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Guide vs Goodtime

Everything GoodTime does. Inside your ATS

Guide builds the panel, catches declines before you wake up, and emails candidates as you, not as a robot. All from inside Greenhouse and Ashby.

Trusted by talent teams at:
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product screenshot
On this page:
Features
The ask
Side by side
Setup
Pricing
The pick
FAQs

Why teams switch

Three reasons to choose Guide over GoodTime

Coordination that lives in your ATS

GoodTime syncs with your ATS. Guide runs inside it, through a deep Chrome extension your team opens in the tab they already have open.

  • No second dashboard for your coordinators to learn

  • Recruiters and interviewers each get a native portal

  • Reporting filters by every attribute already in your ATS

Automation you can dial, per workflow

Choose how much Aria does on its own. Approve each action while you build trust, or let it run and step in only when something needs you.

  • Copilot: Aria proposes, you approve, edit or swap

  • Your setting never changes a teammate's

  • Ask in plain language for a break or an interviewer swap

Three notifications about coding challenge interviews, including declined interview and email scheduling options.

A candidate experience, not a template

Scheduling emails send as the recruiter, not as an AI. Candidates get your team's voice and branding, even when Aria did all the work.

  • Every message links to a branded, persistent portal

  • Bios and prep that make a strong first impression

  • One portal that stays correct as dates change

From the reviews

What GoodTime users ask for

We read 50 public GoodTime reviews. Most are positive. Four requests recur, and they're design decisions rather than bugs.

The ask

The template tax

The most consistent theme, and it comes from happy users. Reviewers call the product excellent once templates and interviewer pools are configured. Several say that upfront work is hard to justify for unique or lower-volume roles.

6 of 50 reviews, 2020 to 2026

How Guide handles it

Templates, but not template-first

Guide pulls your ATS interview anatomy by default, covering interviews, stages and interviewers, then layers scheduling logic like pools, tags and room rules on top. Rec Ops can configure plans centrally. Or a recruiter configures inline on the first request, and Guide offers to save it only if it repeats.

The ask

Manual override

Reviewers who love the automation still describe moments where the algorithm doesn't know best, or a time arrives from outside the tool. The request isn't less automation. It's a clean way to step in for the one candidate who needs it.

4 of 50 reviews, 2020 to 2026

How Guide handles it

An automation posture per workflow

Copilot means Aria proposes and you approve, edit, swap interviewers or take over in the full calendar view. Autopilot executes after 20 seconds. Defaults sit at task, job and org level. Org settings cascade, and an end user can still override.

The ask

Candidate emails that read human

One coordinator avoids the tool for executive roles because the emails candidates receive read as robotic, and senior hires need a personal touch. Others ask for the video link inside the confirmation, and for candidates to submit more than one availability block.

5 of 50 reviews, 2020 to 2026

How Guide handles it

Sent as the recruiter, not the robot

Scheduling emails go out under the recruiter's identity. Aria's automation preserves the candidate experience your team already has. Every message links back to a branded portal holding the live schedule, bios, prep by stage, video links, and an inbox with stage-level history.

The ask

Decline and reschedule reporting

Reviewers describe reschedule data as messy, and decline notifications arriving inconsistently between inbox and dashboard. More than one simply asks for more data points to pull.

4 of 50 reviews, 2020 to 2026

How Guide handles it

Reschedules are reported, not reconstructed

The dashboard slices by job, stage and department, covering queue time, reschedules, swaps, admin changes and reasons. Interviewer reporting carries decline rates, RSVP rates, no-shows, notice time and leaderboards. CSV export included.

SOURCE: 50 public GoodTime reviews on G2, Sept 2020 to Aug 2026. Themes paraphrased, not quoted.

“We used to spend a crazy amount of time juggling calendars. Guide freed up countless hours a week for us and significantly increased the bandwidth of our coordinators”
Stephanie Lehman, Recruiting Manager at Glossier

At a glance

Side by side

Every row is verifiable from public documentation. Sources are listed at the foot of this page.

Automation Guide GoodTime
AI agent Aria Cori
What triggers it ATS stage change, candidate availability, interviewer decline, or manual start. Configured workflows in the Orchestra agent system.
Manual control Copilot approves each action. Autopilot self-executes after 20 seconds. Automation configured per workflow.
Role setup ATS anatomy pulled by default. Save a template only when the role repeats. Templates and interviewer pools configured per role.
Where the work happens
Recruiter workspace Inside Greenhouse or Ashby, via a deep Chrome extension. GoodTime's own app, plus a browser extension.
Interviewer portal Upcoming interviews, history and personal load.
On-call awareness PagerDuty excludes on-call interviewers, with override.
Candidate experience
Candidate portal Live schedule, bios, prep unlocking by stage, stage-level inbox. Company and process overview, set at org or job level.
Message identity Sends as the recruiter, not an AI identity. Dynamic templates from the platform.
Channels Email and candidate portal inbox. Email, SMS and WhatsApp.
Feedback Pulse surveys, plus Live Surveys held anonymously until a decision. Pulse surveys after each interview.
Reporting
Scheduling metrics Queue time, reschedules, swaps, admin changes and reasons, by job and stage. Team and interviewer reporting.
Interviewer metrics Decline and RSVP rates, no-shows, notice time, leaderboards. Interviewer metrics and NPS.

Setup

Three steps to your first scheduled interview

Figures below come from live Guide deployments at roughly 300 to 500 FTE.

Your team's setup time

~8 hours

Onboarding

~3 weeks
1

Connect and sync

Experience the power of a true storytelling with unified collateral that helps you deliver the right brand content at the right time.

2

Set your defaults

You tell Guide how your interviews usually run once. Every new role inherits those rules instead of starting from scratch.

3

Launch and pilot

Guide builds scheduling plans for the roles you're hiring, reviews your candidate portal, and train your coordinators before you go live.

“I've never seen anything like this before. Guide is more automated than any tool we've used in the past. We're huge fans.”
Kimberly Prelosky, Senior Manager of TA Operations at Duolingo

Pricing

One number versus a quote

The models differ more than the prices do. One scales with your company, the other with your hiring spikes.

Flat, by headcount

Priced on full-time headcount, not candidate or interview volume.

  • Every seat and module included: portal, messaging, reporting

  • No add-ons

  • No mid-contract true-ups when hiring spikes

  • Price changes only at renewal

  • 30-day opt-out, no invoice until day 60

Custom quote

Tiered by candidate volume, with capabilities sold separately.

  • SMS and WhatsApp priced as add-ons

  • Applicant screening priced as an add-on

  • Deeper automation priced as an add-on

  • Bill tends to rise with hiring volume

  • Suits teams assembling modules à la carte

The scenario worth modelling

A 500-person company hiring 40 roles this year and 120 next year pays Guide the same either way, because price follows headcount.

The honest recommendation

Which one to choose

Choose Guide if

  • You run Greenhouse or Ashby on Google Workspace and want coordination inside your ATS

  • You want automation you can dial per workflow, with a manual escape hatch at any point

  • Candidate experience is a priority and you want a persistent branded portal, not just a good email

  • Your req mix includes one-off or executive roles that don't justify a template up front

  • You want flat, predictable pricing with no volume true-ups

Choose GoodTime if

  • You run Microsoft 365, Outlook or Teams. Guide does not support it as of August 2026

  • You run Workday, Lever, iCIMS, SuccessFactors, SmartRecruiters or Jobvite

  • SMS or WhatsApp outreach is central to how your team communicates

  • You want built-in applicant screening from the same vendor as scheduling

  • You hire at very high volume, where bulk scheduling matters more than per-candidate polish

FAQ

Questions we get asked

Is Guide a good alternative to GoodTime?

Does Guide work with Outlook or Microsoft Teams?

Does Guide require setting up templates for each role?

Can I schedule manually in Guide when I need to?

What triggers Aria?

How long does Guide take to implement?

Does Guide offer applicant screening or SMS?

How is Guide priced compared to GoodTime?

Methodology

How we compared these

Every claim about GoodTime comes from its own public documentation, product pages, press releases or public user reviews, checked on the dates below. Review themes are paraphrased and counted, never presented as individual endorsements. If something here is wrong, email

  1. goodtime.io product, Cori and integrations pages, checked 26 Aug 2026.
  2. GoodTime press release, Cori launch, 12 May 2026.
  3. G2, 50 GoodTime reviews, Sept 2020 to Aug 2026, retrieved 26 Aug 2026.
  4. guide.co product documentation, pricing and customer deployments, 25 Aug 2026.