SeekOut is a paid sourcing and talent-search platform built around deep candidate search, designed to sit on top of the ATS you already run. Dover is a free ATS with sourcing and outreach included. Here’s what each costs, where each is stronger, and how to tell which one you actually need.
Key takeaways
- Dover's sourcing tools are free - the Chrome sourcing extension and in-app sourcing are both on the free ATS plan, with no seat or credit charge.
- SeekOut is a sourcing tool, not an ATS. You still need somewhere to track the candidates it finds. Dover is both.
- SeekOut Recruit Core is $179/mo for 3 seats. Paying a year up front drops it to $149/mo. Everything above Core is custom-priced and billed annually.
- SeekOut's search is deeper than Dover's. Power filters over a large candidate index, with technical and diversity search that Dover doesn't attempt.
- SeekOut meters contacts and exports. Core includes 500 contact credits and 1,000 exports a month; higher tiers give 750 contacts and 5,000 exports per seat. Dover doesn't sell credits.
- SeekOut Spot competes with Dover's Expert Marketplace, not its ATS. Spot is agentic AI plus recruiters, sold per role, per contractor, or on outcomes, all custom-quoted. Dover's experts are humans who publish their rates.
- Dover lets you create multiple outreach campaigns and run them at once, each sending from its own email sender - useful when a founder's name opens more replies than a recruiter's.
Pricing
Dover's ATS and its sourcing tools are free, with unlimited seats and jobs. Premium is $199/mo with no contract, so you can turn it on for a hiring push and off again. SeekOut publishes one self-serve tier - $179/mo for three seats - and quotes everything above it, with contact and export volumes capped per month.
The two products meter different things. SeekOut charges per seat and then rations how many candidates you can contact or export each month, with healthcare search, AI inbound screening, and its SeekOut Spot recruiting service priced separately. Dover charges nothing for sourcing at all, and the one paid tier is a flat $199/mo regardless of how many candidates you reach out to.
Dover
$0-$199
per month - free sourcing and ATS, or Premium with no contract
Free - unlimited users and jobs
- Chrome sourcing extension
- In-app sourcing and outreach
- Candidate tracking and CRM
- 100+ job boards
- Careers page and candidate portal
- Reporting and analytics
Premium - $199/mo, everything free, plus
- Bulk email sourcing from a CSV upload
- AI Applicant Scoring
- AI Notetaker
- Advanced scheduling
- Bulk actions for emails and stage updates
- Data export
- Onboarding and premium support
Source: dover.com/pricing · verified August 2026
SeekOut
$179+
per month for Core's 3 seats - higher tiers quoted
Recruit Core - $179/mo, 3 seats
- Power filters over a large candidate index
- 500 contact credits a month
- 1,000 exports a month
- Excel, PDF, and ATS export
- Chrome extension and SeekOut MCP
Higher tiers - quoted, plus
- 750 contact credits and 5,000 exports per seat a month
- ATS integration to rediscover past applicants
- AI inbound screening for every applicant
- Talent analytics
- Mix-and-match product modules
SeekOut Spot - separate service, no annual commitment
- Agentic AI Sourcer - fixed cost per role
- Agentic AI Contract Recruiter - priced per contractor
- AI Recruiting Agency - outcome-aligned fees
- Marketed at 70% below traditional agencies
Prices shown are month to month. Paying a year up front drops Core to $149/mo - $1,788 a year, a saving of $360. Core comes with a 14-day trial needing no credit card and no contract. The Sourcing, Sourcing + Integration, and Full Recruiting Funnel tiers are custom-priced and billed annually, with per-seat pricing that adjusts by volume. Healthcare search and AI Inbound Screening are add-ons; SeekOut Spot is a separate service, priced per role, per contract recruiter, or on outcomes.
Source: seekout.com/pricing · verified August 2026
Features
There are really two comparisons here. SeekOut Recruit is a sourcing and talent-search tool that plugs into whatever ATS you already run, against Dover's free ATS with sourcing built in. And SeekOut Spot is a managed recruiting service, against Dover's Expert Marketplace - both answers to "we don't have the capacity to run this search ourselves", arrived at from opposite directions.
| Feature |  | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing and getting started | ||
| Price | Free, or $199/mo Premium with no contract | $179/mo for Core, higher tiers quoted |
| Cost of sourcing | Included on the free plan | The product you're paying for |
| Free plan | Full ATS and sourcing, unlimited users and jobs | 14-day trial, no free plan |
| Seats included | Unlimited on every plan | 3 on Core, then per-seat pricing |
| Commitment | Month to month, cancel any time | No contract on Core, annual above it |
| Sourcing and search | ||
| Candidate search | In-app sourcing and a Chrome extension for LinkedIn profiles | Power filters over a large candidate index |
| Technical and diversity search | Not offered | A core strength - specialist filters and healthcare search as an add-on |
| Rediscovering past applicants | Your Dover pipeline is already searchable | ATS integration on the Teams tier and above |
| Browser extension | Free Chrome extension - find emails and send outreach in two clicks | Chrome extension on paid plans |
| Talent analytics | No | Talent analytics on the higher tiers |
| Outreach | ||
| Contact limits | No contact credits | 500/mo on Core, 750/mo per seat above it |
| Export limits | Data export in Premium, not metered | 1,000/mo on Core, 5,000/mo per seat above it |
| Campaigns | Multiple campaigns running at once, per role | Outreach and engagement within credit limits |
| Sending from multiple people | Each campaign sends from its own email sender | Not a published tier feature |
| Follow-up control | Set the number, the copy, and the trigger delay for each step | Automated outreach sequences |
| Tracking what you source | ||
| Applicant tracking | Full ATS, unlimited jobs and users | None - integrates with your ATS |
| Job boards | 100+ job boards | Not a job-posting tool |
| Inbound applicant review | AI Applicant Scoring in Premium | AI Inbound Screening as an add-on or on the top tier |
| MCP server | Yes | Yes |
| Managed help: Spot vs the Expert Marketplace | ||
| What you're buying | A senior human operator you choose, working at their published rate | Agentic AI doing the sourcing, with recruiters supporting it |
| How it's priced | The expert's rate - hourly, retainer, contingency, or project | Fixed cost per role, per contract recruiter, or outcome-aligned |
| Is the price published? | Yes - every expert lists their rate and availability on their profile | No - all three Spot models are custom-quoted |
| Choosing who works on your roles | Browse profiles and reviews, then book a free intro call | SeekOut assigns the AI sourcer or contract recruiter |
| Speed to interview-ready candidates | Depends on the expert's availability and the hours you buy | Marketed as under two weeks |
| Scaling capacity up and down | Adjust hours and scope with your expert directly | Contract recruiter model scales with demand |
| Senior and complex roles | Experts who have run these searches at startups before | The AI Recruiting Agency model, aimed at Tech, AI, and GTM |
| Annual commitment | None - no contracts to sign | None on Spot, unlike the Recruit tiers |
| Help beyond recruiting | Experts across HR, legal, marketing, customer success, and operations | Recruiting only |
SeekOut wins on search - power filters over a large index, technical and diversity search, and rediscovering applicants already sitting in your ATS are all genuinely better than what Dover's sourcing does. Dover wins on cost, on outreach controls, and on the fact that the candidates land in an ATS you already have. If deep candidate search is the job, SeekOut does it better; if the job is hiring a handful of roles without adding a line item, SeekOut is a tool you'd be buying alongside an ATS you still need. The Spot comparison is a different question, and a more interesting one. Both Spot and Dover's Expert Marketplace exist because founders run out of recruiting capacity, but Spot answers it with agentic AI supported by recruiters, priced per role or per contractor and quoted rather than published. Dover answers it with a named human whose rate you can read before you talk to them, and who can work on your interview loop as readily as your pipeline. Spot will be faster to a first batch of screened candidates. Dover leaves you with someone who knows your business.
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Which platform fits
Which tool makes sense for your team and budget?
The honest split is whether sourcing is the hard part of your hiring or one part of it. A team whose whole job is searching a deep pool should look at SeekOut. A team hiring a few roles and needing somewhere to run them should look at Dover.
Dover fits
Teams that want sourcing inside their ATS
- Free sourcing - the Chrome extension and in-app sourcing cost nothing, with no per-seat charge
- No credits to ration - contact and export as much as the role needs without watching a monthly balance
- One system - sourced candidates land in the same pipeline as your inbound applicants
- Outreach you control - several campaigns running at once, each from its own sender, with follow-up timing you set
- Unlimited seats - the whole team can use it, rather than three seats before you add cost
- Fast to start - self-serve signup, first campaign out the same day, no implementation
You want to source, reach out, and track candidates in one free tool.
SeekOut fits
Teams whose bottleneck is finding people
- A sourcing budget - $179/mo for Core, or $149 paid annually, with the team tiers quoted per seat
- Credit-based usage - contact and export volumes are capped per month and priced by tier
- An ATS already in place - SeekOut sources into your existing system rather than replacing it
- Specialist search - technical and diversity filters, with healthcare search as an add-on
- Three seats to start - Core covers a small sourcing pod, with per-seat pricing beyond it
- Search depth - power filters over a large index, which Dover cannot match
You need to search a deep candidate index, and you already have an ATS.
Why teams pick Dover
Dover's ATS has given us more time back to spend in the lab and the tools we need to build our team
Dover’s ATS simplifies the hiring process and provides an excellent level of support, ensuring a seamless migration during implementation!
Dover can automate scheduling so we could optimize bottom-funnel candidate experience, which was game-changing.
I have all the information that I need in Slack and then literally, I just click a button, and I decide whether to advance that person or not. It saved us so much mental energy and saved candidates time in waiting to hear from us.
The way Dover handles candidate touchpoints and scheduling saves me a lot of time, especially as I manage all recruiting efforts and have limited internal support with recruiting coordination.
Other SeekOut alternatives
If neither fits, these are the platforms teams most often shortlist alongside SeekOut.
FAQ
How much does SeekOut cost?
SeekOut Recruit Core is $149/mo paid annually up front, which is $1,788 a year, or $179/mo billed monthly. Core includes three seats, 500 contact credits a month, and 1,000 exports a month. The Sourcing, Sourcing + Integration, and Full Recruiting Funnel tiers are all custom-priced and billed annually, with per-seat pricing that adjusts by volume - those give 750 contact credits and 5,000 exports per seat per month. Healthcare search and AI Inbound Screening are add-ons, and SeekOut Spot is priced separately.
Is SeekOut an ATS?
No. SeekOut is a sourcing and talent-search platform that connects to the ATS you already run - its Teams tier exists specifically to integrate with your ATS and rediscover candidates already in it. If you don't have an ATS yet, budget for both. Dover's ATS is free and includes sourcing, so it covers the same top-of-funnel work plus the tracking underneath it.
Does SeekOut have a free plan?
No, but it has a real trial: 14 days of full Recruit Core access with no credit card and no contract commitment. After that it's $149/mo annually or $179/mo monthly. Dover's free plan doesn't expire and includes sourcing, the Chrome extension, candidate tracking, 100+ job boards, and reporting, with unlimited users and jobs.
Does Dover charge for sourcing?
No. The Chrome sourcing extension and in-app sourcing are both included on Dover's free ATS plan, with unlimited users and jobs. The one sourcing feature behind the $199/mo Premium plan is bulk email sourcing from a CSV upload - importing the candidates themselves is free.
How does SeekOut's search compare to Dover's?
SeekOut's is deeper, and that's the main reason to buy it. Power filters over a large candidate index, strong technical search, diversity filters, and an add-on for healthcare roles are all things Dover's sourcing doesn't attempt. Dover sources from the Chrome extension on profiles you're viewing and from in-app sourcing. If searching a deep pool with specialist filters is the capability you need, SeekOut is the better tool.
Can I use SeekOut and Dover together?
Yes, and plenty of teams pair a sourcing tool with a free ATS. Source in SeekOut, export the candidates - Core allows 1,000 exports a month - then upload them to Dover by CSV and run outreach, interviews, and offers there. Importing by CSV is free; emailing a whole uploaded list at once is a Premium feature.
What is SeekOut Spot?
It's SeekOut's recruiting service rather than software you operate, and it comes in three models. The Agentic AI Sourcer is a fixed cost per role and delivers screened, interested candidates against a rubric you set. The Agentic AI Contract Recruiter is priced per contractor and adds full-funnel capacity that scales with demand. The AI Recruiting Agency is outcome-aligned, aimed at complex senior Tech, AI, and GTM roles, and marketed at 70% below a traditional agency. None of the three has a published price, and none requires an annual commitment. If that's the shape of help you want, compare it against Dover's Expert Marketplace rather than Dover's ATS - the feature table above does exactly that.
Spot or Dover's Expert Marketplace - which should I use?
They solve the same problem from opposite ends. Spot puts agentic AI at the front of the funnel with recruiters behind it, and markets interview-ready candidates in under two weeks - so it's the faster route to a batch of screened candidates for a role you can define tightly. Dover's Expert Marketplace gives you a named senior operator who has run startup searches before, whose rate and reviews you can read before booking a free intro call, and who can fix your interview loop or your job description as readily as build a pipeline. Spot's pricing is quoted; Dover's is published by each expert. And the marketplace covers HR, legal, marketing, customer success, and operations, where Spot is recruiting only.
What are SeekOut's pros and cons for a startup?
Pros: genuinely deep candidate search, strong technical and diversity filters, a published self-serve price, a 14-day trial with no contract, ATS integration for rediscovering past applicants, an MCP server, and a recruiting service if you'd rather outsource. Cons: it isn't an ATS, so it's an addition to your stack rather than a replacement; contact and export volumes are metered monthly; Core caps you at three seats; and everything above Core needs a sales call and an annual contract.
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On accuracy: Pricing, plan tiers, and feature availability change often and without notice. Every figure here was checked against each vendor's public pricing and documentation in August 2026. Feature comparisons reflect generally available functionality, not beta or enterprise-only capability. Spotted something out of date? Tell us and we'll correct it.