Free AI sourcing tools in 2026 let you search and preview candidates, but almost none let you contact and export enough of them to fill a role. The usual $0 ceiling is a handful of contact lookups, no CSV export and no ATS link, so a free plan covers testing or one light role, not a pipeline. Paying starts to make sense once manual workarounds eat more recruiter time than the subscription costs.
What "free" really means in sourcing tools
Vendors sell four different things and advertise only the cheapest one. Search access is almost always generous. The meter runs on contact reveals, exports and ATS or CRM sync, which are exactly the gates a recruiter hits in week two. Judge a free plan by those three, not by the headline "free forever".
Also check whether "AI search" is real. If results appear instantly, it is almost always a (semantic) keyword search; genuine AI evaluation reads each profile against your requirements and takes longer for a deep search. Sprad, for example, answers a Quick Search in about 3 seconds and runs the deep search in a few minutes because far more AI works on every profile.
There are also three kinds of "free": a permanent free plan, a time-limited trial, and a startup promotion. Pin and Lusha publish permanent free plans. SeekOut and hireEZ offer trials, and Gem offers six free months to companies under 30 employees. Sprad gives every company a free account with 100 credits a month (200 in the first month); searches, screening and interviews run on those credits.
Free AI sourcing tools compared (October 2026)
All values below are as listed on the vendors' own pricing pages in October 2026. Where a page showed nothing, the table says so rather than guessing.
| Tool | What is free | Limit | Paid from | GDPR / EU note |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sprad | Free account for the whole team: Talent Network, CRM, pipeline, 100 credits a month (200 in month one) | Search over 1 billion+ profiles (LinkedIn, GitHub, own pool) runs on credits: 2 per displayed profile, 50 to 300 credits budget per run | Atlas Base 450 €/year (5,000 credits) or Recruiter Lite 79 €/month per seat | Enterprise plan includes ISO-certified EU hosting and a DPA; outreach via LinkedIn (incl. InMail) and email in one inbox |
| Pin | Free plan, no time limit | 5 contact lookups a week, 3 searches a day, 1 job, no CSV export | Solo $99/month per user, billed annually | No public statement on the page |
| Juicebox | Free plan: limited searches, AI email templates | 5 contact credits (one-off), 0 exports, no ATS | Starter $99/month (500 contacts and exports) | No public statement on the page |
| Lusha | Free plan | Up to 40 credits a month; 1 per email, 5 per phone | Starter $49.90/month (400 credits) | Enrichment only, not a recruiting system |
| Apollo | Free plan, no time limit | Credits pooled, expire each cycle, no rollover; amounts not shown on the page | No public price on the page | Sales database, check lawful basis for candidates |
| ContactOut | No free plan visible | Not applicable | No public list price visible | Contact data from LinkedIn profiles, check Art. 14 |
| SeekOut | 14-day trial of Sourcing Core, no card | Paid Core lists 500 contact credits and 1,000 exports a month | $149/month annual, $179 monthly | No public statement on the page |
| hireEZ | 7-day trial for solo recruiters | Credits not shown | Solo from $494/month | No public statement on the page |
| Gem | Six free months under 30 employees | Then 50% off the first paid plan | Custom, by headcount | No public statement on the page |
| LinkedIn Recruiter Lite | Free trial ("Try for $0") | 30 InMails per license, 20+ filters | No public price on the product page | Scraping tools are prohibited by LinkedIn |
| Google X-Ray / Boolean | Everything | Manual, no contact data | Not applicable | Art. 14 duty applies once you store data |
How we compared: we read each vendor's own pricing and help pages in October 2026 and list only what was visible there; we did not run hands-on tests of the other tools. Sprad is our own product, so the table is not an independent ranking, and its order is not a ranking either. Limits and prices change often, so check the vendor's page before you buy.
The free tools, one by one
Sprad
Sprad's free account covers what other tools charge for: Talent Network, CRM, pipeline, career page and the whole team at no cost. Search over 1 billion+ public profiles (LinkedIn, GitHub and more) runs on credits at 2 per displayed profile, and the free plan's monthly credits cover first searches. Credits are shared across the company. Your data stays after cancelling, with a full raw-data export. The honest limit: a deep search takes a few minutes rather than returning an instant result list, because Atlas checks every profile individually (Quick Search answers in about 3 seconds).
Pin
Pin has the most usable permanent free plan for contacts we saw: 5 lookups a week is roughly 20 a month. The catch is 3 searches a day, one job and no CSV export, so it suits a single open role.
Juicebox
Juicebox lets you test the quality of AI search for free. Its free plan lists 5 one-off contact credits and no exports, so you can judge the matches but not work a list. The Starter plan lists $99 and $119 on the same page, so confirm which applies to your billing.
Lusha
Lusha is an enrichment tool, not a sourcing system. Its 40 free credits a month reveal about 40 emails, or 8 phone numbers, for profiles you found elsewhere. It pairs well with X-Ray searches.
Apollo
Apollo's free plan has no time limit and exports up to 10,000 leads in one click on the page's wording, but credits expire each cycle. It is built for sales prospecting, so check your lawful basis before loading candidate data.
ContactOut
ContactOut was a staple of older "free sourcing tools" lists. Its current pricing page showed no free plan and no list price, so we do not count it as free in 2026.
SeekOut and hireEZ
Both are trials. SeekOut gives 14 days of Sourcing Core, which is worth using for a defined hiring sprint. hireEZ offers 7 days to solo recruiters and then starts at $494 a month, the highest published entry price in this list.
Gem and LinkedIn Recruiter Lite
Gem is free for six months if you have under 30 employees, then discounted. LinkedIn Recruiter Lite offers a free trial with 30 InMails per license. LinkedIn's help centre lists scraping extensions as prohibited software, which matters if you plan to bolt free browser tools onto it. See our guides on LinkedIn Recruiter alternatives and what LinkedIn Recruiter costs.
Google X-Ray and Boolean
A site-restricted Boolean search costs nothing and has no cap. It also returns no emails, no ranking by fit and no history. It is the right baseline against which every paid tool should prove itself.
What a contact really costs: a normalised view
Headline prices hide what you pay per reachable candidate. Dividing each paid entry plan by the contacts it lists gives a fairer picture (our calculation from the vendors' listed numbers, October 2026).
| Plan | Price | Contacts listed | Cost per contact |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lusha Starter (email) | $49.90/month | 400 credits | about $0.12 |
| Juicebox Starter | $99/month | 500 a month | about $0.20 |
| SeekOut Sourcing Core | $149/month, annual | 500 a month | about $0.30 |
| Pin Free | $0 | 5 a week | $0 for about 20 a month |
Sprad prices differently: you pay per qualified profile found, not per contact revealed. Compare the numbers, but compare the unit too.
How far do Sprad's free credits go?
The free account includes 100 credits a month (200 in the first month), shared by the whole company. A web search costs 2 credits per displayed profile and never more than the budget you choose for the run, so 100 credits buy up to 50 profiles and 200 credits up to 100. Contact data costs extra and is only charged when something is found (credit prices as of the end of October 2026, see the pricing page).
| Action | Credits | What 100 free credits buy |
|---|---|---|
| Web search, Quick budget | 50 per run | up to 25 qualified profiles per run, two runs |
| Web search, Normal budget | 100 per run | up to 50 qualified profiles in one run |
| Web search, Deep budget | 300 per run | not covered by one month of free credits |
| Find an email address | 1 per address found | up to 100 addresses |
| Find a phone number | 10 per number found | up to 10 numbers |
| Search your own pool | 1 to 18 per search | several searches, depending on the profiles checked |
An example month on the free plan: one Quick run (50 credits, up to 25 profiles) plus email addresses for the 20 best matches (at most 20 credits) leaves 30 credits. Spend the credits on one well-specified search rather than many vague ones: in our conversations with recruiting teams, the most common mistake in AI search is entering requirements as nice-to-have instead of must-have, and results improve noticeably once the must-haves are set. How to split them is covered in must-have versus nice-to-have search criteria.
When paying pays off: a worked example
Assumptions, so you can swap in your own: 3 open roles a month, 40 qualified profiles per role (120 in total), recruiter time at 45 € per hour, 6 minutes to find and vet one profile by hand, 1 minute to review one that a tool pre-qualified. Credit cost uses the Atlas Base price of 0.09 € per credit (list price 0.10 €) and 2 credits per qualified profile.
| Route | Time | Cash | Total per month | Per qualified profile |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free tools plus X-Ray, by hand | 12 h (540 €) | 0 € | 540 € | 4.50 € |
| Credits for web search | 2 h (90 €) | 240 credits, about 22 € | about 112 € | about 0.93 € |
The gap is the recruiter time, not the tool fee. Outreach and replies come on top in both routes. If you source a lot, compare credits with a flat seat: Recruiter Lite at 79 € a month covers up to 500 profiles (Quick and Normal searches; deep search costs credits), and 500 profiles cost about 90 € in credits (1,000 credits at 0.09 €). Around 440 profiles a month is the break-even (79 € divided by 0.18 € per profile): below it credits are cheaper, above it the flat seat wins.
A free plan is enough while you fill one role at a time and can live with 5 lookups a week. Pay when you keep two or more roles open, when you need exports or an ATS link, or when you spend more than about two hours a month on workarounds.
Which limit does a free plan hit first? A checklist
Compare free plans by the gate you will hit first, not by the headline. Ask the vendor, or read its pricing page, for each line before you load real candidate data.
| Gate | What to check | Sprad free plan |
|---|---|---|
| Search volume | Searches per day or credits per month, and whether they are per user or per company | 100 credits a month (200 in month one), shared company-wide |
| Contact data | Lookups per week or month, and whether you pay when nothing is found | Email 1 credit, phone 10 credits, charged only when found |
| Export | CSV export of search results and of your own data | Raw-data export of your data, also after cancelling |
| ATS or CRM link | Whether results can sync to your system, and what it costs | ATS integration 100 credits per connection |
| Team | Free seats and who may use the search | Whole team free; only the AI work is paid in credits |
| Data protection | EU hosting, data processing agreement, deletion on request | ISO-certified EU hosting and DPA come with the Enterprise plan |
If a vendor cannot answer the contact-data and export lines on its pricing page, assume the free plan is a demo.
GDPR when you source from public profiles
A free tool does not change your duties. Under Article 14 GDPR you must inform candidates whose data you did not collect from them, within a reasonable period and at the latest within one month, or at the first contact if you use the data to reach out. Legitimate interest under Article 6(1)(f) is the usual basis, and it needs a documented balancing test. Look for EU hosting and a data processing agreement before you load candidate data into any tool.
Where Sprad fits, and where it does not
Platforms keep getting more expensive, and if you cancel, your reach goes with them. Sprad keeps the pool yours: requirement search over 1 billion+ public profiles and your own talent pool, with ATS, Talent Network, outreach (LinkedIn and email in one inbox) and voice pre-screening in one tool. In the public PeopleSearchBench (Recruiting), Atlas reaches 73.5 of 100 in our own re-measurement, converted to the published scale (published by Lessie, October 2026; other systems' scores as published in the benchmark; Atlas is our own re-measurement with the benchmark's open test procedure; not an official entry). In an own test by Sprad (15.08.2026, three roles, 218 profiles, method on the benchmark page), requirement search covered 38% of the reference profiles against 9% for the best of the four other systems tested; method and limits are in our sourcing benchmark 2026 write-up. You can choose credits for the whole company (100 free every month, 1 credit is 7 to 10 cents, search costs 2 credits per qualified profile) or a flat seat: Recruiter Lite 79 € or Atlas Recruiter 299 € per seat and month. See AI sourcing with Sprad People Search, pricing and the page for recruitment agencies.
Sprad is a vendor itself, so read this section with that in mind. It is not the right pick if you only need email addresses for profiles you already have (an enrichment tool such as Lusha does that), and a deep search takes a few minutes instead of returning an instant list.
FAQ
Is there a completely free AI sourcing tool?
Yes, but with limits. Pin Free, Lusha Free and Apollo Free have no time limit. None of them gives you enough contacts and exports to run several roles.
What is the difference between a free plan and a free trial?
A free plan stays free with capped features. A trial gives wide access for a short window, such as 14 days at SeekOut or 7 days at hireEZ, and then closes unless you pay.
Can I source for free with Google X-Ray?
Yes. Boolean searches on public profiles cost nothing. They return no contact data and no fit ranking, so the time cost is yours.
Which free tool is best for startups?
Gem offers six free months under 30 employees. For lean sourcing, combine Pin Free for contacts with X-Ray for discovery.
Are free sourcing tools GDPR compliant?
Price does not decide this. You still need a lawful basis, the Article 14 notice and a data processing agreement with the vendor. Check where each vendor hosts data.
When should I pay for a sourcing tool?
When you keep two or more roles open, need exports or ATS sync, or lose over two recruiter hours a month to workarounds. Use the break-even above: about 440 profiles a month separates credits from a flat seat.
Does Sprad have a free plan?
Yes. The account, Talent Network, CRM and team are free, with 100 credits a month (200 in the first month). Searches, screening and interviews run on these credits; Atlas Base (450 €/year, 5,000 credits) is for more volume.
What is the best free AI sourcing tool?
There is no single winner, because it depends on the gate you hit first. For a handful of contact lookups on one role, Pin Free is the most usable permanent plan we found. For email addresses of profiles you already have, Lusha Free. For discovery at no cost, Google X-Ray. For a free team workspace plus pay-as-you-go web search, Sprad. Sprad is our own product, so weigh that last line accordingly.
How many candidates can I find with Sprad's free credits?
A web search costs 2 credits per displayed profile, so the 100 free credits of a month buy up to 50 profiles in one Normal run, and the 200 credits of the first month up to 100. Email addresses and phone numbers cost extra credits and are only charged when found.
Is LinkedIn Recruiter Lite free?
No. LinkedIn's product page offers a free trial ("Try for $0") with 30 InMails per license, and shows no public price. After the trial you need a paid license.
What does "free sourcing" include besides tools?
Free sourcing also covers routes without any tool: Google X-Ray and Boolean searches, GitHub, employee referrals and your own talent pool. They cost no licence fee but recruiter time, which is why the worked example above counts hours as well as euros.
Jürgen Ulbrich
Jürgen Ulbrich has more than a decade of experience in developing and leading high-performing teams and companies. As an expert in employee referral programs as well as feedback and performance processes, Jürgen has helped over 100 organizations optimize their talent acquisition and development strategies.
