Last updated: 2026-09-14
Asendia AI is a voice AI recruiter for staffing agencies whose agent Sarah interviews candidates by phone and video, screening 10x more candidates per recruiter than a manual process across 35-plus countries. It syncs ranked shortlists into more than 50 ATS platforms, including JobDiva, Lever, and Manatal.
About Asendia AI
Asendia AI is a recruitment platform founded in 2025 by Rihab Lajmi (CEO) and Badis Zormati (CTO), part of Y Combinator's Spring 2026 batch. Its product, Sarah, is a voice AI recruiter that runs first-round video and phone interviews around the clock the moment a candidate applies, is sourced, or is matched, screening every applicant against a role's criteria before sending hiring teams a ranked shortlist.
The platform now ships as a named multi-agent suite: a sourcing agent ("Sarah the hunter") that searches for matching candidates, a voice assessment agent that runs the scored interviews, and a feedback agent that scores each transcript, available from Asendia's mid-tier plans up. The top Enterprise tier adds scheduling and resume-screening agents plus SMS and WhatsApp candidate engagement. Results sync automatically into the applicant tracking systems staffing teams already run, among them JobDiva, Lever, and Manatal.
SGF Global's founder credits Asendia with cutting a three-week shortlist cycle to same-day delivery, and FStaff says it doubled hires per recruiter without adding headcount. Both are named customers rather than anonymized quotes, and Asendia frames the business as now operating across dozens of countries. The company closed a seed round in April 2026 backed by Y Combinator.
Asendia AI's pricing has reversed since its 2026 launch: it no longer sells pay-per-use access at an undisclosed rate, and instead publishes a ladder of subscription tiers plus a custom Enterprise plan, each with a free trial (full breakdown below). Its security page lists HIPAA, GDPR, SOC 2 Type I, and ISO 27001 badges, though it does not publish the underlying audit reports or name its cloud infrastructure or identity provider, and its privacy policy does not commit to a fixed data-retention period.
Asendia AI sits in HokAI's AI recruiting category alongside Spott and Juicebox on the employer side, and candidate-facing tools such as Resumas, Kickresume, Teal, and innerTrack, which the candidates Sarah interviews are often using on their own end of the same hiring pipeline.
Screenshots
Pricing
Asendia AI runs five subscription tiers as of September 2026, a reversal from its prior hidden pay-per-use pricing. Sourcing is $99/month (10 AI voice assessments, 1 seat); Sourcing+ Starter is $199/month (a larger monthly allotment than Sourcing, 1 seat); Sourcing+ Growth is $599/month (200 assessments, 4 seats, adds ATS sync and the sourcing agent); Sourcing+ Business is $799/month (500 assessments, 4 seats, 24/7 support). Each tier meters extra interviews beyond its included allotment at $3-4 apiece.
Sourcing+ Enterprise is custom-priced and adds SMS/WhatsApp screening plus Slack integration. Every plan includes a 7-day free trial and roughly 17% off on annual billing; there is no permanently free tier.
| Tier | Monthly price | What it includes |
|---|---|---|
| Sourcing | $99/mo | |
| Sourcing+ Starter | $199/mo | |
| Sourcing+ Growth | $599/mo | |
| Sourcing+ Business | $799/mo | |
| Sourcing+ Enterprise | Custom |
Feature Comparison by Tier
| Feature | Sourcing | Sourcing+ Starter | Sourcing+ Growth | Sourcing+ Business | Sourcing+ Enterprise |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Price (billed monthly) | $99 | $199 | $599 | $799 | Custom (contact sales) |
| Free trial | 7 days | 7 days | 7 days | 7 days | 7 days |
| AI assessments per month | 10 | 50 | 200 | 500 | Custom |
| Additional interview cost | $4 | $4 | $3 | $3 | Custom |
| Team seats included | 1 | 1 | 4 | 4 | Custom |
| Sourcing agent (Sarah the hunter) | — | — | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Feedback agent | — | — | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| 50+ ATS integrations | — | — | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ (+ Slack, WhatsApp) |
| Customer support | — | — | Standard | 24/7 | Custom |
| SMS & WhatsApp candidate screening | — | — | — | — | ✓ |
Key Features
- Sourcing Agent ("Sarah the hunter"): Runs on Asendia's two higher tiers, searching candidate pools automatically instead of a recruiter running manual Boolean search.
- Voice AI Assessment Agent: Conducts the scored phone and video screening interviews, with a monthly allotment that scales from Asendia's entry tier up to its top self-serve plan.
- Feedback Agent: Scores each completed interview with a job-compatibility summary, a psychometric read, and a full transcript with AI commentary on every answer.
- 50+ ATS Integrations: Syncs shortlists, transcripts, and scores into 50-plus applicant tracking systems, including JobDiva, Lever, and Manatal, on Asendia's higher tiers.
- Enterprise Scheduling, Resume-Screening & SMS Agents: Custom-tier add-ons that book interview slots, pre-screen resumes, and run SMS/WhatsApp candidate engagement automatically.
Pros
- Both published case studies name a real founder and company, giving the shortlist-speed and hires-per-recruiter claims on the site a source that can be checked rather than an anonymized quote.
- Y Combinator-backed (Spring 2026 batch) with an outside seed round closed in April 2026, adding validation beyond the company's own claims.
- Pricing moved from a hidden pay-per-use rate to published subscription tiers with a free trial, so a team can see the real monthly cost and try it before booking a sales call.
Cons
- The published case studies are vendor-selected results from two customers, not an independent audit, and multi-year retention data doesn't exist yet for such an early-stage company.
- AI behavioral analysis over video and phone can miss softer cultural-fit signals that an experienced human recruiter would catch in person.
- Interviews are metered per tier, and a per-extra-assessment overage applies once the monthly allotment is used, so a busy staffing desk can see costs climb well past the listed monthly price.
- The sourcing agent, feedback agent, and ATS integrations are locked to Asendia's two higher tiers; the two cheapest plans only run the interview itself.
Product Information
- Cloud
- Yes
- Self-Hosted
- No
- On-Premise
- No
- Languages
- English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, German
- Training
- Demo call, Documentation, Onboarding support
Data Handling
- Training-data policy
- Privacy policy states user data may be used to improve Asendia's AI algorithms and services. It does not commit to a fixed retention period (job-seeker data is kept for the duration of active account use plus an unspecified period; company data per contract terms) and does not name a specific cloud host, identity provider, or payment processor.
- Compliance
- SOC 2 Type I · GDPR · HIPAA · ISO 27001
Frequently Asked Questions
What are Asendia AI's pricing plans in 2026?
Pricing runs across five tiers as of September 2026: Sourcing at $99/month (a starter monthly allotment of AI voice assessments, 1 seat), Sourcing+ Starter at $199/month, Sourcing+ Growth at $599/month (200 assessments, 4 seats, which unlocks the sourcing agent and ATS syncing), Sourcing+ Business at $799/month, which raises the allotment to 500 assessments across 4 seats and adds 24/7 support, and Sourcing+ Enterprise at custom pricing with the full agent suite plus SMS/WhatsApp screening. Each tier meters interviews beyond its included allotment at $3 to $4 per extra assessment, and every plan includes a 7-day free trial with roughly 17% off on annual billing.
Does Asendia AI have a free plan?
No. Asendia AI has never offered a permanently free tier; every plan is paid, though all five now include a 7-day free trial before billing starts. Before September 2026 the company priced by the minute and didn't publish rates publicly at all; it has since moved to published monthly subscriptions.
What are Asendia AI's closest competitors?
Spott targets the same staffing-agency buyer with an AI-native ATS/CRM rather than a standalone interviewer. Juicebox's PeopleGPT sources candidates through natural-language search; Asendia's own sourcing agent now covers similar ground, though Asendia remains the one that actually conducts the live voice or video screening interview, which Juicebox doesn't run.
Is Asendia AI better than HireVue?
The two now compete more directly on pricing transparency than they used to. HireVue remains the established enterprise choice, selling annual contracts with a much longer operating history and no public self-serve pricing. Asendia AI, backed by Y Combinator's Spring 2026 batch, publishes tiered monthly pricing and lets a team start a trial without a sales call, though its top Enterprise tier still requires contacting sales, like HireVue does.
What does it take to start using Asendia AI?
Pick one of the four published Sourcing tiers and sign up directly on the pricing page for a free trial, or contact sales for the custom Enterprise tier if you need the full agent suite and SMS/WhatsApp screening. Once your ATS is connected, from dozens of supported systems including JobDiva, Lever, and Manatal, Sarah can start screening candidates against your first open requisition.
Top Alternatives
- Spott: Pick Spott if you want an AI-native ATS/CRM to run your whole recruiting pipeline rather than a standalone interviewer -- Asendia goes narrower and deeper on the live voice screening itself.
- Juicebox: Pick Juicebox if natural-language candidate sourcing is your main need -- its PeopleGPT searches candidate pools without Boolean strings, though Asendia now ships its own sourcing agent on the Growth tier and still runs the live interview Juicebox does not.
- Mercor: Pick Mercor if you are vetting specialized domain experts for AI-lab or RLHF contract work rather than filling conventional staffing-agency roles -- a different hiring niche than Asendia's high-volume interview screening.
HokAI guides covering Asendia AI
- Best AI Recruiting Software in 2026: For Hiring Teams, Not Job Seekers: Compares Asendia AI, Juicebox, Spott, and Mercor for hiring teams (not job seekers), with pricing verified on each vendor's own page, checked 23 Aug 2026.
- Best AI Tool for Resume Building in 2026: Five Options Compared: Kickresume, Teal, Resumás, innerTrack and InterviewCue tested and priced side by side, with the hiring-manager data on whether AI resumes get rejected.