Dover vs Ashby: Complete Comparison for Startup Hiring (November 2025)
Dover
November 9, 2025
•
5 mins
Ashby is an all-in-one recruiting system that combines applicant tracking, sourcing, scheduling automation, and analytics into a single interface. The software is built for companies with experienced recruiting teams who want to consolidate their hiring tech stack.
The typical Ashby customer is a scaling company managing multiple open roles simultaneously, usually 5 or more positions at a time. These teams are often making dozens of hires per year and need features to handle high application volumes and coordinate complex interview processes across departments.
Ashby takes a data-driven approach to hiring. The system provides deep analytics and reporting capabilities that let recruiting teams track conversion rates, pipeline health, and hiring velocity. It also includes built-in sourcing tools and scheduling automation designed to reduce manual work for coordinators and recruiters who are filling many roles at once.
Dover is an all-in-one recruiting solution built for startups and early-stage companies. The product combines a free applicant tracking system with on-demand access to fractional recruiters, letting you handle hiring with software, services, or both.
Most Dover customers are founders or small teams at startups filling one to ten roles who need to scale hiring quickly without building an entire in-house recruiting function.
The core differentiator is flexibility. You can use the ATS for free to manage your hiring process, then tap into a marketplace of vetted recruiters on an hourly basis when you need extra help with sourcing or coordination. This fractional model means you pay only for the recruiting support you actually use, avoiding the hefty placement fees that traditional agencies charge.
Both systems offer full applicant tracking capabilities, but they differ in complexity and setup time.
Ashby's Interface Complexity
Ashby features a complex user interface with a steep learning curve that requires more clicks than average ATS systems. The Interview and Scheduling section has a lot of settings tabs, and common tasks like creating job openings require more clicks than most competitors.
Their Help Centre acknowledges teams need a few days of training or a month of light use to get comfortable. The careers page functionality is limited and not suitable for creating professional company career sites.
Dover's Easy Setup
Dover's ATS is ready to use in minutes with no training required. The interface is built for quick adoption, so you can start posting jobs and reviewing candidates immediately without going through complex settings.
Dover includes AI-generated career pages and job descriptions that create professional company branding automatically. One-click job board distribution posts your openings to 50+ boards simultaneously, with all applicants flowing into a centralized pipeline. AI-powered resume scoring automatically ranks candidates, surfacing top talent without manual sorting.
Sourcing and Candidate Outreach
Ashby's Multi-Channel Approach
Ashby offers AI email personalization for outreach campaigns, automated subject line testing, and multi-channel coordination across email, LinkedIn, and SMS. A Chrome extension handles sourcing while CRM capabilities manage talent pools.
The sourcing functionality requires learning complex workflows and configuration settings. Teams spend time understanding proper campaign and sequence setup before seeing results.
Dover's Simplified Sourcing
Dover's Chrome extension finds candidate email addresses and allows for personalized outreach in two clicks. The tool integrates with the ATS, letting you add candidates to active pipelines without switching systems.
Pre-written email templates optimized for startup recruiting come with automated follow-up sequences built in. You can start sourcing passive candidates immediately without training on multi-step processes or crafting outreach messaging from scratch.
Pricing and Cost Structure
Ashby uses a company size pricing model, companies with 1-10 employees face a $300 minimum monthly commitment. Organizations exceeding 100 employees transition to custom pricing requiring direct negotiation with annual reassessments.
This structure means recruiting software costs scale with headcount. A 50-person company pays $500 monthly, while a 200-person organization could spend thousands monthly on their ATS alone.
Dover's ATS is free with unlimited jobs, users, and candidates. There are no monthly fees, per-seat charges, or hidden costs for the recruiting software.
The only cost comes from engaging fractional recruiters through Dover's marketplace at around $80 hourly. Companies spend roughly $2,000-8,000 per hire using fractional recruiters versus $30,000+ for traditional contingency recruiting. You can also use the free ATS indefinitely without spending anything.
AI and Automation Capabilities
Ashby's AI Features
Ashby uses machine learning algorithms to analyze and score candidates based on job requirements and company culture fit. AI assistance appears throughout the product, automating routine tasks like application review and providing insights to recruiting teams.
The challenge is implementation. These advanced AI features require a lot of configuration to work effectively within Ashby's complex workflows. Teams need to spend time training the algorithms and setting up scoring criteria before seeing accurate results.
Dover's Plug-and-Play AI
Dover built AI directly into core recruiting workflows so it works immediately without configuration. Resume scoring analyzes every applicant automatically, ranking candidates by fit and surfacing top talent first. The AI also generates complete job descriptions and professional career pages in seconds.
Intelligent candidate matching runs in the background, identifying the most qualified applicants for each role without manual input. You get AI-powered recruiting from day one, no setup required.
Analytics and Reporting
Why Dover is the Better Choice
Final thoughts on selecting the right recruiting software
Frequently Asked Questions
Table of contents
