No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

SmartRecruiters vs iCIMS Recruit comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

iCIMS Recruit
Ranking in Applicant Tracking and Recruiting Software
2nd
Average Rating
7.8
Number of Reviews
17
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
SmartRecruiters
Ranking in Applicant Tracking and Recruiting Software
3rd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
Talent Acquisition (10th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Applicant Tracking and Recruiting Software category, the mindshare of iCIMS Recruit is 1.4%, down from 2.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SmartRecruiters is 2.6%, down from 6.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Applicant Tracking and Recruiting Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
iCIMS Recruit1.4%
SmartRecruiters2.6%
Other96.0%
Applicant Tracking and Recruiting Software
 

Featured Reviews

ManishGupta9 - PeerSpot reviewer
Managing Director & CEO at Talenton Global
Centralized hiring workflows have cut time to fill and now need better automation and AI features
Implementation can be a bit lengthy and complicated, which is an area where iCIMS Recruit needs improvement. Customer support and automation are areas where iCIMS Recruit is less impressive, and they need to improve more on automation processes. Configurability could be a bit higher because some competitors might have an edge in terms of UX, recruiting workflow, modern recruiter experiences, and sourcing or CRM-oriented experiences. A native HCM is important because many times I have to integrate with different HCMs like Workday or SAP. Pricing is not very transparent, as sometimes I have to keep adding things and they keep adding more prices in terms of lower cost and faster implementation. Some user functionality can require too many steps. Customer support can be inconsistent sometimes, and I have seen some delays. The iCIMS Recruit support team does not always provide very proactive support. Implementations are usually very lengthy and they really need to improve their implementation strategy to cut down a substantial amount of time.
SUMANTA  GHOSH - PeerSpot reviewer
Regional Recruitment Lead at IQ-EQ
A user-friendly tool that functions without any glitches
With SmartRecruiters, compatibility with other HRIS systems is an area with certain shortcomings that require improvement. SmartRecruiters is a tool that we use as an ATS platform in our company, but we manage the employee lifecycle with the help of SAP, and I don't see the integration of SmartRecruiters with SAP happening quite seamlessly, making it an area where improvements are required.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"iCIMS Recruit has positively impacted my organization by making things smooth and efficient, allowing us to integrate texting capabilities and new candidate notifications and providing comprehensive reporting for ourselves and for executives."
"Over time, I've seen them build on their platform, make improvements, enhance the user experience, and continue to gather feedback for improvement from end users."
"I would describe iCIMS Recruit as a strong enterprise ATS where the biggest value comes from scalability, configurability, and its broader integration ecosystem."
"iCIMS Recruit's best features include the dashboard, the metrics, the graphs, and the link to our career portal and job postings."
"Overall, I am very happy with iCIMS Recruit."
"The solution offers good customization and good dashboards."
"The good features of iCIMS Recruit were that it was very easy to use."
"The best features iCIMS Recruit offers are that it reduces manual labor and allows me to create jobs and maintain a job library."
"What I really like about it is that it feels minimal, but is also dynamic. There aren't a lot of ways to get lost, which is good."
"It is a really user-friendly tool, and its implementation is quite wide."
"SmartRecruiters is a candidate management system or ATS system that we use for recruitment purposes."
"It is a really user-friendly tool, and its implementation is quite wide. It is very easy to manage users and build your workflows. Overall, it works very well for the customization of the workflows for us. The recruitment team has generally found the whole platform useful. We were looking to kind of expand it by using the CRM functions that it has. However, with COVID and recruitment being on the freeze, we weren't really able to make the most of the tool. They are, however, finding it useful to actually build up their talent pools and client candidates to be able to contact them when we kind of have this freeze off."
"SmartRecruiters is much better than its competitors, and considering the type of features and services it provides, it is probably one of the best solutions in the market."
"The candidate experience was better because the whole process was there."
"It has a neat functionality built in where it rates candidates. So, before you even look at the resume, you see a rating, and it is based on keywords. For example, it will tell you that an applicant is a frontend engineer and has used React, Angular, etc. It gives you a heads up so that you don't have to go through a hundred resumes on Monday morning eliminating applicants. It will tell you that this applicant's skills match 87%, which is pretty neat. You can skip the ones that are rated 25% or something."
"The all-encompassing ability to manage the process cohesively out of the SmartRecruiter system was valuable."
 

Cons

"The only challenge is that it can be difficult to make managers aware that they need to follow positions in the platform and learn how to use it so we can work together."
"There are several areas where iCIMS Recruit required improvements, including the learning curve for new users."
"Eventually, the company moved away from iCIMS Recruit simply because it did not provide all the options to filter, keyword search, or navigate applicants."
"Recruiters have to spend too much time updating some of the information there."
"iCIMS Recruit could be improved by adding a block to explain certain things."
"The customer support for iCIMS Recruit, specifically the technical customer support, leaves a little bit to desire, as with any other SaaS company."
"If reporting could be more robust, that would be phenomenal."
"Customer support and automation are areas where iCIMS Recruit is less impressive, and they need to improve more on automation processes."
"Around 2015 and into '17, I worked at a federal contractor. I had to switch to a different applicant system as I didn't know if SmartRecruiters was OFCCP compliant, which is something that, as a US-based federal contractor, you have to ensure. They should work to appeal to the contractor industry and get the product OFCCP compliant."
"A disadvantage of being a SaaS solution is that there aren't many customization options because you are literally buying it out of the box."
"The solution's reporting feature could be improved because it is not very strong."
"There were problems with integrations around other systems and each one had to be custom-built, which took a little while to get set up and running."
"I don't see the integration of SmartRecruiters with SAP happening quite seamlessly, making it an area where improvements are required."
"The major improvement area is how it integrates with other systems. That's where we've had some sort of pain points. They've done a lot of work with their development team in setting up integrations with other types of software like SuccessFactors, which we use, but we have found some glitches there. This is probably where they need to do some work. Sometimes, when it refreshes or there is any sort of update in SmartRecruiters, it has a direct impact on the integrations that we have with other tools. We are not always notified when that takes place. We have had HR say to us, "We've just hired this guy. He is not there in our end board at all. What's going on?" That's when we realized that the integration is actually broken. When we have other solutions like SuccessFactors, it would be very helpful to have knowledge articles for such integrations. We have found some of the templates that we want to use and some of the customizations that we do around the offer letters and the contract letters to be a little bit more difficult, which hasn't made this process any more efficient than it was. We still have to do a bit of manual intervention there. I don't know if it is just our company, but we need to have different clauses and things in place. We have stopped using DocuSign as well, and we are trying to look at other ways of doing that. They are aware of this."
"SmartRecruiters' one-click application process could be better."
"One thing that has been a bit of a struggle is getting tech support."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"They are pretty competitive. As the product matures, it has much more functionality and different pricing models. It can relatively cost a lot more if you want to use additional features, but, in general, it is competitive in the industry. We work on a yearly license agreement based on the company size. There are the support costs, which are a part of the additional cost based on the percentage of the licensing fee. So, it has a license plus support cost. Then, of course, there are other add-on options that we can purchase and procure whenever we want to based on certain negotiated arrangements."
"Back in 2018, when I engaged with their sales, they wanted to charge around $10,000 for an annual subscription. Depending on your organization, that either could or couldn't be expensive. I personally think it's a fair price. However, I engaged them and negotiated a lower price with them. I think I got closer to $6,000. It came with a commitment of three years."
"I haven't been so involved with pricing, so I don't have all details, but I know that we are paying per head when it comes to different countries. There is an additional fee for new features that they release. If it is something that we would like to use, we need to pay some extra for it."
"I wasn't involved in its acquisition, but I would assume that SmartRecruiters is pretty pricey."
"SmartRecruiters is an expensive solution."
"There were implementation costs in the first year to get everything set up and running, and then they have various modules on top, which are optional and available at an extra charge."
"SmartRecruiters is much better than its competitors. Considering the type of features and services it provides, it is probably one of the best solutions in the market. Others may offer a similar price, but their services won't be that good or the user-friendliness won't be that great. The licensing works based on how many users are there in a company. If you are using other functionalities, like CRM and HRS, the price increases."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Applicant Tracking and Recruiting Software solutions are best for your needs.
910,479 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Government
16%
Comms Service Provider
14%
University
11%
Wholesaler/Distributor
7%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Healthcare Company
9%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business7
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise13
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise8
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with iCIMS Recruit?
iCIMS Recruit can be improved by adding additional features related to looking for attrition rate and seeing how many people actually stay within roles, especially for those high-volume roles that ...
What is your primary use case for iCIMS Recruit?
My main use case for iCIMS Recruit is as an applicant tracking system where I review candidates, disposition candidates, and set up candidate screening, which may be virtual or in person. I create ...
What advice do you have for others considering iCIMS Recruit?
The advice that I would give to others using iCIMS Recruit is that it is an ATS system that works well for applicant tracking and workflow process in general. It is easy to navigate, and I think it...
Ask a question
Earn 20 points
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

NorthStar Anesthesia, Southeastern Grocers, AmTrust Financial, RPM Pizza, Hackensack Meridian Health, Esurance, Peet’s Coffee, Regis Corporation, Cedar Fair
Atlassian, Aol, IBM, Napa, Skechers
Find out what your peers are saying about SmartRecruiters vs. iCIMS Recruit and other solutions. Updated: July 2026.
910,479 professionals have used our research since 2012.