Greenhouse vs SmartRecruiters (September 2026): an independent comparison

Greenhouse or SmartRecruiters: the verdict

Greenhouse vs SmartRecruiters: comparison table

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What Greenhouse and SmartRecruiters look like

Ownership: SmartRecruiters now answers to SAP, Greenhouse stays independent

SAP announced its purchase of SmartRecruiters on August 1, 2025, and completed it on September 11, 2025, without disclosing terms. SAP said the SmartRecruiters portfolio stays available standalone for the foreseeable future and that customers keep the flexibility to use it with SAP or with other HR suites. SiliconANGLE, reporting on the deal, named Amazon, Visa and McDonald's among SmartRecruiters' customers.

In March 2026, SAP said SmartRecruiters now offers integration paths for customers of SAP SuccessFactors Recruiting, that it will honor all contracts and that nobody is required to migrate. It also announced that, beginning in 2026, Winston and SAP's Joule assistant will work together as connected agents. For SAP customers this is a direct route in; everyone else should ask how the standalone product will be supported.

Greenhouse has had TPG as majority investor since January 2021 and is buying rather than being bought: it completed the acquisition of the voice interview startup Ezra AI Labs on May 27, 2026.

Our directory shows the same consolidation: 12 of the 50 applicant tracking tools we list belong to a larger group.

Pricing: SmartRecruiters shows an entry price, but its AI sits in quoted plans

SmartRecruiters' pricing page lists the Essential plan as starting at $14,995, without saying whether that is per year. Essential lists no AI features. Professional adds the AI-powered Hiring Agent and the AI Talent Matching Engine, High Volume adds AI-powered candidate screening and Conversational AI Chat, and Complete adds advanced analytics; all three are priced on request.

Greenhouse publishes no amounts. Its tiers are quoted on hiring volume, organizational complexity and required features. The help center says Talent Matching needs the Real Talent add-on, the pricing page leaves fraud detection and CLEAR identity checks out of the Core tier, and Voice AI is a separate annual subscription.

Neither vendor advertises a free trial. Any setup with AI is quote-driven at both, so compare written offers that list exactly which AI modules are included.

AI features: both keep recruiters in charge, only Greenhouse publishes audits

SmartRecruiters groups its AI under the name Winston. Winston Match suggests the best candidates and, according to an April 2026 announcement, now shows sub-scores for education, skills and experience. Winston Screen replaces manual resume review with AI shortlisting, Winston Chat uses large language models to guide candidates through applications, and Winston Companion handles repetitive tasks from screening to scheduling.

In April 2026 SmartRecruiters also introduced Winston Interview, an on-demand agent for first-round screening interviews, and demonstrated a prototype for fraud detection. Treat both as announcements until they appear in your contract.

Greenhouse lists 17 generally available AI features. Talent Matching sorts applicants into match categories and, according to the help center, never rejects or advances anyone by itself. Voice AI runs spoken first interviews in 11 languages and does not score accent, tone or confidence. Warden AI audits Talent Matching every month and publishes the results; its audit of August 14, 2026 covered 61,740 candidates with all 110 checks clear.

The Winston page describes what each component automates but says nothing about bias audits or human review. Employers that use Winston scores for hiring in New York City must still have the tool audited for bias under Local Law 144, so ask SmartRecruiters which test data it can share.

Country fit: SmartRecruiters hosts in Frankfurt by default, Greenhouse splits by region

Our data lists the United States as the strong market for both products. SmartRecruiters hosts customers in Frankfurt unless an order form names another location, with Ohio and Sydney as the alternatives, and has offices in Kraków, Berlin, London and Paris. Greenhouse runs AWS silos in Virginia, Frankfurt and Sydney and offers its interface in English, German, French, Italian, Korean, Spanish and Portuguese.

In the EU, the AI Act counts AI tools for employment, such as CV-sorting software for recruitment, as high-risk; after the AI Omnibus amendment, those duties apply from December 2, 2027. Both vendors hold ISO/IEC 42001 certification for AI management, so ask each how its certificate maps to the Act's high-risk duties. SmartRecruiters also lists TISAX and UK Cyber Essentials.

In the United States, New York City's Local Law 144 requires employers to have automated hiring tools audited for bias within 1 year before use, to publish a summary and to notify candidates 10 business days ahead. Greenhouse's published monthly audits can support that work for Talent Matching; SmartRecruiters buyers should plan for their own.

For an alternative with public list prices and a free trial, see our Greenhouse vs Workable comparison.

Who should pick Greenhouse and who SmartRecruiters

The bottom line

Choose SmartRecruiters when language coverage, EU hosting by default and a path into SAP SuccessFactors matter most, and get its AI modules priced in writing. Choose Greenhouse when you want published bias audits, screening AI that never acts alone and an applicant tracking vendor without a suite owner. If neither ownership nor hosting decides it for you, compare both quotes for the same hiring volume and the AI modules you will actually use.