Greenhouse, SeamlessHR, BambooHR: which ATS fits which team

A frank comparison of the six ATS platforms Ploras syncs with — pricing, data models, and the gotchas nobody mentions in the sales demo.

We integrate with six ATS platforms and sit inside the sales cycle for another dozen. This is the short version of what we tell customers when they ask "which one should we pick?" — and they're not under a contract yet.

Three archetypes, six products

Tech-forward teams

Greenhouse and Ashby. Strong APIs, opinionated workflows, modern UI. Pricey. Overkill below 50 hires a year, essential above 200.

Africa-first teams

SeamlessHR, NotchHR, PaidHR. Built for the local payroll and compliance reality. Best-of-breed if your hiring is primarily in Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana. Don't force a US tool into this job.

General HRIS

BambooHR, Zoho People. Not ATS-first, but fine for teams where recruiting is 10% of the HR surface. Cheap, cheerful, won't scale past mid-market.

The ATS isn't the product. The ATS is the database. Your workflow lives on top of it — and that's where most teams over-pay for features they never use.

The gotchas

Custom-field sprawl will eat your reporting. Migration costs are always 3× what the sales team quotes. And "integrates with everything" always means "the integration you need is on the roadmap." Ask for a live API demo before signing.

Practical rule:: Pick the ATS that fits the way your team already works — not the one that promises to change how they work. Workflow change is expensive; data migration is expensive; doing both at once is a project.