Greenhouse Review: Features, Pricing, & Alternatives

Have you already hired your first couple employees, but the process made you want to pull your hair out?

Recruiting the right people can be an extremely challenging prospect, especially if you’re a new business that doesn’t have hiring systems in place yet.

Greenhouse is an ATS (applicant tracking software) aimed at companies of all sizes who want to optimize and streamline their hiring processes.

It’s a leading solution that can scale with your company as you grow, but it may or may not be the right product for you.

SMB Guide’s Verdict for Greenhouse

Greenhouse is an excellent ATS solution for businesses looking for a platform they can grow with. They offer both recruiting and onboarding features, so you can keep your entire hiring process within the platform.

That said, while Greenhouse positions itself as a solution for companies of all sizes, it might not be the most cost effective for SMBs who are just starting to hire their first employees.

We give Greenhouse an overall rating of 8.3 out of 10. This is based on its pricing, pros & cons, and user reviews from sites like G2.

In this review of Greenhouse, I’ve followed SMB Guide’s detailed criteria for evaluating the applicant tracking software.

Factor	Rating (out of 10)
Pricing & Plans	7
Job Posting and Candidate Sourcing	8
Universal Search and Candidate Database	9
Resume Management and Screening	7
Applicant Tracking	9
Candidate Evaluation and Assessment	9
User Interface and User Experience	7
Integrations, Compatibility, & Supported Platforms	8
Customer Support	8
SMB Guide Rating	8.3

Pricing & Plans

Greenhouse doesn’t include cost on their website, so the pricing model isn’t immediately clear. According to their pricing page, it’s based on the size of your company and hiring needs.

That said, we can examine market trends for a ballpark estimate of what Greenhouse might cost you.

According to a G2 Stack report, the average annual price of Greenhouse is around $6,500 (for companies with 1-10 employees) to $24,500+ (for companies with more than 1k employees).

Again, those are just estimates based on gathered customer data, but they might help you at least determine if Greenhouse is in your price range.

For a specific quote, you’ll need to reach out to them for a demo. Here are Greenhouse’s plans as of December 2023:

Essential

Greenhouse’s Essential plan is perfect if you’re a smaller business looking to try out a handful of their features.

Price

• Custom pricing

Features

• Basic recruiting features like applicant tracking, structured hiring, team collaboration, and more
• CRM Essential + 1 event
• Advanced anonymization and privacy
• GDPR compliance
• Security and performance
• Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) Essential feature set

Who it’s for: Small to medium-sized businesses

Advanced

Greenhouse’s Advanced plan includes all features from their Essential plan, plus a few additional ones to sweeten the deal.

Price

• Custom pricing

Features

• All Essential plan features
• CRM Essential + 10 events
• Scalable workflows
• Advanced data configuration
• Single sign on
• Custom reports
• Advanced career page configurations

Who it’s for: Medium to large-sized businesses

Expert

Greenhouse’s Expert plan is a feature-rich option for large companies that are looking to take their hiring to the next level.

Price

• Custom pricing

Features

• All Essential + Advanced plan features
• CRM Expert + unlimited events
• Enhanced security and performance
• Expert data configuration
• Developer sandbox
• Business Intelligence (BI) connector
• Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) Expert feature set

Who it’s for: Large to enterprise-grade businesses

Job Posting and Candidate Sourcing

When you go in to create your first job posting in Greenhouse, you’ll be presented with a standardized set of steps to post your job, as seen below.

But the cool thing about Greenhouse is it gives you the option to configure these steps to better suit your company’s needs.

Don’t need scorecards or interview plans? Then you don’t have to go through the process of setting them up just to post your job, saving you time in the long run.

Once you’ve published your job posting, you’ll be able to share it on socials (with the exception of Facebook) to help you source even more candidates.

Universal Search and Candidate Database

To manage your candidate database, Greenhouse allows you to search for specific candidates using Boolean queries.

All you have to do is select “All Candidates” in the navigation bar, toggle “Full Text Search,” and then enter the specific keywords or phrases you’re looking for.

If you want to auto-source qualified prospects that may have not seen or applied to your job posting, Greenhouse also offers an add-on product called Sourcing Automation.

Sourcing Automation looks up contact information for identified prospects and helps you reach out to them through specialized email campaigns.

While we know this feature is an additional cost, it’s unclear exactly how much it is or what the pricing is based off of.

Resume Management and Screening

Unlike a lot of other ATS softwares, Greenhouse unfortunately doesn’t automatically parse resumes to score candidates.

However, you can bulk download and print resumes if you want to review them manually. Greenhouse will scan any files for malware to ensure they’re safe before you download them.

Applicant Tracking and Candidate Management

Greenhouse makes it easy to visualize your candidate pipeline with an interesting Kanban-esque board.

For every job posting you have, each of your recruitment stages is a column, and the candidates in that stage are listed underneath, like below:

This makes it easy to see how many candidates you have in each stage of your hiring process.

Plus, cards are color-coded depending on the next action that needs to be taken, so it’s easy to see who’s waiting to be scheduled for an interview or who’s waiting for feedback.

Another cool feature is the ability to tag internal candidates so you can easily keep track of them. 

Candidate Evaluation and Assessment

Greenhouse offers a few different methods for evaluating candidates, including:

• Forms: Forms allow you to collect additional information that you didn’t ask for in your original job application. These are best used to get more insight on candidates who you’re actively considering interviewing.
• Interview kit: The interview kit provides everything you need to maintain consistency across candidate interviews and assessment. Plus, it helps you come up with the most important questions to ask in an interview, so you’ll never be coming up with them on the spot.

• Scorecard: Scorecards allow you to review a candidate’s skills, qualifications, traits, and other attributes. This way, you can easily evaluate each candidate based on the same set of criteria.

• Take home tests: If a candidate does well in the interview, take home tests make it easy to see their skills in action. This feature allows you to build an assignment into your interview plan that you can then evaluate using different grading guidelines.

User Interface and User Experience

Greenhouse has a vibrant user interface, but there are mixed reviews on how good the user experience is. Some users report that it’s easy to use, while others say that it’s extremely complex compared to other solutions.

Based on that, we would say that Greenhouse is medium-difficulty when it comes to ease of use. It may take more significant effort to implement and train your team than other solutions.

Integrations, Compatibility & Supported Platforms

Greenhouse has over 400 pre-built integrations for all of your hiring tech stack needs. It connects seamlessly with popular apps like Gmail, Calendly, BambooHR, and more.

For a full list of integrations, visit their Integrations page.

Greenhouse also has a mobile app for both Apple and Android users. The app features a simplified portal so you can manage essential tasks while on the go.

Unfortunately, though, the app isn’t very highly rated, with only a 2.3 star rating on the App Store and a 2.4 star rating on Google Play.

Customer Support

Greenhouse’s Technical Support team offers 24/7 assistance Monday through Friday. This includes both email and live chat.

Support is not available on weekends, and Greenhouse also notes that support availability during the week may sometimes be limited due to company meetings and holidays.

They also have a support center, which uses AI technology to help you with questions and troubleshooting even during off hours.

While it’s not perfect, it is pretty intuitive and is more than helpful enough for many common issues.

What The Experts Say About Greenhouse

Greenhouse has received many positive reviews from popular sources like G2 and more.

• G2: 4.4/5 (1,775 reviews)
• Capterra: 4.5/5 (664 reviews)
• TrustRadius: 8.2/10 (330 votes)

Greenhouse has provided excellent improvement of our recruitment process such as candidates scheduling which in turn has reduced the time spent on administrative tasks. We have also had a high level of engagement across our Hiring Managers and Interviewers due to the intuitive nature of the software and excellent UX. We were able to roll out the system with very little training as the system is so easy to use.

Sasha J., Head of Talent Acquisition – Verified Capterra review

Greenhouse is a popular, feature-rich recruitment software which offers a range of tools to streamline the hiring process. It has a steep learning curve but is one of the better tools on the market. The pricing and limited reporting capabilities may dissuade some early stage companies, but it is definitely a great solution for established companies with structured HR teams and ops.

Akshay S., Digital Analyst – Verified Capterra review

Greenhouse Alternatives

If your company is on the smaller side, investing in Greenhouse might not make the most sense. But you still need an ATS.

Here are some good alternatives to try:

Workable

Based on reviews and just looking at the aesthetics of the two softwares, Workable seems to be a much more user-friendly solution.

• Starting Price: $149/month
• Best For: Small to mid-sized companies looking for an applicant tracking software that can grow with them.

Start your free 15-day trial of Workable!

Lever

If you’re looking for a solution that has recruiting, onboarding, and other HR functionalities all in one, Lever is a better option for you than Greenhouse.

• Starting Price: Custom pricing
• Best For: Mid to large-sized businesses looking to streamline their hiring and HR processes all in one place.

VIVAHR

Unlike Greenhouse, VIVAHR shares their pricing information publicly. Based on gathered market data, it appears VIVAHR’s starting price is much lower than Greenhouse.

• Starting Price: $79/month or $948/year
• Best For: Small businesses that are just starting to hire.

Getting Started with Greenhouse

Greenhouse is a hiring operating system for people-first companies who want to optimize and streamline their recruitment process.
To get started with Greenhouse, you’ll need to request a demo on their website.

Once you’ve submitted the form, their sales team will get in touch and schedule a call to discuss your hiring needs. If it sounds like Greenhouse might be the right ATS for you, request a demo today.

Greenhouse FAQs

Related reading:

• Greenhouse vs. Workable
• Greenhouse vs. Lever