TestGorilla Pricing in 2026What a candidate assessment really costs you
The published number is $142 a month. The number that matters is what you pay per candidate after unused credits expire, and those two figures can be four times apart.
TestGorilla plans, July 2026
Listed prices are annual commitments billed upfront
Free
$0
forever
- 10 credits / month
- 1 seat
- 5 essential tests only
Core
$1,704
per year, paid upfront
- 250 credits / year
- 2 full-access seats
- No ATS integration, no API
Plus
from $4,800
per year, paid upfront
- Scales with volume
- Unlimited seats
- Where integrations live
Enterprise
Custom
talk to sales
- Negotiated
- Unlimited seats
- Validation and security review
The sticker price is the least interesting number
Most pricing pages want you to compare tiers. TestGorilla's does its job well enough: four plans, clear feature splits, a genuinely usable free option. Look at thepublished pricing pageand you see $142 a month for Core, $400 a month for Plus, and you think you understand the decision.
You do not, because assessment software is not priced per month. It is priced per candidate, and the per-candidate number is hidden inside a credit system with an expiry date. I have watched teams sign a $1,704 contract, screen 70 people, and quietly pay $24 a head for something they thought cost seven.
This post does the arithmetic TestGorilla does not put on the page. If you are earlier in the evaluation, our guide topre-employment testingcovers whether you need assessments at all, andthe best TestGorilla alternativeslines up the competing platforms. We ran the same exercise onHackerRank pricinglast week and the pattern was identical.
One note on accuracy before we start. Figures here come from TestGorilla's own pricing page and help documentation as of July 2026. Third-party listings onCapterraandG2currently show a monthly rate of $135 and a credit allocation of 400, which does not match what the vendor publishes. Aggregators lag. Check the vendor page yourself before you sign anything.
Mechanic 1
How the credit system actually burns
Every paid TestGorilla plan runs on credits rather than seats or job slots. The unit is simple on paper and slippery in practice.
1 credit
One candidate takes an assessment containing up to five skills tests.
+1 credit
Add a one-way AI video interview question and that candidate now costs two credits.
0 rollover
Credits expire when the contract year ends, including extra credits you paid for mid-year.
Plus only
ATS integrations and API access sit above Core, so Core workflows run on manual exports.
The video interview surcharge catches people. A modern screening flow usually pairs a skills test with a short recorded question, because reading a score without hearing the person think is thin evidence. Build that flow and your 250-credit plan is a 125-candidate plan. Nobody tells you this at signup. You find out in March when the balance looks wrong.
Expiry is the second trap. TestGorilla'scredit documentationconfirms that unused credits die at the end of the contract period, and that includes top-up credits you bought three weeks earlier. Core customers can buy up to 20,000 credits in a contract year, which sounds generous until you notice that buying late in the year means buying something with a short shelf life.
Hiring is lumpy. Almost every company I have worked with runs one heavy quarter and one dead one. A credit model with hard expiry charges you for the dead quarter and gives you nothing back. If your headcount plan slips a quarter, and headcount plans always slip a quarter, the credits slip with it and then vanish.
Mechanic 2
The per-candidate math nobody publishes
Core is $1,704 a year for 250 credits. Divide one by the other and you get $6.82 per candidate, which is a good price for a skills assessment. That number is only true if you spend every credit. Here is what happens when you do not.
What one candidate actually costs on Core
$1,704 divided by credits you genuinely use, not credits you bought
250 of 250 credits
Every credit spent
$6.82 / candidate
200 of 250 credits
Steady hiring year
$8.52 / candidate
150 of 250 credits
Typical SMB usage
$11.36 / candidate
100 of 250 credits
Two or three roles
$17.04 / candidate
60 of 250 credits
One hiring push
$28.40 / candidate
Leftover credits expire at the end of your contract year. Nothing carries forward.
The uncomfortable calculation
Your first 120 candidates are free, so what is Core buying?
Run this one slowly, because it changes the decision for a lot of small teams.
The Free forever plan gives you 10 credits a month. Use them every month and that is 120 candidate assessments a year for zero dollars. Core gives you 250 credits for $1,704. So the paid plan is not selling you 250 assessments. It is selling you 130 assessments beyond what you already had, at a marginal cost of $13.11 each.
Core also unlocks the full 350-plus test library and a second seat, and those are real. If you need role-specific tests rather than the five essential ones, or two people need to review results, the upgrade justifies itself on features. My view is that most teams under 50 employees should run the free plan hard for two quarters first, hit an actual wall, and then buy against the wall they hit. Buying in advance of a constraint you have not met is how software budgets get bloated.
The monthly cadence is a genuine limitation worth naming. Ten credits a month does not stack, so a free-plan team hiring in a burst cannot bank three quiet months and spend 30 credits in April. If your hiring is spiky rather than steady, the free plan breaks before the credit total suggests it should.
Either way, the assessment is only as good as the process around it.Google re:Workfound structured evaluation predicts performance far better than unstructured conversation, which is the entire argument for testing in the first place. If your scorecards are loose, a paid assessment tier will not save you. Fixstructured interviewsfirst.
Mechanic 3
The $3,096 gap between Core and Plus
Core is $1,704. Plus starts at $4,800. The jump is $3,096 a year, and what sits on the other side of it decides whether Core is viable for you at all.
1. ATS integrations and API access
This is the one that matters. On Core, TestGorilla is a standalone island. You send invites from one system, results land in another, and somebody reconciles them by hand. If you run anyapplicant tracking systemat all, Core creates the exact double-entry problem you bought an ATS to eliminate.
2. Unlimited seats
Core gives you two full-access seats. Hiring managers who want to read a candidate's test results directly are the third, fourth, and fifth person. Same trap we mapped inour breakdown of per-seat ATS pricing: the better your process gets, the more people need access, and the more the model punishes you for it.
3. Custom coding challenges and job simulations
Technical teams almost always want their own challenges rather than library defaults. Those live on Plus. If you are hiring engineers and you care about test relevance, Core is not really an option, which narrows the actual comparison to Plus at $4,800 against dedicated technical platforms.
4. Removing TestGorilla branding
Small thing, real thing. Candidates notice when your assessment is visibly somebody else's product. Whether that is worth part of $3,096 is your call, but it belongs in the calculation rather than in the footnotes.
Plus does not publish its credit allocation. The page says it scales with hiring needs, which means a sales conversation and a quote you cannot benchmark in advance. Ask for the credit number in writing before you compare anything, because a $4,800 plan with 500 credits and a $4,800 plan with 2,000 credits are completely different products.
Screening without the credit meter
Prepzo bundles AI screening and AI interviews into one plan with unlimited users. No per-candidate credits to ration, no expiry date on what you paid for.
See Prepzo pricingMarket context
How TestGorilla compares per candidate
Per-candidate cost is the only fair way to compare assessment vendors, since they all package the same underlying thing differently. Here is where TestGorilla lands against the platforms buyers usually shortlist alongside it.
| Vendor | Per candidate | Commitment model | What it means |
|---|---|---|---|
| TestGorilla Core | $6.82 to $28.40 | Annual upfront, credits expire | Cheap at full use, expensive when you under-hire |
| Adaface | $4 to $9 | Annual credit plan | Lowest published per-candidate band in this group |
| TestDome | $7 to $20 | Prepaid packs, no expiry | Packs never expire, so utilization risk sits at zero |
| HackerRank Starter | $16.50 | Annual, 60 attempts, 1 login | Engineering depth, weakest volume economics |
Notice what TestDome is doing. Prepaid packs that never expire remove utilization risk entirely, and they charge a premium for it at the small end. That is an honest trade: pay more per candidate, waste nothing. TestGorilla takes the opposite position, cheaper per candidate on paper with the risk pushed onto you.
Adaface undercuts everyone on the published band. Whether $4 per candidate holds at your volume is a question for their sales team, but it sets the floor you should be negotiating against.
If you are running the wider shortlist, our comparisons ofAI resume screening toolsandATS platforms with built-in AI featuresare worth reading before you buy assessments as a separate line item. A lot of teams buy a standalone assessment tool and then discover their ATS already screens well enough.
Buyer guidance
Which plan fits which team
Under 15 people, two or three hires a year
Stay free
120 credits a year covers you. The five essential tests handle generalist roles fine. Revisit when hiring goes spiky.
15 to 60 people, 150 or more candidates assessed a year, no ATS
Core works
At 150 credits you are paying $11.36 per candidate for the full test library. Reasonable, provided you actually hit that volume.
Any size, running an ATS you care about
Plus or nothing
Core has no integration path. Manual reconciliation costs more in recruiter hours than the $3,096 upgrade does in cash.
Engineering-heavy hiring
Compare Plus against specialists
Custom coding challenges are Plus-only, so benchmark $4,800 against HackerRank, Codility, and Adaface rather than against Core.
Genuinely lumpy hiring, one big push a year
Look at non-expiring packs
Credit expiry is the wrong model for burst hiring. TestDome-style prepaid packs match the demand curve better.
One compliance note that applies whichever tier you pick. TheEEOC guidance on employment tests and selection proceduresis clear that any test used to screen candidates must be job-related and consistent with business necessity. A cheap credit does not make a badly chosen test defensible. Pick tests that map to the actual job, and document why.
Frame the whole spend against yourcost per hire. If assessments cut even one bad hire a year, $1,704 is trivially worth it. That is the comparison that should decide this, not whether $142 a month feels cheap.
Verdict
The bottom line on TestGorilla pricing
TestGorilla is fairly priced for a team that hires steadily and uses what it buys. At full Core utilization, $6.82 per candidate for a 350-test library is competitive with anything on the market. The free tier is unusually generous and I would rather see a vendor do that than run a 14-day trial and a wall.
The honest criticism is the shape of the contract, not the price. Annual upfront payment, no monthly option, credits that expire, and a video interview surcharge that halves your effective allowance all push risk toward the buyer. That is a defensible commercial choice. It is also the reason the number on the pricing page and the number on your cost-per-hire report will not match.
So do the boring thing before you sign. Take your realistic candidate count for the next twelve months, halve it if you plan to use video questions, divide $1,704 by that figure, and decide whether you like the answer. If the answer is above $15 a candidate, you are buying a plan sized for a company you are not yet.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much does TestGorilla cost in 2026?
TestGorilla lists four tiers. Free is $0 with 10 credits a month, one seat, and access to five essential skills tests. Core is $142 a month billed annually, which works out to $1,704 a year for 250 credits and two full-access seats. Plus starts at $400 a month billed annually, or $4,800 a year, and adds unlimited seats plus ATS integrations. Enterprise is custom. Core and Plus are both annual contracts paid upfront, with no monthly option.
Does TestGorilla have a free plan?
Yes, and it is more useful than most vendor free tiers. The Free forever plan gives you 10 credits every month, which is 120 candidate assessments a year at no cost. The limits are real though: one seat, and only the five essential skills tests rather than the full 350-plus library. For a team hiring two or three roles a year, the free plan often covers the whole need.
How do TestGorilla credits work?
One credit lets a single candidate complete one assessment containing up to five skills tests. Adding a one-way AI video interview question consumes an additional credit for that candidate, so a screen with both costs two credits. Credits do not roll over. Anything unused expires at the end of your contract year, including extra credits you bought partway through.
What is the real cost per candidate on TestGorilla Core?
It depends entirely on how many credits you burn. At full utilization, $1,704 across 250 credits is $6.82 per candidate. Use 150 credits and it becomes $11.36. Use 60 and you are paying $28.40 per candidate assessed. Because unused credits expire, your effective rate is set by your hiring volume, not by the sticker price.
Does TestGorilla Core include ATS integration?
No. ATS integrations and API access sit on the Plus plan, which starts at $4,800 a year. On Core you are moving candidate results between systems by hand. If you already run an ATS, price the Plus tier rather than Core, because the integration gap is what most buyers discover in month two.
Is TestGorilla worth it compared to Adaface or TestDome?
Adaface publishes a $4 to $9 per candidate band on annual credit plans, and TestDome sells prepaid packs from roughly $20 per candidate at the smallest pack down to $7 at the largest, with packs that never expire. TestGorilla beats both on per-candidate cost when you fully use a Core plan, and loses to both when you do not. TestDome carries the least utilization risk because nothing expires.
Stop rationing candidate screens
Prepzo runs AI screening and AI interviews inside your pipeline, with unlimited users on every plan. Screen the candidates you want to screen.
Try Prepzo freeResources & Further Reading
Related Guides
- Best TestGorilla Alternatives in 2026
Where the shortlist goes next
- HackerRank Pricing: Cost Per Assessment
The same math on technical assessments
- Pre-Employment Testing: A Practical Guide
Whether you need assessments at all
- Skills-Based Hiring in Practice
The strategy behind the tooling
External Sources
- TestGorilla: Official Pricing
Vendor source for all plan figures
- Capterra: TestGorilla Pricing & Reviews
Third-party listing and buyer reviews
- EEOC: Employment Tests and Selection Procedures
Compliance rules for candidate testing
- Google re:Work Structured Interviewing
Why structured evaluation predicts performance
