Honest comparison
NovaHunt vs Teal
Teal is the best resume HQ on the market. NovaHunt is an agent stack that does the sourcing, scoring, and tailoring for you. Here's where each one wins — including the places we're still catching up.
The short version
Teal's mental model is a workspace: a Pinterest-style board where you collect jobs (via their Chrome extension), build resume versions in a polished editor, and track recruiter contacts in their People CRM. It's a beautiful HQ for a search you drive. NovaHunt's mental model is a team: 32 specialized agents that source jobs from six boards with dedupe, score them with rationale, draft tailored documents per role, and surface a daily brief — with hard USD spend caps enforced by deterministic Python. If you want a place to organize what you find, use Teal. If you want the agents to do the finding and the scoring, use NovaHunt.
Feature matrix
Side-by-side, no fluff
| Feature | NovaHunt | Teal |
|---|---|---|
| Job sourcing (no copy-paste) | Pulls from Greenhouse, Lever, Ashby, Workable, Adzuna, JSearch with dedupe | You paste jobs in (Chrome extension assists) |
| AI scoring with rationale | APPRAISER score + JUDGE plain-English rationale + gap analysis | Keyword match score vs JD |
| Personalized re-ranker | SCOUT (scikit-learn) learns from your saves & dismisses — $0 marginal cost | No personalized model |
| Resume builder UI | Tailored drafts per job (SCRIVENER + REDACTOR); not a drag-and-drop builder | Polished multi-version builder + template library |
| Cover letter per job | OVERTURE writes in your voice (MUSE fingerprints your tone) | Generic AI cover letter generator |
| Top-applicant briefs | PERSONA archetype + ✓/○ checklist + differentiator per role | Not offered |
| Contact CRM (recruiters / referrals) | Not built yet — on roadmap | Mature 'People' CRM with notes + reminders |
| Chrome extension | Not yet — on roadmap | Yes, well-loved Job Tracker extension |
| Hard AI spend caps | TURNSTILE enforces $/day + $/month in deterministic Python | No exposed AI cost per action |
| Auditable agent log | Every Claude call logged with model, tokens, USD | Not exposed |
| User base maturity | Early-stage (2026 launch) | 1M+ users, established product |
Where Teal wins
Credit where it's due
Three places Teal is genuinely the better tool today.
Resume builder
Teal's drag-and-drop builder, multi-version library, and template catalog are the cleanest in the category. NovaHunt drafts tailored resumes per job, but does not have a free-form builder UI.
Contact CRM
Teal's People feature lets you track recruiters, referrals, and hiring managers with notes and reminders. NovaHunt has no contact CRM yet — it's on the roadmap.
Chrome extension
The Teal Job Tracker extension is mature, fast, and clips from every major board. NovaHunt has no extension yet — we source server-side instead.
Where NovaHunt wins
Agents doing the work
Four places NovaHunt does something Teal doesn't.
Sourcing without copy-paste
HARVESTER + POACHER + DRAGNET + SIEVE pull and dedupe jobs from six boards every refresh. You don't paste anything. Teal asks you to clip every job by hand.
Rationale, not just a score
APPRAISER produces a normalized score with 3-5 weighted factors; JUDGE writes a paragraph explaining the gaps. Teal shows you a keyword match number — useful, but it doesn't tell you why.
Personalized learning
SCOUT is a local scikit-learn model that re-ranks your matches from your saves and dismisses, at $0 marginal cost. Teal does not personalize ranking to your behavior.
Hard spend caps
TURNSTILE is a deterministic Python gate with zero LLM imports. Set $5/day; you spend $5/day. Teal doesn't expose AI cost per action — because most of its features aren't agentic.
Pricing
What you pay, what you get
NovaHunt
- Free — 30 matches, no card
- Starter $19/mo — $15 AI budget, 30 tailored apps
- Pro $49/mo — $50 AI budget, unlimited tailored apps
- Team $99/seat — shared workspace + analytics
Teal
- Free — generous limits
- Teal+ around $9/mo — full builder + unlimited generations
Teal is cheaper because it doesn't run agents on your behalf. NovaHunt's price includes a real AI budget that funds sourcing, scoring, tailoring, and follow-up drafting — work you'd otherwise do yourself.
Common questions
Should I just use both?⌄
Honestly, yes — for now. Teal's resume builder and People CRM are genuinely strong, and NovaHunt doesn't replicate them yet. Use Teal as your resume HQ and contact book; use NovaHunt as the agent stack that surfaces and scores roles you'd otherwise miss. We'll close the resume-builder gap, but we're not pretending it's closed today.
Is NovaHunt's scoring really better than Teal's match score?⌄
Different shape. Teal's score is keyword overlap with the JD — fast and explainable, but it doesn't know you. NovaHunt's APPRAISER reads the full JD + your profile and produces a normalized score with 3-5 weighted factors; JUDGE then writes a paragraph explaining the gaps. SCOUT re-ranks the whole list based on what you actually save and dismiss. It's more compute, but it's compute with rationale.
Teal has a free tier. Does NovaHunt?⌄
Yes — 30 free matches, no card required. Both products have meaningful free tiers; Teal's is broader because their feature set is broader.
Do you have a Chrome extension like Teal's Job Tracker?⌄
Not yet. It's on the roadmap, but we're being honest: today, NovaHunt sources jobs server-side from public ATS endpoints and aggregators. You don't have to clip anything — but you also can't clip from LinkedIn into NovaHunt yet.
Why pay $19/mo for NovaHunt when Teal is $9/mo?⌄
If you want a resume builder and a place to log jobs you found yourself, Teal at $9 is the better deal. NovaHunt at $19 includes $15 of AI spend going into agents that source, score, tailor, and explain — work you'd otherwise do by hand. Different jobs, different prices.
Try the agents on your own resume
30 free matches, no card required. If Teal already does what you need, stay with Teal — we'd rather you find the right tool than the loud one.