Mercury alternatives for recruitment agencies
The UK recruitment CRM built on Microsoft Dynamics 365, with a native middle and back office, for enterprise and high-growth firms.
Why agencies look beyond Mercury
Scale mismatch. A platform with the Microsoft stack behind it needs someone to own it, and small and mid-sized agencies find the implementation and the licensing more than the desk needs.
What its own users say they would change
- Ease of use: 'not as easy to use as other platforms which we tested'; reviewers suggest it suits firms with internal system support or training.
- Feature gaps named by reviewers: no drag-and-drop of CVs, Boolean search not available everywhere, no record updates from Outlook, bulk email 'hard'.
- No published pricing, implementation timeline or security certifications; the product depends on Microsoft Dynamics 365 and the Power Platform.
What to look for instead
- 1
A price on the page and a trial, rather than a demo and a proposal.
- 2
A system your team can run without a Dynamics specialist.
- 3
The contract desk and the agent included rather than built on a platform licence.
AI-native or bolted on
Where Mercury’s AI sits
AI through Microsoft: Copilot natively in Dynamics, Mercury AI listening to calls, an AI search assistant, on a platform that needs someone to administer it. Kit comes with the desk and needs no platform underneath: it reads the call, updates the record, ranks the book, drafts the next step and opens the day with a brief, for a team of any size, inside four lanes of control.
Five alternatives to Mercury
Chosen for the gaps above. We are one of them.
Vayora
The AI-native CRM and ATS for recruitment agencies
Built for small and mid-sized agencies rather than the enterprise: the price on the page, an import you run yourself, and perm and contract to paid without a platform underneath to administer.
Bullhorn
The incumbent, and the one most of these conversations start from.
£80 per user a month (Starter) and £120 (Core) on the UK pricing page
Vincere
The Access Group's recruitment suite, now Access Vincere Evo: a full front-to-back office with pay and bill built in.
£150 flat fee for a single user (Startup) and £95 per user a month (Core, two to seven users), both on a '30-day rolling basis'
itris
The long-running UK recruitment CRM from Surrey, relaunched in the cloud as itris X in 2025, with UK hosting and a UK service desk.
Pricing on request
Atlas
The other AI-native entrant, built in London around capturing every conversation, aimed at enterprise agencies and executive search.
£105 per user a month for Basic and £135 for Premium, with a yearly option of '12 months for the price of 10'
Mercury and Vayora at a glance
| Mercury | Vayora | |
|---|---|---|
| Built around | The UK recruitment CRM built on Microsoft Dynamics 365, with a native middle and back office, for enterprise and high-growth firms. | Your own database, with one agent in every workflow |
| Company | Coleshill, Warwickshire, United Kingdom; staff in the UK, US and Australia; founded 2014; private; founder and CEO Chris Kendrick holds 75% or more; no institutional investor on the register | London, UK; founded 2026 |
| Built for | 'Global enterprise and high-growth staffing and recruitment firms'; contract, temp and perm; '10k+ recruiters' | Small and mid-sized UK agencies, perm and contract |
| Pricing | Quoted: Not published; the pricing page returns a 404 and every call to action is a demo | Published: Core £65, Pro £129 a seat a month, plus VAT; annual £55 and £109 |
| Getting live | No standard timeline or fee published; one case study describes 'an accelerated seven-week implementation' for a hundred-person firm | An import you run; no fee; 30-day trial, no card |
| Contract pay and bill | Native: Middle and back office with portal timesheets and expenses, online client approval, automatic margin from validated pay and charge rates, branded client invoices or a finance-system link, PO balances and a compliance score; worker types cover PAYE, umbrella, limited company, 1099 and W2; self-billing and IR35 are not mentioned | Native: timesheets, self-bill, invoicing, margin and pay runs (limited-company contractors) |
| AI | Mercury AI listens to calls and meetings and turns them into records and next steps; an AI search assistant; AI matching, vacancy creation and screening; Microsoft Copilot natively through Dynamics; inclusion and pricing not published | Kit, one agent through the whole desk, in the Pro price and not metered; see where the AI sits, above |
| UK and data | UK-registered with a UK head office; worker types for PAYE and umbrella; GBP pricing not published; the compliance page names Microsoft Solutions Partner status and no ISO 27001, Cyber Essentials, GDPR or hosting statements | UK company, GBP, hosted in Ireland, never trains shared models |
| Integrations | No figure from the vendor; LinkedIn Recruiter, Sales Navigator, Teams, Microsoft 365, Power BI, DocuSign and SharePoint named; a review site lists sixteen | About 24 named plus signed webhooks |
Mercury column checked 22 October 2026; sources below.
When to stay with Mercury
If you are an enterprise or high-growth firm already on Microsoft 365 and Dynamics, with PAYE, umbrella and limited-company workers to pay and an IT function to run it. The Microsoft alliance and the compliance controls are real strengths for that firm.
Questions
- What is the best alternative to Mercury for a UK recruitment agency?
- It depends on what you are leaving for. A price on the page and a trial, rather than a demo and a proposal. A system your team can run without a Dynamics specialist. The contract desk and the agent included rather than built on a platform licence. The five below each suit a different desk, and Mercury itself remains right for some.
- Does leaving Mercury mean losing contract pay and bill?
- What Mercury offers: middle and back office with portal timesheets and expenses, online client approval, automatic margin from validated pay and charge rates, branded client invoices or a finance-system link, PO balances and a compliance score; worker types cover PAYE, umbrella, limited company, 1099 and W2; self-billing and IR35 are not mentioned. Vayora runs the contract desk natively, so the money moves with you.
- How long does switching from Mercury take?
- On Mercury's side, its own guidance: no standard timeline or fee published; one case study describes 'an accelerated seven-week implementation' for a hundred-person firm. On ours, an import rather than a project.
Want the wider field? Our ranking of fourteen systems places Mercury among the alternatives above.
Sources, read 22 October 2026
- wearemercury.com/
- wearemercury.com/about
- wearemercury.com/products/middle-back-office
- wearemercury.com/products/sales-and-recruiting
- wearemercury.com/case-studies/saragossa
- wearemercury.com/compliance-security-governance
- wearemercury.com/blog/mercury-and-microsoft-launch-new-agent-accelerator-programme-to-fast-track-ai-adoption
- find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/08910193
- www.getapp.ca/software/2058367/mercury-xrm
Not verifiable from public pages on that date: whether Microsoft licences are charged separately (a third-party claim); the rebrand date; the integration count.