A friend of ours recently started a website that tracks applicant tracking systems. The ATS Guide.com is about as comprehensive a list of ATS products as you’re going to find on the Web (Capterra perhaps being the exception). The list boats over 150 products, ranging from bukly and expensive, to small and featureless. We decided to take the time to gather some data on all 150 of these products. When we were done, we couldn’t help but ask: Where are all the “sign and drive” applicant tracking systems?

We systematically placed all these applicant tracking systems into a spreadsheet and then visited each and every website, looking for the same two things (to the best of our ability):

• Price for using the application
• Ability to sign up and start using the application immediately

After this exercise we began to understand the frustration many feel when trying to select an applicant tracking system (which is a phrase we despise, by the way). As a whole, the industry hides the prices from potential customers and does not allow you to simply sign up and use the service. Here’s a final tally of our list:

• Total vendors: 152
• Total vendors that show the price: 15
• Total vendors that allow immediate sign up: 8

We couldn’t believe only 10% of the companies shown were willing to share their prices without a sales call or request for a demo. And the fact that only 8 out of 150 companies allowed site visitors to immediately create an account was staggering. So much of the ATS industry has completely missed the modern way to market a Web-based service—instant sign ups and upgrades to premium plans. We tell you our prices and we allow you to sign up and start using our service immediately—even for free.

Why add friction to the process? Hiding prices and forcing prospective customers to request demos or sales calls is doing nothing but making the adoption of our products a huge roadblock and waste of time. Something needs to change.

Don Charlton
Founder and CEO
TheResumator.com