YourCVMaker vs Teal: Full Comparison (2026)
Teal makes an honest claim most resume builders can't: unlimited resumes and unlimited downloads on its free plan, forever, no card required. Before comparing anything else, it's worth saying plainly that this is a genuinely stronger free tier than ours on the one thing people usually care about most. Here's a fact-checked look at where that free plan actually helps, where the two products are built differently, and where each one wins once you're past the free tier — verified against Teal's own site today.
At a glance
This page compares YourCVMaker and Teal on free-plan downloads, AI credits, editing model and pricing, verified directly against Teal's own site on September 4, 2026.
Teal's free plan is genuinely stronger on downloads — unlimited resumes and exports forever, no card required — but its AI credits are a one-time allowance rather than a monthly refresh. YourCVMaker charges one flat €9.99/month, refreshes AI credits every month, gives most templates an Advanced Editor, and includes 1 ATS-friendly PDF download per account on Free, though the designed Designer PDF, PNG and Word exports still need Pro.
| What you get | Teal | YourCVMaker |
|---|---|---|
| Free plan downloads | Unlimited, forever, no card required | 1 ATS-friendly PDF download per account (plain layout, footer credit); Designer PDF/PNG/Word need Pro (one-time Designer PDF exception for verified students/teachers) |
| Templates | Full builder access | Every template (229 in the library), no time limit |
| Editing model | Fixed fields inside a chosen template | Advanced Editor — move/resize any element on 215 of 229 templates |
| AI engine | AI model not named on Teal's pricing or features pages | Anthropic's Claude models, named explicitly in our Privacy Policy |
| ATS check | — | Four automated checks (field recovery, section detection, reading order, keyword retention) before every release — see the ATS promise |
| Job search / tracking | Yes, unlimited, free forever, plus a Companies/Contacts CRM | AI Job Search across eight job boards, de-duplicated, plus a 5-stage Job Tracker board (Saved, Applied, Interviewing, Offer, Rejected) — no separate contacts/companies CRM |
| Pricing | $13/7 days, $29/30 days, or $79/90 days (Teal+) | €9.99/month flat — same price at 1 month or 12 |
Where Teal is genuinely strong
Teal's free plan is the real story here, and it holds up under a live check today: per Teal's own site, you do not need to upgrade to edit and export unlimited resumes in the builder, bookmark unlimited roles in the Job Tracker, or track unlimited contacts — no credit card, no time limit, no per-download cap. That's a stronger free tier than YourCVMaker's on the single feature most people evaluate first, and it's worth saying so directly rather than downplaying it: if a free, ongoing download is the deciding factor and you don't have a student or teacher email to verify, Teal genuinely serves you better today.
The job tracker itself is also a real, separate product most builders don't bundle at all — bookmarking roles, setting goals, and tracking application status and notes, free forever, alongside the resume builder rather than as a paid add-on. For a job search running across dozens of applications, that tracking can matter more day-to-day than any single resume feature.
Two different editing architectures
Teal's builder, like most resume tools, works inside a fixed template structure: you fill predefined fields and the layout renders around them — reliable, but the design itself (where a photo sits, a section's color panel, an icon's size) isn't something you touch directly.
YourCVMaker's Advanced Editor takes the opposite approach: 215 of our 229 templates run through a canvas of individually selectable, moveable, resizable elements — text, photos, shapes, icons — while still exporting back out as clean, ATS-parseable text underneath (the remaining 14 use a simpler Quick/AI Editor). You can drag a photo, resize a decorative shape, or recolor one panel without breaking the layout, on any template in that set, not just a handful marked "customizable."
AI: unlimited-but-capped credits vs. a monthly allowance
Teal's free-tier AI is real but deliberately narrow: per Teal's own site, a free account gets 10 non-renewable AI Bullet Generation credits, 2 credits for a Professional Summary, and 2 credits for a Cover Letter — a fixed, one-time allotment rather than a monthly refresh, plus keyword matching limited to the top terms from a job posting. Teal+ removes those caps for unlimited AI generation, deeper Analysis Mode suggestions, and more keywords surfaced in Job Matching.
YourCVMaker's free plan gives 10 AI credits every month, not a one-time allotment, spent across resume scoring, summaries and job-tailoring; Pro raises that to 500 credits a month plus AI-personalized cover letters and a live, camera-on Interview Prep tool that scores clarity, confidence and speaking balance in real time and hands you a transcript afterward. Both run on named AI — Teal doesn't publish which model powers its generation features on its pricing or features pages; YourCVMaker names Anthropic's Claude explicitly in its Privacy Policy.
What the free plan actually includes
Confirmed directly against Teal's own site today: free is free-forever with unlimited resumes, unlimited downloads and unlimited job tracking, no card required — the AI layer is the only capped part, at 10 bullet credits, 2 summary credits and 2 cover-letter credits, one-time, not monthly. Teal+ is $13 billed every 7 days, $29 every 30 days, or $79 every 90 days, with no discounted trial step that jumps to a higher price later — the same figure each cycle at whichever cadence you pick.
YourCVMaker's free plan runs the other direction: it never expires, every one of the 229 templates in the library is previewable with no time limit, AI credits refresh monthly rather than draining once, and — since 2026-09-07 — every account gets 1 ATS-friendly PDF download (a plain, single-layout PDF with a small footer credit line). Designer PDF, PNG and Word exports still require Pro. The existing exception stays, additionally: a signed-in Free account with a verified student or teacher email (checked against a real academic domain, not a self-declared checkbox) gets one free Designer PDF download, one time.
| What you get | Teal | YourCVMaker |
|---|---|---|
| Free plan downloads | Unlimited, forever, no card required | 1 ATS-friendly PDF download per account (plain layout, footer credit); Designer PDF/PNG/Word need Pro (one-time Designer PDF exception for verified students/teachers) |
| Free plan resumes | Unlimited | Unlimited to build/preview |
| Free plan AI | 10 bullet + 2 summary + 2 cover-letter credits, one-time (non-renewable) | 10 AI credits/month, refreshes every month |
| Job tracker on Free | Yes, unlimited, free forever | Yes — 5-stage board (Saved, Applied, Interviewing, Offer, Rejected), capped at 10 tracked jobs on Free; paid plans track unlimited |
| Paid pricing | $13/7 days, $29/30 days, or $79/90 days (Teal+) | €9.99/month flat — same price at 1 month or 12 |
| Templates unlocked on Free | Full builder access | Every template (229 in the library), no time limit |
| Editing model | Fixed fields inside a chosen template | Advanced Editor — move/resize any element on 215 of 229 templates |
| Resume-to-machine format | Not documented as a separate export on Teal's pricing or features pages | Field recovery, section detection, reading order and keyword retention, checked automatically — see how we test it |
Where YourCVMaker fits in
We're one of the alternatives here, not a neutral referee, so the honest version: if a free, ongoing, unlimited download with no strings attached is what you need most, Teal's free plan does that better than ours does today, full stop — that's a real strength, not a technicality. YourCVMaker's free plan does include 1 ATS-friendly PDF download per account (plain layout, small footer credit) since 2026-09-07, but that's a capped allowance next to Teal's unlimited one. YourCVMaker is built around a different trade: AI credits that refresh every month instead of draining once, an Advanced Editor that gives you direct control over layout on most templates rather than fixed fields, and a paid tier — €9.99/month flat, 500 AI credits, 10 watermark-free downloads a month (a 15-per-day fair-use cap applies across formats), AI-personalized cover letters, and the camera-on Interview Prep tool — priced as one plan with no weekly-to-quarterly ladder to compare.
Two things worth naming that aren't in the table: TalentBuzz, an opt-in anonymous profile recruiters can search, ships on both Free and Pro, not gated behind the paid plan; and the built-in AI Job Search queries up to eight job boards at once (Adzuna, Arbeitnow, Remotive, Jobicy, RemoteOK, Himalayas, The Muse and Jooble), de-duplicates the results, and saves anything promising straight to our own Job Tracker — a 5-stage board (Saved, Applied, Interviewing, Offer, Rejected) capped at 10 tracked jobs on Free, unlimited on Pro. Teal's tracker adds a Companies/Contacts CRM ours doesn't have, unlimited on its free plan — if that CRM workflow is why you're using Teal in the first place, switching away loses it. Every plan also exports two PDFs from the same resume: a Designer PDF for the template you chose, and a separate ATS-Friendly PDF built as plain, structured text, checked with four automated tests before every release — on Free, the ATS-Friendly PDF is capped at 1 download per account and carries a small footer credit line, while the Designer PDF still requires Pro.
Frequently asked questions
- Is Teal really free forever?
- Yes for the core builder and tracker -- unlimited resumes, unlimited downloads and unlimited job tracking, no card required. The AI layer is the only capped part, at a one-time allowance of bullet, summary and cover-letter credits.
- Does Teal have a job tracker?
- Yes -- a free, unlimited job tracker with a Companies/Contacts CRM for bookmarking roles, setting goals, and tracking application status and notes, bundled alongside the resume builder rather than sold as a paid add-on. YourCVMaker also has a job tracker: AI Job Search across eight job boards, saved to a 5-stage board (Saved, Applied, Interviewing, Offer, Rejected), capped at 10 tracked jobs on Free and unlimited on Pro -- just without Teal's contacts/companies CRM.
- Which resume builder has no subscription tiers to compare?
- YourCVMaker prices at one flat €9.99/month with no weekly-to-quarterly ladder to compare, unlike Teal+'s three billing cadences ($13/7 days, $29/30 days, or $79/90 days).