Stardex
AI-native ATS and CRM for executive search firms that ranks candidates already in your database against a new mandate.
Stardex earns its keep if your firm has years of notes, debriefs and placements sitting unsearchable. The ranked-from-your-own-database search (3 matches across 2,487 records in the vendor demo) and the MCP connector that puts that database inside Claude, ChatGPT, Manus and Gemini are the parts legacy executive search databases like Cluen and Clockwork have not matched. It is not an in-house hiring tool — if you are a corporate TA team, Greenhouse or Ashby fit better. Weigh the $79/user/month Starter and $119/user/month Pro (both 20% off yearly) against your team size; there is no free tier, only a 14-day refundable window.
Verified 10d ago · liveness 67/100 · cite: rightaichoice.com/tools/stardex
- Executive search firms with years of accumulated candidate notes and interview debriefs
- Contingent recruitment agencies that need ranked shortlists fast on each new mandate
- Teams already working inside Claude, ChatGPT or Claude Code that want their ATS reachable there
- Mid-size search firms (20+ recruiters) losing hours a week to admin and data management
- Corporate HR departments needing a full HCM, payroll or onboarding suite
- In-house recruiting teams with low-volume, simple hiring needs
- Firms with little historical candidate data — the ranked search has nothing to work from
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Skip Stardex if you are an in-house corporate recruiting team that needs an HCM, payroll or onboarding suite rather than a search-firm CRM and ranked candidate database.
Multichannel campaigns, webhooks, AI job matching, find-similar-profiles and Copilot are all locked to Pro at $119/user/month, so the $79 Starter tier is a narrower product than it first looks.
Stardex lands at $79/user/month Starter and $119/user/month Pro (both 20% off on yearly billing), with Custom quoted for AI sourcing, premium enrichment, SSO and audit logs. That sits in the same band as Greenhouse and other in-house ATS products but is priced for recruiting-firm seats, not corporate HR headcount. Teams under about ten recruiters will feel the per-seat cost; 20+ recruiter firms quoted on the site treat it as a direct swap for admin hours.
In short
Stardex — AI-native ATS and CRM for executive search firms that ranks candidates already in your database against a new mandate. Best for Executive search firms with years of accumulated candidate notes and interview debriefs, Contingent recruitment agencies that need ranked shortlists fast on each new mandate, Teams already working inside Claude, ChatGPT or Claude Code that want their ATS reachable there. Plans from $79/user/mo.
What's new in Stardex
Checked yesterdayAcross the latest 5 updates: 2 feature updates and 3 changelog entries.
Stardex Product Update #22 - Market mapping, WhatsApp, candidate nurture
Product Update #22 adds market mapping, WhatsApp outreach and candidate nurture workflows to the Stardex ATS.
Using Your ATS with Claude Code to Pull Up Detailed Reports
Stardex documents pulling detailed ATS reports via Claude Code, extending its Claude integration into reporting.
How to Use Stardex and CoRecruit for Business Development Coaching
Stardex outlines a CoRecruit-based BD coaching workflow built on top of its ATS data.
Stardex Product Update #21 - Agentic AI search, knowledge-base, email forwarding assistant
Product Update #21 ships agentic AI search, a knowledge base and an email forwarding assistant.
Stardex Product Update #20 - Overlapping candidates, BD forecasting, candidate share visibility
Product Update #20 adds overlapping-candidate detection, BD forecasting and candidate share visibility.
What people actually say about Stardex — is it worth it?
We ran a structured research pass across product reviews, community discussions, and post-purchase forum threads to surface the patterns vendors won't publish themselves. Below: the recurring strengths, the hidden costs people mention most, and the cohort that consistently regrets adopting this tool.
5 mentions across 2 sources (Bluesky, Lemmy) · researched Jul 28, 2026.
Average across the 2 sources that answered — each source counts once, not each post.
- +AI-first ATS/CRM with sub-200ms search across all data.
- +SOC 2 compliant, suitable for sensitive recruitment data.
- +Auto-tagging and summary generation from call transcripts.
- +One-click client portals streamline candidate sharing.
- +Founder-led support with rapid feature iteration.
- −Zero community reviews or user testimonials available.
- −No free trial — only a refundable first month offered.
- −Limited integration ecosystem compared to established ATS tools.
- −Brand name overlaps with unrelated products causing confusion.
- −All community data is hiring posts, not user feedback.
- • No free trial; first month is fully refundable but requires upfront payment
- • Custom tier pricing undisclosed; may have minimum seat commitments
Viability Score
How well maintained and how widely used is Stardex? Built from what the vendor actually publishes (docs, changelog, tutorials, integrations, pricing), whether the site is live, and how much real users discuss it. How we calculate this
Last calculated: October 2026
How we score →Key Features
- Instant AI search across candidate notes, emails and profiles
- Candidate ranking against a job spec with per-candidate fit reasoning
- Dex AI agent answers natural-language questions from notes and transcripts
- Background agents capture calls and update pipeline fields automatically
- AI auto-tagging and summary generation for candidate records
- Draft submission write-ups generated from recruiter data
- MCP connector for Claude, ChatGPT, Manus and Gemini
- API documented as usable with Claude Code and Codex
- Claude Skill for building competitive landscape maps
- Claude Skill for writing client-ready candidate write-ups
- Multichannel campaigns and sequences (Pro and above)
- Find similar profiles and AI target company suggestions (Pro and above)
- AI job matching for candidates (Pro and above)
- Copilot assistant (Pro and above)
- One-click client portals
About Stardex
Stardex is an AI-native ATS and CRM built for executive search and contingent recruiting firms, backed by Y Combinator. The core idea is that a search firm has interviewed thousands of people over the years, and a new mandate usually throws that history away. Stardex makes each new search start from your own records: agents rank candidates already in your database against the spec and show why each one made the cut — the vendor's own demo walks through 3 matches ranked from 2,487 records searched, with fit reasoning per person. Dex answers plain-language questions drawn from notes, emails and call transcripts (the demo shows a comp answer: $340k base, won't move below $320k, plus refresh equity, sourced from a 12 March interview debrief). Background agents capture calls, draft submission write-ups, auto-tag candidates and update pipeline fields so recruiters are not doing data entry between conversations. Around that sit one-click client portals, company enrichment and org charts, multichannel sequences on Pro, and role-based access, SSO and audit logs on Custom. Stardex also publishes Claude Skills for recruiters — one builds competitive landscape maps, another writes client-ready candidate write-ups — and blog guides on running ATS reports through Claude Code. The platform connects to Claude, ChatGPT, Manus and Gemini through an MCP connector, and its API is documented as working with Claude Code and Codex. API access and data exports are included on every plan at no extra charge. Pricing is $79/user/month on Starter and $119/user/month on Pro (20% off on yearly billing), with a Custom tier for AI sourcing, premium enrichment data and custom integrations. Stardex sits closer to a recruiting-firm CRM than a corporate HR stack: Cluen and Clockwork compete on pure executive search databases, while Greenhouse and Ashby are built for in-house hiring teams.
Behind the Verdict
Stardex is aimed at a specific gap: search firms accumulate proprietary knowledge — interview debriefs, comp conversations, client feedback — and traditional ATS products store it without ever making it searchable in a way that helps the next mandate. Stardex's answer is a ranking layer over your own database. The demo on the homepage is the clearest statement of intent: a prompt for VPs of Eng interviewed last year with Series B experience and great client feedback returns Jason Murray (94), Samir Parikh (92) and Julia Saveliff (86), each with a reason attached — 'Scaled Clay 8→60 eng, YC S21', 'Passed due to comp in '24, now open'. Critically, the negative results are shown too: Lawrence Brooks is marked not a fit with a founder referral note. That transparency is what makes a ranked shortlist usable rather than a black box. The second pillar is where the data lives. Rather than forcing recruiters into a new tab, Stardex exposes the database through an MCP connector to Claude, ChatGPT, Manus and Gemini, and documents the API as usable with Claude Code and Codex. Its blog has leaned into this hard — guides on pulling ATS reports through Claude Code (Aug 2026), a Claude Skill that builds competitive landscape maps (Jun 2026), and one that generates client-ready candidate write-ups. That is a real differentiator against Cluen and Clockwork, which remain destination databases. The third pillar is the passive capture: background agents take calls, draft submission write-ups, auto-tag candidates and push field updates from transcripts. Firms quoted on the pricing page describe exactly this — 33Eleven says 15+ hours a week previously spent on admin is now recruiting time; Kindred credits Stardex with finally making 20 years of proprietary data usable. Weak points to weigh. The ranked search is only as good as your historical data — a firm with a thin database gets little from it. Everything serious about automation sits above Starter: multichannel sequences, find-similar-profiles, target-company suggestions, webhooks, AI job matching and Copilot all require Pro at $119/user/month. Source candidates with AI, premium enrichment data, SSO, audit logs and custom integrations sit on Custom, so security-conscious or compliance-heavy firms cannot stay on a published tier. And this is a recruiting-firm CRM, not an HR suite — no HCM, payroll or corporate onboarding story.
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Real-world workflow fit
Concrete scenarios for the personas Stardex actually fits — and what changes day-one when you adopt it.
A new VP Engineering mandate lands. Instead of briefing a researcher to source from scratch, the partner runs a Dex Research Agent query against the firm's own database for VPs of Eng interviewed in the last year with Series B experience and strong client feedback.
Outcome: Agents search 2,487 records and return a ranked shortlist with fit reasoning per candidate — including flagged negatives like a prior comp decline — so the partner starts from a client-ready conversation rather than a blank sourcing brief.
The recruiter is already in Claude Code writing up a client report. Rather than switching to the ATS, they query Stardex through the MCP connector or the API to pull candidate history, comp expectations and last-conversation notes.
Outcome: The report is written from live ATS data without leaving the AI tool, and the recruiter avoids re-opening a browser tab and re-searching manually.
Preparing a pitch to a PE-backed client, the lead pairs Stardex with CoRecruit and uses Stardex's Claude Skill to build a competitive landscape map from the firm's own data.
Outcome: The pitch goes out with a data-grounded landscape view built from the firm's proprietary coverage rather than generic market research, in the time it would previously have taken to assemble slides by hand.
Use Cases
- Rank candidates already in your database against a new mandate instead of sourcing from zero.
- Ask plain-language questions about a candidate's comp expectations or last conversation without digging through notes.
- Let background agents capture calls and update pipeline fields so recruiters skip between-conversation data entry.
- Query your ATS through Claude Code to generate detailed recruiting reports.
- Build a competitive landscape map for a search using Stardex's Claude Skill.
- Generate client-ready candidate write-ups from your own recruiter data.
- Run multichannel outreach sequences and track engagement inside the ATS (Pro and above).
- Share a one-click client portal so clients see the candidate pipeline without email threads.
Models Under the Hood
as of 2026-10-03
Limitations
- Stardex is a web-based ATS and CRM for executive search and retained recruiting firms; the scrape shows no dedicated mobile or desktop app.
- The ranked-database search depends on how much relationship history your firm has recorded, so a thin database produces a thin shortlist.
- Several differentiating capabilities sit above the Starter tier: multichannel campaigns/sequences, find similar profiles with Dex AI, AI target company suggestions, webhooks, AI job matching and Copilot require Pro at $119/user/month (20% off yearly); Source candidates with AI, premium company enrichment data, access roles, SSO, audit log and custom integrations/reports require the Custom tier, which is quoted on request rather than published.
as of 2026-09-28
Verification history
We have re-verified Stardex 7 times since . Each pass re-reads the vendor's own pages and re-checks every listed field against that evidence; passes where nothing had changed are marked as such.
- — re-verified summary, description, our verdict, our analysis, pricing model, pricing tiers, features, integrations, who it suits, who should skip it
- — re-verified summary, description, our verdict, our analysis, pricing model, pricing tiers, features, integrations, who it suits, who should skip it
- — re-verified summary, description, our verdict, our analysis, pricing model, pricing tiers, features, integrations, who it suits, who should skip it
- — re-verified summary, description, our verdict, our analysis, pricing model, pricing tiers, features, integrations, who it suits, who should skip it
- — re-verified summary, description, our verdict, our analysis, pricing model, pricing tiers, features, integrations, who it suits, who should skip it
- — re-verified summary, description, our verdict, our analysis, pricing model, pricing tiers, features, integrations, who it suits, who should skip it
Showing the 6 most recent of 7 verification passes.
Free to cite with attribution — this page re-verifies continuously.
12-month cost
Project the real annual outlay, including the implied monthly cost when only an annual tier is published.
Vendor list price only. Add-on usage, seat overages, and contract minimums are surfaced under Hidden costs & gotchas.
Plans compared
For each published Stardex tier: who it actually fits, and what it adds vs. the previous tier. Cross-reference the cost calculator above for projected annual outlay.
Starter
$79/user/month (20% off yearly)
Ideal for
Small search teams or solo recruiters who mainly need searchable candidate history and a clean place to track pipeline
What this tier adds
Entry tier at $79/user/month (20% off yearly): instant AI search across notes and emails, AI auto-tagging, client portals, enrichment and org charts.
Pro
$119/user/month (20% off yearly)
Ideal for
Contingent agencies and mid-size search firms running outreach at volume on top of the ranked search
What this tier adds
Adds multichannel sequences, find similar profiles with Dex AI, AI target company suggestions, webhooks, AI job matching and Copilot.
Custom
Custom
Ideal for
Larger firms with security review, custom reporting needs, or that want AI sourcing and premium enrichment data
What this tier adds
Adds source candidates with AI, premium company enrichment data, access roles, SSO, audit log, custom integrations and a branded notetaker.
Where the pricing makes sense
The company stage and team size where Stardex's pricing actually pencils out — and where peers do it cheaper.
Stardex lands at $79/user/month Starter and $119/user/month Pro (both 20% off on yearly billing), with Custom quoted for AI sourcing, premium enrichment, SSO and audit logs. That sits in the same band as Greenhouse and other in-house ATS products but is priced for recruiting-firm seats, not corporate HR headcount. Teams under about ten recruiters will feel the per-seat cost; 20+ recruiter firms quoted on the site treat it as a direct swap for admin hours.
Setup time & first value
How long it actually takes to get something useful out of Stardex — broken out by persona, not the marketing-page minute.
Solo recruiter or small team: bulk import of your existing ATS data is self-serve, so you can be running first searches within a day or two of export. Mid-size firm (20+ recruiters): expect a week or two — the constraint is data cleanliness and getting call capture and transcript-driven field updates wired into daily habit. Enterprise or compliance-reviewed teams: longer, because SSO, audit logs
Switching to or from Stardex
How to bring data in from common predecessors and how to get it back out — written for the switcher, not the buyer.
- →From a legacy executive search database (Cluen, Clockwork): bulk import options are self-serve, and Stardex says it will assist with migrating data from your current ATS.
- →From spreadsheets or a shared drive of candidate notes: import records first, then let AI auto-tagging and summary generation build structure on top.
- →From an in-house hiring ATS used for agency work: export candidate and client records, import in bulk, and rebuild sequences in Pro rather than Starter.
- ↗To another recruiting CRM: API access and data exports are included on every plan at no extra charge, so a full export does not require a Custom-tier upgrade.
Integrations
Resources & Guides
Tutorials & Learning
YouTube returned 6 videos for “Stardex”, and we withheld 6: 6 could not be judged, because “Stardex” is a single word that other videos use for other things. We are showing none, because we could not prove any of them are about Stardex.
Official links
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