A free ATS for recruiters is an applicant tracking system you can use to store candidates, track jobs and run your interview pipeline without paying a subscription. Giig’s is free forever for one user: no trial, no credit card, and no “free until you add your 50th candidate”. We built it because paying for software before you’ve made a single placement is a rubbish way to start a recruitment business.
Full disclosure: this is our own product, so I’m biased. I’ll tell you exactly what’s free, what isn’t and how we pay the bills, so you can judge for yourself. If you’re still comparing options, our round-up of the best free ATS for recruitment agencies covers the others too.
Because the first year of a recruitment business is when money is tightest and good habits matter most.
Most recruitment software is built for established agencies. It’s priced per user, often on an annual contract, and set up for teams with someone whose job is “the system”. If you’ve just gone out on your own, that’s a bill landing before your first fee does.
So people make do. A spreadsheet. A folder of CVs called “CVs FINAL 2”. Notes in three different apps and a memory doing far too much heavy lifting. It works, right up until a client calls about a role and you can’t find the candidate you spoke to in March.
I started building Giig’s free ATS in early 2023 for exactly those recruiters. The idea was simple: give people a proper home for their candidates from day one, and let them pay us later if, and only if, they grow into the paid features.
An ATS (applicant tracking system) is where you store candidates and track them through your jobs, from first call to placement.
In agency recruitment it usually sits alongside a CRM for your clients and business development. Giig does both in one place, which is why you’ll see us call it a free recruitment CRM as well as a free applicant tracking system.
You need one as soon as you’re juggling more candidates than you can remember. For most recruiters that’s about week two. A decent ATS lets you:
The free plan covers the core of an agency desk for one recruiter, with no cap on candidates, CVs, jobs or clients.
Here’s what’s in Free Forever today:
That’s enough to run a solo desk properly: add a candidate, attach their CV, tag them, submit them to a job and drag them through the interview stages.
Quite a lot. The 2023 version was a candidate card and a couple of pipelines. Today it’s a full recruitment CRM and ATS, with paid plans and AI on top for agencies that want them.
The first big update, in February 2023, was the new candidate card. It’s still the heart of Giig:
That last one is still my favourite. It’s the nudge to chase the client who’s been sitting on interview feedback for a week, which is half of what good candidate care is.
Back then, CV parsing was on the “coming soon” list. It’s now a proper CV parsing tool on the paid plans, with mass CV parsing from Starter. And the paid plans have grown things 2023 me wouldn’t have believed, like connecting Claude straight to your CRM with Giig’s MCP on Giig AI.
Agencies paying for Starter, Plus and AI fund the free plan. It’s the same freemium model plenty of software uses, and there’s no time limit on it.
There are catches, though, and I’d rather you heard them from me:
Free Forever £0 (1 user). Starter £14.99, Plus £45 and AI £59 per user per month +VAT. No contract, cancel anytime. Full details are on the pricing page.
Where it’s not the best fit: if you’re a bigger agency with back-office payroll and compliance teams, a heavier system like Bullhorn will suit you better. Here’s our honest Giig vs Bullhorn comparison.
Upgrade when the free plan starts costing you time, not before. These are the usual triggers:
You can be up and running in an afternoon. Here’s the order I’d do it in:
If you’re starting from scratch, our guide to building a free recruitment database walks through how to fill it with good people fast.
Yes. Free Forever costs £0 for one user, with no trial period and no credit card. You get unlimited candidates, CVs, jobs and clients, email integration, custom tagging, jobs, business development and interview pipelines, perm and temp workflows, a website landing page and a careers page for 3 jobs. It doesn’t expire.
The catch is that it’s for one user and some features are paid. Free Forever covers a solo recruiter’s day-to-day. Team members, CSV import, CV parsing, file storage, reporting, CV formatting, bulk email, the Chrome extension and Claude MCP are on Starter, Plus or AI. Nothing on the free plan gets switched off if you don’t upgrade.
Agencies on paid plans fund it. Starter is £14.99, Plus £45 and AI £59 per user per month +VAT, with no contract and the option to cancel anytime. Enough agencies use those plans that we can keep the free version free for solo recruiters and start-ups.
No. Free Forever is one user only. To add team members you need Starter, at £14.99 per user per month +VAT, which also adds CSV import, mass CV parsing, file storage and a custom domain for your website. You can move up whenever you’re ready.
Yes, on a paid plan. CSV import is included from Starter. If you’re coming from another system with a full database, we can also restore it from an SQL or .bak file as a paid service: email support@giighire.com. Exporting your data out of Giig is free.
Yes. Giig is built in the UK for small agencies, prices are in pounds, and it handles both perm and temp workflows. It works just as well for agencies elsewhere, with pricing in USD and EUR on the pricing page too.
A free ATS won’t make placements for you. What it will do is stop good candidates slipping through the cracks while you’re busy, and that’s worth a lot in your first year.
We built ours so nobody has to choose between staying organised and paying the bills. Try it, and if it’s not for you, you’ve lost nothing but an afternoon. Start on Giig for free. No credit card needed.
