Lever vs. Greenhouse: Which hiring platform is better?

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There are tons of different ATS solutions available, but Lever and Greenhouse are two popular options that are designed to scale with your company as it grows.

They offer many similar features, but each have their own pitfalls and areas where they really shine.

In this guide, we’ll compare Lever vs. Greenhouse, give an overview of each software, and then dive deep into their feature sets so you can decide which is the better choice for you.

 
 
Pricing:
Request a quote
Pricing:
Custom pricing
Best For:
Mid-sizes to large organizations looking for a scalable TRM platform to streamline recruitment.
Best For:
Greenhouse positions itself as an ATS for people-first companies of all sizes.
Pricing:
Request a quote
Best For:
Mid-sizes to large organizations looking for a scalable TRM platform to streamline recruitment.
Pricing:
Custom pricing
Best For:
Greenhouse positions itself as an ATS for people-first companies of all sizes.

As your small business grows, you may find yourself quickly outgrowing the softwares you used to love – including your applicant tracking system (ATS).

To prevent this exact scenario, it’s important to keep scalability in mind as you make decisions about which softwares to implement in your workflows like accounting and bookkeeping.

Lever vs. Greenhouse at a glance

FeatureLeverGreenhouseWinner
SMB Guide’s Rating8.8/107.2/10Lever
Job Posting & Candidate SourcingLever
Applicant TrackingGreenhouse
Candidate Evaluation & AssessmentVideo interviewingTake home testsLever
Reporting & AnalyticsAdvanced analytics and interactive reportingData can be messy and hard to organizeLever
UX and UIHigh user-friendlinessMedium user-friendlinessLever
Integration & API Capabilities300+ integrations400+ integrationsGreenhouse
Supported PlatformsAny browser that supports HTML5Chrome, Firefox, Edge, and Safari web browsersGreenhouse
Customer Support24/7 support via contact form or support ticketChat and email support 24/7 Monday – FridayGreenhouse
PricingCustom pricingCustom pricingTie
ScalabilityHighly scalable with other HR functionalities includedHighly scalable with no HR functionalityLever
ReviewsRead our Lever reviewRead our Greenhouse review

How we evaluate and test softwares

When testing softwares/apps, SMB Guide employs a dual approach based on free trial availability and demos. For platforms offering free trials, we test their functionalities, usability, navigation, and ease of use. In the case of tools lacking a free version or trial, we rely on in-depth research and user testimonials through software review platforms like G2, Capterra, TrustRadius, Software Advice, and GetApp to gauge their performance and capabilities. Learn more about our ratings criteria for applicant tracking systems here.

Lever: Key Features, Pros, Cons, & Pricing

Lever homepage

Lever is an award-winning recruiting software that also offers some customer relationship management (CRM) features and HR functionality.

It’s a solution meant to help you hire more people in less time, making it an ideal solution for larger businesses.

Pros & Cons

Pros

Clean interface

Extensive cloud-storage

Seamless job board integration

In-depth insights

Cons

No transparent pricing

Lackluster support

Pricing

Lever offers two different plan options, but the pricing for each isn’t publicly available. You can see what each plan has to offer on their website, but to figure out if Lever is within your budget, you’ll need to reach out to their support team and get a quote.

Lever pricing

Here’s a quick breakdown of Lever’s different plans as of September 2023:

  • LeverTRM: Best for small to medium-sized businesses
  • LeverTRM for Enterprise: Best for enterprise-grade organizations and recruitment teams

Greenhouse: Key Features, Pros, Cons, & Pricing

Greenhouse homepage

Greenhouse Recruiting is an applicant tracking system for small to enterprise-grade businesses who want to optimize their hiring processes.

It offers DEI features and is made to scale with you as you grow, even up to the enterprise level.

Pros & Cons

Pros

Focus on DEI

Mobile app

400+ integrations

Highly scalable for enterprises

Cons

No transparent pricing

Mediocre reporting

Pricing

Greenhouse pricing isn’t publicly available. They offer three tiers of plans, but actual cost is tailored to your business and specific hiring needs.

That said, you should probably expect to pay between $6500 and $24500 per year for Greenhouse. These numbers are based on market data.

greenhouse pricing

Here’s a quick breakdown of Greenhouse’s different plans as of September 2023:

  • Essential: Best for small to medium-sized businesses
  • Advanced: Best for medium to large-sized businesses
  • Expert: Best for large to enterprise-grade businesses

Job Posting & Candidate Sourcing

Creating and posting jobs is made easy with Lever, and so is sharing those jobs to external platforms like LinkedIn and Indeed.

Lever job posting

As far as its sourcing ability, Lever allows you to parse talent information from platforms like GitHub and Dribbble to create in-depth profiles for each candidate.

It can also keep track of candidate referrals from your existing employees.

Posting jobs in Greenhouse is also easy, but what’s really cool about it is that you have the option of completely customizing your job creation workflow.

greenhouse job posting

For an easy way of sourcing candidates, Greenhouse offers an add-on feature called “Sourcing Automation.”

This feature auto-sources qualified prospects and helps you target them via specialized email campaigns.

However, I was unable to locate any pricing information for this feature specifically, so it’s unclear how much extra it will cost you.

Winner: Lever

While Greenhouse’s job creation functionality is super intuitive and customizable, you’ll be required to pay an extra fee if you want to auto-source candidates.

For that reason alone, Lever has a leg up in this category.

Applicant Tracking and Candidate Management

Tracking applicants is pretty straightforward with both Lever and Greenhouse. Both give you the ability to tag candidates and see their current status.

Lever ATS

That said, Greenhouse’s candidate management page design is unique in that it uses a Kanban-style layout.

This makes it super easy to visualize your hiring pipeline and get an overview of where each candidate is at in the process.

greenhouse ats

Winner: Greenhouse

Greenhouse’s Kanban-esque board for managing candidates sets it apart.

Candidate Evaluation & Assessment

Lever allows you to evaluate candidates in a few different ways:

  • A video interviewing feature that integrates with Zoom or Google Meet and allows you to share recorded interviews with your hiring team.
  • Custom feedback forms so you can get ideas on how to improve your hiring process from existing candidates in your pipeline.
  • Test scheduling with platforms like Outmatch and Codility, as well as the option to fully customize your tests.
  • A scoring system that ranks candidates based on experience, expertise, and more. You can also use AI to rank your candidates based on their scores.
lever candidate evaluation

Greenhouse also offers several different ways of assessing talent:

  • Forms, so you can collect additional information you might not have asked for in your original job application.
  • An interview kit which helps you maintain consistency across your candidate interviews and assessments.
  • Scorecards that allow you to review a candidate’s skills, qualifications, traits, and other important attributes.
  • Take home tests that you can give after the first interview to get a true picture of the candidate’s skillset.
greenhouse interview process

Winner: Lever

Both softwares offer a few different ways of evaluating talent, but Lever’s feedback forms are a neat addition that can be invaluable for improving your candidate experience.

Reporting & Analytics

Lever’s Advanced Analytics offers flexible reporting with easy-to-use analytics tools. This feature makes it easy for you to track your hiring pipeline, diversity data, and more.

And with Data Explorer, the reports are interactive so you can build fully-customized dashboards with your most important data.

Lever reporting

Greenhouse’s reporting feature is a bit lackluster and a lot of users report having issues with it.

While the information it provides is helpful, data seems to be messy and difficult to organize. Overall, it’s just not very intuitive and can be a frustrating experience to use.

Winner: Lever

Lever offers advanced analytics and interactive reports, while Greenhouse’s reporting feature is a point of frustration for many users.

User Experience and User Interface

Lever’s user interface is clean and easy to use, with a ton of different options for customization.

Greenhouse has a vibrant and appealing interface, but it has some mixed reviews from customers about whether or not it’s easy to use.

Compared to other ATS solutions, it seems to lack intuitiveness.

Winner: Lever

Overall, Lever’s design is cleaner with a more intuitive interface.

Integration & API Capabilities

Lever integrates with 300+ third-party softwares that are commonly used by small businesses, such as Asana, Slack, Zoom, and more.

You can explore their integrations here. If you want to connect with an app that isn’t listed, you do have the option of using an API to integrate it.

Greenhouse provides 400+ pre-built integrations with applications like Calendly, BambooHR, and Microsoft. Their full list of partners is located here.

Winner: Greenhouse

Greenhouse offers more pre-built integrations that Lever has, so they’re the clear winner here.

Supported Platforms

Lever and Greenhouse are both web-based softwares, so you can access them from anywhere as long as you have your computer and an internet connection.

That said, many people prefer to use mobile apps when they’re on the go. Unfortunately, Lever doesn’t currently have a mobile app.

Greenhouse, on the other hand, has a mobile app for both iOS and Android. The apps aren’t very highly rated (with 2.3 stars on the App Store and 2.4 stars on Google Play) but it’s better than not having an app at all.

Winner: Greenhouse

Lever doesn’t offer a mobile app at all as of now, so they just don’t stack up in this category.

Customer Support

As of August 2022, Lever offers 24/7 support for all issues. This makes it an ideal choice especially if your hiring team is remote and operating on different time zones.

If you need help, you have a few different options available to get it:

lever customer support

Greenhouse’s Technical Support team operates 24/7, but only Monday through Friday. They give you the option of contacting them via live chat or email, but if you prefer to speak to someone over the phone, you’re unfortunately out of luck.

If your question is relatively straightforward, you can visit their support center which uses AI technology to answer simple queries on the spot.

greenhouse support

Winner: Greenhouse

Since both softwares provide near round-the-clock support, choosing a winner for this category was a tough call.

But Greenhouse offers live chat support, making it faster to get your issues resolved than waiting on a support ticket to go through.

Pricing

Both Lever and Greenhouse use custom pricing models. To get an idea of how much either software will cost you, you’ll need to get in touch with their sales teams and request a demo.

That said, an employee at PartnerHero had this to say on Quora about Lever pricing:

“We recently received a quote for $30k per year. Plus $5k for implementation.”

Another contributor said:

“I’ve heard it starts at $300 a month for a company of up to 10 people. As with most ATS’s, you get better pricing if you prepay for 1 or 2 years.”

Now, these answers are from over 5 years ago and even if they are accurate, Lever has almost certainly raised their pricing since then to match inflation rates.

Based on Greenhouse customer data from 2017, you can most likely expect to pay $6500 and $24500 per year. It’ll depend on the size of your company and specific hiring needs.

Winner: Greenhouse

Both softwares use a custom pricing model, but Greenhouse offers three different plan options while Lever only offers two.

Scalability

Both Lever and Greenhouse are scalable ATS softwares and both offer plans suitable for enterprises.

That said, Lever offers recruiting, onboarding, and other HR functionalities (like a CRM) all in one.

Greenhouse Recruiting doesn’t offer any of these features in their recruiting software. Greenhouse does have onboarding, but that’s a separate service – Greenhouse Onboarding.

So if you need both, you’ll need to pay for each service separately.

Winner: Lever

Both softwares are made to scale, but Lever has more built-in HR functionality.

Stand-Out Features of Lever

Data Explorer

Lever’s Data Explorer allows you to to take various sets of candidate and hiring data and build custom charts.

Lever data explorer

From there, you can add them to customized dashboards. This makes it easier to keep track of important metrics and ensure that you and the rest of your hiring team are on the same page.

Nurture Recommendations

Nurture Recommendations is a cool feature that resurfaces past candidates who may be a good fit for the roles you’re currently hiring for.

Lever nuture recommendations

How it works: Lever’s algorithm considers criteria like feedback form scores, referrals, candidate origin, and how far they got in your previous hiring process.

Since you already know these people were interested in working with your company once before, it can be a powerful way of sourcing high-quality talent.

Stand-Out Features of Greenhouse

Focus on Diversity

Greenhouse places a strong emphasis on diversity by incorporating DEI (diversity, equity, inclusion) directly into their feature set.

They provide DEI tools that are meant to help you mitigate unconscious biases and improve diversity in your company.

Lever vs. Greenhouse: SMB Guide’s Verdict

If you’re looking for an ATS that can scale up as your business grows, both Lever and Greenhouse are solid choices.

With a clean interface, extensive cloud-storage, and other HR functionalities, Lever is an awesome all-in-one solution.

Greenhouse, on the other hand, is a software I would recommend for fast-growing startups who want to optimize their hiring processes.

After looking at the pros, cons, and feature sets of both softwares, I personally think that Lever is the better choice overall.

It’s the more feature-packed software, and its Data Explorer and Nurture Recommendations really set it a step above Greenhouse. If you want to try Lever, request a demo today.

Not sure about Lever? Maybe Greenhouse is actually the better fit for you – get in touch with their sales team to schedule a demo.

Workable

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Charlee is a freelance content writer for e-commerce and SaaS businesses. She has written for well-known brands like Aura, Identity Guard, and Zola and achieved page one rankings for dozens of projects.