AI Resume Tailoring Pricing: Compare Free Plan Limits First

Most job-tailoring resume AI tools offer a free plan, but what that free plan actually counts, scans, AI credits, resumes saved, or downloads, differs by service. This comparison checks refresh.cv, Teal, Jobscan, Rezi, and Kickresume against four criteria: where job-tailoring sits in the plan lineup, what unit the free limit uses, the billing cycle options, and the cancellation and refund terms. Prices reflect each service's official page or a dated review from July through September 2026, so confirm the current rate on the official pricing page before you pay.

We're the team that builds refresh.cv, and our own plan is part of this lineup. That's why we are not ranking the five services against each other here. Instead, we're laying out each one's free scope and paid-upgrade trigger side by side, holding our own free plan to the same four criteria we apply to the others.

Four Criteria We Used

The monthly price on a pricing page tells you less than it looks like it does. For someone tailoring a resume to a specific job posting, four other details matter more.

1. Where job-tailoring sits. Is the keyword analysis and per-job rewrite that compares a posting against your resume included free, or locked to a paid tier?
2. What the free limit counts. Scans, AI credits, resume slots, and downloads behave differently. A limit that resets every month feels very different from one that applies once, for the life of the account.
3. Billing cycle options. Weekly, monthly, quarterly, annual, and lifetime plans suit different job-search lengths.
4. Cancellation and refund terms. Auto-renewal, when a canceled plan drops to free, and how long a refund window stays open.

Five Pricing Plans at a Glance

Teal's free-plan details, including the 10 templates, top-five keyword match, and the limited AI credits for bullets, summaries, and cover letters, come from OpenTools' breakdown of Teal pricing. Kickresume's AI writer and ATS check being Premium-only features are documented in ATS Resume AI's Kickresume review.

Converting Free Limits Into Your Application Plan

Whether a free plan is enough depends on how many jobs you apply to in a month and how many times you recheck each one after editing. A rough starting point: multiply the number of job postings you're applying to by two, one check for the initial analysis and one for the recheck after you revise.

Apply to four postings in a month, for example, and you need roughly eight job-tailoring checks.

• Jobscan free: 5 scans a month covers thorough repeat checking on about two postings. ATS Resume AI's Jobscan review notes that running one application through properly tends to use 2-3 scans on its own. Jobsolv's review adds that unused scans only roll over up to a held balance of 5.
• Rezi free: the 1-resume limit doesn't fit a workflow that keeps a separate version per posting. The 3-PDF limit doesn't reset monthly either; ATS Resume AI's Rezi review describes it as a lifetime account allowance.
• Teal free: resume versions are unlimited, but AI credits are capped and keyword matching only covers the top five terms from a posting.
• refresh.cv Free: 5 resume score scans and 5 AI writes/edits reset every month. Per the pricing page, though, per-job tailoring and the core requirement analysis against a specific posting are Pro features. Repeating a tailored rewrite across several postings means an upgrade on our side too.

The practical read: treat a free plan as a way to test whether a tool's workflow fits how you write, and decide on an upgrade once you're actually applying in volume.

What Three Months of Job Search Costs

Using a 3-month search window and each service's lowest paid tier that unlocks job-tailoring, the rough costs line up like this. Feature scope differs between tools, so treat this as a budget range rather than an apples-to-apples total.

Billing cycle is worth matching to your search pattern. If you're applying to a handful of roles over two or three intense weeks, check short options first, Teal's 7-day plan or refresh.cv's 7-day pass (current pricing on the refresh.cv pricing page). For a search stretching past six months, Kickresume's annual plan or Rezi's lifetime tier become candidates. Rezi's $149 lifetime price works out to roughly 5.1 months of the $29 Pro plan, so it only comes out cheaper once you pass about six months of use. Toolchase notes that the lifetime tier skips the monthly expert review bundled into Pro; that review is a separate add-on starting at $8 per session.

How We Think About Choosing a refresh.cv Plan

Our Pro workflow runs: paste the job posting, extract its requirements and ATS keywords, compare your current resume's wording and evidence against them, then confirm what to revise first. The same Pro-level keyword analysis and improvement suggestions are documented on our pricing page.

Say a posting lists "SQL data extraction," "A/B test design," and "cross-team collaboration" as requirements.

• Keyword and evidence both present: if your resume already says "Automated weekly revenue reports using SQL," keep the line and sharpen the result it points to.
• Experience present, wording missing: "Split landing page traffic into test and control groups to compare conversion rates" describes real A/B testing, just not in the posting's language. Rewrite it using the posting's own term.
• Both missing: if you've never actually done cross-team collaboration work, add it only if a real example exists. Leave it out otherwise.

Sorting requirements into these three states is what sets the revision order. The second case, right experience and wrong wording, is usually the fastest fix and the one to handle first.

Resume score analysis (specificity, impact, phrasing, grammar) is available free up to 5 times a month and measures writing quality, not fit against any one posting. Mock Apply is a separate, supplementary step for preparing a submission once tailoring is done: 1 run a month on Free, 10 on Pro, 50 on Max. Max suits someone running Mock Apply often or wanting priority access to newer models.

If you're still deciding whether a paid resume tool is worth it at all, see Is a Resume Builder Subscription Worth It vs ChatGPT?

Cancellation and Refund Terms to Check

When prices land close together, cancellation and refund terms end up being the real difference.

• Cancellation timing: Rezi and Jobscan both drop to their free tier once the current billing period ends, rather than cutting off access immediately.
• Refund window: Rezi's paid plans carry a 30-day refund guarantee according to ATS Resume AI's review. Kickresume posts a 14-day guarantee in its own Help Center. Jobscan's policy, per Resume Optimizer Pro, only allows a refund within 2 days and only if you haven't used the service.
• Student discount: Kickresume gives students six months of Premium free, listed in its Help Center.

FAQ

Prices are listed in USD. What will I actually pay?

All five services list prices in USD. A card charge adds that day's exchange rate plus your card issuer's foreign transaction fee, so your statement is the accurate record of what you were billed.

Does a higher match score mean a better shot at an interview?

No tool guarantees that. Each score reflects that tool's own criteria, and Jobsolv's Rezi review points out that Rezi Score isn't confirmed to line up with how a company's actual ATS evaluates a resume. Use the score to spot requirements you've missed, then put the real effort into describing your actual experience accurately.

Can I combine free plans from different services?

Yes. You could use one tool's free plan to check resume wording and another's free scan to check a posting's keywords. Keyword extraction methods differ between tools, so results can disagree with each other. Make the final call against the job posting's actual requirements and your real experience, not any single score.

Is cover letter help included for free?

refresh.cv's Free plan includes cover letter drafting, editing, and scoring in English, Japanese, and Chinese; current scope is on our pricing page. Teal's free plan includes two AI cover letter credits per OpenTools' breakdown. Check each other service's own pricing page for its cover letter scope.

If you already have a posting in front of you, start on refresh.cv's Free plan, run a resume score scan, and decide whether per-job tailoring on Pro earns its cost once you're applying on a regular schedule. See current plans.