By Industry
Best ATS for Electrical Contractors in 2026
Quick answer: AvaHR at $99/mo is the best-value ATS for most electrical contractors, with knockout questions that screen licence class before you spend time on a phone screen. Arcoro is the stronger choice if certification tracking and compliance reporting are genuine obligations for you, and Team Engine at $500/mo is worth it only if crew texting matters as much as hiring.
Electrical hiring has a documentation problem no generic applicant tracking system was designed for. A candidate is not simply "an electrician" — they are an apprentice with a logged hour count, a journeyman with a state licence, or a master with the authority to pull permits. Those distinctions determine what work they can legally perform and who has to supervise them.
Get it wrong and you have not made a bad hire; you have made an unusable one.
What this trade actually needs from software
- Licence class captured at application, not discovered at interview. This is the single highest-value screening question in the trade.
- Apprenticeship hours tracked, because hours are the currency of progression and candidates arrive mid-journey.
- An apprentice pipeline kept warm. The journeyman shortage is not solved by recruiting journeymen; it is solved by developing apprentices over years.
- Certification expiry visibility, if you work anywhere with real compliance overhead.
What it costs, side by side
| Platform | Typical monthly cost | Billed as |
|---|---|---|
| AvaHR | $99–$457/mo | Flat per plan |
| Breezy HR | $0–$439/mo | Flat per plan |
| Team Engine | $500–$800+/mo | Flat per plan, banded by headcount |
| CareerPlug | Not published | Flat per plan, unlimited users |
| Workable | $299–$719/mo | Flat per plan, banded by headcount |
Pricing above was taken from each provider's own pricing page in August 2026. Always confirm the current numbers before buying — hiring software pricing changes often, and the three billing models in this category (flat per plan, per recruiter seat, and per employee on your payroll) make headline prices hard to compare without doing the arithmetic for your own headcount and number of open roles.
AvaHR — best value for most electrical contractors
AvaHR at $99/mo. The feature that earns its place here is custom questionnaires with knockout logic: ask for licence class and state on the application form, and unqualified applicants never reach your inbox. For a trade where perhaps one in five applicants holds the licence you actually need, that filter is most of the value.
Flat pricing suits contractors whose headcount moves with project load. 100+ job boards included, unlimited candidates so your apprentice pool persists.
Honest limits: $99 covers one user and three live jobs. Most contractors post apprentice, journeyman and master separately, which puts you at the cap immediately — Plus at $165/mo is the realistic tier. AvaHR does not track certification expiry; it is a hiring tool, not a workforce compliance system.
Arcoro — if compliance is a real obligation
Arcoro is built for construction workforce management, with certification and licence tracking that continues after the hire. If you bid public work, carry prevailing-wage obligations, or have been burned by an expired certification on a job site, this is the category of tool that addresses it.
It is heavier and pricier than a pure ATS, and quote-only. For a six-van residential shop it is more system than the problem requires.
Team Engine — the crew-communication case
Team Engine from $500/mo (up to 50 employees, annual). Two-way texting with applicants and existing crew, multi-language support. Genuinely strong for blue-collar workforces. At five times AvaHR's entry price, it only makes sense if it replaces a separate tool for reaching your crew.
The trade-specific challengers
Buildforce focuses specifically on skilled construction trades and consistently appears in electrical recruiting results, with a model built around trade workforce supply rather than job posting alone. Classet similarly targets trades hiring with screening built in. Neither publishes pricing; both are worth a demo if licence-aware screening out of the box is worth more to you than a low monthly fee.
Generalists that still make sense
Breezy HR: free tier with unlimited users and one live position; $157/mo Startup for unlimited positions, still unlimited users. If your estimator, foreman and office manager all review candidates, that model beats per-seat pricing outright.
CareerPlug also charges nothing per user and sells into trades, but requires a sales call for pricing and locks you to 12 months either way.
Workable from $299/mo is worth pricing only if you want onboarding paperwork solved in the same system.
Before you buy
- Write the licence knockout question first. Then check the tool can actually enforce it. Every option above can — verify it in the trial rather than trusting the feature list.
- Decide whether you need post-hire tracking. If certification expiry is a live risk, that is Arcoro's territory, not an ATS's.
- Count concurrent postings. Three licence classes means three jobs, and three-job caps bind on day one.
- Never accept per-employee pricing if your headcount swings with project load.
Pricing
| Platform | Plans | What that actually gets you |
|---|---|---|
| AvaHR | Lite $99 · Plus $165 · Premium $332 · Max $457+ | Per month, billed monthly; annual billing saves up to 17%. Unlimited candidates on every plan. Lite covers 3 live jobs and 1 user; Plus 50 jobs and 5 users; Premium unlimited jobs and 25 users. 7-day free trial. |
| Breezy HR | Bootstrap $0 · Startup $157 · Growth $273 · Business $439 | Per month; annual billing includes 2 months free. Unlimited users on every plan, including the free Bootstrap tier — but Bootstrap allows only 1 active position at a time. SMS and Breezy Intelligence are paid add-ons on all tiers. 14-day trial. |
| Team Engine | From $500 · From $800 · Custom | Billed annually. The entry tier covers up to 50 employees, the second up to 250, and anything above roughly 500 is quoted. Built specifically around trades and blue-collar workforces with two-way texting to applicants and existing staff — which is why it costs several times what a general SMB ATS does. |
| CareerPlug | Limited · Hire · Grow — prices not published | CareerPlug publishes plan tiers but not prices. Notably there is no per-user charge on any plan, so you can add every hiring manager for free. Both monthly and annual billing are 12-month commitments, and monthly billing is only offered on the top Grow tier. 14-day Grow trial, once per account lifetime. |
| Workable | Standard $299 · Premier $599 · Enterprise $719 | Per month at the 1–20 employee band, billed annually ($3,588/$7,188/$8,628 per year); the price rises with company headcount. Texting (+$89/mo), video interviews (+$109/mo) and assessments (+$59/mo) are add-ons on Standard. The AI agent runs on credits sold separately from $0.095–$0.12 each. 15-day trial. |
Pricing above was taken from each provider's own pricing page in August 2026. Always confirm the current numbers before buying — hiring software pricing changes often, and the three billing models in this category (flat per plan, per recruiter seat, and per employee on your payroll) make headline prices hard to compare without doing the arithmetic for your own headcount and number of open roles.
Frequently asked questions
What is an applicant tracking system?
An applicant tracking system (ATS) is software that collects job applications in one place, moves candidates through hiring stages, and handles the job postings, screening, and communication around that — instead of tracking applicants in an email inbox or a spreadsheet.
What is the best option for this use case?
AvaHR is our top pick for this use case, based on setup time, pricing, and how well it fits the way these teams actually hire — though the right choice depends on headcount and budget, which the sections above cover.
Do I need a paid ATS, or is a free plan enough?
A free plan or a job board alone is usually enough if you hire once or twice a year. Once you're running multiple open roles at a time, or more than one person is reviewing applicants, a paid ATS starts paying for itself in time saved.