A sensible shortlist for a UK recruitment agency is HireAra, Allsorter, Daxtra Styler, CVFormatter and FormaCV, our own product. Which one wins depends on three things: your ATS, how you meet UK GDPR when you anonymise and share CVs, and whether your volume is steady enough to justify a subscription over paying per CV.
What UK agencies should check first
Disclosure: FormaCV is our product and appears in the shortlist below. Everything said about other vendors comes from their published pricing and our side-by-side comparison pages, and we say where they are the better fit.
- UK GDPR and anonymisation: a CV is personal data, and the agency stays the controller when a tool processes it. Look for a signed DPA, anonymisation that removes identifiers consistently, and an audit log showing who generated each CV.
- Data residency: ask where CVs are processed and stored, which sub-processors see them, and how long copies are kept.
- ATS integration: the tools below most often integrate with Bullhorn, JobAdder and Vincere. Write-back to the candidate record matters more than a long logo wall.
- Currency: some vendors bill in pounds, others in dollars or euros, and a foreign-currency price moves with the exchange rate.
- Per-CV versus per-seat economics: the cheapest model depends on how many people format and how steady your volume is. There is a worked example further down.
The UK shortlist
| Tool | Published pricing | Currency | ATS integrations | Best fit |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| HireAra (The Access Group) | £180–£950/month + VAT, tiered by candidates per year; Enterprise on quote | GBP | Bullhorn, JobAdder, Vincere | Mid-to-large agencies with steady volume that also want spec documents and candidate microsites |
| Allsorter | Custom quote | Quote | Deep Bullhorn integration | Enterprise agencies and RPOs that need ISO 27001 today |
| Daxtra Styler | Custom quote | Quote | Bullhorn, custom | Multilingual enterprises already on Daxtra's parser |
| CVFormatter | $79/month (100 resume credits) or $299/month (500) | USD | JobAdder (its deepest), Bullhorn, Vincere | JobAdder-first teams that translate CVs |
| FormaCV (ours) | $0.99 per CV, no seats or minimums | USD | Bullhorn, JobAdder, Vincere | Variable volume, call transcripts, teams using MCP |
| RemakeCV | $25/user/month billed annually, 30 credits per user | USD | On the Enterprise plan | Small teams that prefer per-seat billing |
| CV-Transformer | Monthly plan with a candidate allowance, then a fee per extra candidate | EUR | JobAdder, Salesforce, Greenhouse; Bullhorn not listed | EU-leaning agencies with steady volume |
| Formatix.AI | £20–£200/month credit plans; credits never expire | GBP | Claims Bullhorn, Workday, Greenhouse and 20+ more | Small UK teams wanting a low GBP subscription |
Prices are as each vendor published them when we last checked, so confirm current terms before you buy. For the full review, with strengths and weaknesses for each product, read the 12 best CV formatting tools.
Per-CV or per-seat: a worked example
Take a 10-recruiter agency where every recruiter formats their own CVs, 150 a month in total, priced on each vendor's cheapest published plan that covers the volume:
| Model | Plan | Monthly cost | Per CV |
|---|---|---|---|
| Per CV | FormaCV at $0.99 | $148.50 | $0.99 |
| Per seat | RemakeCV, 10 users at $25 | $250 | $1.67 |
| Credits | CVFormatter $299 (the $79 plan covers 100) | $299 | $1.99 |
| Candidate tier | HireAra Scale (1,800 a year exceeds Starter's 1,500) | £450 + VAT | £3.00 |
Change the inputs and the order changes. At a steady 500 CVs a month, CVFormatter's $299 plan works out at about $0.60 per CV, well under $0.99, provided every credit gets used. HireAra's plans also include spec documents and candidate microsites, so that row is not a like-for-like comparison. As a rule, per-CV pricing suits variable volume and teams where only some people format; flat plans suit high, predictable volume. Put your own numbers into the CV formatting cost calculator to see what manual formatting costs you today.
Where FormaCV fits, and where others are stronger
FormaCV is CV formatting software that formats a CV in about 60 seconds for $0.99, with no per-seat fees or minimums and a 30-day free trial that needs no credit card. It takes PDF, DOCX, DOC, TXT, LinkedIn exports and call transcripts from Otter, Fireflies, Gong or Fathom, works in 40+ languages, and applies GDPR anonymisation with an audit log. It offers EU data residency, signs a DPA with each customer, and integrates with Bullhorn, JobAdder and Vincere.
Others win in places. Allsorter and HireAra hold ISO 27001 today, which some procurement teams require. HireAra adds candidate microsites. HireAra and Formatix.AI price in pounds, while FormaCV bills in dollars. And FormaCV's Capterra rating is 4.8/5 from only 5 reviews, a much smaller base than the established vendors have. Our FormaCV vs HireAra and FormaCV vs Allsorter pages go into detail.
How to run a fair trial
Pick two or three tools that pass the checks above. Run the same 20 real CVs through each, including a scan and an unusual layout, and time every one from upload to client-ready. Then produce a blind version, push it to your ATS and look at what the audit log recorded. Choose the one that saves the most time on your own documents at your usual volume.