By Industry
Best ATS for Plumbing Companies in 2026
Quick answer: AvaHR at $99/mo is the best ATS for most plumbing companies, combining flat pricing with job board distribution that reaches where licensed plumbers actually look. Team Engine is worth the $500/mo entry price only if you also need to text your existing crew, and Classet or Recruit Horizon are worth a demo if trade licence screening matters more to you than price.
Plumbing hiring has a constraint most trades software ignores: the licence tier is the job. An apprentice, a journeyman and a master plumber are not three levels of the same posting — they are different roles, different pay bands, different legal scopes of work, and in most states different regulatory requirements for who can supervise whom.
Any tool that treats "Plumber" as one job title will make you do that sorting by hand, every time.
What plumbing companies actually need
- Screening on licence status early, before you spend time on someone who cannot legally do the work you are hiring for.
- An apprentice pipeline that stays warm. Apprentices are how you solve the journeyman shortage in three years. That means keeping past applicants reachable, not losing them.
- Fast response. Licensed plumbers are in permanent short supply and are rarely unemployed for long.
- Phone-first applications. Your candidates are under a sink, not at a laptop.
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 |
| WizeHire | $249–$549/mo | Flat per plan |
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 for most plumbing companies
AvaHR at $99/mo is the value pick. Custom questionnaires let you knock out unlicensed applicants at the application stage rather than at the phone screen, which is where the time actually goes. Distribution to 100+ boards is included on every plan, and unlimited candidates means the apprentice applications you are not ready to act on stay in the database rather than being purged to make room.
Be aware: Lite is one seat and three live jobs. Running separate postings for apprentice, journeyman and service tech puts you at your limit immediately — which for this trade specifically makes Plus at $165/mo the realistic starting tier rather than $99.
Team Engine — if crew communication is also a problem
Team Engine starts at $500/mo for up to 50 employees. Built for blue-collar workforces, with two-way texting to applicants and existing staff and multi-language support that matters if part of your crew works in Spanish.
The honest comparison: on hiring alone, it is not five times better than AvaHR. If it also replaces however you currently push schedule changes and announcements to the crew, the maths changes.
The trade-specialist tools
Classet and Recruit Horizon both build for skilled trades and consistently surface in plumbing recruiting searches. Their pitch is trade-aware screening out of the box — licence tiers, certifications, tool ownership — rather than questionnaires you write yourself. Neither publishes pricing, so budget a sales call.
Arcoro is the heavier option, built for construction workforce management with compliance and certification tracking. Sensible if you are a large mechanical contractor with real regulatory overhead; excessive for a ten-truck shop.
The generalists worth a look
Breezy HR free Bootstrap gives unlimited users and one active position at no cost — a genuinely reasonable way to test whether an ATS fixes your problem before spending anything. Startup at $157/mo lifts the position cap while keeping users unlimited, which beats AvaHR Plus if several people review candidates.
CareerPlug charges nothing per user on any plan and sells heavily into home services, though you have to talk to sales for a price. WizeHire at $249/mo bundles hiring coaches and job templates.
The three questions that decide it
- How many roles run simultaneously? If you post apprentice, journeyman and service tech at once, three-job caps are a real constraint and change which tier you need.
- Who reviews candidates? One person favours AvaHR. Three favour Breezy's unlimited users.
- Do you need to text? For on-call trades this is close to essential. Check which tier it lands on — on AvaHR it is Max at $457/mo, on Breezy and Workable it is a paid add-on at any tier.
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. |
| WizeHire | Quickstart $249 · Growth $549 · Concierge custom | Per month; annual billing gives 2 months free. Quickstart covers up to 3 active job postings, Growth up to 6. Extra jobs are $99/mo each and extra locations $349/mo, so cost climbs quickly if you hire in several markets. |
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.