Going independent as a recruiter in 2026: Which tools do you really need? [minimal stack]

You’re going independent. No more company licenses. Everything out of your own pocket.

LinkedIn Recruiter (EUR 150/month), ATS (EUR 50+/month), sourcing tools (EUR 100+/month). Before you know it: EUR 300+/month on tools. And that’s before you’ve made a single placement.

The question isn’t: which tools are out there? The question is: which tools do you really need to get started?

The day 1 trap

Your first month as a freelance recruiter feels like a sprint. You want to do everything right. You want to look professional. You think: “I’ll get the same tools as my previous employer.”

Then you see your bank statements after 3 months:

• LinkedIn Recruiter: EUR 150/month
• Bullhorn or Recruit CRM: EUR 89-150/month
• HeroHunt Chrome extension: EUR 199/month
• ContactOut: EUR 99/month
• Calendly Pro: EUR 15/month
• Email marketing tool: EUR 40/month

Total: EUR 542-653/month.

With 2 placements per month (at EUR 5,000 fee) you’re spending EUR 10,000 gross per year on tools. While you’re not even using half of them.

The minimal independent stack (EUR 89/month total)

Tier 1: Must-haves

This is what you need from day 1 to be able to deliver:

1. LinkedIn Basic (EUR 0/month)

Yes, you read that correctly. LinkedIn Basic is free and works just fine.

You don’t need LinkedIn Recruiter if you work smart. Boolean search works on free LinkedIn too. You’re only limited in how many search results you see (1,000 max) and you have no InMails.

But: For most independent recruiters, that’s not a problem. You search specifically, not broadly. And you’d rather send a connection request with a personal message than a generic InMail anyway.

Savings: EUR 150/month vs LinkedIn Recruiter.

2. SourceLens Starter (EUR 89/month — launch offer)

This is the only paid tool you need from day 1.

What you get:

• Chrome extension: export LinkedIn profiles with 1 click (bulk up to 100 at a time)
• AI analysis of last 8 employers across 18 dimensions
• Matching against your selection criteria (weighted scoring 0-100)
• Career Intelligence: career snapshot with patterns and pivots
• AI-generated InMail templates (3 variants per candidate)
• Crustdata Search: 400M profiles searchable (works without LinkedIn)

Why this has your best ROI:

• From 3 hours to 45 minutes per search = 2 hours time saved
• With 3 searches per week = 6 hours saved
• Your hourly rate as a freelancer: EUR 80-100/hour
• Savings per week: EUR 480-600
• Savings per month: EUR 1,920-2,400

EUR 89 invested to earn EUR 1,920+ back. ROI = 22x.

3. Google Workspace Basic (free — or EUR 6/month)

Email, calendar, Google Sheets as a simple CRM.

Most independent recruiters start with Google Sheets as their candidate database. That works perfectly for the first 50-100 placements. Only when you’re really doing volume (200+ candidates per month) do you need an ATS.

Savings: EUR 89-150/month vs Bullhorn/Recruit CRM.

4. Free scheduling tool

Calendly Free or Cal.com. Both free, both fine.

Total Tier 1 cost: EUR 89/month.

With this you can deliver as an independent recruiter. Everything you add after this is nice-to-have.

Tier 2: Nice-to-have (+ EUR 50-100/month)

Once you’re running after 3-6 months and consistently generating revenue, you can consider:

LinkedIn Recruiter Lite (EUR 80/month)

More search results, InMails, advanced filters. Useful if you do a lot of volume or approach enterprise candidates.

But: Not needed from day 1. SourceLens works with your free LinkedIn. Wait until you’re doing at least 3 placements per month before adding this.

Recruit CRM or simple ATS (EUR 50-150/month)

A lightweight CRM/ATS for client relationships and candidate management. Useful from the moment Google Sheets becomes too small.

When: When you have 5+ active clients or process 200+ candidates per month.

Total Tier 2: EUR 130-230/month (basics + nice-to-haves).

Tier 3: Over-the-top (skip this)

These are tools agencies use but that you as an independent recruiter don’t need:

LinkedIn Recruiter full (EUR 150+/month)

Too expensive for independents. Recruiter Lite gives you 95% of the functionality for half the price. And SourceLens means you can even work without Recruiter.

HireEZ or SeekOut (EUR 150-300/month)

Enterprise sourcing tools with AI. Fine, but complete overkill for independents. You’re paying for features you’ll never use.

Enterprise ATS (Bullhorn, Vincere) (EUR 150-300/month)

Too heavy, too expensive, too complex for 1 person. These are tools for teams of 10+ recruiters.

The math

Lean stack (independent smart):

• LinkedIn Basic: EUR 0
• SourceLens Starter: EUR 89
• Google Workspace: EUR 0-6
• Total: EUR 89-95/month

Overkill stack (agency thinking in freelance reality):

• LinkedIn Recruiter: EUR 150
• Bullhorn CRM: EUR 150
• HeroHunt: EUR 199
• ContactOut: EUR 99
• Total: EUR 598/month

Difference: EUR 503-509/month = EUR 6,036-6,108/year.

That’s more than 1 placement per year you’re throwing away on tool costs.

Why SourceLens is the best investment for independents

You work alone. That means:

• No colleague to ask whether an employer is relevant
• No senior who says in 10 seconds “that candidate doesn’t fit”
• No team database with market knowledge built up over years

You need to have that knowledge yourself. Or you need a tool that does it for you.

SourceLens automatically analyzes the last 8 employers of every candidate across 18 dimensions. Sector, organization type, customer segment, sales model, growth stage, product/service complexity.

Concrete example:

You’re looking for a DevOps Engineer for a fintech scale-up. You run a LinkedIn search: 400 profiles.

Without SourceLens:

• You open profile 1: “DevOps Engineer at DataPulse BV” — you don’t know them.
• Google: what does DataPulse do? SaaS? Infrastructure? Enterprise or SMB?
• 3-5 minutes per unknown company.
• With 300 unknown employers = 15-25 hours of googling.

With SourceLens:

• Chrome extension: bulk export up to 100 profiles at a time
• SourceLens analyzes all 8 employers per candidate
• Matching score (0-100) based on your criteria
• You see immediately: “DataPulse = B2B SaaS, cloud infrastructure, enterprise clients, 6-12 month implementation cycles, AWS/Azure stack”
• From 400 to 60 relevant candidates in 45 minutes.

Time saved: 14-24 hours per search.

At EUR 80-100/hour rate = EUR 1,120-2,400 saved per search.

You pay EUR 89/month. You do 3 searches per month. You earn it back 40-80x.

Start minimal, scale as you grow

The mistake most independent recruiters make: they buy the same tools as their previous employer. Makes sense — that’s what they’re used to.

But at an agency, the company pays. Now you pay.

Better approach:

1. Months 1-3: Minimal stack (EUR 89/month). Focus on your first placements, not on tooling.
2. Months 4-6: If you’re consistently doing 3+ placements/month: consider LinkedIn Recruiter Lite.
3. Months 7-12: If you have 5+ clients: add a lightweight CRM.
4. Year 2+: If you’re doing 10+ placements/month: then you can invest in premium tooling.

Scale your tools with your revenue. Not the other way around.

Conclusion

You don’t need EUR 500+/month in tools to deliver as an independent recruiter.

You need this:

• LinkedIn Basic (free)
• SourceLens Starter (EUR 89/month)
• Google Workspace (free)

That’s it. EUR 89/month total.

Everything above that is nice-to-have. Wait until you’re consistently generating revenue before adding more tools.

And if you have to pick 1 tool that makes the difference: SourceLens. Because time is literally money as a freelancer. And SourceLens saves you 10-20 hours per month.

Try it free for 14 days. No credit card. Just run your first search and see how much time you save.

Go to sourcelens.ai

About the author: Arthur Balabrega is the founder of SourceLens and has 20 years of experience in recruitment. He worked as a recruitment agency owner, corporate recruiter, and interim TA manager before building SourceLens to solve the problem of Context Blindness — the lack of employer context that costs recruiters hours per search.