Build an Applicant Tracking System for Startups
Track every candidate, run founder screens, and move fast without spreadsheets. Launch a custom hiring pipeline with Kleap. Free to start.
16,198+ sites created with Kleap in the last 30 days
A working app, not a template
What it is
An ATS for startups is a lightweight web app where every candidate becomes a record and moves through a simple hiring pipeline — from application to founder interview to offer — without the cost or setup of enterprise recruiting software.
What your startups applicant tracking tracks
Every field below is one you can add, rename, or remove by chatting with Kleap — a starting point tuned for startups.
Candidate name
The core record identity that ties together every note, stage, and decision for one applicant.
Role applied for
Links the candidate to a specific open req — essential when a 10-person team is hiring for engineering, sales, and ops at the same time.
Source
Where the candidate came from (referral, founder network, inbound) so you can see which scrappy channels actually produce hires at seed stage.
Pipeline stage
Applied → Screen → Founder interview → Team interview → Offer → Hired, giving a one-glance view of who is where without a spreadsheet.
Salary expectation
Captured early so you can sanity-check against a tight cash runway before investing hours in interviews.
Equity expectation
Early candidates often weigh equity heavily; storing their range up front avoids a blown offer at the finish line.
Referred by
Records which team member vouched for them, since referrals dominate hiring in the first 20 employees.
Interview feedback
Free-text scorecards from the founder and early employees, kept on the record so a decision has an audit trail.
Decision status
Advance / Hold / Reject with a reason, so a fast-moving founder never loses track of who was passed on and why.
What good looks like for startups
One app, a view for everyone
Founder / CEO
Pipeline velocity, culture and mission fit, salary/equity fit against runway, and closing the few top candidates.
Hiring manager (team lead)
Skill match, feedback turnaround, keeping the interview load light, and a realistic start date.
Early employee interviewer
A clear scorecard to fill out, candidate quality, and not being pulled into interviews with unqualified applicants.
Buy a tool, or own one built for you
Off-the-shelf software makes you fit its mold. With Kleap you describe the applicant tracking you actually want and own it outright.
A typical applicant tracking
- Monthly per-seat fees that grow with your team
- Your data lives on their servers, in their format
- Fixed features — you adapt to the tool, not the reverse
- Generic, not shaped around startups
Built with Kleap
- Free to start — no per-seat pricing
- You own the app and its database, data stays yours
- Change anything by chatting — fields, views, workflow
- Shaped around how startups actually works
Build it in 3 steps
Describe it
Tell Kleap what your startups needs, in plain words.
AI builds it
Get a real working app with records, forms, and a dashboard.
Publish
Refine it in chat, then publish. It is a live app you own.
Frequently asked questions
How is this different from a hiring spreadsheet?+
A spreadsheet has no stages, no per-candidate notes history, and breaks down the moment two people edit it. An ATS keeps each applicant as a structured record moving through a pipeline, so the whole team sees the same live view without version conflicts.
Can candidates apply directly into it?+
Yes — you build a web application form that writes each submission straight into your candidate database as a new record. You share that form link on your own channels; the app is your system of record, not a job-board that posts listings for you.
Do we need a recruiter to run it?+
No. It's built so a founder or ops lead can manage a handful of open roles alone — add candidates, move them through stages, drop in interview notes, and mark a decision, all in the browser.
Can we track equity and salary expectations in one place?+
Yes. Both are fields on the candidate record, so you can filter out anyone above your band before scheduling interviews and avoid discovering a mismatch only at the offer stage.
More Applicant Tracking System use cases
Ready to build it?
Describe your startups applicant tracking and watch it come to life. Free to start, no code.