tasks are easily automated with ZohoRecruit, such as scheduling interviews and sending emails.

What I Like

This platform does a good job pulling information out of resumes to create comprehensive candidate profiles for us, which makes the reviewing process much easier. We are also able to build in many workflows that automate our recruiting process. Just like other platforms, we can post our jobs on other platforms such as LinkedIn and Indeed seamlessly.

What I don’t Like

The most frequent complaint about ZohoRecruit is its outdated and not very intuitive interface, and we have to agree. Additionally, its data reporting features aren’t very robust, and it has limited integration capabilities with other systems.

Pricing and Plans

ZohoRecruit is an affordable platform, offering free and low-cost basic plan options to help freelance recruiters or small agencies as they are starting out.

All plans include core features like finding candidates, posting jobs, sharing openings on social media, organizing resumes, and basic hiring analytics. The more premium plans have AI tools that help match candidates to our jobs, deeper analytics to track our hiring process, and the ability to set up custom roles for our team.

My Thoughts

This platform is a great option for small businesses that want to manage both their recruiting and customer relationships in one place. It handles the entire recruitment process—from sourcing and managing candidates to screening, reporting, and integration—with many steps automated for added convenience. Overall, it’s a strong choice for small businesses looking for an all-in-one solution.

Workable – Best for Scaling Companies Looking for a Formal Recruiting Process

Workable is both an ATS and a Human Resources (HR) solution, offering features like applicant tracking, job posting, interview scheduling, and onboarding. It also streamlines HR tasks by allowing us to manage important documents and track time off all in one place. This makes it easy to create a formal, efficient recruiting and onboarding processes for our team.

What I Like

We like Workable because it combines HR features like centralized data, onboarding, and compliance with our ATS in one easy-to-use platform. It’s not overwhelming, which is great for our small business, and it allows us to track everything we need from the start of our hiring process to each employee’s ongoing service.

What I don’t Like

Sometimes, Workable’s add-ons can be a bit clunky and don’t always work the way you would expect. This can result in an inconsistent experience for users, which can be frustrating when you’re trying to get things done efficiently. On top of that, their customer service doesn’t always meet expectations, and we felt let down when our team needed help, leading to frustration.

Pricing and Plans

Workable’s plan can get expensive, and although it includes much functionality within their comprehensive platform, it may be cost-prohibitive for many small businesses.

Their pricing is based on headcount within the company, so the price increases as you grow. However, every plan includes a range of free features such as self-service employee profiles, a searchable company file system, an employee directory, and an organizational chart.

My Thoughts

This platform is an excellent choice for companies experiencing rapid growth and looking to put a more formal recruiting process in place. Businesses in this position will benefit from having both applicant tracking and HR features combined into a single, easy-to-manage system. It streamlines hiring and makes managing a growing team much more efficient.

JazzHR – Best for Companies Wanting to Try Out an ATS

JazzHR is a budget-friendly and easy-to-use applicant tracking system that’s perfect for companies investing in their first recruiting software. It’s designed with ease of use in mind, covering all the basics you need to source candidates, stay compliant, and manage your hiring pipeline.

If you’re a smaller business or don’t have a dedicated recruiting team, JazzHR makes managing the hiring process simple and accessible without any unnecessary extras.

What I Like

We really appreciated that JazzHR lets us pick and choose the add-ons we needed, instead of paying for features we might not use. For example, candidate texting is super handy, but as a small business, we don’t need advanced reporting just yet.

We also love that we can automatically filter out applicants who don’t meet our criteria which saves us a ton of time and lets us focus on the candidates who are the best fit. It definitely makes hiring easier and much more efficient. Additionally, JazzCrowd is a feature we like to use which performs salary and candidate comparisons against similar companies.

What I don’t Like

While it is a great platform for small companies, its limited customization and basic analytics may not suit larger or companies that are beginning to rapidly grow.

Pricing and Plans

JazzHR offers three pricing plans, starting with an affordable entry-level option. The lower two tiers allow companies to customize their plans with add-ons like candidate texting, Zoom integration, eSignatures, and additional support, so we can select only the features we need. The highest tier includes all add-ons, though it does come with a job posting limit.

My Thoughts

JazzHR positions themselves as an ATS for small and growing teams, delivering both affordability with robust functionality, offering businesses a quick and easy setup without compromising on essential recruitment tools. I agree that it is a solid choice for companies for their first ATS.

BreezyHR – Best for Companies Wanting to Upscale Their Hiring Process

This platform is great for small businesses that already have a basic hiring process in place, but want to make it even better. It’s user-friendly and makes it simple to post jobs to multiple job boards, review resumes, automate interview scheduling, and access detailed analytics. All of these features help us streamline our hiring and make the process more efficient.

What I Like

BreezyHR does a great job automating tasks such as helping us pre-screen candidates, send emails, schedule interviews, and gather feedback from our team. It has a user-friendly interface and allows us to easily post to around 50 job boards. They have an excellent selection of built-in interview guides, which includes over 400 questions based on specific skills, job roles, or industries, which we found super helpful.

What I don’t Like

Customer support from BreezyHR can be hit or miss, and the user interface isn’t always as intuitive or user-friendly as we hoped. Additionally, the platform offers only limited analytics and reporting features, which was a drawback when we were looking for more detailed insights into our hiring process.

Pricing and Plans

They have a free plan to allow companies to try them out. With this plan, there are unlimited users and candidates, customer support, a branded career site, and the ability to post to over 50 job boards which are the same benefits you’d get with their paid plans. They offer both Hire and Perform plans, each with several tiers that provide different features and options.

My Thoughts

BreezyHR is one of the pricier ATS options out there, but you get a lot of value for what you pay. Along with posting to lots of job boards and managing applicants, Breezy also helps you run a smoother interview process. A great bonus is the interview guides library, which provides ready-made questions and helps streamline your interviews with no need to spend time searching for questions on your own.

In Summary: Choosing the Best ATS For Your Small Business

Having experienced the messiness of manual tracking applicants on a spreadsheet firsthand, we can confidently say that switching to an ATS has been a game-changer for our small business. If you’re still managing applicants the old-fashioned way, we highly recommend exploring an ATS.

For small to medium-sized businesses seeking affordability, Ninja Gig is a standout choice.

ZohoRecruit offers the best combination of ATS and CRM features for those looking to manage both recruitment and customer relationships in one platform. If your company is scaling and needs a formalized recruiting process, Workable is an excellent option. 

SmartRecruiters is ideal for visually tracking candidate progress, providing an intuitive overview for hiring teams. And for businesses just getting started with applicant tracking, JazzHR is a great entry-level solution.

No longer are we drowning in emails and spreadsheets or struggling to keep candidate details straight! Instead, our hiring process is now streamlined, organized, and far less stressful.