hireEZ alternatives in 2026

People found by what they built

When a profile search returns people every rival already messaged, search by the code, papers, talks or patents the role needs, and get the people who made them in Ashby, with a link to the work you can mention in your first message.

The request is the whole job: "backend engineers in Austin who maintain an open-source Go project for distributed databases", "authors of papers on diffusion models since 2024 who now work in industry", or "speakers on FPGA trading systems at conferences in the last two years, with the talk". SpecStream searches the live web, reads each page and joins what it finds into one record per person. Each person comes from the page where the work is published, and that page is the link on the row.

You pay per person delivered, with no seats

hireEZ starts at $494 a month for one recruiter, and Vendr reports a median of $13,000 a year. SpecStream bills the rows that meet your request: 5¢ for a row with up to 5 facts, 15¢ for up to 15 facts and one set of related records, and $1 for a deep row with no limit, plus 5¢ for an email and 15¢ for a phone. 200 people with 15 facts and an email cost $40. A person left out costs nothing, and a run that finds nothing costs nothing.

Rows the day you ask

hireEZ runs a four-week verification before an enterprise contract. On SpecStream you write the role, see how it was read and the most it can cost, and approve it. Every request gets a quote of the most it can cost, good for 30 minutes. Nothing runs until you approve it, the charge never goes past that amount, and whatever the run does not use goes back to your balance. A run that finds nothing costs nothing.

The search behind every row leads two public benchmarks

SpecStream's search API scores 97.9 F-score on SimpleQA Verified, on all 1,000 official questions (978 correct), and 64.0 item F1 and 43.4 row F1 on WideSearch, on all 200 official tasks. The Extract API scores 0.908 F1 on WCXB. The scores and the method are on benchmarks.

New people reach your ATS on a schedule

Save the request and it reruns hourly to yearly. Each row comes back labeled changed, unchanged or no longer matching, a changed or new row costs half its rate and an unchanged row costs 1¢. New matches and changes land in Ashby, Bullhorn, Slack, a sheet or a signed webhook with no code, or in your agent through the MCP server. Rows you already own are never charged again.

SpecStream

The live web data engine for teams and agents. One request in plain words returns the people who built, wrote or shipped what the role needs, as structured rows at 5¢, 15¢ or $1 a delivered row, plus 5¢ for an email and 15¢ for a phone, under a maximum you approve before the run. There are no seats, and new accounts get $10 of credit.

LinkedIn Recruiter

LinkedIn's sourcing seat, sold by quote on annual contracts with up to 150 InMails a month per seat. Vendr lists $8,000 to $12,000 per seat a year (February 2026). On SpecStream $8,000 buys 40,000 people with 15 facts and an email.

SeekOut

A sourcing tool over 1B+ profiles. Sourcing Core is $149 a month paid annually, $1,788 a year, with 500 contact credits and 1,000 exports a month, and larger plans are custom. SpecStream has no exports to count: exporting costs nothing.

Juicebox

A people search tool sold by the seat. Starter is $99 a seat a month billed yearly with 500 contact credits, Growth is $179, and Business is custom on annual billing. SpecStream has no seats and no monthly credit allowance.

Gem

A recruiting CRM and ATS with custom pricing. Companies under 30 employees get Gem All-in-One free for six months, then 50% off a paid plan. SpecStream charges the same 5¢, 15¢ or $1 a row at any company size, quoted before the run.