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SmartRecruiters vs Zoho Recruit 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

SmartRecruiters
Ranking in Applicant Tracking and Recruiting Software
4th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
Talent Acquisition (12th)
Zoho Recruit
Ranking in Applicant Tracking and Recruiting Software
1st
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.8
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
Video Interviewing Software (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the Applicant Tracking and Recruiting Software category, the mindshare of SmartRecruiters is 3.6%, down from 6.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Zoho Recruit is 2.5%, down from 3.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Applicant Tracking and Recruiting Software Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Zoho Recruit2.5%
SmartRecruiters3.6%
Other93.9%
Applicant Tracking and Recruiting Software
 

Featured Reviews

Anudeep Kamuni - PeerSpot reviewer
Global Lead - TA ops & Analytics | Strategy Growth & Leadership at a recreational facilities/services company with 10,001+ employees
Efficiently automates tasks but lacks certain features in terms of usability
There are a couple of areas of improvement. SmartRecruiter lacks certain features in terms of usability. For instance, we cannot move candidate profiles, interview feedback, notes, and activities related to one candidate when transitioning from one job to another. We have to manually copy and paste everything for that specific candidate. This is a significant drawback. Additionally, the filters are not accurate. The results are inaccurate when filtering multiple criteria, such as country and hiring manager. This level of inaccuracy is unexpected for an application, especially for smaller organizations. It should have been corrected easily. Moreover, the CRM module lacks video reporting capabilities. These are some the biggest improvement I would like to see.
Mae Cleope Villacorta - PeerSpot reviewer
Zoho Specialist at Passtab
Integrated hiring has expanded candidate reach and now needs stronger AI assistance
At the moment, I do not see any suggestions so far because my requirements for my clients are met, and there is another workaround because I also use Deluge scripting inside Zoho. I am currently happy with Zoho Recruit. It is built-in specifically for recruitment, so if I want to customize some things, that is where Zoho Creator will come into the picture. For now, I am happy using Zoho Recruit because it is user-friendly in terms of UI, and there are no issues from my end. There is still room for improvement. I rate it seven because of my good experience with Zoho Recruit while implementing my client's requirements. Up until now, they are using it and they are gaining good results. They are not calling me for technical problems, which means it is properly working from their end. For me, I am comfortable with the UI, but if they want to improve it, for example with a design like Canva, then that is something I could suggest. Additionally, integration with AI would be beneficial. I know there is Zia, but it would be good to integrate some AI that is more commonly used such as ChatGPT. Although it will cost to integrate ChatGPT with Zoho, it would be a good outcome.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"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."
"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."
"What I really like about it is that it feels minimal, but is also dynamic. There aren't a lot of ways to get lost, which is good."
"Job publishing and application tracking are the most valuable features. You can keep the flow of a candidate's application into one system. The whole collaboration can also be done within the system, which means that you can schedule interviews and add your feedback and ratings there. You can also communicate with the candidates. The analytics part of it is also very valuable. It is a useful feature that we use quite a lot. We don't really use other features such as recruitment marketing or CRM candidate relationship management in SmartRecruiters."
"I found the core product quite useful. It is easy to use and quite user-friendly. They have also got other options, such as CRM and HRS. They have other versions such as smart distribute, which is an HRS type of system to analyze and get permissions needed from the applicants. In terms of pricing, SmartRecruiters is much better than its competitors."
"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."
"The candidate experience was better because the whole process was there."
"One of the features that I really like is that it's very administratively user-friendly. It is easy to add new managers into the system. It's very easy to switch and add regional capability, for instance. Zoho has put a lot of time into the administrative side to make it functional, which was a huge highlight for me and my team. Zoho's reporting functionality is good. It is easy to run lists in Excel, including dashboard reports, to determine if we are hiring accurately. We were able to tweak and improve our recruitment and hiring functions."
"Good reporting feature."
"The pricing seems to be very reasonable."
"The installation process isn't very complicated."
"The most valuable feature of Zoho Recruit is I can compete with the larger vendors in the business. I am constantly changing the configuration and the solution adapts to my needs."
"The solution is secure and also very user friendly."
"There are two features I love in Zoho Recruit. The first one is mass customization. I can customize the blueprint how I like, add some steps I want to include, and schedule a date and time to send the emails. I can also use a lot of templates. Secondly, the best thing about Zoho is the customer service. Whenever I have an issue or want to upgrade something, I text them through Zoho, and they respond within 40 seconds."
"The CV parsing feature is the most valuable. It can parse resumes for the database. It is easy to deploy, and it is also stable and scalable. Its support is also good."
 

Cons

"Some features are not as straightforward or user friendly to implement."
"I don't see the integration of SmartRecruiters with SAP happening quite seamlessly, making it an area where improvements are required."
"Around 2015 and into '17, I worked at a federal contractor. I had to switch to a different applicant system as I didn't know if SmartRecruiters was OFCCP compliant, which is something that, as a US-based federal contractor, you have to ensure. They should work to appeal to the contractor industry and get the product OFCCP compliant."
"There were limitations with the system that we would have liked, not in the time, but the company in Germany really dictated that. So we couldn't do everything in the system we would have liked to it."
"We ran into some serious issues related to language barriers."
"The solution's reporting feature could be improved because it is not very strong."
"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."
"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."
"The pricing could be a bit more reasonable."
"Zoho Recruit could benefit from increased flexibility and customization when creating and sending offer letters to new recruits."
"Zoho Recruit could improve in the ease of use because you need to know how to do scripting or coding to receive some of the functionality in the back end. For example, AI and automation need scripting and coding."
"There's a bit of a learning curve."
"Its automation is currently complicated, and it could be better. The biggest problem is that their instructions, videos, and documentation are terrible. These should be improved. I would like to see an email tracking feature and an option to find email addresses and leads."
"There is a limit to the number of lines you can extract."
"No ability to automatically update details."
"I would like them to improve their UX and UI. The front screen or the home page is dull. The tools in the marketplace have flashy home pages and a very funky style. I think that's one area that they can improve. In the future, I would like an option to integrate Zoho by default with other tools, specifically the HR tools. I would love it if I could convert the candidates directly from Zoho. That would be a huge help. They have a paid extension, but it doesn't work well during the trial period."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"SmartRecruiters is an expensive solution."
"I wasn't involved in its acquisition, but I would assume that SmartRecruiters is pretty pricey."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"I think it costs about $40 per month for a recruiter account. It comes with ten free accounts. It's well worth the money we are paying."
"The more you scale the solution the more it will cost. If you want the vendor to do the implementation or migration there are extra fees."
"The cost of each user depends on the size of our user base."
"Zoho Recruit is an affordable solution in comparison to BambooHR and costs relatively the same as Greenhouse implementation wise. It costs less than $100 per user. Large organizations will be able to get enterprise pricing, and Zoho is transparent with their pricing."
"In terms of cost, Zoho is by far the most reasonable for what you're getting. You get the option of monthly or yearly price. It is one cost per person for a license, and it is reasonable. My solutions are $50 per person per month."
"It is in the middle price range. Everything is included in the price."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
11%
Healthcare Company
10%
Government
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise8
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise1
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
What needs improvement with Zoho Recruit?
At the moment, I do not see any suggestions so far because my requirements for my clients are met, and there is another workaround because I also use Deluge scripting inside Zoho. I am currently ha...
What is your primary use case for Zoho Recruit?
I have been working with my client for almost two years using Zoho Recruit, and then another client as well for approximately six months duration of the project, during which I also used Zoho Recru...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Zoho Recruit?
It is pricey, but it is worth the price. It depends on the requirements of the client. Zoho Recruit is solely for the recruitment process tool within a business. However, the good aspect is that al...
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Atlassian, Aol, IBM, Napa, Skechers
Manning Global, Hadfield Education, GEP, Scientific Games, International School of London - Qatar, IIM - Ahemadabad, Change.org
Find out what your peers are saying about SmartRecruiters vs. Zoho Recruit and other solutions. Updated: February 2026.
882,180 professionals have used our research since 2012.