// Recruitment Technology, Software Comparisons

Firefish Review 2026: Great at Attraction, and Then What?

The bottom line

Firefish holds 4.6 out of 5 from 291 reviews on Capterra, praised most for how fast it is to learn and how quickly support answers. The complaints are equally consistent, and they land on the other half of the job: search, CV formatting, reporting and integrations, all of which happen after a candidate is already in the database.

Firefish publishes no plan price. Its pricing page names three plans, quotes all of them, and publishes one figure that applies only to add-on modules.

Last reviewed: August 2026. Every figure below was read off a live page on that date, with the source recorded beside it.

Where Firefish reviews cluster, and where they go quiet

Read enough Firefish reviews and the pattern arrives before the third page. Reviewers write about adverts, websites, candidate engagement and how quickly support picks up. That is the half of recruitment Firefish built its name on. Its own marketing still leads on turning a database into revenue.

The quiet half is what happens next.

Once a candidate is sitting in the database, the reviews get shorter and the criticism gets specific. Search results that take work to sift. CV formatting done outside the system. Reports that need a call to configure. Integrations that stop short of the tools a desk actually lives in.

The advert goes out in four minutes. The shortlist takes the rest of the week.

So this page follows that split. What reviewers praise, what they flag, what Firefish publishes about cost, and what to ask before signing. Ratings move and prices change, so each claim carries its source page and the month it was checked.

What do reviewers actually say about Firefish in 2026?

Firefish holds an overall rating of 4.6 out of 5 from 291 reviews on Capterra. Ease of use scores 4.6 and customer service 4.7. The listing records a last update of 31 July 2026 and was read in August 2026.

The score is strong. The corpus behind it is older than the score suggests.

On the first page of most helpful reviews, 19 of the 25 entries date from 2022. Only one carries a later date. Newer reviews sit deeper in the listing, including entries from 2025. Even so, the reviews doing the heaviest lifting in search describe a product that has since added a whole AI module range. Scores on other platforms could not be read from their source pages during this check, so they are left out.

Measure	Score	Basis
Overall rating	4.6 out of 5	291 reviews, listing last updated 31 July 2026
Ease of use	4.6 out of 5	Reviewer average on the same listing
Customer service	4.7 out of 5	Reviewer average on the same listing
Age of the top reviews	19 of 25 from 2022	First page sorted by most helpful

Which parts of Firefish do reviewers consistently praise?

Four themes repeat across the positive Firefish software reviews, and all four sit at the attraction end of the desk.

Two of them are unusual for a recruitment CRM. New consultants are described as productive in days rather than weeks. That matters on a perm team where somebody is always in their first month. Support is rated 4.7, higher than the product itself.

The other two explain why Firefish wins the deals it wins. A careers site, job adverts, applicant capture and the CRM come from one vendor. Inbound applications land in the database instead of an inbox. Candidate portals and job alerts then keep those records current, which is a real answer to database decay.

• Quick to learn, with new starters described as productive within days
• Support that answers, rated 4.7 on the Capterra listing
• Advertising, careers site, applicant capture and CRM from one vendor, so applications land in the database
• Candidate engagement tooling that keeps records fresh without manual chasing

Logical workflows so easy for new staff to learn the system.

Garvan C, Director, Staffing and Recruiting, September 2022 · Capterra

The stand out thing about Firefish for me is how easy it is to engage with our candidates and keep the database fresh and relevant.

Annejulie S, MD, Staffing and Recruiting, September 2021 · Capterra

Where do Firefish reviews go quiet on delivery?

The recurring complaints sit downstream of the application: candidate search, CV formatting, reporting and integrations. Each one is a delivery task, and each one costs a consultant an afternoon.

Search comes up most. Reviewers describe sifting results by hand. They want radius search from a fixed point, rather than trusting whatever county somebody typed into a form. The Firefish Search and Match page now advertises postcode radius search and AI scoring, so the criticism was heard. The reviews carrying it still rank.

CV formatting is the theme that leaks work out of the platform entirely.

Every agency has a consultant who reformats CVs in Word and calls it quality control. Once that habit sets in, the version a client actually receives lives on somebody’s desktop rather than in the CRM.

Reporting is a management complaint rather than a consultant one. Reviewers call the report builder complicated and want clearer visibility of individual and team performance. Dashboards are capped by plan at three, four and five. Integrations round it out, with named gaps around messaging.

None of this is fatal. It is the shape of a platform whose center of gravity is attraction. It lands hardest on agencies whose constraint is delivery rather than application volume. That is most of them: 36.99% of agency recruiters name too much manual work as their single biggest operational challenge.

Candidate searching. Being able to search on address and distance from a certain point would be much more convenient.

Matthew K, Recruitment Consultant, IT and Services, November 2022 · Capterra

I am not a fan on the CV formatting section, I haven’t been able to use this successfully yet.

Louise B, Information Technology and Services, March 2022 · Capterra

Reports are a bit complicated and there are some ‘hard coded’ menu drop downs that would be better if you could put your own in.

Simone D, Director, Staffing and Recruiting, October 2022 · Capterra

Lack of integrations with LinkedIn and WhatsApp. email function is clunky.

James L, Senior Manager, Accounting, November 2022 · Capterra

How much does Firefish cost per user in 2026?

Firefish publishes no price for any of its three plans. The pricing page names Core, Scale and Enterprise and describes what each covers. Every one of them then routes to the same form. It asks for a work email, a name, a phone number and an agency name.

One figure is published on that page. It applies to add-ons.

Firefish publishes three plan names and one price, and that price is for an add-on. Add-on modules start at £150 per module, and the quote builder offers six of them. They cover the multi-poster, enrichment credits, two-way SMS, the candidate portal, a website and the hiring manager portal.

What the plan table does publish is where capability stops. Contract tooling such as the rate and time clock sits above Core. Shift scheduling appears only on Enterprise. Dashboard counts run three, four and five by tier. A mixed desk is therefore an Enterprise conversation before anybody discusses a number. Any Firefish pricing figure circulating online is somebody’s quote rather than a list price.

Plan or item	Published price	What Firefish says it covers
Core	Not published, quote only	Permanent workflow, search and match, AI and automation, reporting
Scale	Not published, quote only	Everything in Core plus contract workflow and cross workflow analytics
Enterprise	Not published, quote only	Everything in Scale plus temporary workflow, advanced automations, account management
Add-on modules	From £150 per module	Six options in the quote builder, including websites, portals and SMS
Dashboards	Included, capped by tier	Three on Core, four on Scale, five per site on Enterprise

The main downside of Firefish is that it can be quite expensive for smaller companies.

Noam B, Founder, Media Production, January 2023 · Capterra

Which costs sit outside the Firefish subscription?

Firefish publishes its non-subscription cost lines in its terms of service, last updated September 2025. Record storage is metered, and exports beyond the first are charged. So are restores. Fees can rise with inflation, and leaving requires sixty days of notice.

The storage line deserves a second look.

Each subscription includes 10,000 people records, with a further 5,000 per user license. Anything beyond that allowance costs £5 per 5,000 records a month. Read that next to the product’s greatest strength and the tension is clear. The system is built to fill your database, and the database is metered by the record. Purging dead data becomes a line item rather than good housekeeping.

The exit lines matter too. Your first export is complimentary. Every later export is £650 plus VAT, and a restore inside the 28 day backup window is £550 plus VAT. Agencies usually export once, check it, then find they need a second pass. None of this is hidden. It is published in full, on a page almost nobody reads before signing.

Cost line	What Firefish publishes	When it bites
Record storage	10,000 people records per subscription, plus 5,000 per user license, then £5 per 5,000 records a month	As attraction keeps filling the database
Data export	First export complimentary, every later export £650 plus VAT	At migration, audit or exit
Data restore	£550 plus VAT, within a 28 day backup window	After a bad import or a deletion
Website SSL renewal	£110 per renewal on Professional and Enterprise recruitment websites	Every year the careers site stays live
Annual uplift	Fees may rise in line with the UK Consumer Prices Index over the preceding 12 months	At renewal
Notice to leave or cut seats	Minimum 60 days written notice, otherwise the subscription renews automatically	Two months before renewal
Seat floor	License numbers may not fall below the minimum in the signed order	When a desk closes or a team shrinks
Late payment	£30 administration fee to restore access, offboarding after 30 days unpaid	During any billing dispute

A few hidden costs, if after 3 months your workload increases and Firefish isn’t for you, you find yourself roped into a 12-month contract.

Leon T, Managing Director, Hospitality, April 2021 · Capterra

Like most SaaS businesses, our minimum subscription is 12 months and this is highlighted clearly in our terms and pricing FAQs on our website.

Response from Firefish Software, May 2021 · Capterra

What should you negotiate before signing with Firefish?

Negotiate the structure before the discount, because structure is what costs money in year two. The published terms give you the exact list of items for the signed order. A vendor that publishes its cost lines this openly can usually discuss them. Every ask below can be answered in writing.

• Fix the record allowance you actually need in the signed order, rather than meeting the overage rate in month seven
• Ask for the annual uplift to be capped or removed, rather than left tied to the Consumer Prices Index
• Set the minimum number of user licenses at the size of your smallest likely team, not your most optimistic one
• Cut the sixty day notice period, or at minimum diarize it the day you sign
• Ask for the second and third data exports free, the cheapest concession a vendor can make and the one that matters most later
• Price the add-on modules you will need in year two now, while you still have leverage
• Confirm which tier your contract or temp workflows require before accepting a Core quote
• Get the onboarding and migration scope in writing, including who cleanses the data and who signs it off

Who is Firefish a good fit for, and where is it still the better choice?

Firefish fits perm-led agencies whose pipeline comes from inbound applications and their own careers site. It suits buyers wanting one vendor for the website and the CRM. If your growth problem is attracting candidates rather than processing them, the reviews back the product up.

It is a weaker fit where the constraint is delivery speed at volume. Groups needing deep dashboard customization across multiple brands will feel the caps, and so will desks that live inside messaging apps. Geography matters as well. Firefish publishes UK support hours, Monday to Thursday 09:30 to 17:30 and Friday 09:00 to 16:30. That suits a UK agency and leaves an APAC or West Coast desk waiting overnight.

There are cases where Firefish is the better choice, and pretending otherwise would be a disservice. A small perm agency launching a brand gets a careers site, job pages, applicant capture and a CRM from one UK supplier. An agency whose revenue depends on inbound volume gets tooling built for exactly that. Those strengths are why the rating is 4.6.

I find firefish one of the easier systems I have used during my career as a recruiter.

Rhianna B, Recruitment Consultant, Staffing and Recruiting, November 2022 · Capterra

How is Atlas structured differently for the delivery half?

The structural difference is where the AI sits. When intelligence is native rather than added on, the work after a candidate enters the database gets done by the system. The consultant stops being the integration layer. That is the design behind Atlas, an AI-powered CRM and recruitment platform that uses agentic AI to remove admin from agency workflows.

In practice that means people search across the whole database in plain language and applicant screening that grades inbound volume. An AI note taker writes the record from the call. Custom dashboards get built without a support ticket. Client-facing output is generated in the platform, so sharing a candidate shortlist stops being a Word exercise. Novify measured that as 96% faster shortlist delivery.

AI that ships inside the workflow behaves differently from AI bolted onto an existing CRM. That difference is worth understanding before any demo.

On commercial structure, Atlas is priced per seat. Modules are not sold separately, so nothing sits behind its own quote. No automatic annual uplift is written into the contract. Contract length is agreed deal by deal rather than assumed at twelve months. No Atlas price appears on this page, deliberately, because the number that matters is the one in your quote.

For agencies weighing the move, the Atlas and Firefish comparison covers feature detail. The Firefish migration playbook covers the sequence, and data migration covers how a database moves without losing history.

Frequently asked questions (FAQs) on Firefish reviews and pricing

What the desk looks like when delivery stops being manual

Firefish earns its 4.6 on attraction, support and ease of use. Any fair reading of the reviews grants it that. The open question is the second half of the job. Search, formatting, reporting and integration are where consultant hours disappear, and where the published cost lines quietly accumulate.

Picture the week once that half runs itself. The consultant who spent Thursday afternoon reformatting CVs is on the phone to a hiring manager. The shortlist that took three days goes out the same morning. The database updates itself instead of waiting for somebody to remember. Atlas is built to deliver that shift, through agentic AI that clears the admin in the background.

Worth an hour of your time if delivery, rather than attraction, is what your desks are short of.

Sources checked August 2026: the Capterra Firefish reviews listing and the Firefish pricing page. Also the Firefish terms of service, last updated September 2025 and the Firefish Search and Match module page.