---
title: "3 of 5 recruiting tools we once named now belong to bigger groups; 3 hide the price"
summary: "Who owns the five recruiting tools this blog named in 2023, which print a price, and what India's DPDP Act asks of a candidate database, as of September 2026."
url: https://www.thetechbag.com/blog/best-hr-software-streamlining-recruitment-process
format: Analysis
desk: "SaaS & business software"
published: 2025-03-12
facts_checked: 2026-09-30
author: TechBag (The TechBag Journal)
tags: ["recruiting software","ATS","Workable","Lever","SmartRecruiters","Breezy HR","Keka","Zoho Recruit","SAP SuccessFactors","DPDP","GST"]
cover: https://www.thetechbag.com/blog/covers/best-hr-software-streamlining-recruitment-process.png
---

# 3 of 5 recruiting tools we once named now belong to bigger groups; 3 hide the price

*Who owns the five recruiting tools this blog named in 2023, which print a price, and what India's DPDP Act asks of a candidate database, as of September 2026.*

Analysis · SaaS & business software · By TechBag · Published 2025-03-12 · Facts checked 2026-09-30 · Canonical: https://www.thetechbag.com/blog/best-hr-software-streamlining-recruitment-process

The short version

- Three of the five recruiting tools this blog recommended in 2023 now sit inside larger groups: Lever in Employ, Breezy HR in Learning Technologies Group, and SmartRecruiters in SAP since 11 September 2025.[1][2][3]
- Three of the five print no price. Of those that do, Workable’s entry plan lists at US$299 a month, about four times Zoho Recruit for a three-recruiter team.[4][6]
- A candidate database is personal data under India’s DPDP Act. The duties that matter most to a recruiter, security safeguards and breach notice, apply from 13 May 2027.[9]

The 2023 version of this post answered a simple question: which software makes hiring faster? It listed five tools and cited a study claiming that recruiting software cuts time-to-hire by half. Three years on, an Indian HR head asking the same question needs three different answers first. Who will own the product in two years? What will it cost before a salesperson gets involved? And what does the law now say about the CVs it stores? We took the original five, added the one rupee-priced tool most Indian mid-market teams also see, and read each vendor’s own pages as of September 2026.

## Three of the five sit inside bigger groups

The biggest change is ownership. SAP completed its purchase of SmartRecruiters on 11 September 2025 and said it would fold the product into SAP SuccessFactors while keeping it available on its own.[3] Lever’s pages now carry the “Lever by Employ” mark and an Employ Inc. copyright.[1] Breezy HR describes itself as “Part of Learning Technologies Group plc”.[2] Workable and Keka are still sold under their own names with no parent shown on their pricing pages.[4][5]

**Figure: Three of the five recruiting tools named in 2023 now belong to a larger software group**

*Ownership of the five tools as shown on each vendor's site or in the acquirer's release, September 2026*

Inside a larger group

- SmartRecruiters: bought by SAP, closed 11 September 2025, to be integrated with SuccessFactors
- Lever: “Lever by Employ”, © Employ Inc.
- Breezy HR: “Part of Learning Technologies Group plc”

Sold under its own name

- Workable: no parent shown; prints its prices
- Keka: Hyderabad-built HRMS; hiring sold as its own suite

Source: Lever, Breezy HR, Workable and Keka pricing pages; SAP news release of 11 September 2025 · as of 30 September 2026

Ownership is not a verdict. SAP buying SmartRecruiters is good news for a company already on SuccessFactors, because the hiring record and the employee record will converge. It is less good for a company on another HR system, which now buys its recruiting tool from a rival suite’s owner. For Lever and Breezy HR, the question to put in writing is the same: where does the product sit on the parent’s roadmap, and what notice will customers get of a price or platform change?

Our view

Our view: when a recruiting tool belongs to a suite vendor, buy it for the suite or not at all. If your HR record lives in SAP, the SmartRecruiters route is now the natural one. If it lives in Keka, Zoho People or Darwinbox, choose the recruiting tool that the HR system itself sells or integrates first, and treat a standalone ATS as a three-year decision, not a ten-year one.

## Half the field will not tell you the price

Of the five tools from 2023, two print a price: Workable and Breezy HR. Lever says pricing is “available upon request”; SmartRecruiters’ pricing page lists packages and a “Talk to an expert” button; Keka’s page shows its Hiring plans, Pro and Advanced, with a free-trial button and no figure.[1][5][7] Zoho Recruit, which we added because it is the one most Indian teams also see, prints rupee and dollar prices per recruiter.[6]

**Figure: Among tools that print a price, Workable's entry plan lists at four times Zoho Recruit for three recruiters**

*Entry paid plan, US$ a month on annual billing, as published, September 2026*

Workable Standard

1 to 20 employees

US$299

Breezy HR Startup

US$189 billed monthly

US$157

Zoho Recruit Standard, 3 recruiters

US$25 a recruiter

US$75

|  | Value (US$) |
| --- | --- |
| Workable Standard | 299 |
| Breezy HR Startup | 157 |
| Zoho Recruit Standard, 3 recruiters | 75 |

Source: Workable, Breezy HR and Zoho Recruit pricing pages; TechBag arithmetic for the Zoho row · as of 30 September 2026 · Workable price is for a 1 to 20 employee company; larger companies are quoted higher tiers

TechBag countTechBag count

Five tools from the 2023 post plus Zoho Recruit: six pricing pages read. Three print a price (Workable, Breezy HR, Zoho Recruit); three do not (Lever, SmartRecruiters, Keka Hiring). The Zoho figure is US$25 a recruiter a month on annual billing, times three.[6]

The pricing models differ as much as the prices. Workable prices by company size, so a growing firm moves up a tier whether or not it hires more recruiters.[4] Zoho Recruit prices by recruiter seat, so a 400-person company with two recruiters pays for two.[6] Breezy HR prices by plan, with a free Bootstrap tier.[2] Keka sells hiring separately from its HRMS and payroll plans, so a Keka payroll customer should not assume recruiting is included.[5]

Quote-only is not a reason to rule a tool out; enterprise recruiting software is usually priced by negotiation. It is a reason to structure the request. Ask every quoted vendor for the same four things: the unit the price is built on (employee, recruiter seat or open role), the annual figure in rupees for your current headcount, the figure at one and a half times that headcount, and the cap on the renewal uplift. Put the printed prices above through the same four questions and the comparison becomes possible. Without them a buyer ends up comparing a per-recruiter seat with a per-employee tier and calling it a price comparison.

The 2023 post quoted an Aberdeen Group finding that recruiting software cuts time-to-hire by 50% and cost-per-hire by 40%. I could not trace it to a dated study, so it is gone. The honest replacement is your own baseline: export the last two quarters of hires from whatever you use now, spreadsheet included, and measure days from requisition to accepted offer before any pilot starts. A vendor that will not run a pilot against that number is selling the brochure.

## A CV database is personal data, and the rules have dates

Every recruiting tool is, underneath, a store of personal data about people who are not yet employees: names, phone numbers, salary histories, sometimes identity documents. India’s Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 covers all of it.[8] The Act lets an employer process data without consent “for the purposes of employment” (section 7(i)), but whether that reaches an applicant who is never hired is not settled by the text. The safer reading is to treat candidates as consent-based: tell them what you collect and why, and keep it only while the hiring purpose lasts (section 8(7)).

ReportedThe Act, section 8(7)

A Data Fiduciary must erase personal data once the Data Principal withdraws consent, or as soon as it is reasonable to assume that the specified purpose is no longer being served, unless another law requires it to be kept.[8]

For a recruiter, the “specified purpose” is the problem. A CV received for one opening in 2024 and still searched for a different role in 2026 has drifted from the purpose the candidate was told about. The fix is cheap and procedural: ask at application whether the candidate wants to join a talent pool for a stated period, store the answer as a field in the ATS, and let the retention rule act on it.

**Figure: Four duties attach to every CV in the database; the safeguard and breach clocks start on 13 May 2027**

*DPDP Act 2023 and DPDP Rules 2025 duties applied to candidate data, as of September 2026*

1. 01Notice at applicationTell the candidate what is collected and for which purpose; record consent where you rely on it.
2. 02Use for the stated purposeThe hiring decision for that role, or a talent pool the candidate agreed to join.
3. 03Erase when it endsDelete once the purpose is no longer served or consent is withdrawn (section 8(7)). Configure the ATS retention rule.
4. 04Report a breachFrom 13 May 2027, notify the Data Protection Board and each affected person; detailed report within 72 hours (Rule 7).

Source: DPDP Act, 2023; DPDP Rules 2025 commencement timeline; Rule 7 text · as of 30 September 2026

The DPDP Rules were notified on 13 November 2025. The duties a recruiting team will feel, reasonable security safeguards, breach intimation and retention, come into force on 13 May 2027.[9] Rule 7 asks for intimation to the Board without delay and a detailed report within 72 hours.[10] That makes the retention setting in the ATS a compliance control, not a preference. Most tools let an administrator purge candidates after a set period; few ship with it switched on.

If you are buying this in India

In rupees, Zoho Recruit Standard is ₹1,250 a recruiter a month on annual billing, or ₹1,500 month to month, with local taxes added; three recruiters on annual billing come to ₹3,750 a month before 18% GST.[6] Workable and Breezy HR list in US dollars; an Indian business buying an imported online service accounts for 18% GST under reverse charge, and a reseller invoice in INR removes that paperwork.[11] Lever, SmartRecruiters and Keka Hiring are quoted; ask for the quote in INR, with the seat or employee basis written in.

The regulation that bites is the DPDP Act, 2023, with its Rules’ substantive duties from 13 May 2027.[9] The Act’s schedule sets penalties of up to ₹250 crore for failing to keep reasonable security safeguards.[8] A recruiting tool that cannot show where candidate data is hosted, how long it is kept and how it is purged is not ready for an Indian buyer, whatever its feature list.

How we did this

Figures as of 30 September 2026

The five tools are the ones the 2023 post named; Zoho Recruit was added as the rupee-priced comparator. Ownership comes from each vendor’s own site footer or pricing page and, for SmartRecruiters, SAP’s completion release. Prices are each vendor’s published entry paid plan on annual billing; Zoho’s were read from the price list behind its pricing page. Workable’s figure is for its default 1 to 20 employee tier. No prices were estimated for quote-only tools. The Aberdeen statistic in the original was dropped because no dated source was found. The DPDP section numbers are from the Act; the commencement dates from a timeline of the notified Rules.

Spotted an error? Write to us; corrections are published at the foot of the piece.

Sources

1. [Lever, Pricing ("available upon request"; Lever by Employ, Employ Inc. footer)](https://www.lever.co/pricing/) — undated page
2. [Breezy HR, Pricing (Bootstrap free; Startup US$157 annual / US$189 monthly; "Part of Learning Technologies Group plc")](https://breezy.hr/pricing) — undated page
3. [SAP News, SAP Completes Acquisition of SmartRecruiters](https://news.sap.com/2025/09/sap-completes-smartrecruiters-acquisition/) — 11 September 2025
4. [Workable, Pricing (Standard US$299 a month, 1 to 20 employees)](https://www.workable.com/pricing) — undated page
5. [Keka, Pricing (Hiring: Pro and Advanced plans, no price shown)](https://www.keka.com/pricing) — undated page
6. [Zoho Recruit, Pricing (Standard US$25 / ₹1,250 a recruiter a month billed yearly)](https://www.zoho.com/recruit/pricing.html) — undated page
7. [SmartRecruiters, Talent Acquisition Suite pricing](https://www.smartrecruiters.com/pricing/) — undated page
8. [Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 (sections 7, 8 and Schedule)](https://www.meity.gov.in/data-protection-framework) — 11 August 2023
9. [DPDP Rules 2025, commencement timeline](https://legismith.com/dpdp-rules-2025-timeline/) — notified 13 November 2025
10. [DPDP Rules 2025, Rule 7 (intimation of personal data breach)](https://dpdpa.com/dpdparules/rule7.html) — notified 13 November 2025
11. [India Briefing, GST on online information and database access services](https://www.india-briefing.com/news/tax-digital-services-oidar-in-india-gst-applicability-and-compliance-22465.html) — updated 29 September 2023

Related on TechBag: the [SAP SuccessFactors page](https://www.thetechbag.com/sap/sap-successfactors) shows where SmartRecruiters now sits in SAP’s HR suite; the [identity governance guide](https://www.thetechbag.com/browse/identity-access/identity-governance) covers the HR-driven joiner and leaver process that starts the day a candidate accepts.

**Disclosure.** TechBag is a software reseller: it earns a margin when a reader buys through it, including from vendors named here. The analysis is TechBag’s own; no vendor paid for or saw this piece before publication. Facts are labelled reported, TechBag count or our view.

Go deeper on TechBag

- [Identity governance guide](https://www.thetechbag.com/browse/identity-access/identity-governance) — the HR-driven joiner and leaver process that starts when a candidate accepts
- [SAP SuccessFactors](https://www.thetechbag.com/sap/sap-successfactors) — where SmartRecruiters now sits in SAP's HR suite, module by module
- [Keka HR](https://www.thetechbag.com/keka/keka-hr) — the Hyderabad-built HRMS, payroll and its separately sold hiring suite