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SmartRecruiters vs Zoho 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

SmartRecruiters
Ranking in Applicant Tracking and Recruiting Software
4th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
Talent Acquisition (12th)
Zoho Recruit
Ranking in Applicant Tracking and Recruiting Software
1st
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.8
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
Video Interviewing Software (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the Applicant Tracking and Recruiting Software category, the mindshare of SmartRecruiters is 3.6%, down from 6.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Zoho Recruit is 2.5%, down from 3.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Applicant Tracking and Recruiting Software Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Zoho Recruit2.5%
SmartRecruiters3.6%
Other93.9%
Applicant Tracking and Recruiting Software
 

Featured Reviews

Anudeep Kamuni - PeerSpot reviewer
Global Lead - TA ops & Analytics | Strategy Growth & Leadership at a recreational facilities/services company with 10,001+ employees
Efficiently automates tasks but lacks certain features in terms of usability
There are a couple of areas of improvement. SmartRecruiter lacks certain features in terms of usability. For instance, we cannot move candidate profiles, interview feedback, notes, and activities related to one candidate when transitioning from one job to another. We have to manually copy and paste everything for that specific candidate. This is a significant drawback. Additionally, the filters are not accurate. The results are inaccurate when filtering multiple criteria, such as country and hiring manager. This level of inaccuracy is unexpected for an application, especially for smaller organizations. It should have been corrected easily. Moreover, the CRM module lacks video reporting capabilities. These are some the biggest improvement I would like to see.
Mae Cleope Villacorta - PeerSpot reviewer
Zoho Specialist at Passtab
Integrated hiring has expanded candidate reach and now needs stronger AI assistance
At the moment, I do not see any suggestions so far because my requirements for my clients are met, and there is another workaround because I also use Deluge scripting inside Zoho. I am currently happy with Zoho Recruit. It is built-in specifically for recruitment, so if I want to customize some things, that is where Zoho Creator will come into the picture. For now, I am happy using Zoho Recruit because it is user-friendly in terms of UI, and there are no issues from my end. There is still room for improvement. I rate it seven because of my good experience with Zoho Recruit while implementing my client's requirements. Up until now, they are using it and they are gaining good results. They are not calling me for technical problems, which means it is properly working from their end. For me, I am comfortable with the UI, but if they want to improve it, for example with a design like Canva, then that is something I could suggest. Additionally, integration with AI would be beneficial. I know there is Zia, but it would be good to integrate some AI that is more commonly used such as ChatGPT. Although it will cost to integrate ChatGPT with Zoho, it would be a good outcome.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The all-encompassing ability to manage the process cohesively out of the SmartRecruiter system was valuable."
"With just a click of a button, we can manage the process. Even generating offer letters and obtaining electronic signatures through DocSign are integrated into this application."
"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."
"The most valuable feature is the way that they've set it up for collaboration."
"SmartRecruiters is a candidate management system or ATS system that we use for recruitment purposes."
"Job publishing and application tracking are the most valuable features. You can keep the flow of a candidate's application into one system. The whole collaboration can also be done within the system, which means that you can schedule interviews and add your feedback and ratings there. You can also communicate with the candidates. The analytics part of it is also very valuable. It is a useful feature that we use quite a lot. We don't really use other features such as recruitment marketing or CRM candidate relationship management in SmartRecruiters."
"I found the core product quite useful. It is easy to use and quite user-friendly. They have also got other options, such as CRM and HRS. They have other versions such as smart distribute, which is an HRS type of system to analyze and get permissions needed from the applicants. In terms of pricing, SmartRecruiters is much better than its competitors."
"The candidate experience was better because the whole process was there."
"The solution provides the ability to integrate with other Zoho apps, allowing us to automate the hiring process."
"The customization feature is the most valuable. I can add candidates to the system without having to go into it manually. I can look at a LinkedIn or PNet profile and literally right-click on it and pass that candidate into my database almost completely. It is 100% accurate for 90% of the time. It also has good security. I can't log in without a fingerprint. To log in, I have to give a fingerprint on my smartphone."
"The installation process isn't very complicated."
"The CV parsing feature is the most valuable. It can parse resumes for the database. It is easy to deploy, and it is also stable and scalable. Its support is also good."
"The pricing seems to be very reasonable."
"There are two features I love in Zoho Recruit. The first one is mass customization. I can customize the blueprint how I like, add some steps I want to include, and schedule a date and time to send the emails. I can also use a lot of templates. Secondly, the best thing about Zoho is the customer service. Whenever I have an issue or want to upgrade something, I text them through Zoho, and they respond within 40 seconds."
"The most valuable feature of Zoho Recruit is I can compete with the larger vendors in the business. I am constantly changing the configuration and the solution adapts to my needs."
"Good reporting feature."
 

Cons

"Sometimes, there is this language or communication barrier in terms of what the applicants mentioned. SmartRecruiters sometimes has trouble understanding certain types of keywords or has certain types of language, translation, or grammar issues."
"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."
"The solution needs to work on a single sign-on."
"There were limitations with the system that we would have liked, not in the time, but the company in Germany really dictated that. So we couldn't do everything in the system we would have liked to it."
"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."
"We ran into some serious issues related to language barriers."
"SmartRecruiters' on-click application process could be better."
"There's a bit of a learning curve."
"Candidate filtering is a little cumbersome. I would love to see all the design and effort Zoho put in to the administrative user experience also be applied to the manager experience side. Quite a bit of filtering has to be done to get to what you want. Also, you can't get through many candidates because Zoho Recruit has a cap on how many candidates you can view at a time. If you've got hundreds of candidates per job, you may have to scroll through 10 pages."
"It lacks the functionality for finalizing the process when a successful placement is made. There is no invoicing. It is missing the functionality for setting the placement and a start date. I do permanent placements as well as contractors, but it is not really geared towards contractors. So, I have to have a separate solution to manage contractors, timesheets, and things like that. It is just a bit of a pain. It is not as simple as some of the competitors, but it is far more able. There is a lot more to it, and it does a lot more than what any of the competitors currently do, which makes it a little bit more complicated to use, but it is easy enough. None of my staff have any issues. In all such solutions, you have to feed more than what they give you. It is a database at the end of the day, and I would like it to give me things. I would like to load a lead or get someone to just load leads all day, and I would like it to come back to me and say, "There's this position that you've loaded, and these candidates match. Can I send it?" I'd like it to be a little bit more proactive and feed me as much information as I feed it."
"There is a limit to the number of lines you can extract."
"Its automation is currently complicated, and it could be better. The biggest problem is that their instructions, videos, and documentation are terrible. These should be improved. I would like to see an email tracking feature and an option to find email addresses and leads."
"The pricing could be a bit more reasonable."
"No ability to automatically update details."
"Zoho Recruit could benefit from increased flexibility and customization when creating and sending offer letters to new recruits."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"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."
"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."
"I wasn't involved in its acquisition, but I would assume that SmartRecruiters is pretty pricey."
"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."
"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."
"SmartRecruiters is an expensive solution."
"The cost of each user depends on the size of our user base."
"Zoho Recruit is an affordable solution in comparison to BambooHR and costs relatively the same as Greenhouse implementation wise. It costs less than $100 per user. Large organizations will be able to get enterprise pricing, and Zoho is transparent with their pricing."
"I think it costs about $40 per month for a recruiter account. It comes with ten free accounts. It's well worth the money we are paying."
"In terms of cost, Zoho is by far the most reasonable for what you're getting. You get the option of monthly or yearly price. It is one cost per person for a license, and it is reasonable. My solutions are $50 per person per month."
"It is in the middle price range. Everything is included in the price."
"The more you scale the solution the more it will cost. If you want the vendor to do the implementation or migration there are extra fees."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
11%
Healthcare Company
10%
Government
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise8
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise1
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
What needs improvement with Zoho Recruit?
At the moment, I do not see any suggestions so far because my requirements for my clients are met, and there is another workaround because I also use Deluge scripting inside Zoho. I am currently ha...
What is your primary use case for Zoho Recruit?
I have been working with my client for almost two years using Zoho Recruit, and then another client as well for approximately six months duration of the project, during which I also used Zoho Recru...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Zoho Recruit?
It is pricey, but it is worth the price. It depends on the requirements of the client. Zoho Recruit is solely for the recruitment process tool within a business. However, the good aspect is that al...
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Atlassian, Aol, IBM, Napa, Skechers
Manning Global, Hadfield Education, GEP, Scientific Games, International School of London - Qatar, IIM - Ahemadabad, Change.org
Find out what your peers are saying about SmartRecruiters vs. Zoho Recruit and other solutions. Updated: February 2026.
882,032 professionals have used our research since 2012.