Spark Hire, Willo, VidCruiter and HireVue all move first-round interviews off the calendar — candidates record answers on their own time, and your team reviews them later. They differ sharply in one place buyers feel immediately: two of them publish their prices, and two will not tell you the cost until you sit through a sales process.
Video interviews, billed annually ($2,988/year). Monthly billing is $299/mo with caps — see below.
Lite plan, pay as you go with no contract. Enterprise starts at $3,799/year.
Quote-based. Pricing depends on the modules you select and your hiring volume.
Quote-based, sold as an enterprise platform. Expect an annual contract via a sales process.
| Spark Hire | Willo | VidCruiter | HireVue | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Best for | Small and mid-size teams that want video screening at a known, flat price | Teams that hire in bursts and want to pay per open role | Mid-size to large employers that need one structured process for every interview | Large enterprises that want interviews and assessments in one suite |
| Interview formats | One-way (recorded) and live video | One-way only — video, audio, text, file upload and multiple choice. No live interview mode | Pre-recorded and live video, plus structured in-person / panel workflows | On-demand (one-way) and live video, plus an AI interviewer product described by the vendor |
| Published price | Yes. Video interviews from $249/mo billed annually, or $299/mo monthly | Yes. Lite $59 per live role/month, no contract; Enterprise from $3,799/year | No. Quote required — price depends on modules and hiring volume | No. Quote required — enterprise sales process, annual contracts |
| Caps to know | Monthly plan: up to 5 jobs and 5 users at a time. Annual plan: unlimited interviews, jobs and users as published | Lite: up to 5 live roles and 5 users; up to 150 assessed candidates per live role | Quoted by module and volume — the caps are whatever your contract says, so get them in writing | Quoted by volume and modules — confirm interview volumes, overages and renewal terms in writing |
| Free option | No free plan or free trial published | 14-day free trial advertised; no permanent free tier (a former free tier has been discontinued) | No free plan published — demo / quote route | No free plan or free trial for employers published |
| AI features (as described by the vendor) | Transcription and summaries across 50+ languages; AI video review of recorded answers (described as applying to English answers) | Willo Intelligence: summaries on Lite; transcription, scoring against your criteria and scorecards sit on Enterprise | AI scoring support against a rubric, AI notes and summaries, fraud detection — each described as optional and toggleable, with people deciding | AI-supported screening and assessment features are core to the pitch; the exact scoring included depends on the package quoted |
| ATS integrations | 40+ native ATS integrations for the video product, plus Zapier; some enterprise ATS links are paid add-ons | Lite connects mainly via Zapier-type tools; native ATS integrations widen substantially on Enterprise | Pre-built and custom integrations aimed at enterprise ATS/HR systems (Workday, SAP SuccessFactors, Oracle, ADP, UKG, Dayforce, SmartRecruiters named by the vendor) | Integrations centred on major enterprise ATS platforms; the vendor is described as connecting with 45+ ATS platforms |
| Languages (candidate-facing) | Transcription in 50+ languages; check which languages AI review covers before relying on it | Candidate experience localised in 18 languages, per the vendor | Candidate pages in 30+ languages; AI notes and transcripts centred on English and French | Multi-language support described at around 40 languages; confirm your languages at quote stage |
| Trade-off to know | The cheaper rate needs annual billing, and the full ATS (Recruit) is a separate product with its own pricing | Per-role pricing is cheap for a few roles and quietly overtakes flat pricing when many roles stay open all year (see the maths below) | No public price and a modular quote make like-for-like comparison slow; setup is a project, not a signup | No public price, an enterprise sales cycle, and a scale of platform most small teams will not use |
Prices are USD, before tax, as published by the vendors in November 2026. Spark Hire also sells an applicant tracking system and a behavioural assessment as separate products — the prices above are for video interviewing only. VidCruiter and HireVue do not publish prices at all: any dollar figure for them on third-party sites is an estimate from procurement data or review sites, not a vendor price, so this guide does not repeat those estimates as if they were list prices. Plans change — always confirm the current price and what is included on the vendor's site or in a written quote before you buy.
Only two of these four vendors publish prices, so only two can be costed without a sales call. That limitation is itself the finding: with Spark Hire or Willo you can put a defensible number in a budget document today; with VidCruiter or HireVue the first number you ever see is the one a salesperson gives you.
| Scenario (12 months) | Working | Year total |
|---|---|---|
| Spark Hire video interviews, annual billing — any interview volume | $249/mo × 12 | $2,988/year |
| Spark Hire video interviews, monthly billing for a full year | $299/mo × 12 (capped at 5 jobs / 5 users) | $3,588/year |
| Willo Lite, 1 live role open all year | $59 × 1 role × 12 months | $708/year |
| Willo Lite, seasonal hiring: 3 roles open for 3 months only | $59 × 3 roles × 3 months | $531 total |
| Willo Lite, 3 live roles open all year | $59 × 3 roles × 12 months | $2,124/year |
| Willo Lite, 5 live roles open all year (the Lite ceiling) | $59 × 5 roles × 12 months | $3,540/year |
| VidCruiter / HireVue, any scenario | No published price to calculate from | Quote required |
Read the crossover in that table: per-role pricing wins while hiring is occasional or seasonal — three roles for one quarter costs $531 on Willo Lite against $2,988 for a year of Spark Hire. But five roles held open all year cost $3,540 on Lite, which is more than Spark Hire's flat $2,988 for unlimited interviews — and close to Willo's own Enterprise starting point of $3,799/year. The right question is not "which is cheaper?" but "how many roles will actually be open, in how many months of the year?"
Working shown in full so you can re-run it with your own role counts. Figures use published list prices only, before tax, checked November 2026. They exclude any implementation, integration or add-on fees — ask about those separately, especially on quote-based products.
Spark Hire sells video interviewing as a standalone product (Meet) and as part of its Recruit applicant tracking system. Candidates record answers to questions you set, or meet interviewers live, and the team reviews recordings with scorecards instead of coordinating diaries. Video interviews cost $249/mo billed annually ($2,988/year) with unlimited one-way and live interviews, or $299/mo on monthly billing, which is capped at five jobs and five users at a time. The vendor describes AI transcription and summaries across 50+ languages and an AI review of recorded answers, with the review described as applying to English-language answers — a detail worth confirming if your candidates answer in other languages. The standalone video product lists 40+ ATS integrations plus Zapier, though some enterprise ATS connections are sold as add-ons, and the API is also an add-on per the vendor's pricing information.
Willo is a one-way screening platform: you set structured questions, candidates answer in a browser on any device — by video, audio, text, file upload or multiple choice — and reviewers work through the responses with scorecards. There is deliberately no live interview mode. Lite costs $59 per live role per month with no contract, covering up to five live roles, five users and up to 150 assessed candidates per role. Enterprise starts at $3,799/year on an annual contract. The split between the plans matters as much as the price: per the vendor's published plan details, Lite includes AI summaries and follow-up suggestions, while transcription, scoring against your criteria, custom scorecards and branding, and the wider set of native ATS integrations sit on Enterprise; on Lite, ATS connections run mainly through Zapier-type tools. The candidate experience is published in 18 languages, and the vendor advertises a 14-day free trial and a discount for non-profits.
VidCruiter positions itself as an interview management system rather than a single screening tool: pre-recorded and live video interviews sit alongside structured interview guides and rating scales, self-scheduling, automated reference checks, skills testing, video proctoring and virtual hiring events, with an ATS also available. The point of the design is consistency — every candidate answers the same questions and is scored against the same rubric, with records kept of how each score was reached. There is no published price: the vendor quotes per customer, based on which modules you select and your hiring volume. Its AI features are described by the vendor as assistive and optional — scoring support against a rubric, AI notes and summaries, and fraud detection — with people making the final decision, and each feature able to be switched off. Candidate-facing pages are offered in 30+ languages, while AI notes and transcripts centre on English and French. Named integrations focus on enterprise systems such as Workday, SAP SuccessFactors, Oracle, ADP and UKG.
HireVue is the best-known enterprise name in this category: on-demand and live video interviewing combined with a wide assessment catalogue — including game-based assessments, coding assessments and virtual job tryouts — plus scheduling, conversational candidate engagement and an AI interviewer product. It is sold to large, high-volume employers, often alongside the ATS and governance requirements that come with that scale. HireVue publishes no pricing: contracts are quoted individually, run annually, and are reached through a sales and demo process. Third-party procurement databases publish estimates for what organisations have paid, but those are not vendor list prices and this guide does not present them as such — the honest entry in a comparison table is "ask". The vendor describes multi-language support at around 40 languages and integrations centred on major enterprise ATS platforms. Because its AI-supported screening is central to the product, buyers should expect the notification, consent and fairness questions in the FAQ below to be part of the procurement conversation, and should ask the vendor directly how its tools are validated and documented.
Write down how many roles will be open in each month of the next year. That single number decides whether per-role pricing (Willo Lite), flat unlimited pricing (Spark Hire) or a volume-based enterprise quote is even the right shape of contract — before you compare any features.
Find your current ATS on each vendor's integration list, and check whether the native link is included in the plan you would actually buy — or sits on a higher tier or behind an add-on. A missing integration means manual exports for every hiring round, every week.
Transcription and summaries are clerical help. Scoring or ranking candidates is a decision input, and it is the part regulators and candidates ask about. For each vendor, ask what the AI scores, in which languages, whether it can be switched off, and what documentation the vendor provides. Treat every vendor claim here as a claim to verify, not a result that is promised to you.
For VidCruiter and HireVue there is no price to compare until you ask — so ask about everything at once, using the checklist below, and get the answers in the written quote. Comparing two quotes that cover different modules is how teams end up surprised in year two.
On published prices checked in November 2026: Willo Lite is $59 per live role per month with no contract, and Spark Hire's video interviews are $249/mo billed annually ($2,988/year) for unlimited interviews. VidCruiter and HireVue do not publish pricing at all — both are quote-based, so there is no vendor list price to quote here, and figures attributed to them on other sites are third-party estimates, not published prices. Prices checked November 2026 — some vendors do not publish pricing.
In a one-way (asynchronous) interview, candidates record answers to preset questions on their own schedule and reviewers watch later — that is what removes the scheduling work from first-round screening. A live interview is a real-time call inside the platform. Willo is one-way only; Spark Hire, VidCruiter and HireVue offer both. If your later rounds are already handled by a general video meeting tool, one-way-only software may be all you need; if you want every round in one system with shared scorecards, look at the tools that include live.
Usually, yes — these tools manage the interview step, not your whole pipeline of applications, offers and onboarding (that is the separate ATS comparison). Spark Hire and VidCruiter each sell an ATS as an additional product, while Willo and HireVue are designed to plug into the ATS you already have. The practical check is the integration list for your specific ATS, and whether that integration is included in the plan you are pricing.
As vendor claims to verify, not as settled facts. Each vendor describes its AI differently — transcription and summaries, scoring against a rubric you set, or screening support — and none of that, on its own, tells you how a tool will perform on your candidates. Ask what is scored, what data it was validated on, whether human reviewers make the final call, and whether the feature can be turned off. No tool on this page is presented as guaranteeing better or fairer hiring outcomes, and you should be cautious of any tool that is marketed to you that way.
In general terms, yes, in some places — and the rules are changing, so treat this as orientation, not legal advice. Illinois has an AI Video Interview Act requiring employers that use AI to analyse recorded interviews to notify candidates, explain in general terms how it works and obtain consent, with deletion on request; Illinois has also added broader rules on discriminatory effects and notice for AI in employment decisions. New York City's Local Law 144 requires bias audits and candidate notices for covered automated employment decision tools. In the EU, the AI Act classifies recruitment AI as high-risk, prohibits AI that infers emotions in the workplace, and phases in its obligations over time, with dates that have been adjusted. What applies to you depends on where you and your candidates are — confirm with your own legal adviser, and ask vendors how their product supports notice and consent in practice.
It depends on how it is set up, and this guide makes no promises either way — candidate reactions are not something a pricing page can tell you. The design choices that are in your control are visible in the published specs: whether candidates can answer by audio or text as well as video (Willo offers this), how many questions and retakes the format allows, whether the experience works in the candidate's language, and whether you explain clearly why you are asking for a recording and what happens to it. Review those settings in any trial or demo with a real role before you commit.
Because this guide is compiled from the vendors' published specifications and pricing — based on publicly available vendor information, not hands-on testing. Where a judgment appears (for example, the crossover where per-role pricing overtakes flat pricing), it is arithmetic on the published prices, with the working shown next to it so you can re-run it for your own hiring pattern.