Bullhorn publishes fifteen plans and add-ons on its pricing page and a per-user price for two of them. Kepler publishes one price, USD 119 per user per month, with every feature switched on — the assistant, the matching, the API, the migration, all of it.
Bullhorn is the right answer for a staffing firm that pays and bills its own contractors, needs a VMS feed, and buys software its clients have heard of — nothing in this category matches its back office, its marketplace of 300+ pre-integrated partners or its twenty-five years of enterprise references. Kepler is the right answer for a recruitment agency that wants the AI, the search, the API and the migration in the seat price rather than in a quote, and would rather run one edition than assemble a platform out of a Growth package, an Amplify edition and four add-ons.
Last checked 6 Sep 2026 · Written from Bullhorn's own public documentation and pricing pages. Tell us if we have something wrong and we will correct it.
Bullhorn’s own editions matrix puts custom fields and unlimited storage on the second edition and the REST API on the third. Kepler has one edition with no feature gating, unlimited records and storage, and the API and webhooks on it.
Bullhorn’s knowledge base lists every Amplify skill as a separate purchase above a Growth, Enterprise or Industry package, and the standard AI Assistant as bring-your-own-LLM. Kepler includes an AI allowance in the USD 119 seat, with additional capacity available on request.
Bullhorn describes self-guided implementation as included on Starter, Core and Pro. Kepler does the extraction, mapping, de-duplication and validation itself, on every plan, and shows you fifty of your own records parsed before the full load.
Dimensions where Kepler is the stronger product, written from Bullhorn’s own pricing pages and knowledge base on 6 September 2026. Bullhorn is ahead of us on several others — integrated pay and bill, the partner marketplace, VMS automation, onboarding, SMS, enterprise scale and certifications — and the blog post covers those in full rather than hiding them.
| Kepler | Bullhorn | |
|---|---|---|
| The AI, and what it costs | ||
| Where the AI sits in the priceWhether the assistant is the product or a product. | Included in the one plan with a monthly allowance; additional capacity is available on request | Amplify Chat arrives with Bullhorn Pro; each Amplify skill is a separate purchase above a Growth, Enterprise or Industry package |
| Who supplies the language modelSomeone has to own the model contract. | A monthly AI allowance is included in the seat — nothing to procure alongside it | The standard AI Assistant is documented as bring-your-own-LLM; a Bullhorn-hosted model is the Premium purchase |
| What plain-English search readsThe corpus, not the ranking. | Candidates, CVs, notes and conversations together, semantic and keyword in one query | AI Search and Match ranks best-fit candidates for a job, and is sold as its own product |
| Criteria for a roleWho decides what good looks like. | Per-job criteria you write and edit yourself, re-runnable on the job | Amplify Matching is a purchased digital-worker skill on the Amplify edition |
| Reading a rankingWhat a consultant can say to a client. | A pass or gap verdict for every requirement with the evidence from the record behind it | A best-fit ranking grounded in Bullhorn’s twenty-six years of recruitment expertise; per-requirement evidence is not described on their public product pages |
| Keeping records current | ||
| Updates from email and callsApplied, or proposed for review? | Emails, calls and messages become proposed field updates and tasks you approve or reject | Amplify Enriching fills records from a prompt you supply; a purchased Amplify skill |
| Meeting and call notesWho writes up the call. | A notetaker joins the call and files the summary, the next steps and the full transcript on the record | AI call transcription, listed from the Bullhorn Pro plan up |
| Seeing what runs by itselfThe unglamorous half of automation. | A register of every automation — what it reads, what it writes, when it last ran, and a switch to turn it off | Bullhorn Automation is a separate add-on with its own four editions; the Starter edition caps live automations at three |
| What one seat can do | ||
| EditionsHow many decisions before you can buy. | One edition. Every feature is included and there is no tier above it | Starter, Core, Pro and Max for small agencies, with ATS Growth, Bullhorn ATS, Front Office Growth, Front Office Enterprise and Bullhorn One above them |
| Custom fields and workflowsThe first thing an agency needs and the first thing gated. | Included, with saved views and field-level history on the same plan | From Bullhorn Core at USD 165 per user per month, and from the Bullhorn ATS edition upward |
| Records and storageWhat a large old database costs to keep. | Unlimited records and storage, with no per-record or per-contact charge | Unlimited data storage begins at the Bullhorn ATS edition, not the entry edition |
| Public API and webhooksWhether you can build against it at all. | Scoped API keys, read and write rate limits, idempotency, and webhook endpoints with delivery logs and redelivery | Custom API integrations begin at Front Office Growth; webhooks in Bullhorn Automation begin at its Enterprise edition |
| The same product everywhereWhether your region gets the feature list. | One edition with no feature gating | Shift Scheduling is documented NA only; Credentialing and Compliance Manager NA/UKI only |
| Running the desk | ||
| CV formatting on your templateThe document a client actually reads. | Format a candidate onto your agency’s own branded template and download DOCX or PDF, without touching the profile | AI resume formatting, listed from the Bullhorn Pro plan up |
| Working from LinkedInWhere sourcing actually happens. | A Chrome extension that tells you on the profile whether the person is already in your database and what has changed | LinkedIn integrations — RSC and Apply Connect — from Bullhorn Core upward |
| Reporting on billingsWhether the numbers cost extra. | Billings, delivery and consultant splits read from real placements, on the one plan | Real-time analytics from Bullhorn Pro up; Analytics is also listed as its own add-on with Starter and Enterprise editions |
| What you pay | ||
| Published priceWhat you can find out without a call. | USD 119 per user per month billed annually — USD 1,428 a seat a year, published for every customer | USD 99 Starter and USD 165 Core are published; Pro, Max, the Front Office editions, Bullhorn One and every add-on say “Talk to us” |
| Getting your data inWho does the unglamorous half. | Done for you on every plan — extraction, mapping, de-duplication, and fifty of your own records parsed for you to check before the full load | Self-guided implementation included with Starter, Core and Pro at no additional setup cost |
| Getting your data back outThe question to ask before you sign, not after. | Full workspace export at any time, with no exit fee | Export terms are not stated on Bullhorn’s public pricing or product pages; Bullhorn Data Replication syncs a copy to a SQL Server database and is documented as requiring active management from your organisation |
Bullhorn sells Amplify Chat with Bullhorn Pro and every other Amplify skill — enriching, matching, screening, outreach — as a separate purchase on top of a Growth, Enterprise or Industry package, with the standard AI Assistant documented as bring-your-own-LLM. Kepler has one assistant, in a sidebar on every page, with roughly fifteen tools, an AI allowance inside the USD 119 seat, and an approval step before anything is written.
Active data engineers in London who have used Kafka in production, available within a month
Found 4 candidates. Three mention Kafka on their CV; one said it on a recorded call last week.
| Candidate | Current employer | Notice | Why it matched |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sophia Bennett | Monarch Analytics | 1 month | Kafka streaming for card transactions at Halcyon CV |
| Amir Hassan | Northwind Capital | 2 weeks | Kafka feed for the risk platform CV |
| James Okafor | Juniper Systems | 3 months | Rebuilt the Kafka clickstream pipeline CV |
| Oliver Chen | Northwind Capital | Immediate | Mentioned running Kafka on the 2 Sep call Call note · 2 Sep |
Bullhorn’s AI Search and Match ranks best-fit candidates for a job, grounded in twenty-six years of recruitment expertise, and is sold as its own product. Kepler’s matching runs on criteria you wrote for that specific job, and every requirement expands into a pass or gap verdict with the line from the candidate’s record that supports it — so a consultant can defend the order to a client instead of quoting a number.
| Candidate | Match | Role title | Current employer | Skills | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sophia Bennett | 92Strong | Senior Data Engineer | Monarch Analytics | Python, Spark, AWS, Terraform, dbt | |
| Amir Hassan | 81Good | Data Engineer | Northwind Capital | Python, Spark, EMR, SQL, Airflow | |
| James Okafor | 74Good | Senior Data Engineer | Juniper Systems | Spark, Azure, Databricks, Kafka, Scala | |
| Mei Tan | 68Weak | Engineering Manager, Data | Atlas Cloud | AWS, Leadership, Python, Snowflake | |
| Elena Rossi | 55Weak | Analytics Engineer | Forma | dbt, SQL, Python, Looker | |
| Oliver Chen | 49Off spec | Platform Engineer | Northwind Capital | AWS, Kubernetes, Terraform, Go |
Assessment
A strong fit for the brief. Sophia has run a production Spark platform on AWS and has managed a team through a migration. Financial services exposure is via a payments client rather than a bank.
Criteria · 3 of 4
Decision
↑ ↓ next candidate · Esc close
Kepler reads the emails, calls and messages already attached to a record and turns them into proposed field updates and tasks, each carrying the message it came from. Nothing lands until a person accepts it, every change keeps its source in the field’s history, and any of it can be undone.
Three candidates · this week
Re: Senior Data Engineer at Northwind
Thanks for sending the details over. The role sounds great, and I can start on 3 October if the timing works for them.
Are you still keeping half an eye out?
I handed my notice in this morning, so I am actively looking now.
James · 11:26For my next move I am looking for £105,000. I would want a step up for a move.
| Candidate | Available from | Status | Expected salary | Notice period | Company | Owner | Skills | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sophia Bennett | Not set | Passive | £90,000 | 1 month | Monarch Analytics | Priya Nair | ||
| Amir Hassan | 14 Oct 2026 | Passive | £85,000 | 2 weeks | Northwind Capital | Priya Nair | ||
| James Okafor | Immediate | New | £100,000 | 3 months | Juniper Systems | Tom Reilly | ||
| Mei Tan | Not set | Passive | S$160,000 | 2 months | Atlas Cloud | Tom Reilly | ||
| Elena Rossi | Not set | Active | €78,000 | 1 month | Forma | Tom Reilly | ||
| Oliver Chen | Immediate | New | £88,000 | None | Northwind Capital | Priya Nair | ||
| Rahul Menon | 2 Nov 2026 | Active | £92,000 | 1 month | Juniper Systems | Priya Nair | ||
| Yuki Tanaka | Not set | Passive | ¥14,000,000 | 3 months | Atlas Cloud | Tom Reilly | ||
| Hafiz Rahman | 20 Oct 2026 | Active | S$145,000 | 2 weeks | Meridian Partners | Priya Nair | ||
| Clara Nowak | Not set | New | €84,000 | 1 month | Forma | Tom Reilly | ||
| Daniel Okonkwo | Immediate | Active | £78,000 | None | Northwind Capital | Priya Nair | ||
| Ana Ferreira | 8 Dec 2026 | Passive | €96,000 | 3 months | Juniper Systems | Tom Reilly | ||
| Tomas Novak | Not set | Active | €71,000 | 1 month | Monarch Analytics | Priya Nair | ||
| Grace Adeyemi | 27 Oct 2026 | Active | £105,000 | 2 weeks | Atlas Cloud | Tom Reilly | ||
| Ivan Petrov | Not set | Passive | €88,000 | 2 months | Forma | Priya Nair | ||
| Leila Haddad | Immediate | New | £82,000 | None | Meridian Partners | Tom Reilly | ||
| Marcus Reid | 16 Nov 2026 | Active | £98,000 | 1 month | Monarch Analytics | Priya Nair | ||
| Nadia Kaur | Not set | Passive | S$172,000 | 3 months | Northwind Capital | Tom Reilly |
Kepler's CV parsing and formatting are ported from RemakeCV, our own product, which 300+ recruitment agencies use. The migration that fills your database on day one runs on an engine that has been reading real agency CVs for years, not on something written for this launch.
RemakeCV is a Kepler product. It is the same team and the same code, which is why we are willing to point at it — and it is the only outside evidence on this page, because Kepler itself is new and has no customer stories yet.
Whatever your current system gives you, plus any loose CVs and spreadsheets sitting in folders. If you are not sure how to get the export out, we will walk you through it.
Extraction, mapping, de-duplication and validation — the unglamorous half most vendors leave on your desk. Your custom fields are recreated rather than flattened into notes.
Fifty of your own records, fully parsed — your people, not a demo set. Tell us what we got wrong and we fix it and re-run, as many times as it takes.
The full database goes in, mailboxes and calendars connect, and history backfills onto the right records. We stay on it until your team is working in Kepler.
£89 per user / month, billed annually
USD 99 and USD 165 published; everything else on request
Bullhorn publishes a per-user price for two plans: Bullhorn Starter at USD 99 per user per month and Bullhorn Core at USD 165 per user per month, both with free implementation and both excluding VAT. Bullhorn Pro and Bullhorn Max say “Talk to us”, and so do Front Office Growth, Front Office Enterprise, Bullhorn One and every add-on on the page — Amplify Digital Workers, Amplify Search & Match, Recruitment Automation, VMS Automation, Middle Office, Onboarding, Messaging and Analytics. Checked 6 September 2026.
That is a normal way to sell enterprise staffing software and it is not a criticism of Bullhorn. It does mean the number that matters to you — a Bullhorn Pro seat with the Amplify skills your desk would actually use — is not on their website, and cannot be worked out from it. Kepler publishes one number and includes everything in it.
It depends on whether you bill placements or timesheets. Bullhorn is the better product for a staffing firm running contractors: Bullhorn One covers time and expense capture, an invoicing engine and payroll in the same system as the ATS, and Kepler has no back office at all. Kepler is the better product for a permanent or contingency agency whose real asset is a large database it cannot search — the assistant, plain-English search across CVs, notes and conversations, matching with per-requirement evidence, the public API and a done-for-you migration are all inside one USD 119 seat rather than spread across editions and add-ons.
Bullhorn publishes two per-user prices on its small-agency pricing page: Bullhorn Starter at USD 99 per user per month and Bullhorn Core at USD 165 per user per month, both excluding VAT, both with free implementation. Bullhorn Pro and Bullhorn Max are quoted rather than published, as are Front Office Growth, Front Office Enterprise, Bullhorn One and all eight add-ons listed on bullhorn.com/pricing. Kepler is USD 119 per user per month billed annually — USD 1,428 a seat a year — with one edition, every feature included, unlimited records and free migration. Figures checked 6 September 2026.
Both, depending on which AI. Bullhorn’s knowledge base lists a standard AI Assistant available on any ATS or Front Office package on a bring-your-own-LLM basis, and lists AI Assistant Premium, Bullhorn Search and Match, and every Amplify skill — chat, enriching, matching, screening, outreach, present, analytics — as separate purchases requiring the Amplify edition on top of a Growth, Enterprise or Industry package. Amplify Chat is included with the Bullhorn Pro small-agency plan, which is quote-only. Kepler includes a monthly AI allowance in the USD 119 seat and sells additional capacity available on request.
A great deal, and it is worth being blunt about it. Bullhorn One runs time and expense capture, invoicing and payroll — Kepler has no timesheets, no invoicing and no payroll. Bullhorn’s Marketplace lists 300+ pre-integrated technology partners across nine categories including pay and bill; Kepler has a public REST API and webhooks and no marketplace. Bullhorn sells VMS automation, onboarding, credentialing, middle office and SMS messaging, and Kepler sells none of those — Kepler has no SMS anywhere in the product. Bullhorn is twenty-five years old with more than ten thousand customers and the enterprise references that go with that; Kepler has no paying customers yet.
Not on its own. Kepler has no timesheets, no invoicing, no payroll and no VMS integration, so a firm whose margin is made in pay and bill would be running a second system alongside it and moving data between them over Kepler’s API and webhooks. If contractor payroll is central to your business, Bullhorn One is designed for exactly that and Kepler is not. Kepler is built for agencies that bill placements — permanent, contingency and retained — where the front office is the whole job.
Kepler runs the migration for you on every plan, at no cost. You send a Bullhorn export plus any loose CVs, spreadsheets and shared-inbox archives that never made it into the ATS; Kepler does the extraction, mapping, de-duplication and validation, and rebuilds your custom fields as real fields rather than flattening them into notes. Before the full load you review fifty of your own records fully parsed, and anything wrong is corrected and re-run. Activity, stages and history come across, not just names and email addresses, and it is done in days.
Bring your hardest search to a 15-minute call. We will run it live, on real records, and talk through what a migration would look like.
