Lever ATS alternatives (2026): pricing, add-ons and who it is built for

Lever publishes no prices, has no free plan and no free trial, and has been owned by Employ Inc. since 2022. Here is what that means for a buyer, why teams look elsewhere, and where a free ATS does and does not replace it.

Last updated 2 September 2026. Competitor pricing and plan limits are re-verified against each vendor’s own pages.

Lever is a mid-market applicant tracking system and recruiting CRM, sold as LeverTRM, whose defining strength is that every candidate persists as a contact you can nurture across roles. It has been part of Employ Inc. since August 2022, alongside JazzHR and Jobvite.

Lever publishes no price. Its pricing page states that pricing is available upon request and tailored to your organization's size and hiring needs, and offers a quote form, a demo request and a phone number. There is no free plan and no free trial. AI Screening by VONQ, Onboarding and a careers-page package are add-ons with no published price.

ofper is a free applicant tracking system with unlimited jobs, candidates and team members, for the companies Lever's sales team would not quote. It has no CRM, no AI, no integrations and no reporting, so it is not a substitute for Lever at a company that sources outbound or needs an HRIS integration.

Why people leave Lever

Price and price opacity. Lever's pricing page does not answer the question its URL asks, and reviewers repeatedly describe Lever as expensive for a team hiring a handful of people a year.

Reporting ceilings. Limited reporting customization is the most repeated substantive complaint in review aggregations, and third-party comparisons consistently score Greenhouse above Lever on reporting. Teams tend to outgrow Lever's analytics before they outgrow its pipeline.

Ashby. Third-party consensus names Ashby the closest direct alternative to Lever — the same ATS-plus-CRM shape with stronger analytics — and Lever's own site now publishes both a Lever vs Ashby page and an Ashby alternatives page.

Post-acquisition uncertainty. Employ Inc. runs three overlapping applicant tracking systems — JazzHR, Lever and Jobvite — appointed a new chief executive in February 2026, and lever.co's About page now redirects to employinc.com. Buyers reasonably ask which product gets the roadmap.

AI sold as add-ons. Six AI features are built in, but AI Screening by VONQ, Employ Interview Intelligence and Candidate Insights are separately priced, which reads to buyers as unbundling.

Customization limits and mobile. Reviewers on Capterra describe rigid feedback-form scales, custom fields that need a higher tier, and the absence of a dedicated mobile app.

Lever pricing

How it is priced: Quote-only. Lever states that pricing is available upon request and tailored to your organization's size and hiring needs. No plan names, per-seat rates, minimums or contract terms are published. (no dollar figure is published anywhere on lever.co) verified 2 September 2026

LeverTRMper company, tailored to organization size: No price published. Lever's product page names no editions; the platform combines applicant tracking and a candidate relationship database in one product. (quote only — the pricing page offers a quote form, a demo request and a phone number) verified 29 August 2026

Lever costs beyond the subscription

AI Screening by VONQ, Onboarding and a careers-page package are sold as separately packaged add-ons with no published price — each leads to a Get a Quote form. (add-on prices are not published) verified 2 September 2026
Lever's AI features are split: Talent Fit, AI Interview Transcripts and Summaries, AI Screening Companion, Candidate Engagement, Candidate Transparency and Fraud Signals are built in, while AI Screening by VONQ, Employ Interview Intelligence and Candidate Insights (assessments and reference checks) are paid add-ons. verified 2 September 2026
SelectSoftwareReviews reports that EU-hosted Lever accounts do not receive the ROI Dashboard or AI Interview Transcripts, so European buyers pay for a smaller product. (third-party (SelectSoftwareReviews)) verified 29 August 2026
Reviewers on Capterra report that e-signature through the DocuSign integration, preferred support and custom fields require additional spend or a higher tier. (review themes, paraphrased — not a Lever price list) verified 29 August 2026

Lever free plan vs ofper

Lever free plan

Lever has no free plan and no free trial. Capterra's vendor-maintained listing records Free Trial: not available and Free Version: not included, and lever.co/pricing lists neither. (per Capterra's listing; Lever's own pricing page mentions no trial) verified 2 September 2026

ofper

Free

Unlimited active jobs
Unlimited candidates
Unlimited team members
No credit card, no trial period

Lever and ofper compared

Lever compared with ofper. Capability rows, not a score.
Capability	Lever	ofper
Price	Not published, quote only	Free, published
Free plan or free trial	No	Yes
Self-serve signup	No, quote or demo request	Yes
Priced on organization size	Yes, per Lever's pricing page	No
Candidate CRM and nurture campaigns	Yes	No
AI matching, screening and fraud detection	6 built in, 3 paid add-ons	No
Job board distribution	200+ boards	No
Public API and webhooks	Yes	No
Integration marketplace	25+ categories	No
EEO surveys and DEI dashboards	Yes	No
Careers site builder	Yes	Fixed public company page
Onboarding	Paid add-on	No
Assessments and reference checks	Paid add-on (Candidate Insights)	No
Native mobile app	Listed on Capterra; reviewers report none	Responsive web, designed for phones first
Public job marketplace for candidates	No	Yes
JobPosting structured data on job pages	Not mentioned by Lever	Built in
Kanban hiring pipeline	Yes	Yes
Screening questions with knockouts	Yes	Yes
Candidate self-scheduling	Yes	Yes
Offer letters	E-signature via DocuSign integration	One-time-code acceptance
Email from your own mailbox	No	Yes
Reporting and analytics	20+ metrics; ROI dashboard not on EU accounts	No

Where Lever wins and where ofper wins

Where Lever beats ofper

Lever's core design is an ATS and a CRM in one data model: every candidate persists as a contact across requisitions, with nurture campaigns to re-engage them. ofper is an ATS with a Kanban pipeline and deliberately keeps no cross-company candidate pool.
Lever ships six built-in AI features — Talent Fit matching, an AI screening companion, interview transcripts and summaries, engagement alerts, rejection-feedback drafting and Fraud Signals for suspicious applicants — plus three paid AI add-ons. ofper runs no AI at all.
Lever posts jobs to more than 200 job boards, according to its product page, including LinkedIn and Indeed. ofper has no job board distribution.
Lever has a documented public REST API with webhooks, OAuth 2.0 and a separate Postings API, plus a partner marketplace across more than 25 categories with named HRIS and payroll partners such as ADP, BambooHR, HiBob and Justworks. ofper has no API and no integrations.
Lever collects EEO surveys and provides DEI dashboards including compensation breakdowns by demographic. ofper has no EEO or DEI tooling.
Lever offers dynamic dashboards and more than 20 talent-acquisition metrics. ofper has a dashboard and no reports.
Lever includes a no-code careers site builder with templates and brand controls. ofper's public company page is a fixed layout with no custom styling and no custom domain.
Lever assigns named implementation specialists, whom reviewers on Capterra consistently praise. ofper is self-serve with no human onboarding.
Lever is backed by Employ Inc., which states it serves more than 26,000 companies. ofper is a free product from a small, new vendor.

Where ofper wins

ofper is free with no sales call. Lever publishes no price, offers no free plan and no free trial, and every path on its pricing page ends in a quote form, a demo request or a phone number.
ofper publishes its price, which is zero, on the page buyers land on. Lever's own pricing page does not answer the question its URL asks.
ofper's cost does not scale with organization size. Lever states its pricing is tailored to organization size and hiring needs.
ofper publishes every job on a public marketplace that candidates browse across companies. Lever distributes to other companies' job boards and has no candidate-facing marketplace of its own.
ofper's job pages ship JobPosting and Organization structured data, a runtime sitemap, hreflang per language and llms.txt. Lever's careers site builder describes its pages as SEO-optimized but does not mention structured data, sitemaps or canonicals.
ofper is designed at phone width first, for candidates who apply from a phone. Reviewers list the lack of a dedicated mobile app as one of Lever's recurring complaints.
Recruiting email on ofper is sent through the company's own mailbox, so candidates receive mail from the company's domain rather than the platform's.

Choose Lever instead if…

You source candidates outbound and need a CRM with nurture campaigns — this is what Lever is built for, and ofper does not do it.
You are a mid-market or high-growth company with a dedicated talent acquisition team and a budget for recruiting software.
You need an HRIS or payroll integration, an API, or single sign-on.
AI screening, interview transcripts or fraud detection matter to your process.
You need EEO survey collection and DEI reporting.

Questions, answered straight

How much does Lever cost?

Lever does not publish pricing. Its pricing page states that pricing is available upon request and is tailored to your organization's size and hiring needs, and lists no plan names, per-seat rates, minimums or contract terms. Third-party benchmark sites publish estimates, none of which Lever has confirmed, so treat any specific figure as a guess. Checked against lever.co/pricing on 2 September 2026.

Does Lever have a free plan or a free trial?

No. Lever has no free plan and no free trial. Capterra's vendor-maintained listing records Free Trial: not available and Free Version: not included, and Lever's own pricing page mentions neither.

Who owns Lever?

Employ Inc., which acquired Lever on 5 August 2022 and also owns JazzHR and Jobvite. Employ states it serves more than 26,000 companies and appointed Jerry Jao as chief executive in February 2026. Lever remains a distinct product brand.

Lever or Greenhouse?

Both are quote-only with no free plan. Lever is built around a candidate relationship database with nurture campaigns and is the closer fit for teams that source outbound. Greenhouse is stronger on structured hiring, compliance reporting and integrations, and third-party comparisons score it higher on reporting. Neither is priced for a company hiring a few people a year.

Lever or JazzHR?

They share an owner. Within Employ Inc., JazzHR is positioned for small businesses with published prices from $1,000 a year, Lever for high-growth mid-market companies with quote-only pricing, and Jobvite for complex enterprises. If your team is small enough to consider JazzHR, Lever is probably more product than you need.

Is ofper a replacement for Lever?

For a small company that Lever's sales team would not quote, yes: ofper is a free applicant tracking system with unlimited jobs, a Kanban pipeline, screening questions, interview scheduling and offer letters, and no sales call. It has no candidate CRM, no nurture campaigns, no AI, no integrations and no reporting, so it does not replace Lever at a company that depends on those.

Can I export my data from Lever?

Yes. Lever's public API exposes candidates, applications, postings, interviews, feedback and resume downloads, and candidate lists can be exported from inside the product. Do it before your contract ends. ofper has no CSV import, so a move means re-adding candidates by hand or by uploading each resume, which pre-fills the form in your browser.