Per-seat vs usage-based pricing: compare the full cost.

Three meters, three cost functions

A basic seat quote is price × paid users × paid periods. A per-candidate service is fee × delivered candidates, and what each per-candidate meter buys differs by vendor. A hybrid usage subscription combines a base plan with included capacity and any separately agreed additional usage charges. None of those formulas proves value on its own.

The missing term is operating work. Record who reviews searches, approves messages, handles exceptions and makes hiring decisions. Licensed products can include AI search, outreach sequences and scheduling; the seat is a billing unit, not evidence that every step is manual. A per-candidate service may include more work, subject to its agreed handoff. Metix AI includes AI Agents that carry sourcing through booking, and each Agent runs one hiring workflow. Outside an Agent workflow, Credits meter contact unlocks, Deep Search lists, and additional AI Agents; work inside an active Agent's workflow uses 0 Credits. LinkedIn, hireEZ, SeekOut and Metix official pricing or help pages were rechecked October 30, 2026. Derived totals are labeled; the buyer's actual offer can differ.

Published license and subscription costs

For a specific seat-based purchase, the Loxo quote-gap workbook distinguishes an annual starting-price calculation from a complete quote and keeps missing Boost or migration charges visible. Its monthly credit-pool examples apply Boosts only to the seats selected, rather than multiplying the allowance for every user.

LinkedIn's current Lite product page and official comparison direct buyers to signup rather than publish a universal USD price. Lite is sold monthly or yearly and includes 30 InMails per month with reach up to third-degree connections. Enter the offer shown for your account and location. Recruiter, RPS and RPS+ require a quote; our LinkedIn Recruiter cost breakdown separates the products and their limits.

For a multi-user purchase, record the number of paid licenses and the price of each one. If three licenses have the same monthly rate p, their base cost is 3 × p; if the rates differ, add the three quoted amounts. An old first-seat or additional-seat price cannot establish your current team budget.

hireEZ's current public entry offer is $494 a month for a solo recruiter with a 7-day trial. Twelve unchanged monthly charges total $5,928; that is arithmetic, not a published annual offer. Team pricing requires a quote configured to the stack being replaced. Our hireEZ comparison covers the workflow and retained ATS costs.

SeekOut Sourcing Core (Recruit Core) lists $1,788 paid upfront annually, equivalent to $149 a month, or $179 billed monthly. The official page describes individual use but lists three included seats. Confirm the users and shared allowances before calculating a per-seat rate. Our SeekOut pricing breakdown includes a cost worksheet. Higher tiers require quotes.

Check usage allowances as well as licenses. Lite includes 30 monthly InMails; its current help table separately lists the option to buy 70 additional credits per seat per month and a 120-credit banking limit. Core lists 500 contact credits and 1,000 exports monthly within its subscription. These are different units, not equal candidate yields.

What the Metix AI subscription includes

Metix AI publishes four monthly plans. Starter is $99 for 5,000 Credits and 1 AI Agent. Growth is $199 for 10,500 Credits and 2 AI Agents. Professional is $299 for 16,000 Credits and 3 AI Agents. Scale is $499 for 27,000 Credits and 5 AI Agents. Each AI Agent runs one hiring workflow, and the Agent count is a monthly allowance for starting new workflows, not a cap on how many run at once.

Annual billing uses $89 / $179 / $269 / $449 monthly-equivalent rates across the four plans, billed as $1,068 / $2,148 / $3,228 / $5,388 a year. The free 14-day trial includes one-time access to 1 AI Agent and 500 Credits with no card.

Credits are usage units for standalone actions outside an AI Agent workflow: 10 unlock an email, 20 unlock a phone number, 100 unlock a Deep Search candidate list, and 3,000 add an AI Agent above the plan allowance. Once an Agent is active, work completed inside its workflow uses 0 Credits, so Credits are not a per-candidate charge. What a Metix AI Credit pays for is answered in one place, and the usage-pricing page explains the model step by step.

Above the published ladder, volume hiring and specialized searches go through a quote path. All four plans are self-serve subscriptions. A dedicated success lead on Scale helps you use the product; it does not mean Metix AI staff review your shortlist or run the search. Staff-run Delivery is a separate, quoted purchase.

On the self-serve plans, your team sets the brief and qualification bar, approves outreach, interviews candidates and makes the hiring decision. Include that work in your budget even when software performs the intervening steps.

Why there is no candidate-volume crossover

A candidate allowance would let you divide one plan by a number of delivered candidates. The current Metix AI plans publish no such allowance, so that calculation would invent a promise the pricing page does not make.

The valid comparison is annual subscription cost and included usage. Metix AI costs $1,068 / $2,148 / $3,228 / $5,388 on annual billing. LinkedIn Recruiter Lite needs your current annual offer, which remains unknown until checked. SeekOut Core is $1,788 a year paid upfront. A hireEZ solo seat is $5,928 a year at its monthly list price. Those figures still cover different scopes. SeekOut and hireEZ publish automation capabilities, and LinkedIn offers different products and add-ons. Test the steps included in your actual plan, then budget the work your team retains. Metix AI carries sourcing through booking while your team keeps approval and hiring decisions.

Model your expected contact unlocks, Deep Search lists, and the hiring workflows you will open each month, since each AI Agent runs one hiring workflow, then add the loaded cost of the people who operate each option. Keep the cash commitment, usage-capacity check and internal labor calculation separate. Those are the comparisons the published units support.

Budget standalone actions and new workflows separately

Use one row per scenario for one actual subscription billing period. Start with the standalone actions you expect, then add the new hiring workflows you will create. Work already inside an eligible active Agent workflow belongs in a separate column with a zero Credit coefficient. A standalone Deep Search list does not become free because you have another Agent running.

The downloadable Credits budget kit includes an editable CSV, seven worked scenarios, independent expected results, a local Python 3 checker and the method and limits. The examples are invented planning inputs, not customer results or forecasts.

The calculation is 10 × emails + 20 × phones + 100 × lists + 3,000 × extra Agents, where extra Agents = max(0, new workflows − included Agents). Extra Agents draw from the same Credit pool used by standalone actions. They do not create a second allowance.

A Starter scenario with 100 standalone email unlocks, 20 phone unlocks, six Deep Search lists and two new workflows uses 5,000 Credits: 1,000 + 400 + 600 + 3,000. One workflow uses the included Agent; the second requires the additional activation. The entered 800 active-workflow actions add no Credits. That is a budget classification, not a promise of 800 candidates, messages or interviews. The checker does not establish service limits or guarantee that proposed workflow activity is eligible.

Metix AI's current terms, sections 5 to 7, make the period important. Included AI Agent quota is for creating new workflows, not for concurrent active workflows. Closing a role does not restore the consumed quota. Existing workflows do not become new creations when the next period starts. Unused quota does not carry over, and paid Credits expire at the next monthly anniversary even on an annual subscription. Count newly charged unlocks rather than repeatedly viewing contact information you already unlocked.

Plan changes take effect at the end of the current billing cycle, with no mid-cycle prorated quota adjustment under those terms. An annual plan's monthly Credit refresh is not an opportunity to switch its annual contract every month. A larger plan is a future-plan comparison unless Metix confirms a different arrangement for your account.

Growth includes both new workflows in this example, so no additional 3,000-Credit activation is needed. That changes the required Credits as well as the allowance. It is not an instruction to upgrade mid-cycle. Likewise, the quiet Starter period's unused 4,900 Credits cannot cover the spike in a later period.

Each row is an independent scenario for the account's actual monthly anniversary period, not necessarily a calendar month. Do not add the alternative rows together or split one account's actions across rows to reuse its allowance. The seven-case file also shows a missing phone count, a zero-usage period, and the same billable inputs with more active-workflow actions.

The checker reports consumption, remaining allowance or a shortfall, and optional internal labor. It does not convert a shortfall into a dollar price. Your actual offer and account terms govern any additional capacity.

python3 recruiting-credits-budget.py recruiting-credits-examples.csv

Unzip the kit and run the command in that folder. The script uses Python's standard library and makes no network requests. Blank counts stay unknown; enter 0 only when no such action is expected. Malformed headers, duplicate case IDs, negative or fractional counts and unsupported trial/custom plans are rejected before any results are written. A successful exit means the file was processed, not that a purchase or quota overrun is approved. Optional hours × loaded rate is internal labor only, not an invoice total.

The zero-hire month still costs money

The subscriptions listed here bill for the selected term, whether or not a hire happens; quote-specific minimums and refund terms still need checking. A seat buys access. Metix AI buys included AI Agents and a Credits allowance. Neither is a contingency fee.

When hiring is intermittent, compare the paid term with the months you expect to use it. SeekOut Core has a $179 monthly option and a $1,788 upfront annual option. Metix Starter has a $99 monthly option and a $1,068 annual option. Lite offers monthly or yearly billing, but its amount must come from your account. Cancelling renewal does not mean a prepaid term is refundable; read the applicable terms before choosing.

A quiet quarter on an annual contract still uses three months of the prepaid term. Compare that commitment with a monthly option over the months you expect to need access, without assuming a refund for the unused portion.

Utilization matters on both sides of the comparison. An oversized Credit or AI Agent allowance can go unused; a seat rented for a sourcing sprint that ended in February keeps billing until the contract does.

Use a quiet-period case and a busy-period case before committing. Choose a plan based on realistic usage and check when a downgrade or cancellation can take effect. The separate question of who is accountable for delivery is covered in what each hiring option hands back.

When your team operates the search itself

For a licensed product, begin with the actual offer and paid users. For a subscription with shared or bundled seats, start with the subscription amount rather than multiplying its headline rate by every user. SeekOut Core's pricing page lists three included seats alongside individual-use positioning; confirm your account's access and allowance allocation before deriving a per-seat cost.

Next, estimate the work left after the automation you will use: reviewing evidence, approving messages, handling exceptions, interviewing and keeping the hiring record. Eight internal hours at an assumed loaded rate of $50 are $400 of internal labor. That is an invented planning example, not a vendor fee, a saving, or proof that a payroll expense disappears.

An existing recruiting team that prefers software it can operate and audit closely can work that way in Metix AI with Fast Search and Deep Search. A team that can approve the role and outreach but needs sourcing through booking carried further hands the role to an AI Agent in the same plan. Both still require employer decisions. If you need an ATS or a candidate CRM as your primary record system, price that separately; Metix AI is not an ATS replacement.

Match the model to your volume in three steps

Start with the monthly pattern. First, list the new hiring workflows and standalone actions period by period over the next twelve months. Second, price the seat path honestly: license plus the loaded hours of whoever operates it. Third, price the Metix AI subscription tier whose included Credits and AI Agents cover that usage. There is no candidate-volume crossover because Metix AI Credits do not meter candidate delivery.

Ask the person who will own the work to review the assumptions. A lower license total can still leave more work with your team; a larger allowance can be wasteful when the role pipeline is quiet.

Sources and scope

Prices and product scope above were checked October 30, 2026 against the linked current official pages. Metix AI's pricing and terms, sections 5 to 7 and 9, govern its published unit rates, period boundaries, plan changes and cancellation. Public USD list prices exclude applicable tax under those terms; an existing account's signed or legacy offer may differ.

Stripe's pay-per-use guide explains metering and billing periods, and Paddle's SaaS pricing guide describes seat, usage and hybrid components. Neither establishes recruiting performance or Metix terms. The budget cases and checker are Metix editorial work. They do not price unquoted overages, taxes, retained tools or Delivery, and do not turn Credits into candidates, interviews or hires.