Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

Cornerstone Recruiting vs SmartRecruiters 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

Cornerstone Recruiting
Ranking in Applicant Tracking and Recruiting Software
32nd
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
SmartRecruiters
Ranking in Applicant Tracking and Recruiting Software
2nd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
Talent Acquisition (7th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Applicant Tracking and Recruiting Software category, the mindshare of Cornerstone Recruiting is 0.7%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SmartRecruiters is 6.4%, down from 7.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Applicant Tracking and Recruiting Software
 

Featured Reviews

Vladimir Vasilev - PeerSpot reviewer
Easy to use with great support and good reliability
We use the solution for recruiting personnel.  The application of new employees is very helpful. We're able to get all the data is easy. We can manage the whole process of recruiting very easily. The ease of use is great. Its usability is excellent.  The solution can scale well. It is stable and…
SUMANTA  GHOSH - PeerSpot reviewer
A user-friendly tool that functions without any glitches
With SmartRecruiters, compatibility with other HRIS systems is an area with certain shortcomings that require improvement. SmartRecruiters is a tool that we use as an ATS platform in our company, but we manage the employee lifecycle with the help of SAP, and I don't see the integration of SmartRecruiters with SAP happening quite seamlessly, making it an area where improvements are required.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Technical support has been good overall."
"The configuration is flexible and offers a lot of options."
"The all-encompassing ability to manage the process cohesively out of the SmartRecruiter system was valuable."
"The most valuable feature of the solution stems from the fact that amongst all the other ATS platforms that I have used, SmartRecruiters is the most user-friendly tool."
"The candidate experience was better because the whole process was there."
"The features that were most important for us to have were that it is user friendly and functional, which is definitely the case with SmartRecruiters. Our organization is located in developing countries where the bandwidth and internet stability are not the strongest and SmartRecruiters accommodates this challenge. It was a very big plus that we are able to use the system even in these locations."
"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."
"It has a neat functionality built in where it rates candidates. So, before you even look at the resume, you see a rating, and it is based on keywords. For example, it will tell you that an applicant is a frontend engineer and has used React, Angular, etc. It gives you a heads up so that you don't have to go through a hundred resumes on Monday morning eliminating applicants. It will tell you that this applicant's skills match 87%, which is pretty neat. You can skip the ones that are rated 25% or something."
"It is a really user-friendly tool, and its implementation is quite wide. It is very easy to manage users and build your workflows. Overall, it works very well for the customization of the workflows for us. The recruitment team has generally found the whole platform useful. We were looking to kind of expand it by using the CRM functions that it has. However, with COVID and recruitment being on the freeze, we weren't really able to make the most of the tool. They are, however, finding it useful to actually build up their talent pools and client candidates to be able to contact them when we kind of have this freeze off."
"SmartRecruiters is a candidate management system or ATS system that we use for recruitment purposes."
 

Cons

"The UI is not overly user-friendly."
"The interface and design could be improved."
"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."
"We ran into some serious issues related to language barriers."
"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."
"SmartRecruiters' on-click application process could be better."
"The solution's reporting feature could be improved because it is not very strong."
"The filters are not accurate. The results are inaccurate when filtering multiple criteria, such as country and hiring manager."
"I don't see the integration of SmartRecruiters with SAP happening quite seamlessly, making it an area where improvements are required."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"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."
"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."
"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."
"I wasn't involved in its acquisition, but I would assume that SmartRecruiters is pretty pricey."
"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."
"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."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Applicant Tracking and Recruiting Software solutions are best for your needs.
865,384 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Comms Service Provider
13%
Healthcare Company
13%
Computer Software Company
10%
Government
10%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
What do you like most about SmartRecruiters?
The most valuable feature of the solution stems from the fact that amongst all the other ATS platforms that I have used, SmartRecruiters is the most user-friendly tool.
What needs improvement with SmartRecruiters?
With SmartRecruiters, compatibility with other HRIS systems is an area with certain shortcomings that require improvement. SmartRecruiters is a tool that we use as an ATS platform in our company, b...
 

Comparisons

No data available
 

Also Known As

Cornerstone Recruiting Suite
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

New Belgium Brewing, Grote, PGL, RSM, Lookers
Atlassian, Aol, IBM, Napa, Skechers
Find out what your peers are saying about Cornerstone Recruiting vs. SmartRecruiters and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
865,384 professionals have used our research since 2012.