§ The result
Stepstone leads Ceipal on 6 of the 7 criteria.
Stepstone sits 14 points above Ceipal under rubric v1.0 — 49 against 35 — with Stepstone filed under Screening and Ceipal under ATS-integrated. Stepstone leads 6 of the 7 criteria and the remaining criterion is level, so Ceipal is ahead on none of them; the closest of the 6 Stepstone leads is FRIA Support, Ceipal 25 to Stepstone 30. The advantage Stepstone holds is spread out: Bias Audit Transparency is both the widest raw gap and the heaviest weighted swing (Ceipal 20, Stepstone 50, 18% weight), yet it supplies only 38% of the weighted points Stepstone gains across the 6 criteria it leads.
Vendor profile
Ceipal
AI-powered applicant tracking and workforce-management platform for staffing firms that sources, matches, and ranks candidates on a 1-to-100 scale against job requirements.
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
Ceipal is filed under ATS-integrated AI, Stepstone under Screening AI. They also share 1 secondary category: Sourcing.
Both are in scope of EU AI Act, NYC LL 144 and Colorado AI Act. Only Stepstone is in scope of Illinois HB 3773.
| Record | Ceipal | Stepstone |
|---|---|---|
| Price tier | Mid | Mid |
| Headquarters | US | DE |
| Founded | 2015 | 1996 |
§ What decides it
The criteria that move the gap, heaviest swing first.
18% weight · 38% of the movement so far
Bias Audit Transparency
Ceipal 20 · Stepstone 50
5.4 weighted points to Stepstone
20% weight · 73% of the movement so far
Article 11 Technical Documentation
Ceipal 30 · Stepstone 55
5.0 weighted points to Stepstone
12% weight · 83% of the movement so far
Human Oversight Design
Ceipal 46 · Stepstone 58
1.4 weighted points to Stepstone
15% weight · 92% of the movement so far
Data Governance Disclosure
Ceipal 46 · Stepstone 55
1.3 weighted points to Stepstone
15% weight · 97% of the movement so far
FRIA Support
Ceipal 25 · Stepstone 30
0.8 weighted points to Stepstone
8% weight · 100% of the movement so far
Customer Documentation
Ceipal 53 · Stepstone 58
0.4 weighted points to Stepstone
Weighted delta is the raw difference times the criterion weight, so the 6 figures above sum to -14.3 — the difference between the two totals before either is rounded. Shares are of 14.3 points of movement counted without direction. The table below rounds each side to a whole number first, so its Δ raw total reads -14 beside that -14.3.
§ Category-by-category
Raw score per criterion, with weighted delta.
Δ is Ceipal minus Stepstone.
| Category | Weight | Ceipal | Stepstone | Δ raw | Δ weighted |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Article 11 Technical Documentation | 20% | 30 | 55 | -25 | -5.0 |
| Bias Audit Transparency | 18% | 20 | 50 | -30 | -5.4 |
| FRIA Support | 15% | 25 | 30 | -5 | -0.8 |
| Data Governance Disclosure | 15% | 46 | 55 | -9 | -1.3 |
| Human Oversight Design | 12% | 46 | 58 | -12 | -1.4 |
| Post-Market Monitoring | 12% | 38 | 38 | - | - |
| Customer Documentation | 8% | 53 | 58 | -5 | -0.4 |
| Total | 100% | 35 (F) | 49 (F) | -14 | -14.3 |
§ 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 | Ceipal | Stepstone | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cited | Absences | Audit / hosting | Cited | Absences | Audit / hosting | ||
| Article 11 Technical Documentation | 20% | 2 | 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% | 1 | 1 | — | 3 | 1 | Audit reportSources on a separate domain |
| FRIA Support | 15% | 1 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain | 2 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain |
| Data Governance Disclosure | 15% | 2 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain | 6 | 0 | Sources on the vendor's own domainSources on a separate domain |
| Human Oversight Design | 12% | 2 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain | 5 | 0 | Sources on the vendor's own domain |
| Post-Market Monitoring | 12% | 2 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain | 3 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domainSources on a separate domain |
| Customer Documentation | 8% | 3 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain | 5 | 0 | Sources on the vendor's own domain |
| All criteria | 100% | 13 | 7 | Sources on the vendor's own domain | 29 | 4 | Audit reportSources on the vendor's own domainSources on a separate domain |
Ceipal has 20 evidence rows across 7 of 7 criteria — 13 with a source URL, 7 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 Stepstone sit on a domain separate from the vendor's own site.
Provenance
The scores above are documented by 53 evidence rows on file for these two vendors: 20 for Ceipal, across 1 distinct source domain, and 33 for Stepstone, across 6 distinct source domains.
- Rubric
- v1.0
- Ceipal last reviewed
- July 17, 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