§ The result
4 points separate Fountain and Paycor.
Fountain holds a 4-point edge over Paycor under rubric v1.0, 44 to 40, across the Screening and ATS-integrated cohorts. Paycor takes 1 of the 7 criteria, Customer Documentation among them, against 6 for Fountain, whose share includes Article 11 Technical Documentation. Article 11 Technical Documentation is both the widest raw gap and the heaviest weighted swing — Fountain 50, Paycor 40 — and at a 20% weight it carries 43% of the weighted advantage Fountain holds across the 6 criteria on that side of the table.
Vendor profile
Fountain
AI-powered high-volume hiring platform that automates sourcing, applicant screening (including a voice-based AI Recruiter), interview scheduling, and onboarding for frontline workforces.
Vendor profile
Paycor
Paycor, a Paychex company, sells a mid-market HR and payroll suite whose recruiting tools include the Paycor Recruiting ATS, Paycor Smart Sourcing (formerly Talenya), which uses AI to build a prioritized list of passive and active candidates for each role and automate outreach, and a WISE assistant that phone-screens candidates and scores their answers.
§ The record
Fountain is filed under Screening AI, Paycor under ATS-integrated 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 | Fountain | Paycor |
|---|---|---|
| Price tier | Enterprise | Mid |
| Headquarters | US | US |
| Founded | 2014 | 1990 |
§ What decides it
The criteria that move the gap, heaviest swing first.
20% weight · 40% of the movement so far
Article 11 Technical Documentation
Fountain 50 · Paycor 40
2.0 weighted points to Fountain
18% weight · 59% of the movement so far
Bias Audit Transparency
Fountain 30 · Paycor 25
0.9 weighted points to Fountain
15% weight · 74% of the movement so far
Data Governance Disclosure
Fountain 55 · Paycor 50
0.8 weighted points to Fountain
15% weight · 83% of the movement so far
FRIA Support
Fountain 30 · Paycor 27
0.4 weighted points to Fountain
12% weight · 90% of the movement so far
Human Oversight Design
Fountain 58 · Paycor 55
0.4 weighted points to Fountain
12% weight · 95% of the movement so far
Post-Market Monitoring
Fountain 40 · Paycor 38
0.2 weighted points to Fountain
8% weight · 100% of the movement so far
Customer Documentation
Fountain 52 · Paycor 55
0.2 weighted points to Paycor
Weighted delta is the raw difference times the criterion weight, so the 7 figures above sum to +4.5 — the difference between the two totals before either is rounded. Shares are of 4.9 points of movement counted without direction. The table below rounds each side to a whole number first, so its Δ raw total reads +4 beside that +4.5.
§ Category-by-category
Raw score per criterion, with weighted delta.
Δ is Fountain minus Paycor.
| Category | Weight | Fountain | Paycor | Δ raw | Δ weighted |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Article 11 Technical Documentation | 20% | 50 | 40 | +10 | +2.0 |
| Bias Audit Transparency | 18% | 30 | 25 | +5 | +0.9 |
| FRIA Support | 15% | 30 | 27 | +3 | +0.4 |
| Data Governance Disclosure | 15% | 55 | 50 | +5 | +0.8 |
| Human Oversight Design | 12% | 58 | 55 | +3 | +0.4 |
| Post-Market Monitoring | 12% | 40 | 38 | +2 | +0.2 |
| Customer Documentation | 8% | 52 | 55 | -3 | -0.2 |
| Total | 100% | 44 (F) | 40 (F) | +4 | +4.5 |
§ 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 | Fountain | Paycor | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cited | Absences | Audit / hosting | Cited | Absences | Audit / hosting | ||
| Article 11 Technical Documentation | 20% | 2 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain | 3 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domainSources on a separate domain |
| Bias Audit Transparency | 18% | 2 | 1 | — | 3 | 1 | — |
| FRIA Support | 15% | 1 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain | 1 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain |
| Data Governance Disclosure | 15% | 2 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain | 4 | 1 | Audit reportSources on the vendor's own domainSources on a separate domain |
| Human Oversight Design | 12% | 3 | 0 | Sources on the vendor's own domain | 6 | 0 | Sources on the vendor's own domainSources on a separate 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% | 2 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain | 4 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain |
| All criteria | 100% | 14 | 6 | Sources on the vendor's own domain | 24 | 6 | Audit reportSources on the vendor's own domainSources on a separate domain |
Fountain has 20 evidence rows across 7 of 7 criteria — 14 with a source URL, 6 documented absences; Paycor has 30 evidence rows across 7 of 7 criteria — 24 with a source URL, 6 documented absences; some documentation or audit rows for Paycor sit on a domain separate from the vendor's own site.
Provenance
The scores above are documented by 50 evidence rows on file for these two vendors: 20 for Fountain, across 2 distinct source domains, and 30 for Paycor, across 6 distinct source domains.
- Rubric
- v1.0
- Fountain last reviewed
- June 7, 2026 · HireAIScore editorial team
- Paycor 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