The seven Clockwork alternatives in one line each
- Kepler — search firms whose real asset is an unsearchable database, at one price.
- Ezekia — retained executive search and leadership advisory with the assignment as the unit of work.
- Invenias by Bullhorn — boutique retained search that works inside Outlook on Windows.
- Loxo — retained and contingency desks that need to buy reach.
- Crelate — boutique US firms that want an optional back office.
- Recruiterflow — search firms whose revenue comes from four-channel outbound sequences.
- Spott — AI-native, EU-weighted agencies that want module breadth and ISO 27001.
Why do agencies look for a Clockwork alternative?
Every reason below is structural and on Clockwork’s own pages or in its knowledge base. One fact deserves credit first: Clockwork publishes its price, which four of the seven tools below do not.
- One plan, and the portal is in it whether you use it or not. Clockwork’s pricing page offers a single plan at USD 149 per user per month billed annually, or USD 179 monthly, under the heading “One plan. All the features.” There is no cheaper tier, so a firm whose clients do not work a longlist in a portal pays for the centrepiece anyway. Checked 13 Sep 2026.
- Migration and support sit outside the seat price. Clockwork’s onboarding page lists data migration as a separate professional service, “Priced By Volume” by size and scope. Standard onboarding is included; Premium Support is USD 3,500 per year and Elite onboarding and advisory is USD 25,000.
- Cross-record AI happens in your own chat app. Cai, Clockwork’s generative AI, works inside a project — it drafts five weighted research criteria and rates candidates fifty at a time, producing notes its documentation calls draft documentation to validate. For work that spans records, Clockwork’s route is an MCP connector into your own ChatGPT, Claude or Copilot subscription, billed by that provider.
- Search is name and keyword with filters, and meeting notes come through a partner. Clockwork’s candidate search is documented as name and keyword matching with filters for company, school, job title, status and last update. AI meeting notes reach Clockwork through its Quil partner integration rather than a native notetaker.
- Segment fit. Clockwork is organised around the client’s view of a retained search and publishes an eight-stage retained methodology the software is shaped around. A firm whose bottleneck is the research half, or whose desk is mixed, is paying for a portal-first product.
Comparison at a glance
The price column is the tier carrying that vendor’s AI, on an annual-billing basis, never the cheapest tier. All figures were read on the vendor’s own pricing page on 13 Sep 2026.
| Tool | Best for | Matched plan, per user / month, annual | AI included in that plan | Publishes pricing |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kepler | Search firms whose asset is the database; mixed desks | One edition, USD 99 | Yes, with a monthly allowance | Yes |
| Ezekia | Retained executive search and leadership advisory | Enterprise, not published | Yes, in Enterprise | No |
| Invenias by Bullhorn | Boutique retained search inside Outlook | Executive Edition, not published | Optional add-on, on your own OpenAI credentials | No |
| Loxo | Desks that need to buy reach | Professional, USD 199 | Yes, on Professional only | Yes |
| Crelate | Boutique US firms wanting an optional back office | Business Plus, not published | Partly; Advanced AI only on Business Plus | Two of three tiers |
| Recruiterflow | Outbound-led search firms | AIRA Plan, not published | AIRA Plan only | Platform Plan only |
| Spott | AI-native, EU-weighted agencies | Pro, USD 199 | Yes; enrichment credits extra | Yes |
How we evaluated these alternatives
Every claim about a vendor comes from that vendor’s own public material — pricing page, product pages, help centre or published roadmap — read on the date given in the sources, and each entry links the longer review where those sources are listed in full. Pricing follows one rule: the figure shown is the plan carrying the AI being compared, on an annual-billing basis, and where it has no public price the post says “not published” rather than estimating. Kepler is the publisher of this post and its claims are held to the same standard.
The 7 best Clockwork alternatives in 2026
1. Kepler
Kepler is a recruitment CRM built around one assistant and a searchable database, and it is not built specifically for executive search. Its search is hybrid semantic and keyword retrieval across candidates, CVs, notes, email threads and call transcripts, so a plain-English question surfaces a person because of a line in a 2019 candidate report or something said on a recorded call. The assistant sits in a sidebar on every page, reads the whole workspace, and writes nothing until you approve it; Kepler also exposes an MCP server. Matching ranks the whole database against a job and returns a verdict and a source for every requirement rather than a rating and a note; Kepler’s own notetaker files the summary, next steps and transcript of a call against the record; emails and calls become proposed field updates a person accepts or rejects. A job-scoped client portal lets a hiring manager rate a shortlist 1–5, comment and request interviews, and a consent ledger carries a lawful basis and an expiry per candidate.
Pricing: USD 99 per user per month billed annually, or USD 129 monthly, in one edition with every feature included, unlimited records and storage, and every AI feature inside the seat price with a monthly allowance. Migration is done for you, free, on every plan; full export at any time with no exit fee.
Where Kepler falls short of Clockwork, plainly: its portal has no coverage reports, target company lists, compensation data, diversity metrics or client mobile app, and runs on Kepler’s domain; there are no interview scorecards, only an outcome, a 1–5 rating and notes; no diversity reporting; no BD pipeline with contracts, forecasting or cashflow; no native mobile app; no SSO; and no SOC 2 or ISO 27001. A firm whose client experience is the portal should read the next two entries first.
See Kepler’s pricing and the feature pages.
2. Ezekia
Ezekia is the closest like-for-like substitute for Clockwork in this list: an AI-powered BD, CRM and ATS platform for executive search firms, in-house executive recruiting teams and talent partners, operated from London and focused exclusively on executive search for more than eleven years. Its data model is the search itself — Lists, Opportunities and Assignments as project types that convert into one another — with off-limits flags, organisation charts, a white-labelled client portal carrying reports and search activity, and billing with fee splits around it. It is browser-based on any device.
Pricing: Ezekia’s pricing page, checked 13 Sep 2026, shows one paid tier, Enterprise, priced CUSTOM — per user, billed monthly, with no annual commitment — and it is the tier carrying “AI-powered workflows & search”. There is no cheaper paid tier; the only other option is a 30-day free trial. Migration services are scoped in the quote, with onboarding and training included.
Where Ezekia is ahead of Kepler: off-limits flags, organisation charts, an opportunities pipeline, retainer billing with fee splits, right-to-erasure and data-access-request handling, ISO 27001:2022, an optional 95,000-candidate “Not Actively Looking” pool, monthly terms with no lock-in, and a client portal that carries the search report under the firm’s brand. Kepler has none of those. Ezekia is Microsoft-centred and does not name Google Workspace.
Side by side: Kepler vs Ezekia · the Ezekia review.
3. Invenias by Bullhorn
Invenias by Bullhorn is executive search software Bullhorn describes as a leading boutique executive search platform with eighteen years in market, organised around the assignment. It covers longlist building, off-limits policies that a company passes down to everyone working there, merge-tag documents that produce a branded candidate report in Word, bulk GDPR consent requests, relationship intelligence, a BD pipeline and the Invenias Client portal. Its full product is a Windows 11 desktop application inside Outlook; Bullhorn’s own FAQ says the Essentials web app is not an alternative to it. Bullhorn acquired Invenias in July 2018.
Pricing: Bullhorn does not publish a price for any Invenias edition. The like-for-like plan is the Executive Edition, the premium bundle carrying Invenias Client, quoted through an Account Manager; Essentials and Professional are also quote-only. The AI Assistant is optional and runs on OpenAI or Azure OpenAI credentials the firm supplies. Bullhorn’s published USD 99 and USD 165 seats are its staffing plans, not Invenias. Migration terms are not published. Checked 13 Sep 2026.
Where Invenias is ahead of Kepler: off-limits policies that warn or block a consultant; a document editor and merge-tag assignment report; relationship intelligence; a business-development pipeline; native iOS and Android apps; filing email from inside Outlook; and a path into Bullhorn’s wider ecosystem and back office. Bullhorn’s AI roadmap of 16 June 2026 places AI that reads call transcripts and updates records in stage two, coming next.
Side by side: Kepler vs Invenias · the Invenias review.
4. Loxo
Loxo is a talent intelligence platform for contingency and retained agencies, US-weighted: an ATS and CRM wrapped around a proprietary graph of 850M+ professionals and agents that source, rank and reach out. Loxo Source returns people the firm does not yet hold, with contact information alongside the shortlist. It suits a search desk whose problem is coverage of a market it has no records in.
Pricing: Loxo Professional, from USD 199 per user per month billed annually and paid up front, is the like-for-like plan; it carries Loxo Source, the agents with their AI Notetaker, Loxo AI Chat and API access, with 2,500 credits per seat per month. Loxo Core, from USD 149, drops all of those. Both priced tiers are labelled a new-customer limited-time offer; Enterprise is quote-only. Migration is free for Core teams of three or more seats and a scoped fixed package otherwise. Read 13 Sep 2026.
Where Loxo is ahead of Kepler: the 850M+ sourcing graph, which Kepler has nothing comparable to; SMS and voice inside sequences; job multiposting to Indeed, Glassdoor, ZipRecruiter, Seek, Reed and others; a sales CRM with deals; data-hygiene and deduplication agents; SSO and SAML on Enterprise; and maturity — Loxo states 125,000+ recruiters, where Kepler has no paying customers yet.
Side by side: Kepler vs Loxo · the Loxo review.
5. Crelate
Crelate is a broad US recruiting platform for boutique and mid-size agencies, with a strong pipeline UI and an optional back office. Its Discovery Agent sources from an external pool Crelate describes as up to a billion people, and Crelate Deliver adds assignments, timekeeping, invoicing and payroll export inside the same platform. It suits a boutique firm that places contractors as well as running search.
Pricing: the like-for-like plan is Business Plus — the tier with the Advanced AI Assistant, automation and sequences and the full API — listed as “Custom”, per user, paid annually, so there is no public figure. Business is USD 119 per user per month billed annually or USD 149 monthly, with the basic AI Assistant and client portals but not sequences, the Advanced AI Assistant or the full API; Essentials is USD 85 billed annually, capped at two users and 20,000 contacts. Texting, email campaigns, eSignature and enrichment cost extra on every tier; migration is a separate package scoped by sales. Read 13 Sep 2026.
Where Crelate is ahead of Kepler: the back office in Crelate Deliver, the largest single gap in Kepler’s product; the external sourcing pool; business-development workflows on Business Plus; native texting with a synced inbox and the Crelate Connector mobile app; and ISO and SOC 2 compliance among the enterprise options on its Platform tier.
Side by side: Kepler vs Crelate · the Crelate review.
6. Recruiterflow
Recruiterflow is an ATS and CRM for boutique and mid-size agencies built around outbound sequences, and it states that 2,100+ search firms use it. Its sequences send email, calls, SMS and LinkedIn natively with branching logic; AIRA, its agent layer, adds a notetaker, a matchmaker, a field-updates agent and a sourcing agent over 850M+ profiles. It suits a search firm whose revenue is made by sequenced outbound.
Pricing: the AIRA Plan — the tier carrying AIRA Notetaker, AIRA Matchmaker and the Field Updates Agent — is priced “Let’s chat custom pricing”, so there is no public figure. The cheaper Platform Plan is USD 119 per user per month billed annually or USD 149 monthly and has none of the AIRA agents. Self-serve CSV import is free; white-glove migration is paid, priced by data volume, over six to eight weeks. Read 13 Sep 2026.
Where Recruiterflow is ahead of Kepler: multichannel sequencing across email, calls, SMS and LinkedIn with branching, where Kepler’s sequences send email only; SMS as a native channel; sourcing over 850M+ profiles; job distribution to LinkedIn, Indeed and Glassdoor; deals with a probability to close per stage; interview scorecards on pipeline stages; custom BI dashboards; and a dozen named customer case studies where Kepler has none.
Side by side: Kepler vs Recruiterflow · the Recruiterflow review.
7. Spott
Spott is an AI-native ATS and CRM for recruitment agencies, EU-weighted, and the product here closest to Kepler in ambition while differing in shape: roughly twenty discrete AI features, each with its own switch, and an Ask AI panel scoped to one record, with cross-record work pushed to ChatGPT or Claude through an MCP server — the same architecture as Clockwork’s connector. It suits an agency that wants breadth of modules, EU hosting and a certification.
Pricing: Spott Pro is the like-for-like plan at USD 199 per user per month billed annually, or USD 249 monthly; it adds automations, multi-channel sequences, a marketing suite and enrichment to the notetaker, search and matching in Core. Core is USD 139 billed annually or USD 169 monthly and drops those four. AI token spend is included; enrichment credits cost extra. Spott runs the migration, typically four weeks, and publishes no migration fee. Read 13 Sep 2026.
Where Spott is ahead of Kepler: an opportunities pipeline with weighted value; interview scorecards; seven VoIP integrations, live call cards and SMS threads in the inbox; job multiposting through Broadbean and idibu; contact enrichment; native iOS and Android apps; company hierarchies; and ISO 27001 with EU hosting.
Side by side: Kepler vs Spott · the Spott review.
Which Clockwork alternative should you choose?
A retained executive-search firm that needs the assignment workflow — off-limits, organisation charts, a branded assignment report, retainer billing — should shortlist Ezekia and Invenias by Bullhorn, the only two here built for that buyer. Ezekia is browser-based, bills monthly with no lock-in and holds ISO 27001; Invenias models the search most completely and works inside Outlook on Windows. Both are quote-only where Clockwork publishes USD 149.
A firm whose bottleneck is the research half — years of CVs, screening notes, email threads and call recordings that a name-and-filter search does not reach — and whose clients are content to rate and comment on a shortlist, should shortlist Kepler. It publishes USD 99 per user per month billed annually with the assistant, the matching and its own notetaker in the price, and does the migration for you rather than pricing it by volume. It has no coverage or diversity reporting, no scorecards, no BD pipeline and no SOC 2.
A firm that wants a published price has three choices beyond Clockwork itself: Kepler at USD 99, Spott at USD 199 on Pro, and Loxo at USD 199 on Professional. Crelate publishes its Business tier, but the tier with its Advanced AI is a quote.
A desk that needs to buy reach, or runs on outbound should look at Loxo for the sourcing graph and Recruiterflow for four-channel sequences; a firm placing contractors should look at Crelate for the back office; and Spott is the choice for an EU agency that wants the broadest module list with ISO 27001.
Frequently asked questions
Is Kepler a good Clockwork alternative?
For a search firm whose problem is the research half — finding and assessing the right people in a database it already owns — yes: Kepler searches CVs, notes, email threads and call transcripts together in plain English, ranks the whole database against a brief with a verdict and evidence for every requirement, ships its own notetaker, includes its assistant in a USD 99 per user per month seat billed annually, and does the migration for you on every plan. For a firm whose client experience is Clockwork’s portal — coverage reports, diversity metrics, a longlist the client votes on, a client mobile app — no: Kepler’s portal stops at shared shortlists, 1–5 ratings, threaded comments and interview requests, and it has no scorecards, no BD pipeline, no mobile app and no SOC 2. Ezekia and Invenias are the better Clockwork alternatives for that buyer.
How much does Clockwork cost?
Clockwork sells one plan at USD 149 per user per month billed annually, or USD 179 monthly, and it carries Cai, the client collaboration portal, automations and the MCP connector; there is no cheaper tier. Outside the seat price sit data migration, a professional service priced by volume and scope; optional Premium Support at USD 3,500 per year; Elite onboarding and advisory at USD 25,000; and the ChatGPT, Claude or Copilot subscription its MCP connector is used with, billed by that provider. Read on Clockwork’s pricing and onboarding pages on 13 Sep 2026.
Which Clockwork alternatives publish their pricing?
Three of the six. Kepler publishes USD 99 per user per month billed annually for its one edition; Loxo publishes USD 199 for Professional, the tier with its AI and sourcing graph; and Spott publishes USD 199 for Pro. Ezekia’s Enterprise tier, Invenias’ Executive Edition, Crelate’s Business Plus and Recruiterflow’s AIRA Plan — the tiers carrying those vendors’ AI — are quote-only, though Crelate and Recruiterflow publish a price for a cheaper tier without it. Clockwork itself publishes USD 149.
Which Clockwork alternative is best for retained executive search?
Ezekia, for a firm that wants the assignment modelled end to end with off-limits flags, organisation charts, an opportunities pipeline, a white-labelled portal carrying the search report, retainer billing and ISO 27001, on monthly terms. Invenias by Bullhorn, for a firm whose partners work inside Outlook on Windows and want off-limits policies, a merge-tag assignment report and relationship intelligence. Neither Kepler nor the other four are built for retained search specifically.
Can you migrate from Clockwork to Kepler?
Yes, and Kepler runs the migration for you, free, on every plan. You send an export from Clockwork — Clockwork publishes CSV report and candidate exports and a Premium API — plus any loose CVs and spreadsheets; Kepler handles extraction, mapping, de-duplication and validation, rebuilds your custom fields as real fields rather than notes, and shows you fifty of your own records fully parsed before the full load. Activity, stages and history come across. The only timing claim Kepler makes is that it happens in days. Clockwork scorecards, deals and contracts have no equivalent object in Kepler to land in.
Which Clockwork alternatives have a client portal?
Ezekia’s is white-labelled and shares shortlists, reports, interview feedback and search activity; Invenias Client is a premium portal in the Executive Edition where clients see candidate lists, profiles and assessment data and give feedback and scoring; Crelate’s client portals start on its Business tier; Spott ships a client shortlist portal; and Kepler’s job-scoped portal lets a hiring manager sign in by magic link, see the candidates you share — optionally blind with a redacted CV — rate 1–5, comment and request interviews. None of them carries Clockwork’s research-coverage reports, diversity metrics or client mobile app in the same form.
Does a Clockwork alternative need a SOC 2 report?
Only if your clients’ vendor security reviews require one. Clockwork states it has maintained SOC 2 Type II since 2022 and offers SSO through Okta and Microsoft Azure. Among the alternatives, Ezekia and Spott hold ISO 27001, and Crelate lists ISO and SOC 2 compliance among its enterprise options. Kepler holds no SOC 2 report and no ISO 27001, and offers no SSO; it ships MFA for every member with an admin switch to require it, which is not a certification.
Sources
Every claim about another vendor on this page comes from that vendor's own public material. Where a vendor does not publish something — pricing is the usual one — this post says so rather than estimating.
- Clockwork — Platform Pricing One plan at USD 149 per user per month paying annually and USD 179 monthly; “One plan. All the features.”; no cheaper tier; GDPR consent management, candidate portal, workflows and automations; the integration list including Quil.
- Clockwork — Onboarding and Setup Services “Data Migration - Priced By Volume”; Standard Onboarding included; Premium Support USD 3,500 per year; Elite onboarding, advisory and consulting USD 25,000.
- Clockwork — Features Client portal, status reports, DEI reporting, mobile app, boolean search and filters, BD CRM with deals and contracts, SSO.
- Clockwork — Security SOC 2 Type II stated as maintained since 2022; SSO through Okta and Microsoft Azure.
- Clockwork — MCP Connector for AI MCP server as the route to agentic AI; included at no additional cost; a paid AI provider subscription is typically required.
- Clockwork Knowledge Base — Cai: AI Rating and Notes Fifty candidates at a time; notes described as draft documentation to be reviewed and validated.
- Clockwork Knowledge Base — Position View: Cai Five research criteria with the weighting split evenly.
- Clockwork Knowledge Base — Project View: Candidate Search Name and keyword search with filters for status, company, school, job title and last update.
- Clockwork — Quil partner integration AI meeting notes through the Quil partner integration.
- Ezekia — pricing One paid tier, Enterprise, shown as CUSTOM, per user, monthly, no annual commitment; 30-day free trial; no cheaper paid tier.
- Ezekia — full functionality list Lists, Opportunities and Assignments; off-limits flags; organisation charts; billing with fee splits; GDPR data access requests; the 95k “Not Actively Looking” pool; ISO 27001:2022.
- Ezekia — client portal White-labelled portal sharing shortlists, reports, interview feedback, project updates and search activity.
- Ezekia — Microsoft 365 integration Microsoft throughout; Google Workspace not named.
- Bullhorn — Invenias Executive Search Platform No Invenias price published; positioning as “Invenias by Bullhorn”; longlist building, branded deliverables, GDPR consent requests, BD pipeline.
- Invenias knowledge base — Executive Edition Self Service Implementation of Premium Products Executive Edition as the premium bundle with Invenias Client; no price.
- Invenias knowledge base — Invenias Client Overview A premium portal in the Executive Edition where client users see candidate lists, profiles and assessment data and give feedback and scoring.
- Invenias knowledge base — Enabling Invenias AI Assistant Optional feature; OpenAI or Azure OpenAI credentials supplied by the firm.
- Invenias knowledge base — Web Application FAQ “Essentials is not an alternative to the Professional Desktop Application.”
- Invenias knowledge base — Off Limits Off-limits policies on companies and people; warn or block.
- Bullhorn — What’s next for Invenias: AI, reporting, and the road ahead Published 16 Jun 2026; stage two listed as coming next.
- Bullhorn acquires Invenias (press release) Dated 24 Jul 2018.
- Loxo — Pricing Professional from USD 199 per user per month billed annually, paid up front; Core from USD 149; 2,500 credits per seat; limited-time offer labels; migration free for Core teams of 3+.
- Loxo Source The 850M+ professional graph with contact information.
- Loxo Help Center — Loxo & Job Boards Job board integrations.
- Crelate — pricing Business Plus “Custom”, paid annually; Business USD 119 annual / USD 149 monthly with client portals; Essentials USD 85 annual, 2 users, 20,000 contacts; texting, campaigns, eSignature and enrichment extra on every tier; ISO/SOC 2 among Platform-tier options.
- Crelate — Deliver back office Assignments, timekeeping, invoicing and payroll export.
- Crelate — ATS data migration Standard and Advanced migration packages, scoped by sales.
- Recruiterflow — pricing AIRA Plan “Let’s chat custom pricing”; Platform Plan USD 119 annual / USD 149 monthly; white-glove migration priced by data volume, 6–8 weeks.
- Recruiterflow — multichannel sequences Email, calls, SMS and LinkedIn steps with branching logic.
- Recruiterflow home page 2,100+ search firms stated; AIRA Source over 850M+ profiles.
- Spott pricing Pro USD 199 annual / USD 249 monthly; Core USD 139 annual / USD 169 monthly; token spend included, enrichment credits extra; migration by Spott, typically four weeks, no fee published.
- Spott product documentation Opportunities, scorecards, VoIP providers, multiposting, enrichment, mobile app, company hierarchies, client portal, Ask AI scope and the MCP server.
- Kepler pricing USD 99 per user per month billed annually (USD 1,188 per seat per year), USD 129 monthly, one edition with every feature included, unlimited records and storage, free done-for-you migration on every plan, full export with no exit fee.
Kepler is a recruitment CRM and this post is published by Kepler, so read it as an interested party's account. We have tried to describe Clockwork as its own team would recognise it, and every factual claim is sourced above. If something here is out of date or wrong, tell us and we will correct it.