ZipRecruiter vs Monster: Pricing, Features & What’s Best

Monster and ZipRecruiter are popular recruitment platforms that offer various tools to make finding qualified employees easier. Although either can be a good choice for your business, each has its own strengths.

• ZipRecruiter: Best for small businesses with niche job openings or growing businesses planning to scale and hire quickly
• Monster: Best for international applicant searches, local job postings, and resume search

Monster vs ZipRecruiter Compared

*Pricing is based on a quote we received

ZipRecruiter and Monster are evenly matched when it comes to their features. However, Monster has a few specialty functions, while ZipRecruiter has a higher user satisfaction rate.

ZipRecruiter posts to more than 100 job boards (including industry-specific sites for nurses, truck drivers, and others) and has an AI matching algorithm that improves your results the more often you hire by adapting and learning as you post jobs and choose candidates. Monster has large applicant, resume, and job databases, as well as local newspaper partners and international reach into more than a dozen countries.

ZipRecruiter vs Monster: Pros and Cons

If you’re hiring regularly or need to cast a wide net in finding applicants for your open positions, then ZipRecruiter is a better choice. Its monthly plans have reusable job slots, and you can instantly post your jobs to more than 100 job boards to help you find your next employee. ZipRecruiter automatically captures candidate data, saving you time from collecting and filtering applications from different websites.

Meanwhile, for international, remote, or local job openings, Monster is the better option. It services 14 countries (in North America and Europe), which is an advantage if you’re wanting to recruit the best talent from around the globe. Additionally, Monster has more than 100 local newspaper partners, something that makes local hiring easy. It also has a resume database of more than 200 million, and resume search is available with any of its subscription plans.

Pricing

ZipRecruiter and Monster offer similar functionalities for almost matching prices. ZipRecruiter’s Usage Plans, starting at $16/day, make hiring employees both easy and affordable, an option that’s best for small businesses with quick and frequent hiring needs. While Monster also offers daily plans, pricing is dependent on how many candidates view or apply to jobs.

Job Posting

Takeaway: While the two look similar, ZipRecruiter has a wider online reach. However, for finding international talent, Monster may be the better choice.

ZipRecruiter claims to reach over 10 million job seekers a week. All of its plans get you posting not only on ZipRecruiter.com but also on over 100 job sites. Some are niche boards like LiveTrucking, but others include newspapers, like US News, and search sites, like Google. It also posts to seven veteran websites, including HireVeterans and Veterans Job Exchange. In addition, it lets you post job ads to all your social profiles on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter, as well as to your company website, with a single click.

Monster, by comparison, posts to hundreds of newspaper job sites and one veteran site. To get your ads placed outside of Monster.com, you need its Premium plan. This is in contrast to ZipRecruiter, which automatically posts to all partner job boards with any plan.

In addition to posting, ZipRecruiter has email lists of applicants based on what jobs they are searching for. For an extra fee, you can get a premium placing of your job openings on the emails and ZipRecruiter job board to get noticed more easily. Like ZipRecruiter, Monster sends email alerts to interested job seekers when jobs in their area or occupation pop up. It also alerts you when someone applies, and can send an acknowledgment email. It offers several templates, and you can create and save them for reuse.

One drawback to ZipRecruiter is that it does not have the same international reach as Monster. It works with employers in the US, Canada, and Australia, and has branched into the UK. Monster’s reach spans from local to international audiences, working in 14 countries—the US, Canada, and 12 European nations.

Resume Search Tools

Takeaway: Both have strong resume search capabilities, but Monster offers more value for the money.

Monster has an extensive resume database, which you can access with its SearchMonster tool to help you find and view candidates proactively. With its Standard and Premium plans, you can use its more than half a dozen search parameters, with the ability to make them a requirement or a preference. Monster also learns your preferences so that you’ll get alerted when a new resume shows up that meets your needs.

SearchMonster ranks and scores candidates based on your specific criteria, so you’ll always see the best matches first. Monster stands out in that it lets you organize saved resumes into folders for future examination, and you can set up to five resumes side-by-side for comparison.

Although you can also search ZipRecruiter’s resume database of more than 30 million, it has fewer filters than Monster to narrow down your results. From the search results, you can rate resumes with a thumbs-up or thumbs-down, and ZipRecruiter’s AI learns your preferences to help you find suitable candidates in the future. You may also save your searches and set alerts for daily or weekly.

Applicant Screening & Evaluation

Takeaway: Both Monster and ZipRecruiter have limited applicant tracking features. ZipRecruiter, however, is easier to integrate as it allows direct integrations with 45 applicant tracking system providers compared to Monster’s Application Programming Interface (API) offering.

ZipRecruiter has a simple rating system that feeds into the AI for recommending additional candidates. You can collaborate with others on your team as long as they also have a user seat. This allows you to share notes and update candidate status as needed. You can send candidates emails through the system, and it offers a few email templates, such as an invitation to apply.

ZipRecruiter also makes it easy to add pre-screening questions to your applications, so that you can either weed out unqualified candidates or gather necessary information for conforming to regulations.

Monster’s resume comparison function stands out by letting you make side-by-side comparisons of up to five resumes. You can also sort candidates into folders. Like ZipRecruiter, it has pre-screening questions, ratings, and notes. Although ZipRecruiter has more ATS integrations, you can integrate Monster with other applicant trackers.

Reporting

Takeaway: Monster offers more reports, including those for federal regulations.

Monster has 10 standard reports that cover account use and candidate status, such as active jobs, responses, and resume views. Unlike ZipRecruiter, it also has an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action report (Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs report, or OFCCP) that you can generate and download. This is an essential report for businesses with federal contracts.

While ZipRecruiter has fewer reports, its Job Insights page lets you know how your job ad is performing so you can explore ways to optimize job postings for better applicant traffic. The Job Insights page not only shows your ad’s statistics but also suggests similar job ads and recommendations to help you get the most out of your employee search.

For example, ZipRecruiter looks at other jobs to show how your posting compares to jobs similar to yours, based on title, category, location, and description. You can compare this performance to your own candidate traffic.

Job Seeker Features

Takeaway: Monster does more to help job seekers present themselves as strong applicants, but also has a higher incidence of spam.

Monster works not only to help job seekers find jobs but also to present themselves in the best way possible. In addition to a searchable website and mobile app (which is well-rated on both Android and iOS), it offers educational opportunities. These include:

• Salary comparisons
• Tips articles on finding jobs, improving resumes, and developing interview skills
• Webinars for new graduates
• Company profiles, to see if they’d be a good fit before applying

Users give the Monster app high praise but also complained of receiving spam and robocalls for jobs they were not interested in.

Despite not having the help tools Monster has, job seekers gave ZipRecruiter a slightly higher satisfaction rate, particularly for the mobile app. Job seekers can search by job title, keywords, location, occupation, and more. They can also search for salaries of similar job posts so that they can better negotiate. Like Monster, it also gets complaints of spam, but not as many.

How We Evaluated ZipRecruiter vs Monster

We evaluated ZipRecruiter vs Monster on their pricing, niche job posting, resume search, applicant screening, reporting, and job seeker features. These are essential tools for employers or those looking to fill open positions in their businesses.

Based on our evaluation, we recommend ZipRecruiter for businesses with quick and regular hiring needs because of its daily pricing option, smart AI technology, and niche job posting ability. Meanwhile, Monster’s job and resume search tools and local and international reach make it ideal for businesses posting for in-office local positions and remote positions.

Bottom Line

ZipRecruiter and Monster are popular job recruiting software that has been around for a long time. In comparing Monster vs ZipRecruiter, consider your hiring needs. ZipRecruiter offers daily pricing and works with more job boards and niche markets, while Monster has a wider international reach and works with local newspapers.