If your agency's roles run out of candidates before they ever reach the pipeline, HeyTalent is the better choice over Crelate, because it pulls up-to-date LinkedIn profiles from outside your network, finds their email and phone, launches the outreach sequence on LinkedIn and includes an ATS at no cost. Crelate is the better fit for an agency whose problem is coordinating the candidates, clients and opportunities it already has on record. One tool fills the funnel; the other organises it. Before comparing modules, check where the role gets lost: search, outreach or coordination.
What Crelate is and what HeyTalent is
Crelate is recruiting software that combines an ATS with a business-development CRM, built for recruitment agencies and executive search firms. It brings candidates, jobs, clients and sales activity together in a single database.
HeyTalent is an AI sourcing platform that works on top of LinkedIn: it extracts profiles in real time, including outside the recruiter's network, filters them with AI variables the team writes itself, finds emails and phone numbers and automates the outreach sequence on LinkedIn. It includes its own ATS at no cost.
HeyTalent vs Crelate in 2026: comparison by criterion
In 2026, HeyTalent and Crelate cover different stretches of the work: HeyTalent takes a role with no names to an open conversation, and Crelate manages what happens next, once the candidate and the client are already in its database.
| Criterion | HeyTalent | Crelate |
|---|---|---|
| Problem it solves | Finding, filtering and contacting passive candidates | Managing candidates, jobs and clients |
| Starting point | LinkedIn profiles extracted at search time, outside your network | Its own contact database, with AI sourcing from Essentials |
| AI | Custom variables the recruiter writes for each role | AI Assistant on Business and Advanced AI Assistant on Business Plus |
| Candidate outreach | Email and phone per profile; LinkedIn invitations, follow-ups and InMails | Email tracking and bulk email (2,500 a month); campaigns, texting and enrichment at an extra fee |
| ATS | Its own, at €0, with a pipeline per role you can share with the client | ATS integrated with the CRM, the core of the product |
| Sales CRM | Not included | Yes, with clients and opportunities in the same database |
| Pricing model | Per organisation, unlimited users | Per user per month; Essentials capped at 2 users |
| Fits | Freelancers, agencies or TA teams that need more candidates | Agencies that need to organise candidates and clients |
What HeyTalent adds for an agency already using Crelate or Teamtailor
HeyTalent adds the stretch an ATS-CRM leaves to the recruiter: turning a role with no candidates into open conversations with profiles that fit, without touching the system where the agency records interviews and clients, whether that is Crelate, Teamtailor, Viterbit or Workable.
The recruiter describes the role as they would to a colleague and HeyTalent turns it into a search with LinkedIn's advanced filters. Each profile is extracted in real time when the search runs, so HeyTalent shows the career history the candidate has today.
On that list, the team applies AI variables written for the role, such as English level or years in the sector. The variables order the review; they do not certify a skill.
Once the shortlist is reviewed, HeyTalent finds emails and phone numbers and launches the LinkedIn sequence of invitation, follow-ups and InMail. When a candidate replies, they move to the ATS in one click from the conversation itself.
According to HeyTalent, its users work 60% faster during their first month, an average the company attributes to tighter lists and their own filters. It is a self-reported figure limited to that first month: it does not mean filling roles 60% sooner.
The HeyTalent ATS costs €0, and the bill covers the sourcing layer. That ATS includes a careers page with the agency's branding, publishing to Google Jobs and a pipeline per role the client can follow stage by stage. On paid plans, HeyTalent also uses AI to write the candidate report from the CV, the notes and the interview transcript.
HeyTalent's limit compared with Crelate: it has no sales CRM and no business-opportunity management; the client relationship stays in Crelate.
When Crelate is a better fit than HeyTalent
Crelate is a better fit than HeyTalent when the bottleneck is coordinating candidates, not finding them: several consultants, many open clients and sales activity scattered across spreadsheets. There, an ATS with a CRM gives one database and one history per client, which HeyTalent does not set out to provide.
Crelate makes less sense when the database is already in order and what is missing is new profiles. Switching management software adds no candidates; a sourcing layer such as HeyTalent does.
How to move a candidate from search to ATS with HeyTalent
A headhunter is looking for a data engineer in Barcelona or Madrid, with more than five years of experience and advanced English. With HeyTalent, the path to the ATS has four steps:
- Build the search with equivalent titles and technologies, without requiring an exact job title.
- Apply AI variables for experience or English. The score guides human review; it does not replace it.
- Enrich only the shortlist: emails and phone numbers after checking the career history.
- Contact and hand over: a personalised first message, automatic follow-ups and a move to the ATS for whoever replies with interest.
The handover should keep the source, notes and contact status. To decide what lives in each system, it helps to be clear on what an ATS is and which functions it should cover. If the agency stays on Crelate, the candidate who replies is the handover point: HeyTalent finds and contacts them, and Crelate keeps the relationship with them and with the client.
How to compare HeyTalent and Crelate in a two-week pilot
The reliable way to choose between HeyTalent and Crelate is a two-week pilot on a real role, with the same requirements and rejection criteria. Compare your usual LinkedIn search, HeyTalent's sourcing layer and the candidates already sitting in your ATS or in Crelate, and log duplicates separately.
| Metric | How to count it |
|---|---|
| Time to a validated list | From search to accepted list, review included |
| Usable contacts | Candidates with a valid email or phone / candidates enriched |
| Reply rate | Replies / messages delivered, with negative replies counted separately |
| Cost per candidate contacted | Tools and team time / unique candidates contacted |
| False positives | Rejections at human review, with the reason |
These recruitment KPIs only compare well if the team fixes the definitions before starting.
Also review a sample of the excluded profiles. HeyTalent estimates it has saved its users more than 1,000 hours of manual profile review, but your pilot is what will tell you how much it saves on your roles.
How much HeyTalent costs and what to budget against Crelate
HeyTalent starts at €93/month on the Recruiter plan billed annually, and every plan is charged per organisation, with unlimited users. Prices published by HeyTalent as of 3 November 2026:
| Plan | Billed annually | Billed quarterly | Candidates per month | LinkedIn accounts in campaigns |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Recruiter | €93/month | €109/month | Up to 2,000 | 1 |
| Agency | €182/month | €214/month | Up to 5,000 | 2 |
| Ultra | €509/month | €599/month | Up to 14,000 | 3, with priority support |
All three include email and phone lookup; the ATS adds nothing to the bill.
Split the budget into three lines: management (ATS or CRM), sourcing and contact data. If the agency already pays for Crelate, that cost does not go away when HeyTalent is added.
Crelate does publish its first two plans. According to its pricing page, as of 3 November 2026, Essentials costs $85 per user per month paid annually, capped at 2 users and 20,000 contacts, and Business costs $119 per user per month, billed annually or monthly. Business Plus and Platform publish no figure: pricing is custom. Contact data enrichment and email campaigns are billed separately.
This explainer on LinkedIn Recruiter pricing notes that its price depends on the plan, the contract and the size of the team, and that LinkedIn does not publish rates. Because HeyTalent bills the organisation and LinkedIn Recruiter bills each seat, the company puts the saving at up to 5x against LinkedIn Recruiter, a gap that grows with team size and does not apply in the same way to someone working alone.