# Handshake review (2026): is the free plan enough? > Early-career hiring network with free job posting Checked Nov 13, 2026 ยท graded Nov 13, 2026 by ToolGPA. Handshake is a career network that connects employers with students, recent graduates and alumni through university partnerships. Employers can post jobs for free, message candidates from a dashboard and pay for promoted jobs, a Pro plan or a sales-led Enterprise plan. The employer side includes campus events, applicant management and analytics. - **Category:** Hiring & Applicant Tracking - **Made by:** Handshake - **Website:** https://joinhandshake.com - **Runs on:** Web - **Who should skip it:** Skip it if you want to hire experienced staff, since the pool is early-career. - **Facts last checked:** Nov 13, 2026 ## Pricing As of Nov 13, 2026, Handshake has a free plan, and paid plans start at $450 per month. - **Pricing model:** Free plan - **Free plan:** Basic: free job posting, 10 candidate messages a month and a simple company presence. - **Free trial:** None listed. | Plan | Price | What you get | | --- | --- | --- | | Basic | $0 | Unlimited job posting, 10 messages a month and a simple company presence. Promoted jobs from $34 a day as an add-on. | | Pro | $450 per month | 200 messages a month, AI applicant tools, team collaboration, automation and 3 promoted-job days a month that roll over. | | Enterprise | Custom | Unlimited messaging, 50+ filters, ATS integration, event support and funnel analytics. Annual plan, sold through sales. | Read from https://joinhandshake.com/employers/pricing/ on Nov 13, 2026. Prices change, so confirm with Handshake before buying. ## Key features - **Early-career talent pool:** Jobs reach a network the vendor puts at 30 million job seekers, including alumni, master's and PhD students, through 1,600+ university partners. - **Candidate messaging:** Message candidates from the dashboard: 10 a month on Basic, 200 on Pro and a custom volume on Enterprise. - **Talent matches and filters:** Pro shows up to 100 matches per job and filters by school year, major, GPA, skills and location. Enterprise unlocks 50+ filters. - **Promoted jobs:** A paid boost for visibility. Basic and Pro buy it as an add-on from $34 a day, and Enterprise includes custom promotion. - **Events and school connections:** Enterprise adds custom school lists, career fair and event promotion across schools, and messaging to attendees before and after. - **Analytics:** Campaign analytics on Pro, and full-funnel dashboard reports on how the hiring team is performing on Enterprise. ## Good for - Employers hiring interns and new graduates - Small teams that want to post a job for free - Large employers running campus recruiting programs ## Worth knowing - Basic allows only 10 candidate messages a month. - Pro's page does not say whether $450 a month is billed monthly or annually. - ATS and XML integrations, school search and premium support are Enterprise-only. - Promoted jobs are an extra cost on Basic and Pro, starting at $34 a day. ## ToolGPA grades **GPA: 2.0 out of 4**, graded Nov 13, 2026. Handshake lets employers post jobs free to its early-career network, with 10 candidate messages a month, and Pro is $450 a month. It targets students and recent graduates, and ATS integrations are Enterprise only. - **Value for money: D.** Pro is $450 a month, above the dearest tenth of hiring tools, and promoted jobs cost extra from $34 a day. Basic is free. - **Free plan and trial: B.** Basic gives unlimited job posts, 10 messages a month and a company presence, and an occasional hirer could live on it. - **Features: C.** Early-career talent pool, messaging, matches, promoted jobs, events and analytics. 50+ filters and ATS integration are Enterprise only. - **Ease of use: C.** No rating on record. You set up a company profile and post roles. - **Platforms and integrations: C.** A web service, with integrations only on the Enterprise plan. These are ToolGPA's own grades. Graded from this listing, whose facts were read from Handshake's own pages on 13 November 2026. Not based on using the product, and shorter than our full reviews. ## Where it stands among hiring and applicant tracking tools - Handshake's GPA of 2.0 is higher than 54 of the 101 other hiring and applicant tracking tools we grade, and level with 21. - It stands best on free plan and trial (B, above 97 of 101) and worst on value for money (D, above 0). - Its paid plans start at $450 a month, against a middle price of $99 for the category: 39 of the 42 others that charge start lower. - On features, ease of use and platforms it scores 2.0 out of 4. 33 tools score higher and cost less. The category's chart of price against score: https://toolgpa.com/charts/hiring ## Keep it, or make your own? **Keep it.** To replace Handshake you would be making jobs posted to dozens of job boards at once, which takes an agreement with each board. That is not a weekend's work, with an AI app builder or without one. It costs $5,400 a year. - You could make: Applicant tracking and reports: an app builder makes these well. - You could not: Jobs posted to dozens of job boards at once, which takes an agreement with each board. - You could not: AI features, unless you pay a model provider for each request yourself. A judgement by ToolGPA from this listing, by rules that are the same for every tool. Nothing was built to test it. **Tags:** Job board posting, Applicant tracking, AI features, Reports ## Alternatives - [Wellfound](https://toolgpa.com/tools/wellfound): Startup job board with AI sourcing and recruiter service. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/handshake-vs-wellfound) - [Indeed](https://toolgpa.com/tools/indeed): Job search site with free and sponsored job posts for employers. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/handshake-vs-indeed) - [Monster](https://toolgpa.com/tools/monster): Job promotion and resume search on Monster and CareerBuilder. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/handshake-vs-monster) - [Betterteam](https://toolgpa.com/tools/betterteam): Job posting to many boards, priced by active jobs. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/betterteam-vs-handshake) ## Sources The prices, plans, platforms and features above were read from these pages on Nov 13, 2026: - https://joinhandshake.com/employers/pricing/ - https://joinhandshake.com/employers/ - https://joinhandshake.com/ Page: https://toolgpa.com/tools/handshake Listed by ToolGPA (toolgpa.com).