Greenhouse alternatives: 12 tools compared (September 2026)

Shortlist: which Greenhouse alternative fits which situation

SmartRecruiters

Fits enterprises that run SAP SuccessFactors or want one vendor for recruiting and HR core. SAP completed the acquisition on September 11, 2025. The published Essential plan starts at $14,995 but leaves out AI matching, which begins with Professional.

Workable

Fits small and midsize teams in the US and UK that want a list price and a 15-day trial before any sales call. Standard costs $299 per month billed annually at 1 to 20 employees, and the AI agent runs on credits, with 3,000 included.

softgarden

Fits German midsize employers that want data in German data centers and reach on more than 1,200 job portals. Core starts at €199 per month net; the All-in-One package with single sign-on is quoted individually.

JOIN

Fits small companies with a handful of openings. Standard costs €17 per active job and month billed annually, for up to 15 active jobs. API access and candidate export need Advanced at €34.

d.vinci

Fits German employers whose works council wants written AI governance. d.vinci states that its AI counts as high risk under the EU AI Act and that customer data is not used to train models. Applicant tracking starts at €785 per month.

Why teams look past Greenhouse: a price nobody sees, a forced API migration and open EU questions

Greenhouse does not publish a price. Its pricing page says cost depends on the plan, hiring volume, organizational complexity and the features required. Budgeting before a sales call is therefore guesswork, and renewals are where many buyers compare. Some features also sit in higher tiers: fraud and spam detection starts with Plus, AI report filters come with Plus and Pro.

The second trigger is technical. Greenhouse made Harvest API v1 and v2 unavailable after August 31, 2026. Every custom integration had to move to Harvest v3, which authenticates with OAuth 2.0 client credentials instead of API keys. A team that has to rebuild its data warehouse sync or HRIS feed anyway has a natural point to test whether the whole system still fits.

Volume is the third. In June 2026 Greenhouse reported that applications on its platform had risen 129% since 2023. Its answer is AI, from Talent Matching to Voice AI. Teams that need those functions end up comparing the price of the tiers that contain them with systems that bundle similar tools differently.

For European employers the open questions concern data and law. Greenhouse hosts EU customers in AWS Frankfurt, with Ireland for disaster recovery, and names annual SOC 1 Type 2, SOC 2 Type 2, ISO 27001 and ISO 27701 audits. In our September 2026 review we found no public statement from Greenhouse on the EU AI Act. A German works council with a say under § 87 BetrVG will ask about that, and our Greenhouse vs SmartRecruiters comparison covers the compliance side in more detail.

Sources: [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8]

Which alternative fits which situation

No single system replaces Greenhouse for everyone. The useful question is which constraint weighs most: where candidates and data sit, how many roles run at once, which HR suite you already own, and how much of the process you want AI to take over. The decision tree below walks through these questions.

Enterprises on SAP have the shortest path to SmartRecruiters. SAP completed the purchase in September 2025, says more than 4,000 organizations rely on it and promises that customers can keep using it with other HR suites. The weak spot for a Greenhouse migrant is cost transparency: only Essential has a public starting price, and AI screening and conversational chat begin with the High Volume plan. For very large global employers, Avature is the other enterprise option in our directory, also priced on request.

Teams in Germany, Austria and Switzerland usually ask first where data sits. softgarden hosts in ISO 27001 certified data centers in Germany, d.vinci in Hamburg, and JOIN keeps data in the EU according to our directory. JOIN has the lowest entry of the three because it prices per active job; softgarden and d.vinci price by package and company size.

Small and midsize teams outside Europe that mainly want a list price get one from Workable. Our directory records US hosting for Workable and no EU region, so European buyers should confirm data location before signing. Recruitee is the Dutch option with EU hosting and a free trial in our data, though it quotes amounts on request.

Sources: [6][9][10][11][12][13][14]

Costs and contracts: four vendors show a price, Greenhouse does not

Of the six systems compared here, four publish a starting price for their core product. That changes the buying process: you can shortlist on budget before you talk to sales. Greenhouse quotes every customer, and SmartRecruiters does the same above its entry plan.

The price models differ more than the amounts. JOIN charges per active job and month, €17 in Standard and €34 in Advanced, billed annually, for up to 15 active jobs, with Enterprise quoted. softgarden Core starts at €199 per month net. d.vinci applicant tracking starts at €785 per month, scales with company size, includes unlimited users and bills implementation workshops separately.

In dollars, Workable charges $299 per month billed annually ($3,588 a year) for Standard at 1 to 20 employees, and the price rises with company size. AI is billed on top: 3,000 credits are included, packs cost $0.095 to $0.12 per credit, and one scored application uses 1 credit, a sourced profile 2 and a candidate chat 10. Greenhouse's plan comparison does not include Voice AI; the product page says only that it is available for purchase.

Price on request is common across the applicant tracking category: 34 of 50 systems in our directory publish no pricing model beyond a quote. The calculator compares the euro starting prices by number of open roles. It shows list prices, not negotiated offers, and the table below it adds the systems that price in dollars or on request.

Sources: [12][10][11][13][9][1][15][14]

AI features: what ships today and what is only announced

Greenhouse's AI features split into shipped and announced. Every tier includes an AI notetaker, interview question suggestions, scorecard attribute suggestions and job description suggestions. The Analytics Chart Agent became generally available in June 2026 and Greenhouse MCP is rolling out to customers. The Job Kickoff Agent and the Candidate Insights Agent were announced for the third quarter of 2026 and are not counted here.

Voice AI came with the acquisition of Ezra AI Labs. It runs two-way spoken interviews with the questions and scoring criteria the employer sets, and it supports 10 additional languages, among them German, French, Italian and Dutch. For employers in the EU this is the kind of system the AI Act treats as high risk: Annex III lists AI used to recruit and select candidates.

The alternatives cover different parts of that scope. SmartRecruiters offers AI talent matching and a hiring agent from Professional, and AI screening with conversational chat from High Volume. Workable's AI agent evaluates applications, sources passive candidates and chats with them. JOIN's AI writes job descriptions. d.vinci uses AI for career page and job ad text and states that humans always review and decide.

Our directory shows how uneven AI governance still is. Only 3 of the 50 applicant tracking systems list an ISO/IEC 42001 certificate for AI management, and public statements on the EU AI Act are the exception. Filter the explorer by region to see which systems combine EU hosting, a published price and a German interface. Our Greenhouse vs Workable comparison looks at the two AI agents side by side.

Sources: [1][16][3][15][9][13][12][17][18][14]

Planning the switch: export, integrations, works council and GDPR

A switch starts with the data. Harvest v3 reads and writes candidates, jobs and offers, but every request runs under a Greenhouse user whose permissions decide what is visible. Plan the export with an admin who can see every job, including confidential ones, and decide in advance what happens to scorecards and interview notes.

Under Art. 28(3)(g) GDPR, a processor must delete or return all personal data at the end of the service, at the controller's choice. Put that choice in writing before the contract ends. Ask the new vendor for its data processing agreement and its list of subprocessors before you import anything.

In Germany, the works council has a co-determination right over technical systems designed to monitor employee behavior or performance, under § 87(1) no. 6 BetrVG. Scorecards and interviewer reports can fall under that rule, so start the talks early and bring the AI documentation. From December 2, 2027, the EU AI Act also requires employers to inform workers' representatives before they put a high-risk AI system into use at the workplace (Art. 26(7)).

Plan a parallel period. Open roles can finish in Greenhouse while new roles start in the new system, which avoids moving candidates mid-process. Check the notice period in your Greenhouse order form first, because the public pages state no contract terms.

Sources: [2][19][8][18][1]