The short list
- Kepler — for agencies whose asset is a database nobody can search.
- Recruiterflow — for boutique agencies that live on multichannel outbound sequences.
- Loxo — for agencies that buy reach into a talent graph they do not own.
- Recruit CRM — for small agencies that want the lowest published seat price.
- Tracker — for staffing firms that want ATS, CRM and back office in one.
- Bullhorn — for enterprise staffing that pays and bills contractors at scale.
- Spott — for EU agencies that want an AI-native product with breadth.
Why do agencies look for a Crelate alternative?
The reasons an agency shops around are structural, and each one is on Crelate’s own pricing page or help centre, read on the dates in the sources.
- Four tiers, and the AI tier is quote-only. Crelate sells Essentials, Business, Business Plus and Platform. The AI Assistant starts on Business at USD 119 per user per month paid annually, but the Advanced AI Assistant, automation and sequences, business-development workflows and the full API sit on Business Plus, which is priced “Custom, per user, paid annually”. A buyer who wants the feature seen in the demo has to find out which tier holds it, and the tier that holds most of them has no public price.
- Add-on fees on every tier. Crelate’s feature table marks text messaging, email campaigns, eSignature and native contact data enrichment “additional fee applies” in every column, Business Plus included.
- Migration is a paid package. Data migration is a separate Standard or Advanced package, flat fee or custom, scoped and priced by a sales contact; the cost depends on the number of source systems and data complexity.
- Caps and billing terms on the lower tiers. Essentials is capped at two users and 20,000 contacts and is paid annually; Business Plus is paid annually too. Only Business offers a monthly option, at USD 149.
- Search is Boolean. Crelate’s search is a full-text Boolean query over résumé text, notes and tags scored by Elasticsearch, and Crelate’s own blog argues for keeping Boolean as the substrate. An agency that wants to ask a plain-English question across CVs, notes, emails and call transcripts is buying a different kind of search.
Comparison at a glance
| Tool | Best for | Matched plan price (annual basis) | AI included in that plan | Publishes pricing |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kepler | Searching the database you already own | USD 99 per user / month, one edition | Yes, with a monthly allowance | Yes |
| Recruiterflow | Multichannel outbound sequences | AIRA Plan: not published | Yes, every AIRA agent | Partly (Platform Plan only) |
| Loxo | Buying reach into a talent graph | Professional: USD 199 per user / month | Yes, metered in credits | Yes |
| Recruit CRM | Small agencies on a budget | Business: USD 135 per user / month | Partly — fifty AI matches, add-ons for more | Yes |
| Tracker | Staffing firms wanting a back office in the ATS | Professional: not published | Partly — TrackerAI access varies by tier | Partly (Launch and Core, monthly only) |
| Bullhorn | Enterprise staffing with pay and bill | Bullhorn Pro: not published | Yes, AI search and match and Amplify Chat | Partly (Starter and Core only) |
| Spott | EU agencies wanting AI-native breadth | Pro: USD 199 per user / month | Yes, AI token spend included | Yes |
Crelate itself, for reference: Business Plus is quote-only with the Advanced AI Assistant, automation and sequences and the full API; Business is USD 119 per user per month paid annually with the AI Assistant but not those.
How we evaluated these alternatives
Every claim about another vendor on this page comes from that vendor’s own pricing page, product page or help centre, read on the date given in the sources; where a vendor does not publish a price, this post says so and does not estimate. The price shown is each product’s matched plan — the tier that carries the AI a buyer would compare — on an annual-billing basis, never the cheapest tier. Kepler is the publisher of this post and one of the seven entries; where each alternative is ahead of Kepler is taken from Kepler’s own review of it, unsoftened.
The 7 best Crelate alternatives
1. Kepler
Kepler is a recruitment CRM built around one assistant and a searchable database, sold to the same boutique and mid-size agencies as Crelate and pointed the opposite way. Where Crelate’s agents look outward at an external pool, Kepler’s assistant reads the CVs, notes, email threads and call transcripts an agency already holds, semantic and keyword together, and can create and update records behind an approval step. Its matching returns a pass-or-gap verdict and the evidence for every requirement, and every field keeps its history with undo. Around that sit pipelines, a meeting notetaker, CV parsing and formatting, a careers site on your own domain, campaigns, automations, a client portal, a consent ledger and one inbox for email, WhatsApp and LinkedIn.
Pricing. USD 99 per user per month billed annually (USD 1,188 per seat per year), or USD 129 monthly. One edition, every feature included, unlimited records and storage, a monthly AI allowance with additional capacity on request, and a done-for-you migration free on every plan. Volume pricing is available from 50 seats.
Where Crelate is ahead of Kepler. Crelate Deliver runs assignments, timekeeping, invoicing and payroll export inside the platform; Kepler has no timesheets, no invoicing, no payroll and no back office of any kind. Crelate’s Discovery Agent searches an external pool of around a billion profiles; Kepler sells no candidate database. Crelate lists business-development workflows on Business Plus, texts contacts from the browser and from Crelate Connector, its iOS and Android app, and lists ISO and SOC 2 compliance among the enterprise options on its Platform tier. Kepler has no deals object, no SMS inbox, no mobile app, no certification and no paying customers to reference yet.
See Kepler pricing and what Kepler does.
2. Recruiterflow
Recruiterflow is an ATS and CRM for boutique and mid-size agencies — Crelate’s own segment — built around outbound sequences and automation recipes. Its sequences send email, calls, SMS and LinkedIn messages natively with branching logic, its AIRA agents cover notetaking, matching, field updates, submissions and tasks, and AIRA Source covers 850M+ profiles from inside the product. Like Crelate it has no back office.
Pricing. The matched plan is the AIRA Plan, the tier carrying every AIRA agent, omnichannel communication sync and custom BI dashboards; its price is listed as “Let’s chat custom pricing” (recruiterflow.com/pricing, 13 Sep 2026). The cheaper Platform Plan is USD 119 per user per month billed annually or USD 149 monthly and has none of the agents. There are no add-ons within a plan. Self-serve Excel and CSV import is free; white-glove migration is paid, priced by data volume, and typically takes six to eight weeks, with a fee waiver discussed only on multi-year contracts.
Where it is ahead of Kepler. Recruiterflow’s sequences send across all four channels natively; Kepler’s send email and turn the other channels into tasks. Recruiterflow sources from 850M+ profiles, posts jobs to LinkedIn, Indeed and Glassdoor, models deals with a probability to close per stage, attaches interview scorecards to pipeline stages, ships custom BI dashboards, and states 2,100+ search firms with named case studies. Kepler has none of those.
Read Kepler vs Recruiterflow side by side or the Recruiterflow review.
3. Loxo
Loxo calls itself a talent intelligence platform: an ATS and CRM wrapped around a proprietary graph it publishes as 850M+ professionals, with an agentic workforce that longlists, shortlists and reaches out, a sales CRM with deals, and multi-channel outreach across email, SMS, calls and meetings. It is US-weighted and sold to contingency and retained agencies, and it is the nearest like-for-like to Crelate on outward-looking AI, because both sell sourcing from an external pool as part of the product.
Pricing. The matched plan is Professional at USD 199 per user per month billed annually and paid up front, the tier carrying Loxo Source, the agentic workforce with its AI Notetaker, Loxo AI Chat and API access, with 2,500 pooled credits per seat per month (loxo.co/pricing, 13 Sep 2026). Core at USD 149 drops all of those; no monthly price is published, and both priced tiers are labelled a new-customer limited-time offer. Migration into Loxo is free for Core teams of three seats or more; Professional and Enterprise migrations are scoped fixed packages.
Where it is ahead of Kepler. Loxo Source, an 850M+ professional graph with contact information delivered with shortlists, is a capability Kepler does not have in any form. Loxo Outreach runs email and SMS sequences with calls and meetings in the same platform; Kepler sends email only from a sequence. Loxo multiposts to eleven job boards including Indeed and ZipRecruiter, ships a sales CRM with deals, runs data-quality agents against its own company graph, puts SSO and SAML on Enterprise, and states 125,000+ recruiters with named customer stories. Kepler has none of those.
Read Kepler vs Loxo side by side or the Loxo review.
4. Recruit CRM
Recruit CRM is a broad, inexpensive ATS and CRM for small and mid-size agencies worldwide, priced aggressively per seat. It is the alternative for an agency leaving Crelate on cost that still wants some back office: Recruit CRM sells timesheets as a product line and lists invoicing on all three plans, and adds bulk SMS, in-product calling with recording and transcription, job multiposting, contact enrichment and native mobile apps.
Pricing. The matched plan is Business at USD 135 per user per month billed annually or USD 159 monthly, the first tier with the fifty-match AI matching allowance and open API access (recruitcrm.io/pricing, 13 Sep 2026). Pro at USD 95 annual or USD 109 monthly has two AI matches instead of fifty and no API. Enterprise at USD 215 annual or USD 259 monthly bundles the add-ons billed separately below it, such as Advanced Analytics at USD 25 and LinkedIn messaging at USD 12 per user per month. Done-for-you migration is paid, priced by data volume; the CSV import tool is free.
Where it is ahead of Kepler. Recruit CRM ships timesheets, invoicing and contractor pay, bulk SMS on Business and Enterprise, calling and recording inside the product, job multiposting to what it describes as 5,000+ channels, contact enrichment, AI sourcing across the open web, Android and iOS apps, and ISO 27001 and SOC 2 certification. Kepler has none of those; its SMS is a one-off send from a connected phone line and it does no enrichment.
Read Kepler vs Recruit CRM side by side or the Recruit CRM review.
5. Tracker
Tracker (TrackerRMS) puts the ATS, the CRM and the back office in one system for staffing and recruiting firms in the UK and US. Where Crelate Deliver is an optional back office aimed at lighter contractor volume, Tracker’s is the core of the product: timesheets, expenses, invoicing, dynamic rates, shift planning, candidate compliance and payroll integrations with QuickBooks, Xero and Sage. It is the alternative for a Crelate customer whose contract book has outgrown Deliver.
Pricing. The matched plan is Professional, the first plan with the Sequencer, AutoAction, Watchdogs, the REST API and timesheets; it is priced “Contact Sales”, and TrackerAI access “varies by tier” (tracker-rms.com/plans, 13 Sep 2026). Core is USD 99 per user per month billed monthly and Launch is USD 79 billed monthly for up to five recruiters, sold through LogicMelon; no annual figure is published for either. There is a six-month minimum commitment, job board subscriptions are purchased separately, and migration is assisted by Tracker’s team with no published fee.
Where it is ahead of Kepler. Tracker’s back office — timesheets, expenses, invoicing, gross pay and payroll integrations — is the single biggest gap in the comparison, and Kepler has none of it. Tracker also tracks candidate certifications and required documents with expiry alerts, runs a shift planner with geo-fencing and check-in in its mobile app, gives an agency a dedicated two-way text number with text as a Sequencer step, multiposts to more than a thousand job boards through LogicMelon and DaXtra, runs asynchronous video interviews, ships a mobile app, and has around twenty years of operating history. Kepler has none of those.
Read Kepler vs Tracker side by side or the Tracker review.
6. Bullhorn
Bullhorn is the incumbent: the broadest ecosystem in the category and the heaviest to run, sold to enterprise staffing and large agencies. It is the alternative for a Crelate customer growing past the boutique bracket: Bullhorn One captures time and expense, raises invoices with signed timesheets attached and runs payroll, its Marketplace lists 300+ pre-integrated partners, and its Amplify digital workers include prospecting and enrichment skills.
Pricing. The matched plan is Bullhorn Pro, the small-agency tier that carries AI search and match, Amplify Chat and AI call transcription; it is quote-only (bullhorn.com/small-agency-software/pricing, 13 Sep 2026). Bullhorn Starter is USD 99 per user per month and Core is USD 165 per user per month, neither with Pro’s AI or the recruitment CRM; published prices exclude VAT and the billing basis is not stated. Implementation is free on Starter, Core and Pro; Onboarding and Back Office are optional and priced separately.
Where it is ahead of Kepler. Bullhorn’s integrated back office and pay-and-bill, its 300+ partner marketplace, its stated 10,000+ companies on the platform and more than 25 years in the industry, its SOC 2 and ISO 27001 compliance statement, SMS campaigns in its Automation editions, and VMS automation, onboarding, credentialing and middle office are all things Kepler does not have. Bullhorn also covers sourcing through Amplify and job multiposting through partners; Kepler publishes to its own job board only.
Read Kepler vs Bullhorn side by side or the Bullhorn review.
7. Spott
Spott is an AI-native ATS and CRM, EU-weighted, and the closest peer of both Crelate and Kepler in ambition. It ships many discrete AI features — CV diffing, enrichment, matching, inbound triage, call mining, scorecards — rather than one assistant, with an MCP server for cross-record work in ChatGPT or Claude. Like Crelate it models opportunities and integrates telephony with SMS in the inbox; unlike Crelate it has no back office and no sourcing pool.
Pricing. The matched plan is Pro at USD 199 per user per month billed annually or USD 249 monthly, which adds automations, multi-channel sequences, a marketing suite and data enrichment to Core’s notetaker, search and matching (spott.io/pricing, 13 Sep 2026). Core is USD 139 annual or USD 169 monthly without those four. AI token spend is included in every plan; enrichment credits cost extra. Spott runs migration itself, typically over four weeks, and publishes no migration fee.
Where it is ahead of Kepler. Spott has an opportunities pipeline with weighted value per stage, interview scorecards with a rubric per job, seven VoIP integrations including Aircall with live inbound call cards and an SMS inbox, job multiposting through Broadbean and idibu, contact enrichment through a waterfall of providers, company hierarchies, iOS and Android apps, and ISO 27001 certification with EU hosting. Kepler has none of those.
Read Kepler vs Spott side by side or the Spott review.
Which Crelate alternative should you choose?
If Crelate Deliver is the reason you bought Crelate — you place contractors and want timesheets, invoicing and pay-and-bill in the same system as the pipeline — the honest answer is Tracker, Bullhorn or Recruit CRM, in roughly that order of back-office depth against price. Kepler has no back office at all, and neither do Spott, Loxo or Recruiterflow.
If your real asset is the database you already have — years of CVs, notes, email threads and call transcripts that a Boolean search does not reach — Kepler is built for that problem. One assistant reads all of it and can act on the answer behind an approval step, matching shows the evidence behind every requirement, and the price is USD 99 per user per month with the API, the AI allowance and the migration inside it rather than spread across four tiers and a fee schedule.
If you bought Crelate for the Discovery Agent and sourcing from an external pool is the point of the purchase, Loxo and Recruiterflow both sell that, and Kepler does not. Loxo if the graph and the contact data are the priority; Recruiterflow if the sequences are.
If you want an AI-native product with more of the workflow in one tool — opportunities with weighted value, scorecards, an SMS inbox, a mobile app — Spott is the broader AI-native choice and Kepler the deeper one.
Frequently asked questions
Is Kepler a good Crelate alternative?
Kepler is a good Crelate alternative for a boutique or mid-size agency whose problem is the database it already owns rather than a pool it does not. Kepler searches CVs, notes, email threads and call transcripts in plain English where Crelate’s search is Boolean, ranks candidates against per-job criteria with a verdict and the evidence for each, keeps per-field history with undo, and costs USD 99 per user per month billed annually in one edition with every feature included and a free migration, where Crelate’s Business Plus is quote-only and charges extra for texting, campaigns and enrichment. Kepler is not a good Crelate alternative if you rely on Crelate Deliver for timesheets and invoicing, on the Discovery Agent for sourcing, or on texting from a mobile app: Kepler has no back office, no sourcing pool, no SMS inbox and no mobile app.
How much does Crelate cost?
As of 13 Sep 2026, Crelate publishes three of its four tiers. Essentials is USD 85 per user per month paid annually, capped at two users and 20,000 contacts, without the AI Assistant, client portals, reports or email connections. Business is USD 119 per user per month paid annually or USD 149 monthly, with the AI Assistant and client and team portals. Business Plus, the tier with the Advanced AI Assistant, automation and sequences, business-development workflows and the full API, is “Custom, per user, paid annually”, and Platform is custom user or site licences. Text messaging, email campaigns, eSignature and contact enrichment carry an additional fee on every tier, and data migration is a separate paid package.
Which Crelate alternatives have a back office?
Of the seven on this list, Tracker (timesheets, expenses, invoicing, shift planning, candidate compliance and payroll integrations with QuickBooks, Xero and Sage), Bullhorn (Bullhorn One for time and expense, invoicing and payroll) and Recruit CRM (timesheets as a product line, invoicing on every plan) ship a back office. Kepler, Spott, Loxo and Recruiterflow do not; Kepler records invoice and payment status on a placement but does not raise invoices or run timesheets.
Which Crelate alternative is the cheapest?
On the matched plan — the tier that carries the AI — Kepler at USD 99 per user per month billed annually is the lowest published figure on this list, followed by Recruit CRM Business at USD 135 and Loxo Professional and Spott Pro at USD 199. Recruiterflow’s AIRA Plan, Bullhorn Pro and Tracker Professional are quote-only. Comparing a cheaper tier without the AI — Recruit CRM Pro at USD 95, Bullhorn Starter at USD 99, Tracker Core at USD 99 billed monthly, or Crelate’s own Business at USD 119 — is not like for like.
Can you migrate from Crelate to Kepler?
Yes, and Kepler runs the migration for you on every plan at no charge, where Crelate sells migration into Crelate as a Standard or Advanced package priced by sales. You send an export from Crelate plus any loose CVs and spreadsheets; Kepler does the 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, not just names and email addresses, and a full workspace export is available at any time with no exit fee.
Which Crelate alternatives search in plain English rather than Boolean?
Kepler retrieves semantically and by keyword together across candidates, CVs, notes, emails and call transcripts. Loxo AI Chat answers questions over your candidates, companies, jobs, activities and notes plus its talent graph, and Recruiterflow’s Ask AIRA reads resumes, notes, emails and call logs. Crelate’s search is a full-text Boolean query scored by Elasticsearch, with a model writing the Boolean query underneath a natural-language prompt, which Crelate’s own blog defends as the right substrate. Whether that matters depends on whether your consultants think in Boolean.
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.
- Crelate — pricing Essentials USD 85 annual (2 users, 20k contacts); Business USD 119 annual / USD 149 monthly; Business Plus “Custom, per user, paid annually”; Platform custom; per-tier feature lists; “additional fee applies” on texting, campaigns, eSignature and enrichment in every column.
- Crelate — ATS data migration Standard and Advanced migration packages scoped and priced by a sales contact.
- Crelate home page Discovery Agent: up to 1 billion people and 20 million companies.
- Crelate — Deliver Assignments, timekeeping, invoicing and payroll export for lighter contractor volume.
- Crelate help centre — Crelate Search Logic Elasticsearch scoring of Boolean keyword search.
- Crelate — Boolean vs semantic search, redux Crelate’s argument for keeping Boolean as the substrate.
- Recruiterflow — pricing AIRA Plan “Let’s chat custom pricing”; Platform Plan USD 119 annual / USD 149 monthly; no add-ons within a plan; migration FAQ; 2,100+ search firms.
- Recruiterflow home page AIRA Source across 850M+ profiles.
- Loxo — Pricing Professional from USD 199 and Core from USD 149 per user / month billed annually and paid up front; 2,500 pooled credits per Professional seat; migration terms; the 850M+ figure.
- Recruit CRM — pricing Pro USD 95 / Business USD 135 / Enterprise USD 215 annual; USD 109 / 159 / 259 monthly; add-on prices; matching allowances; paid migration.
- Recruit CRM — features Timesheets, invoicing, bulk texting, calling, multiposting, enrichment, mobile apps.
- Tracker — Plans & Pricing Professional “Contact Sales”; Core USD 99 and Launch USD 79 per user / month billed monthly; six-month minimum; job boards separate; assisted migration.
- Tracker — Back Office Timesheets, expenses, invoicing, rates, payroll integrations.
- Bullhorn — staffing software pricing for small agencies Starter USD 99 and Core USD 165 per user / month; Pro quote-only with AI search and match, Amplify Chat and call transcription; prices exclude VAT.
- Bullhorn Marketplace 300+ pre-integrated technology partners.
- Spott pricing Core USD 139 annual / USD 169 monthly; Pro USD 199 annual / USD 249 monthly; AI tokens included, enrichment credits extra; migration typically four weeks.
- Spott product documentation Opportunities, scorecards, telephony and SMS, multiposting, enrichment, company hierarchy, mobile app.
- Kepler pricing USD 99 per user per month billed annually (USD 1,188 per seat per year) or USD 129 monthly, one edition, unlimited records, free migration on every plan, additional AI capacity on request.
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 Crelate 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.