Alternatives · staffing ATS and CRM
A Bullhorn alternative shaped to how your firm actually places.
Recruiting firms win on speed and relationships, and the software either helps with that or slowly gets in the way. Bullhorn is a capable platform. The firms that call us have usually reached the point where the per-seat bill outgrew the value, or where recruiters keep track of their real candidates in a spreadsheet because the stages in the system don't match how they work.
First, the honest part
When you should keep paying Bullhorn.
We'd rather tell you this on a first call than sell you a platform you don't need. If any of these sound like you, staying put is the right call.
- You depend on add-ons from its marketplace, especially job board distribution and back-office payroll. That's a lot to rebuild.
- Your process really does match the template. Some firms' do, and if yours is one of them, buying is the right call.
- You're small enough that per-seat pricing is still comfortable.
When people do move, this is usually why.
The real candidate list lives in a spreadsheet
The clearest signal there is. If recruiters keep a shadow system, the official one doesn't match how the work happens.
Candidates go cold between steps
Applications arrive from boards, referrals and email, then wait on a next step nobody is tracking.
The seat count is the cost driver
Per-recruiter pricing makes hiring a recruiter more expensive than it looks, which is a strange incentive for a staffing firm.
You want to own the candidate database
It's your most valuable asset, and it lives in someone else's system. Firms reach a size where that stops being comfortable.
How the money is shaped.
We describe how they charge rather than quoting figures. Current prices are Bullhorn's to quote and they change, but what the bill is tied to rarely does.
Bullhorn
Per seat, per month, typically annual. The bill tracks your recruiter headcount.
GO Build Labs
One monthly fee for the platform, flat as you add recruiters, with the candidate database in a system you own outright.
See what it costs →What we build instead.
- A view of every candidate's stage, next step and history in one place
- Your stages and the details you track, rather than a template's
- Job orders, submittals and client history connected to each candidate's progress
- Updates recorded as the work happens, rather than typed up hours later
- Applications from job boards and email arriving in one place automatically
Questions people ask before switching.
What happens to years of candidate records?
They come with you, and moving them is planned into the build rather than rushed at the end. Candidates, submittals, client history and notes all come across, and we run both systems side by side for a while during the switch.
We rely on job board posting. Can you replicate that?
Usually yes, by connecting to each board's own system, and it's worth scoping specifically because it varies by board. Where a board doesn't offer a usable connection, we'll tell you before you commit rather than after.
How is AI used in this without it becoming a gimmick?
Where it saves typing rather than where it makes decisions. Reading résumés and filling in the candidate record, drafting outreach for a recruiter to edit, summarizing a long candidate history. A person reviews the output every time.
What stops us ending up locked into you instead?
The custom code is yours from the day we start writing it, kept in an account your company owns, with the hosting in your name. If you leave, you take all of it and hire whoever you like. That's the real difference between owning software and renting it, and it's why the lock-in problem doesn't just move from one vendor to us.
Product and pricing-model information reflects Bullhorn's own public materials and was last reviewed August 2026. GO Build Labs is not affiliated with or endorsed by Bullhorn. All trademarks belong to their respective owners.
Not sure whether leaving Bullhorn is worth it?
Bring us what you really use and what you pay for it. We'll tell you honestly whether a custom build makes sense, and we'll say so when it doesn't.
One monthly fee · Built, hosted & improving · You own the custom code