§ The result
3 points separate Stepstone and Brainner.
Stepstone holds a 3-point edge over Brainner under rubric v1.0, 49 to 46, with both scored in the Screening cohort. Brainner takes 1 of the 7 criteria, Post-Market Monitoring among them, against 4 for Stepstone, whose share includes Bias Audit Transparency, and 2 are level. Bias Audit Transparency is both the widest raw gap and the heaviest weighted swing — Brainner 42, Stepstone 50 — and at an 18% weight it carries 44% of the weighted advantage Stepstone holds across the 4 criteria on that side of the table.
Vendor profile
Brainner
Brainner is an AI screening layer for applicant tracking systems that scores and ranks applicants against recruiter-weighted criteria with per-criterion justifications, and flags suspected fake applicants using third-party identity and fraud data.
Vendor profile
Stepstone
Stepstone is a German job marketplace whose Stepstone Recruit employer platform includes an AI Screening Agent, which rates each application against requirements taken from the job ad, and a Talent Finder, which recommends candidates from a CV database of more than 4 million profiles.
§ The record
Brainner and Stepstone are both filed under Screening AI. They also share 1 secondary category: Sourcing.
Both are in scope of EU AI Act, NYC LL 144, Colorado AI Act and Illinois HB 3773.
| Record | Brainner | Stepstone |
|---|---|---|
| Price tier | Low | Mid |
| Headquarters | US | DE |
| Founded | 2023 | 1996 |
§ What decides it
The criteria that move the gap, heaviest swing first.
18% weight · 35% of the movement so far
Bias Audit Transparency
Brainner 42 · Stepstone 50
1.4 weighted points to Stepstone
12% weight · 58% of the movement so far
Human Oversight Design
Brainner 50 · Stepstone 58
1.0 weighted points to Stepstone
12% weight · 78% of the movement so far
Post-Market Monitoring
Brainner 45 · Stepstone 38
0.8 weighted points to Brainner
20% weight · 93% of the movement so far
Article 11 Technical Documentation
Brainner 52 · Stepstone 55
0.6 weighted points to Stepstone
15% weight · 100% of the movement so far
Data Governance Disclosure
Brainner 53 · Stepstone 55
0.3 weighted points to Stepstone
Weighted delta is the raw difference times the criterion weight, so the 5 figures above sum to -2.5 — the difference between the two totals before either is rounded. Shares are of 4.1 points of movement counted without direction. The table below rounds each side to a whole number first, so its Δ raw total reads -3 beside that -2.5.
§ Category-by-category
Raw score per criterion, with weighted delta.
Δ is Brainner minus Stepstone.
| Category | Weight | Brainner | Stepstone | Δ raw | Δ weighted |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Article 11 Technical Documentation | 20% | 52 | 55 | -3 | -0.6 |
| Bias Audit Transparency | 18% | 42 | 50 | -8 | -1.4 |
| FRIA Support | 15% | 30 | 30 | - | - |
| Data Governance Disclosure | 15% | 53 | 55 | -2 | -0.3 |
| Human Oversight Design | 12% | 50 | 58 | -8 | -1.0 |
| Post-Market Monitoring | 12% | 45 | 38 | +7 | +0.8 |
| Customer Documentation | 8% | 58 | 58 | - | - |
| Total | 100% | 46 (F) | 49 (F) | -3 | -2.5 |
§ Evidence
Cited sources and documented absences, criterion by criterion.
An absence is a finding, not a blank: the reviewer looked for a named artefact and recorded that it is not located. Where a source sits is a fact about hosting only.
| Criterion | Weight | Brainner | Stepstone | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cited | Absences | Audit / hosting | Cited | Absences | Audit / hosting | ||
| Article 11 Technical Documentation | 20% | 4 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain | 5 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domainSources on a separate domain |
| Bias Audit Transparency | 18% | 6 | 0 | Sources on the vendor's own domainSources on a separate domain | 3 | 1 | Audit reportSources on a separate domain |
| FRIA Support | 15% | 3 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain | 2 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain |
| Data Governance Disclosure | 15% | 6 | 0 | Sources on the vendor's own domain | 6 | 0 | Sources on the vendor's own domainSources on a separate domain |
| Human Oversight Design | 12% | 6 | 0 | Sources on the vendor's own domain | 5 | 0 | Sources on the vendor's own domain |
| Post-Market Monitoring | 12% | 4 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain | 3 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domainSources on a separate domain |
| Customer Documentation | 8% | 4 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain | 5 | 0 | Sources on the vendor's own domain |
| All criteria | 100% | 33 | 4 | Sources on the vendor's own domainSources on a separate domain | 29 | 4 | Audit reportSources on the vendor's own domainSources on a separate domain |
Brainner has 37 evidence rows across 7 of 7 criteria — 33 with a source URL, 4 documented absences; Stepstone has 33 evidence rows across 7 of 7 criteria — 29 with a source URL, 4 documented absences; some documentation or audit rows for Brainner and Stepstone sit on a domain separate from the vendor's own site.
Provenance
The scores above are documented by 70 evidence rows on file for these two vendors: 37 for Brainner, across 2 distinct source domains, and 33 for Stepstone, across 6 distinct source domains.
- Rubric
- v1.0
- Brainner last reviewed
- September 25, 2026 · HireAIScore editorial team
- Stepstone last reviewed
- September 25, 2026 · HireAIScore editorial team
HireAIScore scores are editorial research, not legal advice, and no vendor pays for placement, scoring or removal — see the methodology, conflicts policy and terms.
§ Where next