“Pay per candidate” is four different meters that share a slogan. A credit can mean a booked interview, an inbound applicant who finished an AI vet, a scored engineer delivered at an agreed bar, or an unlocked profile priced in rupees. This page keeps the units apart, using only vendor pages we opened in August 2026.
Four meters, four handoffs. (1) Booked interview: a Metix AI credit is a qualified, interested, interview-ready candidate on your calendar, on plans from $49 to $299 a month. (2) Completed inbound vet: Picked charges $0.99 per AI-vetted completer, first 50 free per role; you book. (3) Delivered scored engineer: Recruo Performance lists $300 to $800 Qualified and $1,000 to $2,500 Interview-Ready, not contingent on hire, no 90-day guarantee at this tier. (4) Unlocked profile: Hire22 sells INR credits; the trial we opened is ₹0 for 2,000 credits over 3 months; docs list Starter at ₹2,000+GST / 2,000 credits and Growth at ₹10,000+GST / 10,000; unlock is 100 credits at or under 10 LPA, then 10 per Lakh. No USD conversion on this page. Wellfound Autopilot, Dover, and CogniAgent sit beside those four because buyers file them under the same search. Eightfold, Phenom, and Leelu stay quote-only this pass. SeekOut Spot is already on Metix AI vs SeekOut; we do not re-price it.
Disclosure: Metix AI publishes this page and sells one of the products compared. This is not a clone of paying per seat or paying per candidate, which is break-even arithmetic against seats. This page is about what the output unit is.
Start with the handoff, because the feature grids will lie to you. “Interview-ready” is not a regulated term. Vendors attach it to a calendar hold, a ranked profile, a scored resume, and an inbound applicant who finished a test. If you compare the monthly numbers before you compare the artifact, you are ranking four products by accident.
Booked interview. A Metix AI credit is one qualified, interested, interview-ready candidate: matches the bar, confirmed interest, booked. Outreach sends only after you approve. A delivery lead reviews the shortlist. If nobody clears the bar, the credit is not spent. Plans are $49 / $89 / $159 / $299 a month for 3 / 12 / 30 / 75 candidates against 1 / 3 / 6 / 12 roles, 10 percent off yearly, volume and specialized hiring quote-only. The pool we publish is 860M+ profiles in 190+ countries. The trial is 14 days, 3 New Roles and 12 Credits, no card.
Completed inbound vet. Picked’s pricing page, opened 19 August 2026, is $0.99 per AI-vetted candidate who completes the funnel. The first 50 are free per role. Posting is free. You book the meeting. Picked’s homepage promises three finalists in 48 hours and shows a median time-to-shortlist of 31 hours 12 minutes. That is inbound screening priced per completer, not outbound delivery priced per hold.
Delivered scored engineer. Recruo Performance, opened the same day, lists $300 to $800 for a Qualified candidate and $1,000 to $2,500 for Interview-Ready. The page we opened does not make that fee contingent on hire, and it does not attach a 90-day guarantee at this tier. You are buying a delivered engineer at an agreed bar, not a subscription of credits and not a placement.
Unlocked profile. Hire22 meters confirmed profiles in INR. The trial card we opened is ₹0 for 2,000 credits over 3 months. Docs list Starter at ₹2,000+GST / 2,000 credits and Growth at ₹10,000+GST / 10,000. Unlock is 100 credits at or under 10 LPA, then 10 credits per Lakh. We are not converting those rupees. The paid Starter marketing card on the public pricing page did not match the docs this pass, so it is not in the grid.
The grid is closed. If a name is missing, we did not open a page we trusted this pass, or the price did not render. Quote-only stays blank.
| Vendor | What the unit is | Published price | Who books |
|---|---|---|---|
| Metix AI | Booked, interview-ready candidate | $49 / $89 / $159 / $299 for 3 / 12 / 30 / 75 | Metix books the slot |
| Picked | Inbound completer, AI-vetted | $0.99; first 50 free per role | You book |
| Recruo | Delivered engineer at an agreed bar | $300–$800 Qualified; $1,000–$2,500 Interview-Ready | Delivered; not hire-contingent on the page we opened |
| Hire22 | Unlocked confirmed profile | INR only; trial ₹0 / 2,000 credits / 3 months; docs Starter ₹2,000+GST / 2,000, Growth ₹10,000+GST / 10,000 | You unlock; not a calendar hold we verified |
| Wellfound Autopilot | Sourced candidates on an open role | $500/mo per open role + 10% on hire | First batch usually week one, then 5–10 a week |
| Dover | ATS, plus a marketplace of humans | ATS free or Premium $199/mo; marketplace $75–$125/hr, $2,000–$7,000 per hire typical, $800 deposit | You, or the fractional recruiter you hire |
| CogniAgent | Platform credits for inbound screening | Credits from $10 | Inbound applicant screening; not a per-candidate recruiting product |
| Eightfold | Enterprise talent intelligence | Quote-only / not verified this pass | n/a |
| Phenom | Enterprise talent intelligence | Quote-only / not verified this pass | n/a |
| Leelu | Job-post to booked interviews, vendor claim | Plan dollars did not render; quote-only this pass | Vendor claims automatic booking |
Opened 19 August 2026. SeekOut Spot is quote-only on Metix AI vs SeekOut and is not re-priced here. Hire22 paid Starter marketing card not verified this pass. No INR-to-USD conversion.
Wellfound Autopilot bills $500 a month per open role plus 10 percent on hire. The page we opened says the first batch usually arrives in week one, then 5 to 10 candidates a week. That is a retainer-plus-success hybrid sitting next to per-candidate language, not a credit for a booked interview.
Dover publishes a free ATS and Premium at $199 a month. The recruiting work lives on the marketplace. A Dover blog dated 31 January 2026, on fractional recruiter costs, puts marketplace rates at $75 to $125 an hour, $2,000 to $7,000 per hire as typical, and an $800 deposit. That is human labor on a marketplace, not a software credit.
CogniAgent sells platform credits from $10. Its recruiting agent screens inbound applicants. It is not a per-candidate recruiting product in the sense of this grid, and filing it as one will waste a week. Reply-under-60-seconds claims belong on the clock page, not here.
Spell it out, because the label travels and the artifact does not.
Metix AI. Interview-ready means the person clears the bar you approved, has confirmed interest, and is booked. A delivery lead has reviewed the shortlist. The credit moves at the booking, not at the offer.
Recruo. Interview-Ready is a priced tier, $1,000 to $2,500, above Qualified at $300 to $800. It is a delivered engineer at an agreed bar. It is not, on the page we opened, contingent on you hiring them.
Hire22. Interview-ready is how SARA markets 22-hour matches: ranked, consent-ready profiles. Unlocking one spends credits. We did not verify a calendar hold.
Picked. The product ends at three finalists plus a ranked list. You book. Calling that interview-ready is their language for a completed inbound vet, not a hold on your calendar.
Match the job, then pick the meter. These are the jobs this page will not pretend to cover.
The seat-versus-candidate break-even, Recruiter Lite against a Metix plan, lives on paying per seat or paying per candidate. Do not use this page as a substitute for that arithmetic. The units here are output meters, not seats.
Write down what you want to receive on Tuesday: a hold on the calendar, a ranked inbound list, a scored engineer, or a profile you can unlock. Then open the vendor’s own pricing page and see whether the unit matches. If the page quotes, write quote-only and stop. If the page is in INR, leave it in INR.
A Metix credit is the booked-interview meter. It is the wrong meter if you already have a flood of applicants, if you need a database, or if you need a placement. It is the right meter if you can define the role and run the interviews, and you want the middle of the funnel done, with a credit spent only when someone worth meeting is booked.
If the artifact you want is a booked, interview-ready candidate, the test is a live role. Free 14-day trial, 3 New Roles and 12 Credits, no card. A credit is spent only when an interested, interview-ready candidate is booked. Outreach after approval. A delivery lead reviews the shortlist.
It depends on the vendor. On Metix AI a credit is a booked, interview-ready candidate: matches the bar, confirmed interest, calendar hold. On Picked, $0.99 buys a completed inbound AI vet, first 50 free per role, and you book. Recruo Performance prices a delivered scored engineer at $300 to $800 Qualified or $1,000 to $2,500 Interview-Ready, not contingent on hire. Hire22 unlocks a confirmed profile in INR credits. Those are four different meters.
Plans are $49, $89, $159, and $299 a month for up to 3, 12, 30, and 75 interview-ready candidates against 1, 3, 6, and 12 active roles, 10 percent off yearly. A credit is spent only when a qualified, interested, interview-ready candidate is booked. If nobody clears the bar, the credit is not spent. Volume and specialized hiring are quote-only.
No. It is not a regulated term. Metix AI means a booked calendar slot after outbound and a delivery-lead review. Recruo means a delivered engineer at an agreed bar. Hire22 means a ranked, consent-ready profile you unlock. Picked means an inbound applicant who completed the vet; you book. Read the handoff, not the label.
Not that we could verify this pass. Those three are quote-only or did not render a public dollar figure on the pages we opened in August 2026. SeekOut Spot is already priced as quote-only on Metix AI vs SeekOut; we do not re-price it here.