Why we built a OneUp Sales alternative

We kept hearing the same thing from agencies. "We love our leaderboards but we're paying $800/month for OneUp Sales on top of our CRM." That's $9,600 a year for a tool that shows you data you already have, just on a nicer screen.

It didn't sit right with us. Your CRM already knows who made calls, who sent CVs, who booked interviews, who billed. The data is there. Why should you pay a second vendor to display it?

The operating system philosophy

Recruitly was never meant to be just an ATS or just a CRM. From day one, the idea was to build a recruiting operating system. One platform that handles everything an agency needs. CRM, ATS, sourcing, campaigns, WhatsApp, AI, and yes, leaderboards.

Every time we saw agencies paying separately for email marketing, or for a dialler, or for analytics, we asked the same question: why isn't this just part of the CRM? The data flows through the CRM anyway. Building features around that data, inside the same platform, means everything stays connected. No syncing. No API delays. No "the numbers don't match between the two systems."

Leaderboards were a natural extension of that thinking.

What was wrong with bolting it on

Tools like OneUp Sales work by pulling data from your CRM through an API, processing it, and displaying it. That means your performance data is always slightly behind. A recruiter makes a placement at 2pm and the leaderboard updates at 2:15pm. Or 2:30pm. Or whenever the sync runs.

It also means you're maintaining two systems. Two logins. Two sets of user permissions. Two invoices. Two support channels. And when something looks wrong on the leaderboard, you're debugging across two platforms to figure out if the CRM didn't send the data or if the analytics tool didn't process it.

We wanted leaderboards that update the second a call is logged or a placement is made. Real-time, because the whole point of a leaderboard is instant feedback. "I just billed and my name moved up." That moment matters for motivation. A 15-minute delay kills it.

What we built

Pulse is our leaderboard and TV screen module. It's built into every Recruitly plan at no extra cost. Here's what it does.

Live leaderboards. Calls, meetings, CVs sent, interviews, placements, revenue. All real-time. You choose which metrics to display and for which time period. Daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly.

TV screen casting. Open a URL on your office TV and it shows a rotating slideshow of leaderboards, KPIs, and celebrations. No Chromecast needed. No app to install. Just a browser. We use reoo.tv for the casting and it works on any screen.

Celebrations. When someone makes a placement or hits a target, confetti. Sounds silly but agencies tell us their teams genuinely love it. It turns a private win into a public one. Good for morale, especially in offices where people sit far apart.

KPI widgets. Custom dashboards with widgets for any metric. Revenue per head, average time to fill, pipeline value, conversion rates. Drag and drop. Each recruiter can have their own view or teams can share a dashboard.

The cost argument

OneUp Sales costs roughly $20-40 per user per month depending on your plan. For a 20-person agency, that's $400-800/month. $4,800-9,600 a year. On top of whatever you're paying for your CRM.

Recruitly includes leaderboards, TV screens, KPI dashboards, and celebrations on every plan. Including the free plan. Because it's not a separate product. It's just another part of the platform.

We're not saying OneUp Sales is bad. It's a solid product and the team behind it has done good work. But the model of paying separately for analytics that sit on top of your CRM data feels like it belongs to a different era. The CRM should just do this.

What agencies told us after switching

"The numbers match now. We used to spend 20 minutes every Monday reconciling OneUp with Bullhorn. Now it's just there." Agency owner, 12-person team.

"My team started checking the TV screen more because it updates instantly. The old setup had a lag and people stopped caring." Sales manager, 8-person team.

"We saved about $700/month dropping OneUp and one more tool goes off the invoice." Director, 15-person agency.

The bigger picture

Leaderboards are one example but the same logic applies across the board. WhatsApp should be in the CRM, not a separate app. Email campaigns should be in the CRM, not Mailchimp. AI sourcing should be in the CRM, not a third-party bolt-on.

Every integration you add is another vendor, another invoice, another sync that can break, another login to manage. We'd rather build it properly once and include it. That's the operating system approach. That's why we built Recruitly this way.

If you want to see it in action, the OneUp Sales comparison page has the feature-by-feature breakdown and live demos of the TV screens.