Teal alternatives: what Teal+ costs, and where Second Round differs
Teal is an all-in-one job search platform: an AI resume builder, an application tracker, a networking CRM, an interview tracker, cover letters and a LinkedIn profile review, sitting on top of an unusually generous free plan. The paid tier, Teal+, is a subscription at $13 every 7 days, $29 every 30 days, or $79 every 90 days.
Second Round is much narrower. It scores one resume against one job posting, rewrites it to close the gap, and exports it. It is sold as a one-time pass rather than a subscription: $5 for 30 days, $12 for 90 days, or $39 for a year, with no renewal.
So the comparison is not like for like. For 90 days of premium access the published prices are $79 for Teal+ and $12 here, but the $79 also buys a tracker, a CRM and a cover letter generator that Second Round does not have at any price.
Second Round and Teal, side by side
| Second Round | Teal | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $5 for 30 days, $12 for 90 days, $39 for one year. | Teal+ is $13 every 7 days, $29 every 30 days, or $79 every 90 days. |
| Billing model | One-time payment. No subscription, no auto-renew; access simply ends. | Recurring subscription. You can upgrade, downgrade or cancel at any time, and no card is required to start on the free plan. |
| Free tier | The resume roast is free, and you can read your tailored resume before paying. You pay only to export it. | Free Forever: unlimited resumes, unlimited job tracking and resume templates, with the top 5 job description keywords, basic resume analysis, and 10 AI resume bullet credits plus 2 summary and 2 cover letter credits. |
| Matching against a posting | A full scored read of the posting: weighted requirements, deal-breakers called out, and a rewrite. Included in the pass. | Top 5 keywords on the free plan; unlimited keyword matching and unlimited analysis on Teal+. |
| Tracking your applications | Not offered. There is no job tracker and no contact management. | Unlimited job tracking on both the free and paid plans, plus an interview tracker and a networking CRM. |
| Scope | Resume tailoring, end to end, and nothing else. | Resume builder, cover letters, job tracker, networking CRM, interview tracker, LinkedIn profile review, application autofill and a job board. |
Teal pricing checked on July 27, 2026 at tealhq.com/pricing. Prices change without notice; verify on their site before you buy.
When Teal is the better pick
Teal is not a competitor we can beat on breadth, and pretending otherwise would be obvious to anyone who has used both. Three situations where it is clearly the right call:
- You want to run the whole search in one place. Applications tracked by stage, contacts kept in a CRM, interviews logged, applications autofilled. That is most of what Teal is, and Second Round has none of it. If your problem is that you have lost track of where you have applied, a resume rewriter does not solve it.
- Your budget is zero. Teal’s free plan is more generous than most paid ones: unlimited resumes and unlimited job tracking, permanently, with no card. If that covers what you need, use it and pay nobody, including us.
- You need cover letters and a LinkedIn profile pass too. Both are inside Teal+. Second Round writes resumes and stops there, so you would end up paying for a second tool anyway.
Where the difference actually is
The honest framing is depth against breadth. Teal gives you a builder and a set of strong tools and leaves the judgment to you. Second Round runs an opinionated pipeline over one posting: it weights what the job is really asking for, scores you against it including hard deal-breakers like a required degree or years of experience, rewrites your bullets, then critiques the result the way a recruiter reads it.
That includes telling you when you should not apply. The fit bands run from Strong down to Long shot, and a Long shot verdict is meant to save you the application rather than sell you a rewrite. You can try that against a real posting and read the result before paying.
The pricing difference is structural, not a promotion. A weekly or monthly subscription is designed for an open-ended search and keeps billing after you stop opening the tab. A pass is priced for a search that ends: pay $5 or $12 once, export as much as you want while it lasts, and nothing charges you again.
What you will not find here is a claim that either tool raises your interview rate by some percentage. We do not have numbers we would stand behind, so we are not printing any.
Common questions
- Is Teal free?
- There is a genuinely free plan, called Free Forever, and it needs no card to start. It includes unlimited resumes, unlimited job tracking and resume templates. The limits are on the AI and the matching: the top 5 keywords from a job description, basic resume analysis, and 10 AI resume bullet credits with 2 professional summary credits and 2 cover letter credits. Removing those limits is what Teal+ is for.
- How much is Teal+?
- Checked on 27 July 2026, Teal+ is offered at $13 every 7 days, $29 every 30 days, or $79 every 90 days. It is a subscription, so it continues until you cancel, though Teal lets you cancel or change plan at any time. Confirm the figures on their pricing page before buying, since these change.
- Which is cheaper for a three month job search?
- On published prices, Second Round: $12 for 90 days against $79 for 90 days of Teal+. That is a straight arithmetic comparison and not a claim about which is better. Teal's free plan may also cover you entirely, and if you need the tracker and the CRM, the $79 is buying things the $12 does not include.
- Can Second Round replace Teal?
- Only the resume part of it. If you use Teal mainly to tailor a resume to each posting, Second Round covers that and costs less. If you use it to run the search itself, tracking applications, logging contacts and managing interviews, nothing here replaces that and you should keep Teal.
Try the free part first
Paste your resume and get the read a recruiter gives it in the first few seconds: a 0 to 100 screen score, the line costing you the most, and a rewrite of it. That part is free, so you can judge the output before deciding whether any of this is worth paying for.
Roast my resumeLast updated July 27, 2026. Second Round has no affiliation with Teal, and this page is not endorsed by them. Everything above about Teal was taken from their own public pages on that date.