Zelume vs Teal
Zelume vs Teal: the free Teal alternative for students
Same one-click job saving and resume tailoring, with no $9-a-month paywall on the resume builder, no AI credit metering you don't understand, and a free tier that includes the application tracker.
Why students pick Zelume
The resume builder is free
Zelume's resume builder, ATS scorer, and 2-version cap come on the free tier. Teal puts most of the builder behind Teal+ ($9/mo). If you're a student sending 40 applications a season, $9 / month over a recruiting cycle adds up.
Real ATS parsing, not keyword counting
Zelume scores against the actual parsing rules used by Workday, Greenhouse, and Lever, the three ATSes that account for ~80% of student-facing postings. Most competitors stop at keyword counting, which misses format-parse failures.
Student-priced Student plan
Verified .edu users get the full Student plan for $4.99/mo. Teal doesn't have a student tier, so every recruiting season costs full price. The 14-day Interview Pass ($4.99 once, no subscription) is another option for crunch periods.
Related reading
Why 30 tailored applications beat 500 generic ones
Tailoring math, what real tailoring actually involves, and why volume-only application strategies stopped working.
What is an ATS, in plain English
How Workday, Greenhouse, and Lever screen your resume before a human ever sees it.
You sent 200 applications and got 2 responses
A 30-minute audit to find the bottleneck before sending application 201.
Frequently asked
Is Zelume really free, or is the free tier a trap?
Free forever. Unlimited resume versions with every template, 20 AI generations per day, the full application tracker on 50 saved jobs, the Chrome extension, ATS scoring, and the kanban board. No card to start, no auto-upgrade. Students sending a normal volume of applications usually stay on Free for the first month.
Why are you cheaper than Teal?
Two reasons. Student pricing ($4.99 with a .edu email) is genuinely a discount, not a marketing line: verified students pay less for the same Pro features. And we don't pay for podcast ads, influencer deals, or a Series B sales team. Smaller team, leaner stack, prices reflect both.
Can I import my data from Teal?
Not yet automatically. The fastest path is to export your Teal applications as a CSV from their dashboard, then paste the URLs into Zelume's bulk import. Resumes you built in Teal can be exported as PDF and uploaded to Zelume; we'll extract the content and let you tailor from there.
Will my data move with me?
Yes. Every resume, application, cover letter, and tailored version is exportable from Zelume: PDF for resumes and cover letters, CSV for the application tracker, JSON for the raw data. No data lock-in is a deliberate design choice, not a marketing promise.
Does Zelume work on the same job boards as Teal?
Yes. Zelume's Chrome extension supports LinkedIn, Indeed, Greenhouse, Workday, Lever, Ashby, iCIMS, SmartRecruiters, BambooHR, and Jobvite, the same set Teal covers. We add new boards based on user requests; email support@zelume.io if your favorite isn't supported yet.