Honest comparison · 2026

Raffi vs Karat

Karat is humans running technical interviews at $500 each. Raffi is AI running every interview at $0.45/minute — Karat for the final-round, Raffi for the screening round.

Try Raffi free — $25 credit →Visit Karat

Raffi

Agentic AI recruiter, two rooms.

One room interviews every applicant. One room talks to you about who to hire next.

Pricing

$25 starter credit free · $199/mo Pro ($100 grant) · $599/mo Growth ($300 grant). No placement fees, no hire fees. SaaS.

Why this wins

  • Real conversational voice interview, not async video Q&A
  • Operator room where you ask Raffi about candidates by name
  • Talent Directory for outbound + inbound in one tool
  • Self-serve onboarding in ~25 minutes, no sales call

Karat

Technical-interviews-as-a-service for engineering hiring.

Karat runs structured technical interviews for software-engineering roles using a network of senior-engineer interviewers (humans), supplemented with AI tooling. Big-brand customers in tech (American Express, Wayfair, Citi). Premium offering.

Pricing

Per-interview pricing, enterprise contracts. Typically $400-700 per interview, custom annual commitments.

Genuine strengths

  • Senior-engineer interviewers conducting real technical calls — gold-standard signal for tech hiring
  • Detailed structured rubrics validated across millions of interviews
  • Strong fairness + bias-mitigation research
  • Customer-trusted for staff/principal-level engineering hires

Where Karat runs out of room

Honest, fact-based gaps — the kind real buyers hit during evaluation.

  • 1Hands-on humans = expensive — per-interview pricing scales linearly with volume
  • 2Tech-engineering only — not built for sales/ops/CX/marketing roles
  • 3Slow vs AI-led screening (interview scheduling overhead)
  • 4Not a tool you operate — it's a service you commission

Which one fits your stack?

Pick the column that sounds like you. We'll tell you which tool to start with.

Pick Karat when…

You're hiring senior+ engineers at a tier-1 enterprise, you have budget for $400-700 per technical interview, and you specifically want a human senior engineer running the call.

Pick Raffi when…

You're hiring across roles (not just engineering), you want SaaS pricing at $199-599/mo instead of per-interview fees, and you want AI to handle the first 80% of the funnel so your humans only meet the top candidates.

Frequently asked

Is Raffi a Karat alternative?

Yes. Raffi covers most of what Karat covers, plus the two-room operator model where you actually talk to the AI about your candidates. SaaS pricing, $25 starter credit, no card required.

What's the main difference between Raffi and Karat?

Karat is humans running technical interviews at $500 each. Raffi is AI running every interview at $0.45/minute — Karat for the final-round, Raffi for the screening round.

When should I pick Karat over Raffi?

You're hiring senior+ engineers at a tier-1 enterprise, you have budget for $400-700 per technical interview, and you specifically want a human senior engineer running the call.

When should I pick Raffi over Karat?

You're hiring across roles (not just engineering), you want SaaS pricing at $199-599/mo instead of per-interview fees, and you want AI to handle the first 80% of the funnel so your humans only meet the top candidates.

How much does Karat cost vs Raffi?

Karat: Per-interview pricing, enterprise contracts. Typically $400-700 per interview, custom annual commitments.. Raffi: $25 starter credit, then $199/mo Pro or $599/mo Growth. No placement fees, no hire fees.

Try Raffi before you commit to Karat.

$25 starter credit, no card required. Interview your next 5 applicants with Raffi tonight, then decide.

Start free — $25 starter credit →See the demo workspace

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