Comparison
Manatal vs Breezy HR (2026): the same role, tested in both
Choose Manatal if you place candidates for clients or want AI scoring bundled in: it ranked 106 candidates on our test role, from $15/user/mo (tested 9/10). Choose Breezy HR if you hire in-house: flat pricing with unlimited users, a genuine free plan and one-click posting to 50+ job boards (tested 9/10).
Manatal vs Breezy HR: the verdict
Place candidates for clients, or want AI scoring bundled in? Pick Manatal. Hire for your own company and want a free start with flat pricing? Pick Breezy HR. That’s the whole decision, and I make it with some confidence because I ran the same junior full-stack developer role through both tools, sourced to a hire in each.
That test matters, because nobody ranking for this comparison has done one. Manatal’s own comparison page says Breezy posts to 18 free job boards; while I was testing Breezy, the product itself confirmed my role was going out to 50+. Both tools scored 9/10 on the WiserStaff 5-Signal Test, and the tie is honest, because they win different jobs: Manatal bundles AI candidate scoring and a client CRM into a $15/user/mo price, while Breezy pairs a genuine free plan with flat pricing and one-click job-board reach. Which you should buy comes down to two questions: who you hire for, and how many people touch the ATS.
Job seeker who was screened by one of these systems? This page is for the teams that run them. What an ATS actually does with your CV is covered in the glossary entry on what an ATS is.
Manatal vs Breezy HR at a glance
The two charge in opposite shapes: Manatal bills per user and bundles its AI in; Breezy bills a flat rate per company and sells its AI separately. Every figure here is the in-app price I captured during testing (Manatal June 2026, Breezy July 2026), on annual billing where both offer it.
| Dimension | Manatal | Breezy HR |
|---|---|---|
| Built for | Agencies and SMBs, sourcing-first | In-house SMB teams, simplicity-first |
| Pricing model | Per user, per month | Flat per company, unlimited users |
| Entry price (annual) | $15/user/mo (Professional) | $157/mo (Startup) |
| Free plan | No, 14-day trial only | Yes: one active position, unlimited users |
| AI candidate scoring | Included on every tier | Paid add-on (Breezy Intelligence) |
| Job-board posting | Manual, plus a collection email | One click to 50+ free boards |
| Client & placement CRM | Built in | Light, in-house-first |
| API access | Top tier ($55/user/mo) | Quote-only Custom Pro tier |
| Tested verdict | 9/10 | 9/10 |
Best pick by priority:
| Your priority | Winner |
|---|---|
| You place candidates for clients | Manatal |
| AI scoring without an add-on bill | Manatal |
| Cheapest bill under ~10 hiring users | Manatal |
| A free plan that runs a real role | Breezy HR |
| Flat cost past ~10 hiring users | Breezy HR |
| One-click job-board distribution | Breezy HR |
The same role, run through both
I created the same junior full-stack developer role in each tool and worked it to a hired outcome, and the two tests felt like different products from the first hour. In Manatal, the work started with sourcing: its AI returned 106 ranked matches and scored each against the job, the top two at 78% and 75%, with a transparent required-versus-preferred skills breakdown that made triage fast. In Breezy, the work started with reach: activating the role queued it to free job boards within 24 hours and produced a public careers link, then I reviewed 21 candidates through to one hire and three disqualifications on its drag-and-drop board.
That difference is the whole comparison in miniature. Manatal assumes your problem is finding and ranking people, so it leads with a scored shortlist. Breezy assumes your problem is that nobody in the building is a recruiter, so it leads with a board anyone can run and posting it does for you. Both got the role hired; they just did their best work at opposite ends of the funnel. The full test logs, screenshots included, are in the Manatal review and the Breezy HR review.
AI scoring: included vs add-on
Manatal treats AI as the product; Breezy treats it as an upsell. Manatal’s sourcing and recommendations ship on every tier including the $15 entry plan, which is how a three-person team gets a ranked, explained shortlist for $45 a month. Breezy’s AI layer, Breezy Intelligence, is a paid add-on on every plan: on the plan I tested, the candidate AI-score column simply stayed empty, and I didn’t buy the add-on, so I can’t score what it would have shown. If AI screening is the reason you’re shopping, that asymmetry alone settles the choice. The wider pattern, vendors charging for AI as bundled, add-on or credits, is mapped in AI HR tools compared by how they charge.
Job-board reach: the numbers the vendors argue about
Distribution is Breezy’s win, and it’s the dimension where vendor marketing needs the most scepticism. Breezy pushes an activated role to 50+ free job boards and a branded careers page in one click, on every plan including the free one; on my test, the activation screen confirmed the post was queued and handed me a shareable link. Manatal doesn’t auto-post to the big third-party boards at all: you post the role yourself on each platform, then route applications back through a collection email into the dashboard. It works, but it’s manual.
Manatal’s own comparison page tells the story differently, crediting itself with 30+ free boards and 2,500+ premium channels while putting Breezy at 18 free boards (checked July 2026). I can’t reconcile those counts with what either product showed me, and neither number changed what mattered in practice: in Breezy, distribution took one click; in Manatal, it took me and a copy-pasted email address.
What each really costs at your size
Under about ten hiring users, Manatal is the cheaper bill; past ten, Breezy’s flat price wins and keeps winning. That’s the annual-billing arithmetic of Manatal Professional at $15 per user per month against Breezy Startup at a flat $157 a month with unlimited users:
| Hiring users | Manatal Professional ($15/user) | Breezy Startup (flat) |
|---|---|---|
| 3 | $45/mo | $157/mo |
| 10 | $150/mo | $157/mo |
| 25 | $375/mo | $157/mo |
Two footnotes change the picture, though. First, Breezy’s free Bootstrap plan runs one real role at $0 indefinitely, an option Manatal simply doesn’t have (14-day trial, then pay or stop). Second, Manatal’s $15 tier is largely manual: it caps you at 15 open jobs and 10,000 candidates, and workflow automation only arrives on Enterprise at $35/user/mo. Compare automation with automation, Manatal Enterprise against Breezy Startup (which includes candidate automations), and the crossover drops to about five seats. The tier you’ll actually run, not the entry sticker, is the price to compare.
Agency work: the CRM line
Manatal ships a recruitment CRM on every tier and Breezy doesn’t try to: if you place candidates for clients, that one line decides the comparison. In Manatal, clients, placements and candidate relationships live one click from the pipeline; on my test, logging a placement after the hire took a few clicks rather than a context switch. Breezy is in-house-first: its client and placement management is lighter, and it never pretends otherwise. A recruiting desk can run hiring in Breezy, but it will end up managing clients in a spreadsheet next to it. That’s why Manatal is the top pick in the agency-side ATS shortlist while Breezy leads the in-house round-up, and a high-volume desk that needs pay-and-bill should be comparing Bullhorn alternatives instead of either.
Reporting: the shared weak spot
Neither tool will impress the person you report to, and you should know that before either bill starts. On both Capterra profiles, thin reporting is the recurring complaint: Manatal reviewers flag weak recruitment metrics, and it’s the most common gripe against Breezy too. In my Breezy test, the free plan still produced a usable summary I could hand upward (candidates identified, disqualified, hired for the role); richer real-time reporting only arrives on paid tiers, and Manatal’s depth ceiling is the same story. If your boss expects real hiring analytics, test the reports in the trial before you commit to either.
Who shouldn’t buy each
Skip Breezy if you place candidates for clients; skip Manatal if what you want is a free start and the simplest board. The fastest way to decide is to rule one out.
- Don’t buy Breezy HR if you place candidates for clients. Its client and placement layer is light by design, and you’d be rebuilding an agency CRM in spreadsheets around it.
- Don’t buy Manatal if you want a free start or the simplest possible board. There’s no free plan, the entry tier runs manually, and a non-recruiter will be productive in Breezy sooner.
- Don’t buy either on the entry plan if day-one API automation is non-negotiable. Both gate it hard: Manatal’s API sits on Enterprise Plus at $55/user/mo, Breezy’s on the quote-only Custom Pro plan. Check what the plan you’ll actually buy includes; it’s the recurring lesson of both tests.
- Don’t decide on vendor comparison pages. The two products disagree about each other’s numbers; the tested detail lives in the two reviews linked above.
What happens when you leave
Exit is the one place Breezy’s pricing shape works against you. Data import and export are gated to the quote-only Custom Pro plan, so on the tiers a small team actually buys, getting your candidate database out means an upgrade or a support request. Manatal is lighter to leave on paper: month-to-month billing and GDPR, CCPA and PDPA tooling on every tier, so export and deletion are product features rather than tickets. Honest caveat on both: I have not yet run a full account export from either tool, so before committing real volume, run a test export of one job and confirm the notes and stage history come with it.
Choose Manatal if…
You place candidates for clients, or you’re a small team that wants a scored, explained shortlist without paying for an AI add-on. The CRM, the AI scoring and the per-seat price under ten users are the case; the manual entry tier and the top-tier API gate are the trade. The full Manatal review has the test log, the tier table and the automation maths. → See Manatal
Choose Breezy HR if…
You hire for your own company and want the pipeline anyone can run on day one, a real free plan to prove it with, and job-board reach the tool handles for you. Flat pricing that ignores your headcount is the case; the AI add-on and the quote-only export are the trade. The full hands-on Breezy HR review covers the free plan’s limits and the reporting screenshots. → See Breezy HR
Still deciding?
If your real question is which shortlist to start from, go by who you hire for: the in-house ATS round-up if you’re filling your own roles, the agency ATS picks if you place candidates for clients, or the startup-stage ATS picks if the team is still small and growing fast. And for where an ATS sits in a wider automated hiring stack, start with which HR processes you can automate.
FAQ
Is Manatal or Breezy HR better for a small in-house team?
Usually Breezy HR. Its free Bootstrap plan runs one real role at no cost, a non-technical team can run the visual pipeline on day one, and flat pricing means the bill stays at $157/mo (annual) however many people help with hiring. Pick Manatal instead if AI candidate scoring in the base price matters more than a free start.
Which is cheaper, Manatal or Breezy HR?
It depends on seats. On annual billing, Manatal's entry plan is $15 per user per month, so three users cost $45/mo against Breezy's flat $157/mo. The lines cross just past ten hiring users; at twenty-five, Manatal is $375/mo while Breezy still charges $157. For a single role, Breezy's free plan beats both.
Do Manatal and Breezy HR have free plans?
Only Breezy HR does. Its free Bootstrap plan runs one active position at a time with unlimited users and candidates, resume parsing and job-board distribution, and it persists after the trial. Manatal has no free plan: a 14-day free trial with no credit card, then a paid tier or nothing.
Is AI candidate scoring included in Manatal and Breezy HR pricing?
In Manatal, yes: AI sourcing and recommendations ship on every tier, including the $15/user/mo entry plan. In Breezy HR, no: the AI layer, Breezy Intelligence, is a paid add-on on every plan, so the candidate AI-score column stays empty until you buy it separately.
