Rippling

Rippling Recruiting comes with Rippling’s HR platform, not alone

Where having hiring and HR in one system helps

The case for Rippling Recruiting rests on keeping hiring and HR in one system. Four things follow from that choice.

The platform, the plan tiers and the unfinished AI

Rippling Recruiting has five limits to weigh before you sign. The first one decides whether the rest matter to you.

Who Rippling’s own customer stories point to

Rippling publishes its own customer stories, so they point to the buyers it wants. Check which of the three looks like you, and remember that Rippling reports the results.

What it costs, how it starts and how you leave

The real question on price is what Recruiting adds on top of the HR platform. Rippling sells each product separately, but always alongside the required core platform. Most products are billed per employee per month, and some include a monthly base fee. Rippling prices Recruiting by quote, and it uses per-employee, per-month pricing.

The reseller Generation Digital Limited offers Rippling on the UK government’s G-Cloud 15 marketplace. There, pricing is modular by product and headcount and needs a custom quote. Under that listing, the bill is a monthly base fee plus a fixed amount per employee. So ask which employees count toward the bill.

Be careful with the $8 you will see. On its US pricing, Rippling plans start at $8 per employee per month with a monthly base fee. That is where the HR platform starts. Recruiting is an add-on under modular pricing, and Rippling quotes it separately. So $8 is not the price of hiring software. Ask for the Recruiting line on its own.

Rippling has offered three months of Rippling Recruiting free, with terms behind an asterisk. On its US pricing, Rippling also offers a startup programme. It gives eligible US VC-backed startups free access for six months. Ask whether either offer applies to you today.

Setup starts with a guided flow. It covers permissions and job boards. It also covers calendars, the pipeline and team access. Rippling gives an implementation time of 1 to 3 weeks. In its RFP template, Rippling puts typical implementation at weeks, not months. Rippling also supports migration of candidate data, resumes and pipelines. Support is available by chat, email and phone, plus in-app help and onboarding support.

Leaving needs a plan before you sign. All reports download as spreadsheets. BTC Inc. reports that after it stopped using Lever, the data it had collected there became practically unusable. That is a warning for any hiring tool, including this one. Ask how you get your candidate data out in a usable form.

Buying on an Order Form means accepting the Customer Terms of Service, the privacy terms and the service-specific terms. Rippling also has AI Services Terms for AI technologies a customer chooses to use. Read all of these before you sign.

Ten questions to put to Rippling before you sign

Most of the risk sits in four things only Rippling can settle in writing. They are the edition, the Recruiting price, where data sits and how you leave. The ten questions below cover those four, plus the AI features and the free offers.

1. Do we get Recruiting Core or Recruiting Pro, and which features sit in each? Good answer: A written list that places self-scheduling, Interview Assistant and interactive offers.
2. What is the price of the Recruiting line per employee per month, and which employees count? Good answer: A price with the monthly base fee and a clear rule for who is counted.
3. Does the three-month free offer or the startup programme apply to us? Good answer: A yes or no in writing, with an end date and the price after.
4. Where are candidate data and interview recordings stored, and who else handles them? Good answer: A named country for every system and a line we can give a candidate.
5. Can we set Interview Assistant by role, department or location, and what does a candidate see? Good answer: Settings for each, and a candidate notice that we approve.
6. How do we export every candidate, resume, note and recording when the contract ends? Good answer: A file format and a time window written into the contract.
7. Can we see who changed a knockout question or a review criterion, and when? Good answer: A log with the person, the change and the date.
8. Which AI Services Terms apply to the AI features we switch on? Good answer: A copy we can read before we switch on any AI feature.
9. When will AI Video Screens and applicant fraud detection arrive, and are they in our price? Good answer: A date in writing and a price line for each.
10. Can we read the SOC 2 Type 2 report before we sign? Good answer: The full report, shared before signing.

Alternatives to Rippling

Alternatives to Rippling include Deel, Paycor, Greenhouse, Ashby, Lever, Workable, Teamtailor, Pinpoint and Breezy HR.

Start with the question Rippling forces. Do you want hiring inside your HR system, or do you want to pick a hiring tool first? Deel’s applicant tracking system runs from sourcing to offer to onboarding inside Deel. Paycor combines recruiting with AI job descriptions, candidate texting, automated offer letters and onboarding in one HCM platform. Both are worth pricing next to Rippling if you want one system for hiring and HR.

You may already run Rippling for HR and want a different hiring tool. Then the link between the two matters most, and the three tools differ. Greenhouse imports a candidate’s information and offer details into Rippling in one click. Pinpoint’s Rippling link is one way and sends new hire details to Rippling. Breezy HR exports candidates to Rippling to create employees. Ask each vendor to show a hire crossing into Rippling before you sign.

Ashby, Lever, Workable and Teamtailor suit you if you choose on hiring features first. Buying nothing is the last route. If you hire a few people a year, a shared inbox and a spreadsheet may be enough. Once several roles are open at once, a spreadsheet gets hard to keep accurate. Our guide to applicant tracking systems covers the whole market. The comparison page puts every product against the same questions.