> SpecStream is the live web data engine for teams and agents. This is the Markdown copy of https://specstream.ai/alternatives/hireez. Every page, with what SpecStream does and costs: https://specstream.ai/llms.txt # Best hireEZ alternatives in 2026 | SpecStream Compared on Nov 9, 2026. # hireEZ alternatives in 2026 **People by their work, at 20¢ a person.** hireEZ starts at $494 a month for a solo recruiter and prices teams to the tools it replaces, after a four-week verification. Vendr reports a median of $13,000 a year. Every search runs over its own 1B+ candidate profiles. SpecStream is the live web data engine for teams and agents. Describe people by the code, papers, talks or patents the role needs, and get each one as a row with a link to the work, at 20¢ with 15 facts and an email. [Describe your data](https://specstream.ai/signup?src=alternatives-hireez&utm_source=alternatives&utm_campaign=hireez&returnTo=%2Fworkspace%2Fask%3Fq%3DBackend%2520engineers%2520in%2520Austin%2520who%2520maintain%2520an%2520open-source%2520Go%2520project%2520for%2520distributed%2520databases%252C%2520with%2520the%2520project%252C%2520what%2520they%2520built%2520in%2520it%252C%2520their%2520current%2520employer%2520and%2520an%2520email) New accounts get $10 of credit, no card. ## SpecStream and hireEZ side by side | | SpecStream | hireEZ | | --- | --- | --- | | What you send | The people you want in plain words, with the conditions every row must meet | A search over its candidate profiles, inside a sourcing and recruiting workflow | | What you get back | Structured rows, one record per person, with facts from many sites joined. Source URL and read time on every value | Candidate profiles inside hireEZ, worked through its platform and your ATS | | People covered | Anyone whose work is published on the live web: the code, papers, talks or patents the role needs, each person found on the page where the work is published | 1B+ candidate profiles across 45+ channels | | The unit you pay for | A delivered row: 5¢, 15¢ or $1 by how much the row needs, plus 5¢ for an email and 15¢ for a phone. The same rate on every plan, and no seats | A plan. Solo recruiters start at $494 a month. Vendr reports a median of $13,000 a year, from $7,000 to $25,000 | | A larger team | The same row rates for any number of people, with no seats. Pro $19, Scale $99 and Team $499 a month, all spent as credit at those rates. A yearly plan adds 20% more credit | Seats are part of the model, priced to the stack hireEZ replaces rather than a flat seat rate, through sales | | Time to the first rows | None to set up. SpecStream reads the request back as parts you can edit, and reading and pricing a request cost nothing | A four-week verification before you sign, then live in weeks and value inside 90 days, by its pricing page | | Where the data goes | Ashby, Bullhorn, Google Sheets, Excel, Airtable, Notion, HubSpot, Salesforce, Pipedrive, Attio, Affinity, Slack, Teams, Zapier, Make, n8n and signed webhooks | 40+ native ATS integrations | | How to start | $10 of credit, no card. At 20¢ a person with 15 facts and an email, that is 50 people | A 7-day free trial on the solo plan | ## Why hireEZ buyers move to SpecStream ### 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](https://specstream.ai/benchmarks?utm_source=alternatives&utm_campaign=hireez). ### 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. ## Other hireEZ alternatives ### 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. ## How SpecStream scores The same numbers as the benchmarks page, from the official tasks and scorers. ResultsWideSearchCostSimpleQA Verified | | SpecStream | ![](https://specstream.ai/images/benchmarks/parallel.svg)Parallel | ![](https://specstream.ai/images/benchmarks/exa.svg)Exa | ![](https://specstream.ai/images/benchmarks/tavily.svg)Tavily | ![](https://specstream.ai/images/benchmarks/perplexity.svg)Perplexity | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | **Web research**WideSearch, GPT-5.6 Luna | 60.9 | 45.5 | 53.0 | 47.9 | 47.0 | | **Factual accuracy**SimpleQA Verified, GPT-5.6 Luna | 96 | 94 | 91 | 94 | 94 | | **Factual accuracy**SimpleQA Verified, GPT-5.6 Sol | 99 | 97 | 91 | 92 | 95 | ## How to switch from hireEZ Write the role the way you would brief a sourcer: what the person built, wrote or shipped, where they are, and the facts you want on each one. Or import the candidates you already hold, up to 20,000 rows, and SpecStream fills in or checks each row. Sign up and you get $10 of credit, no card. At 20¢ a person with 15 facts and an email, that is 50 people. Or send the request from code. This call spends nothing: the `402` reply shows how SpecStream read the request, the columns and the most it can cost. ``` curl -i https://api.specstream.ai/v1/agent/lists \ -H "Content-Type: application/json" \ -d '{"request": "Backend engineers in Austin who maintain an open-source Go project for distributed databases, with the project, what they built in it, their current employer and an email", "count": 25}' ``` Approve that maximum by card through Stripe's Link agent wallet, or in USDC on Base, Arbitrum or Polygon, and you pay for the rows found. On an account, your agent uses the MCP server at `https://api.specstream.ai/mcp` and your team uses the workspace, from the same balance. [Describe your data](https://specstream.ai/signup?src=alternatives-hireez&utm_source=alternatives&utm_campaign=hireez&returnTo=%2Fworkspace%2Fask%3Fq%3DBackend%2520engineers%2520in%2520Austin%2520who%2520maintain%2520an%2520open-source%2520Go%2520project%2520for%2520distributed%2520databases%252C%2520with%2520the%2520project%252C%2520what%2520they%2520built%2520in%2520it%252C%2520their%2520current%2520employer%2520and%2520an%2520email) ## Frequently asked questions Something we didn't answer? [Talk to a human](https://specstream.ai/talk-to-a-human.md) How much does hireEZ cost? hireEZ starts at $494 a month for a solo recruiter, with a 7-day free trial. Team and enterprise prices are set by sales after a four-week verification, and Vendr reports a median of $13,000 a year, from $7,000 to $25,000. What is the best hireEZ alternative? SpecStream, at 20¢ a person with 15 facts and an email. You describe the people by what they built, wrote or shipped, approve the most the run can cost, and get one structured row per person in Ashby, Bullhorn, your sheet or Slack. Only delivered rows are billed. Is there a cheaper alternative to hireEZ? Yes. On SpecStream 200 people with 15 facts and an email cost $40, with no seats and no contract. hireEZ's solo plan alone is $494 a month. Does hireEZ have a free trial? Yes, 7 days on the solo plan, and a four-week verification for enterprise teams before they sign. SpecStream gives every new account $10 of credit, no card, which is 50 people with 15 facts and an email. How many profiles does hireEZ search? 1B+ candidate profiles across 45+ channels, by its pricing page. SpecStream reads the live web when you ask, so a person is found on the page where their code, paper or talk is published. Where do the emails come from? An email costs 5¢ and is charged when the row carries it. An email printed on a page comes with that page's URL and the time it was read. An email no page printed is built from the company's published pattern, labeled likely and billed as an email. Does SpecStream have an API? Yes. The Search API costs $5 per 1,000 searches and scores 97.9 F-score on all 1,000 official SimpleQA Verified questions (978 correct), and 64.0 item F1 and 43.4 row F1 on all 200 official WideSearch tasks. Deep Search costs 5¢, 15¢ or $1 a delivered row through the REST API, the Python and TypeScript SDKs, a CLI and the MCP server at `https://api.specstream.ai/mcp`. The scores are on [benchmarks](https://specstream.ai/benchmarks?utm_source=alternatives&utm_campaign=hireez). ### Sources SpecStream wrote this page. hireEZ's price and terms come from its own pricing page and its median from Vendr. Each other tool's figure comes from its own page, and LinkedIn Recruiter's from Vendr, named where it appears. 1. [SpecStream pricing](https://specstream.ai/pricing)specstream.ai/pricing, read Nov 9, 2026 2. [SpecStream for agents](https://specstream.ai/agents.md)specstream.ai/agents.md, read Nov 9, 2026 3. [SpecStream benchmarks](https://specstream.ai/benchmarks)specstream.ai/benchmarks, read Nov 9, 2026 4. [hireEZ pricing](https://hireez.com/pricing/)hireez.com/pricing/, read Nov 9, 2026 5. [hireEZ on Vendr](https://www.vendr.com/marketplace/hireez)vendr.com/marketplace/hireez, read Nov 9, 2026 6. [LinkedIn Recruiter](https://business.linkedin.com/talent-solutions/recruiter)business.linkedin.com/talent-solutions/recruiter, read Nov 9, 2026 7. [Vendr, LinkedIn pricing (updated February 2026)](https://www.vendr.com/marketplace/linkedin)vendr.com/marketplace/linkedin, read Nov 9, 2026 8. [SeekOut pricing](https://www.seekout.com/pricing)seekout.com/pricing, read Nov 9, 2026 9. [Juicebox pricing](https://juicebox.ai/pricing)juicebox.ai/pricing, read Nov 9, 2026 10. [Gem pricing](https://www.gem.com/pricing)gem.com/pricing, read Nov 9, 2026