Greenhouse vs Workable

Greenhouse

Structured hiring is their stated heritage and the pricing page backs it with structured interview kits and scorecards, scheduling and reporting in the base plan. But the audit log that would evidence decision history sits only in the top tier, and we found no public information on approval workflows for requisitions and offers, hiring-manager access scoped to their own vacancies, or a per-candidate record of who moved whom. Strong structured evaluation, thinner on attribution.

Workable

Requisition approvals with budget controls, offer approvals with e-signatures, granular access rights per stage, interview kits and scorecards, and self-scheduled interviews with two-way calendar sync — the daily pipeline is well covered. Audit trails track all changes and every automated action is logged, permissioned and reversible, with override on any auto-advance. We found no public information on drop-off reporting per stage or a full per-candidate history export for a legal dispute.

Greenhouse

MyGreenhouse is a real candidate portal with real-time status updates and what they describe as seamless applying, which speaks to candidate experience. But we found no public information on job-board distribution, the Bundesagentur für Arbeit or any named German board, a branded career page, Google for Jobs markup, or mobile application without an account. A portal is not a distribution story.

Workable

A branded drag-and-drop career site with a website jobs widget, distribution to 200+ boards with Indeed Platinum and LinkedIn Preferred status, and mobile applications with auto-fill in the candidate's native language. We found no public information on German boards such as the Bundesagentur für Arbeit, on Google for Jobs markup, or on source attribution per applicant. Candidates can at least withdraw themselves online directly.

Greenhouse

The privacy policy states personal information is deleted or anonymised when there is no ongoing legitimate business need and offers a data subject request portal, and the contract queues all customer data for deletion ninety days after termination. But we found no public information on automatic deletion of rejected applicants on a configurable deadline, talent-pool consent with expiry, or a view/export log on applicant files outside the top-tier audit log.

Workable

Deletion happens on request and GDPR rights have a documented route through a named DPO, but retention simply lasts as long as the service obligation or the original purpose. We found no public information on an automatic deletion deadline after rejection or on a consent step for talent-pool storage; "GDPR automation tools" is the only detail the captured pricing page gives. This is the liability item the employer carries.

Greenhouse

There is more governance language than most: published AI principles, a bias audit statement, AI Terms incorporated into the contract, and a clause that the customer remains solely responsible for all hiring decisions. But we found no public information on per-feature switches, the model providers behind AI Notetaker, Voice AI and talent matching, inputs documentation, candidates being informed, or an EU AI Act position, and the privacy policy states personal information may be used to develop and train AI models.

Workable

A whole-account kill switch, per-job configuration of screening parameters and scoring weights, reasoning shown with every score, protected characteristics excluded by design, low-confidence cases routed to a human and every action logged — that is most of what a works council agreement needs, and the vendor states it does not engage in automated decision-making while claiming EU AI Act alignment. We found no public information naming the third-party model providers behind the AI features, on informing candidates of AI use, or on EU processing for those features given the US-default hosting.

Greenhouse

The bright spots for my desk: SSO ships in the base Core plan rather than as an enterprise upsell, the API carries a contractual right to a free export key at any time, and there is a developer sandbox and sync at Pro plus hundreds of pre-built integrations. But we found no public information on handover to any named German HR or payroll system, SCIM, webhooks or e-signature, API usage limits and fees live in each Order Form rather than public documentation, and it is not stated who maintains those integrations — so the hire arriving in Personio or SAP with its documents is unevidenced.

Workable

The mechanics exist: a fully documented REST API with webhooks, e-signature for offers, Zoom, Teams and Meet, Gmail and Google Calendar, and an HRIS connector that exports automatically when a candidate reaches the hired stage. But the exported set carries the resume as a PDF, and we found no public information naming any HR or payroll system the connector targets, so a Personio, DATEV-connected or SAP SuccessFactors handover cannot be planned from these pages; we also found none on SCIM or published API limits, and single sign-on appears under advanced services with no stated plan entitlement. A connector that names no systems is not one I can assign an owner to.

Greenhouse

Greenhouse Software, Inc. of New York is the contracting entity, primary offices are in the United States with processing that may occur in any of these countries, disputes go to New York courts, and the transfer safeguard is the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework under FTC enforcement rather than an EU arrangement. Hosting is unstated, we found no public information on a published subprocessor list, and the location of the AI and CV processing is unclear — this sits at the bottom of the scale, where every applicant record belongs to a third party who never chose this vendor.

Workable

The contracting entity is Workable Software Limited in London while the services are hosted and operated in the US through Workable, Inc., with EEA storage mentioned only as a possibility and the hosting provider itself never named. A sub-processor list is linked but not shown, the AI features may run on unnamed third-party models, and the transfer story rests on DPF self-certification and SCCs. For records belonging to candidates who never chose this vendor, that is a chain I cannot evidence to a works council.

Greenhouse

Three plans are named with their feature contents, the pricing basis is employee headcount including affiliates, and the term mechanics are public: annual auto-renewal with thirty days' notice to cancel, fees due in advance and non-cancelable, taxes exclusive, and fee increases reserved at renewal. But no price figure is published for any tier, and we found no public information on add-on prices for AI features, career page or job-board postings, so the annual invoice is not computable from public pages.

Workable

All three tiers are published with exact annual totals, add-ons are individually priced from texting to assessments, and the AI credit economy is itemized down to per-action credit costs, one-year expiry and non-refundability. What is missing is the foundation: we found no public information on the pricing basis — jobs, recruiter seats or employees — on job-board posting costs, on the minimum term, or on VAT treatment beyond "pricing may vary by billing country". The annual invoice is computable for the add-ons, not for the core.