ATS Guide · 2026-09-02
ATSGrader vs Every Major Resume Tool — Honest Comparisons
Quick answer
ATSGrader is free to scan with no account, runs entirely in your browser so the resume is never uploaded, and costs $9 once instead of a subscription. Every tool below beats it at something — building and designing resumes, writing copy, tracking applications, scoring LinkedIn — and each page says plainly when to pick them instead. If you already have a resume and want a fast, private, reproducible read on how it parses, start with the free scan; 21 published rules, same score every time.
These are head-to-head pages, not a leaderboard. Each one is built from the competitor's own published pricing and documentation, carries the date the evidence was checked, and states the case for choosing them over us. That last part is the point: a comparison that never recommends the other tool is an advert.
A caveat that applies to every row below. Several of these vendors price by region and run rolling trial promotions — opening the same pricing page from two countries returns two different numbers, which we verified directly. Treat prices here as what was published to us on the review date, and check the vendor before relying on one.
All comparisons
| Compared with | Their pricing | Choose them when |
|---|---|---|
| Jobscan | Free: up to 5 unused scans. Premium: $49.95/month or $89.95/quarter — recurring (verified August 2026). | Choose Jobscan if you need ongoing, multi-job ATS optimization over an extended search and want LinkedIn profile scanning alongside resume analysis; its subscription model suits active job seekers who will use it repeatedly across many applications. |
| Resume Worded | $49/month, $99 every 3 months, or $229/year — recurring (verified August 2026) | Choose Resume Worded if you want AI-driven line-by-line rewrite suggestions alongside LinkedIn optimization, and you are comfortable creating an account and paying a subscription for ongoing, detailed feedback throughout a longer job search. |
| Teal | Free tier; Teal+ is $13 weekly, $29 every 30 days, or $79 every 90 days (verified August 2026) | Choose Teal if you want an all-in-one job search platform with a free-forever job tracker, a Chrome extension for capturing job listings, and AI resume tailoring across multiple applications; its breadth makes it well-suited for an extended, organized job search. |
| Enhancv | 7-day free trial, then subscription — monthly or quarterly (check enhancv.com for current rates) | Choose Enhancv if you want to build or significantly redesign your resume using professionally designed, ATS-optimized templates with AI writing assistance, and you are comfortable creating an account and subscribing for the duration of your job search. |
| Rezi | Free tier (1 resume, 3 downloads); Pro $29/month; Lifetime $149 one-time (verified August 2026) | Choose Rezi if you want AI to help write and build the resume itself from scratch and you're comfortable with an account, cloud processing, and a $29/month or $149 lifetime plan. |
| ChatGPT | Free tier plus three paid subscriptions: ChatGPT Go $8/month, Plus $20/month, Pro $100 or $200/month (US pricing, per openai.com/index/introducing-chatgpt-go/ and help.openai.com's "About ChatGPT Pro tiers" article). No annual billing is offered on Go, Plus, or Pro. | Choose ChatGPT when you want your resume actually rewritten — stronger bullets, adjusted tone, a tailored narrative for a specific job posting, or a drafted cover letter — or when you have an open-ended question a fixed rule set simply can't answer. That generative, conversational work is what large language models genuinely do better than any rule-based checker. |
| Zety | Free resume builder limited to TXT download; Pro plan is a 14-day trial for $1.95 that auto-renews at $25.95 billed every 4 weeks, or an annual plan at $5.95/month ($71.40 billed upfront) — figures as shown to a US visitor; opening the same page from the EU returned euro prices and a different trial figure, both auto-renewing subscriptions you must cancel | Choose Zety when you don't have a resume yet, or want expert-written content and a professionally designed template to build one from scratch — its AI phrasing suggestions, 18+ templates, and matching cover letter builder are a genuinely strong starting point, especially if you're comfortable with a paid subscription to unlock PDF/Word downloads. |
| Resume.io | Subscription-based: a 7-day trial for €2.95 that auto-renews to €24.95 billed every 4 weeks, or a quarterly plan at €49.95 billed every 3 months, as shown live on resume.io/pricing. Resume.io's own help center notes pricing can vary by location, so figures may differ in USD or other currencies. | You need to build a resume and cover letter from scratch, want access to 30+ professional templates plus tools like a Job Tracker and AI Interview Prep, and are comfortable creating an account and paying a recurring subscription for ongoing builder access. |
| Novoresume | Premium plans from 19.99 EUR for one month of access (39.99 EUR per quarter, 139.99 EUR per year). Novoresume calls this "pay once, no recurring billing" since it doesn't auto-renew — but each payment buys a time-limited access window, not one resume checked forever. | Choose Novoresume if you need to build a resume and matching cover letter from scratch, want a library of 16+ templates plus an AI assistant to draft bullet points, and would like a Kanban-style job-application tracker that's included even on the free plan (Premium removes its 5-card cap and adds AI-drafted outreach) — its Premium plans bundle the full workflow for one paid access period. |
| Kickresume | Subscription: €8/mo billed yearly (€96/yr), €18/mo billed quarterly (€54/3mo), or €24/mo billed monthly — confirmed live on kickresume.com/en/pricing/ on 2026-09-02 (the page displayed these in EUR to our fetch; third-party review sites report the identical 8/18/24 figures in USD, suggesting geo-based currency display, but we could not confirm a USD price directly on Kickresume's own page today). A separate Free plan (€0) also exists but excludes the ATS Resume Checker | Choose Kickresume if you want one subscription that builds a resume from scratch with AI writing help, matching cover letters, a personal website, and career tools — the ATS checker there is a real feature backed by a database comparison, but it's a bonus inside a much bigger product, not the main draw. |
| Resume Genius | Free builder tier (TXT download only); paid access is a subscription — a 14-day trial for $2.95 that auto-renews at $23.95 billed every four weeks, or $7.95/month billed as $95.40 for 12 months and auto-renewed annually, confirmed live on resumegenius.com/pricing on 2026-09-02 | Job seekers starting from scratch who want a full AI-assisted builder — resume, cover letter, and a large template and example library — in one place, and who are comfortable managing a subscription, including cancelling before the 14-day trial renews if they don't want it to continue. |
| VMock | Not published anywhere on vmock.com. Its Terms of Service reference a paid "Premium Service," and its Privacy Policy says a third-party vendor collects payment details "in the event that you purchase our premium services" — so an individual purchase path appears to exist. But no plan name, price, or checkout page with an actual dollar figure is shown on the site, and the Terms also say a university's, employer's, or program's "Master Contract" can control premium access instead. | Students, alumni, or employees whose school or employer holds a VMock "Master Contract" (VMock says it has over 250 Global Educational Partners) and who want a bundled suite — resume scoring, LinkedIn optimization, internal job-fit matching, and AI-coached interview-pitch practice, often integrated with their career center's own human coaches — typically at no direct cost to them since the institution or employer pays. Also worth trying for anyone comfortable creating a personal account for a broader toolkit than just a resume check. |
What ATSGrader is, in one row
Free scan, no account, no email. The analysis runs in your browser, so the resume is never uploaded — you can verify that by turning the network off after the page loads and scanning anyway. 21 published scoring rules with exact deductions at our methodology page. One-time $9 for the full report on a resume, never a subscription.
What it is not
It is a checker, not a builder. It does not write your resume, design it, review your LinkedIn profile, track your applications or draft cover letters. Where you need one of those, the pages above name the tool that does it and say so without hedging.