§ The result
Lever leads softgarden on 6 of the 7 criteria.
Inside the ATS-integrated cohort, rubric v1.0 puts Lever on 49 and softgarden on 42, 7 points apart. Lever leads 6 of the 7 criteria and the remaining criterion is level, so softgarden is ahead on none of them; the closest of the 6 Lever leads is Post-Market Monitoring, Lever 45 to softgarden 44. One criterion, Bias Audit Transparency, is both the widest raw gap (Lever 42, softgarden 22) and the heaviest weighted swing, and at 18% weight it makes up 52% of the weighted advantage Lever holds across the 6 criteria it leads.
Vendor profile
Lever
Lever is an AI-powered applicant tracking system and recruiting CRM that centralizes sourcing, candidate relationship management, AI candidate matching (Talent Fit), and hiring analytics for high-growth employers.
Vendor profile
softgarden
softgarden is a German cloud applicant tracking system (multiposting, career sites, applicant management and onboarding) with optional AI features: AI-Assisted Applicant Matching, which highlights applicants who closely match a job's requirements, and a newer LLM-based Screening Assistant, which scores each applicant against screening criteria.
§ The record
Lever and softgarden are both filed under ATS-integrated AI. They also share 1 secondary category: Screening.
Both are in scope of EU AI Act, NYC LL 144, Colorado AI Act and Illinois HB 3773.
| Record | Lever | softgarden |
|---|---|---|
| Price tier | Mid | Mid |
| Headquarters | US | DE |
| Founded | 2012 | 2001 |
§ What decides it
The criteria that move the gap, heaviest swing first.
18% weight · 52% of the movement so far
Bias Audit Transparency
Lever 42 · softgarden 22
3.6 weighted points to Lever
20% weight · 82% of the movement so far
Article 11 Technical Documentation
Lever 52 · softgarden 42
2.0 weighted points to Lever
15% weight · 90% of the movement so far
Data Governance Disclosure
Lever 58 · softgarden 54
0.6 weighted points to Lever
15% weight · 95% of the movement so far
FRIA Support
Lever 32 · softgarden 30
0.3 weighted points to Lever
12% weight · 98% of the movement so far
Human Oversight Design
Lever 60 · softgarden 58
0.2 weighted points to Lever
12% weight · 100% of the movement so far
Post-Market Monitoring
Lever 45 · softgarden 44
0.1 weighted points to Lever
Weighted delta is the raw difference times the criterion weight, so the 6 figures above sum to +6.9 — the difference between the two totals before either is rounded. Shares are of 6.9 points of movement counted without direction. The table below rounds each side to a whole number first, so its Δ raw total reads +7 beside that +6.9.
§ Category-by-category
Raw score per criterion, with weighted delta.
Δ is Lever minus softgarden.
| Category | Weight | Lever | softgarden | Δ raw | Δ weighted |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Article 11 Technical Documentation | 20% | 52 | 42 | +10 | +2.0 |
| Bias Audit Transparency | 18% | 42 | 22 | +20 | +3.6 |
| FRIA Support | 15% | 32 | 30 | +2 | +0.3 |
| Data Governance Disclosure | 15% | 58 | 54 | +4 | +0.6 |
| Human Oversight Design | 12% | 60 | 58 | +2 | +0.2 |
| Post-Market Monitoring | 12% | 45 | 44 | +1 | +0.1 |
| Customer Documentation | 8% | 58 | 58 | - | - |
| Total | 100% | 49 (F) | 42 (F) | +7 | +6.9 |
§ 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 | Lever | softgarden | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cited | Absences | Audit / hosting | Cited | Absences | Audit / hosting | ||
| Article 11 Technical Documentation | 20% | 2 | 1 | Sources on a separate domain | 6 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain |
| Bias Audit Transparency | 18% | 2 | 1 | Sources on a separate domain | 3 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain |
| FRIA Support | 15% | 1 | 1 | Sources on a separate domain | 3 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain |
| Data Governance Disclosure | 15% | 2 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain | 7 | 0 | Audit reportSources on the vendor's own domain |
| Human Oversight Design | 12% | 2 | 0 | 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 | 5 | 1 | Audit reportSources on the vendor's own domain |
| Customer Documentation | 8% | 2 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domainSources on a separate domain | 2 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain |
| All criteria | 100% | 13 | 6 | Sources on the vendor's own domainSources on a separate domain | 31 | 5 | Audit reportSources on the vendor's own domain |
Lever has 19 evidence rows across 7 of 7 criteria — 13 with a source URL, 6 documented absences; softgarden has 36 evidence rows across 7 of 7 criteria — 31 with a source URL, 5 documented absences; some documentation or audit rows for Lever sit on a domain separate from the vendor's own site.
Provenance
The scores above are documented by 55 evidence rows on file for these two vendors: 19 for Lever, across 2 distinct source domains, and 36 for softgarden, across 3 distinct source domains.
- Rubric
- v1.0
- Lever last reviewed
- June 7, 2026 · HireAIScore editorial team
- softgarden 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