PIN has four plans: Free ($0), Solo ($100 per month), Professional ($135 per user per month on annual billing, $179 month to month) and a quote-only Enterprise plan. The price per seat is only half the bill, because every email address or phone number you reveal costs one contact credit: 5 a week on Free, 500 a month on Solo, 1,000 per seat on Professional. For five recruiters on Professional that is $8,100 a year if you pay annually (status October 30, 2026, from PIN's pricing page).
How much does PIN cost per month or per year?
PIN (pin.com, a US startup founded in 2024) is an AI recruiting tool that searches a licensed index of 850M+ profiles, drafts outreach and runs email sequences. Its pricing page lists these plans, all in US dollars and excluding tax:
| Plan | Price | Contact credits | What you get |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0, no card | 5 per week | 1 seat, 1 job position, 1 AI agent, 3 searches a day, email-only sequences |
| Solo | $100 per month, annual billing only ($1,200 a year) | 500 per month | 1 seat, 2 AI agents, unlimited positions and searches, multi-channel sequences, 1 mailbox |
| Professional | $135 per user per month, annual billing; $179 month to month | 1,000 per seat per month | Unlimited seats, 2 AI agents and 5 mailboxes per user, shared inbox, admin seats |
| Enterprise | Quote-only | Unlimited | ATS integration included, dedicated account manager, SSO/SAML and SCIM |
Some directories print $99 for Solo, and some third-party guides list a "Business" tier at $225 or $299 month to month. Neither appears on PIN's own page today, so use the page itself and ask for a written quote before you sign. For one person the yearly difference is easy to see: Solo is $1,200, Professional is $1,620 on annual billing and $2,148 if you stay on monthly.
What is included, and what costs extra?
These are the items that move the real number, all taken from PIN's pricing page unless noted:
- Contact credits. One credit reveals one email address or phone number. Searching and ranking profiles is not metered on paid plans; getting in touch is.
- ATS integration. It is an add-on on Solo and Professional and included only in Enterprise. PIN does not publish a price for extra credits, so ask for it.
- Annual lock-in. Solo cannot be bought monthly, and the Professional discount of about 25% requires a year.
- Outreach channels. Email sequences run automatically from your Gmail or Outlook. According to PIN's own documentation, LinkedIn and SMS steps are tasks the recruiter sends by hand.
- Enterprise controls. SSO/SAML and SCIM sit in the quote-only tier, which matters once your security team gets involved.
Is there a free plan or trial?
Yes. The Free plan is permanent, but it is a sampler: 3 searches a day and 5 contact credits a week mean roughly 20 reveals a month, with email-only sequences and no exports. The paid plans show "Try for free" buttons without stating a trial length, so confirm the terms before you enter payment data. Sprad's free plan is also permanent: 100 credits per month (200 in the first month), no card, and web search is included; at two credits per displayed profile that is about 50 profiles a month.
How many credits do you really need? A worked example
The number that surprises teams is not the seat price but the credit ceiling. Assumption for illustration: a recruiter reveals contact details for about 40 shortlisted people per open role, because not every profile has a usable email. With 12 open roles in a month that is 480 credits, which just fits Solo's 500. At 14 roles it is 560 and Solo runs dry; Professional's 1,000 covers it, for $35 more per month. A team of five on Professional gets 5,000 credits a month, one allowance per seat.
Compare how the cost scales elsewhere. At Sprad, finding an email costs 1 credit and a phone number 10 credits, and you pay only for what is found; credits list at €0.10 each and drop to €0.07 in the larger packages, and they belong to the whole company, not to a seat. The trade-off is plain: PIN bundles a fixed allowance into the seat, Sprad meters usage for the company, so the cheaper model depends on whether your reveals are steady or lumpy.
Cost for 5 and for 15 recruiters
Illustration with stated assumptions: list prices, annual billing where offered, no negotiated discounts, excluding sales tax or VAT.
| Team | PIN Professional | LinkedIn Recruiter Lite | Sprad Recruiter Lite | Sprad Atlas Recruiter |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 recruiter | $1,620 (annual); Solo $1,200 | $2,040 | $1,140 | $4,308 |
| 5 recruiters | $8,100 (annual) or $10,740 (monthly) | $10,200 | $5,700 | $21,540 |
| 15 recruiters | $24,300 (annual) or $32,220 (monthly) | Sales quote above 5 seats; 15 x $2,040 = $30,600 as a reference | $17,100 | $64,620 (from 3 seats: integrations and onboarding workshop) |
LinkedIn Recruiter Lite uses the published $170 per seat per month on an annual plan; it is self-serve only up to five seats. Sprad prices are USD list prices billed annually (Recruiter Lite $95, Atlas Recruiter $359 per seat per month; in euros €79 and €299). Recruiter Lite includes quick and normal search; deep search, company search and contact data run on credits. The tools are not like-for-like: PIN includes outreach sequences, LinkedIn Lite is mainly a search tool, and Sprad's CRM, ATS, career page and talent network are free in every plan.
A rule from practice: licence cost matters less than recruiter time. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics lists a median of $72,910 a year for human resources specialists (May 2024). A tool that saves one recruiter two hours a week repays a $135 seat several times. The costly case is the opposite one: seats that nobody opens. Count active users after 60 days and drop the rest at the next renewal.
Is PIN worth it?
PIN earns its price if you hire mostly professional and technical roles in North America, want search, sequences and replies in one tool, and reveal contacts at a steady rate. It is harder to justify if your searches are unusual, your outreach must run on LinkedIn too, or you work under EU data rules. PIN's own review page mentions searches that missed a known candidate and thinner coverage outside tech. For the full comparison of options see our PIN alternatives and Juicebox vs PIN.
Cheaper ways to source: Sprad and fair alternatives
Sprad has built recruiting software for seven years, starting with employee referrals and the matching of profiles to requirements; its sourcing tool Atlas has been live for about a year. Three reasons it fits teams that mainly source:
- More matching candidates, measured. In the recruiting area of the public PeopleSearchBench, our own re-measurement puts Atlas at 73.5 of 100, converted to the published scale (Juicebox 65.7 as published; see note below). Atlas checks each profile individually against your requirements and gives a reason for every result. Instant results usually mean a keyword search; the deep check takes a few minutes.
- LinkedIn and email in one inbox. Outreach runs automatically on both channels including follow-ups and InMails, with AI templates you can train and a pitch format. The inbox shows the whole history per talent, warns about double contact and can import your existing contacts. We see the combination of email and LinkedIn as the biggest lever for reply rates.
- A price you can read. Start free, Recruiter Lite from $95 (€79) per seat per month, flexible credits, and 30 to 80% lower cost than separate LinkedIn and XING licences, depending on what you hold today.
One search covers LinkedIn, XING, GitHub and your own talent pool across more than 1 billion profiles, and you keep your data and a free talent network if you cancel. Honest limits: no AI call notetaker, no placement reporting, no SMS (WhatsApp instead), and Atlas Recruiter costs more per seat than some seat tools. More in our comparison of active sourcing tools, the Juicebox alternatives and the LinkedIn Recruiter pricing guide. Product details: people search and pricing.
Legal checks before you buy (EU and US)
Sourcing from public profiles still triggers duties. Under Article 14 GDPR you must inform people whose data you did not collect from them, in general within one month. Article 22 limits decisions based solely on automated processing; the Court of Justice applied it to automated scoring in case C-634/21 (SCHUFA), and PIN's own GDPR guide says tools that reject candidates without human review likely breach it. The EU AI Act lists AI systems that filter or evaluate candidates as high-risk (Annex III). PIN's trust centre names hosting on AWS in the United States, so EU teams should check the transfer basis, for example the EU-US Data Privacy Framework, and sign a data processing agreement. In New York City, Local Law 144 requires a bias audit and candidate notice for automated employment decision tools. Ask every vendor, PIN and Sprad included, for hosting location and a processing agreement.
FAQ
How much does PIN cost?
$0 on Free, $100 per month on Solo (annual billing), $135 per user per month on Professional (annual) or $179 month to month. Enterprise is quote-only.
Does PIN have a free plan?
Yes, a permanent one with 3 searches a day and 5 contact credits a week. Paid plans show a free-trial button without a stated length.
What is included, and what costs extra?
Search and AI agents are included on paid plans. Contact reveals use credits (500 on Solo, 1,000 per seat on Professional), and ATS integration is an add-on outside Enterprise.
Is PIN cheaper than LinkedIn Recruiter?
For a small team, yes: five Professional seats cost $8,100 a year against $10,200 for five Recruiter Lite seats. LinkedIn Corporate has no public price and is usually far higher, but it brings LinkedIn's own network and InMails.
How does PIN compare with Sprad on price?
Sprad's Recruiter Lite is $95 per seat per month and the free plan is permanent. PIN includes sequences in the seat price; Sprad adds LinkedIn plus email in one inbox and a per-profile AI check, with credits for deep search and contact data.
Note on the benchmark: PeopleSearchBench (Recruiting), 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, converted to the published scale; not an official entry. Price sources: PIN pricing page and trust centre, LinkedIn's published Recruiter Lite price, Sprad pricing page, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Retrieved October 30, 2026.
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.
