AI Hiring Tools Are Built for Enterprises. What About Companies Under 200 People?

Search "AI recruiting software" and you’ll find dozens of tools. Look closer and almost all of them are priced and built for companies hiring hundreds of people a month - enterprise sales teams, per-token pricing, integrations with ATS systems most small companies have never heard of.

If you’re a 20-200 person company, none of that pricing model makes sense for you. You’re not screening 10,000 candidates in 48 hours. You’re trying to fill 3-5 roles well, without spending your whole week doing it.

What actually helps at this size:

A flat monthly price, not a per-token or per-hire fee that punishes you for actually using the product.

A tool that doesn’t assume you already have an ATS, because most companies this size don’t.

Something your candidates can use for free, because the moment you charge candidates or make them download an app, you’ve lost half of them.

Where AI helps at this size, and where it does not

• It helps with reading CVs: scoring each one against the job description and saying why, so you open the best ten first instead of all two hundred.
• It helps with first questions: interest, salary, notice period, asked the same way every time.
• It does not replace the final call. A person should still decide who gets hired and talk to every finalist.

Seven questions to ask before you buy

1. What is the full monthly price, with no per-candidate or per-hire charges?
2. Does it work without an ATS you do not have?
3. Does it explain every score, or just show a number?
4. Can candidates reply on WhatsApp without downloading anything?
5. Where is candidate data stored, and how do you delete it when asked?
6. Can you cancel any month?
7. Is there a free trial on your own real jobs?

For how we handle candidate data, see our DPDP compliance page.

Working out offers? Use our CTC to in-hand calculator.

The AI-hiring conversation has been dominated by enterprise use-cases for years. Smaller companies deserve tools built for how they actually hire - not enterprise software with the price tag filed down.