# Karat review (2026): is it worth it? > Expert-run technical interviews for hiring and contractor vetting Checked Nov 13, 2026 ยท graded Nov 13, 2026 by ToolGPA. Karat provides technical interviews conducted by its own trained Interview Engineers, so a company's candidates are measured against one bar instead of by whichever employee is free. It also covers contractor and IT vendor vetting, and evaluating AI skills in engineers. - **Category:** Hiring & Applicant Tracking - **Made by:** Karat - **Website:** https://karat.com - **Runs on:** Web - **Who should skip it:** Skip it if you want a self-serve test library, because this is a delivered service. - **Facts last checked:** Nov 13, 2026 ## Pricing Karat's current pricing could not be confirmed from its own site. ## Key features - **Interview Engineers:** Trained interviewers assess every candidate the same way, so hiring data is comparable across teams and locations. - **Direct Hiring:** Technical interviews for a company's own engineering hires, applying a consistent technical bar everywhere. - **Partner Talent:** The same evaluation applied to contractors and IT service providers before they join projects. - **AI Readiness:** Live AI-native scenarios used to assess whether incoming or current engineers work well with AI tools. - **Hiring Insights:** Benchmarks drawn from the vendor's pool of more than 600,000 technical interviews it says it has run. ## Good for - Large engineering orgs that want interviews run by a third party - Companies vetting contractors or IT service vendors - Teams short on engineer time for interviewing ## Worth knowing - No prices are published: the site directs buyers to request a consult, and its pricing path returns an error. - It is a service delivered by Karat's interviewers, not a self-serve test library. - Product pages are built for enterprise buyers; no free plan or trial is mentioned. ## ToolGPA grades **GPA: 1.6 out of 4**, graded Nov 13, 2026. Karat sends its own trained Interview Engineers to interview your candidates, so they're all held to one bar. It's a service, not software you log into and run yourself, no price is published, and the pricing page returns an error. - **Value for money: C.** No price is published, so we can't set it against the $74 to $149 a month this category charges. That leaves it at C. - **Free plan and trial: F.** No free plan and no trial is listed; the site routes you to a demo. A demo request isn't a trial. - **Features: C.** Interviews by Karat's engineers, plus contractor vetting and AI-skill evaluation. It's a service rather than a test library, so it covers a smaller job than a full platform. - **Ease of use: C.** No store rating on record, and the listing shows a service you arrange through a consult. That puts it at C. - **Platforms and integrations: C.** Web only, with no separate app on record. One kind of device, so C. These are ToolGPA's own grades. Graded from this listing, whose facts were read from Karat'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 - Karat's GPA of 1.6 is higher than 6 of the 101 other hiring and applicant tracking tools we grade, and level with 23. - It stands best on value for money (C, above 12 of 101) and worst on free plan and trial (F, above 0). The category's chart of price against score: https://toolgpa.com/charts/hiring ## Keep it, or make your own? **Keep it.** The plain part of Karat you could make: reports. What surrounds it you could not. The 2 things listed below take a company, not a weekend. That makes this kind of software worth paying for, not this one in particular: 72 of the 101 other hiring and applicant tracking tools grade higher. - You could make: Reports: an app builder makes this well. - You could not: A library of tested questions with scores to compare candidates by. - 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:** Skills tests, AI features, Reports ## Alternatives - [HackerRank](https://toolgpa.com/tools/hackerrank): Coding assessments, pair-programming interviews and an AI interviewer. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/hackerrank-vs-karat) - [CoderPad](https://toolgpa.com/tools/coderpad): Coding assessments and live technical interviews with AI in the editor. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/coderpad-vs-karat) - [CodeSignal](https://toolgpa.com/tools/codesignal): Coding and skills assessments with AI interviewers. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/codesignal-vs-karat) - [Codility](https://toolgpa.com/tools/codility): Technical screening and live coding interviews. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/codility-vs-karat) - [interviewing.io](https://toolgpa.com/tools/interviewing-io): Hire engineers who passed anonymous mock technical interviews. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/interviewing-io-vs-karat) ## Sources The prices, plans, platforms and features above were read from these pages on Nov 13, 2026: - https://karat.com/ Page: https://toolgpa.com/tools/karat Listed by ToolGPA (toolgpa.com).