Maki People vs Mercor
Maki People is a European alternative to Mercor: same hr & recruitment use case, headquartered in France and governed by EU GDPR, while Mercor is based in the United States.
By the EU Alternatives team Last updated
AI skills assessments and voice screening in 45+ languages, integrated with your ATS, for faster and fairer volume hiring.
- Jurisdiction
- EU / EEA
- Primary privacy law
- EU GDPR
- US CLOUD Act exposure
- No
- Open source
- No
- Free tier
- No
Once an AI recruiting marketplace, it is now largely a staffing engine placing doctors, lawyers and scientists with AI labs, paying its expert network over 2 million dollars a day. Employers pay around a 30 percent placement fee; joining as talent costs nothing. The San Francisco startup hit a 20 billion dollar valuation in July 2026, with contracts and data handled from the US.
- Jurisdiction
- United States
- GDPR by default
- Requires DPA + TIA
- US CLOUD Act exposure
- Yes
Maki People vs Mercor at a glance
| Maki People | Mercor | |
|---|---|---|
| Headquarters | France | United States |
| Data jurisdiction | EU / EEA | United States |
| Primary privacy law | EU GDPR | Requires DPA + transfer assessment |
| US CLOUD Act exposure | No | Yes |
| Best for | Teams that need hr & recruitment built for European data-protection requirements | Teams already invested in the Mercor ecosystem |
Choose Maki People if…
- You want a provider governed by a European privacy regime
- GDPR or public-sector data-protection requirements apply to you
- You'd rather back the European tech ecosystem
Stick with Mercor if…
- You depend on integrations only available in the Mercor ecosystem
- Your organisation has no EU data-residency constraints
- Migration costs outweigh the jurisdiction benefits for now
About Maki People
Maki People screens job candidates with AI-powered skills assessments and voice interviews in 45+ languages, replacing CV guesswork with measured ability. Recruiting teams assemble tests from a library covering 300+ skills, with deeper assessments across 400+ skills, then let an AI agent conduct structured screening conversations at any hour, in any language.
Results flow straight into the systems recruiters already work in: Greenhouse, Workday, SAP SuccessFactors, iCIMS, Eightfold and Cornerstone integrations keep the ATS as the single source of truth. Candidates get a fast, mobile-friendly experience, and the company reports 92.4% positive candidate feedback, unusual for assessment tools.
Key benefits:
- 300+ skills tested with deep assessments across 400+ skills
- AI voice screening in 45+ languages, available around the clock
- ATS integrations with Workday, Greenhouse, SAP SuccessFactors and iCIMS
- 45% faster hiring and 50% lower turnover reported by customers
- Candidate-friendly with 92.4% positive feedback on the experience
Maki People is MAKIPEOPLE SAS, a French company registered in Paris and governed by French law, operating under the GDPR. For European employers, that matters: candidate data and AI hiring decisions stay under EU jurisdiction as the AI Act tightens rules on algorithmic recruitment.
Ideal for volume recruiters and HR teams that want structured, multilingual screening without shipping candidate data to US assessment vendors.
Why choose Maki People over Mercor?
The decisive argument is data jurisdiction. Mercor is headquartered in the United States, which means personal data processed through it can be subject to non-EU legal regimes: the US CLOUD Act, FISA 702, or similar laws depending on the provider. After the 2020 Schrems II ruling, EU organisations must carry out a transfer impact assessment for every such data flow.
Maki People removes that overhead. As a France-based provider, it operates under EU GDPR, and data stays inside the EU/EEA by default. For regulated sectors such as health, public administration, and finance, that's not a nice-to-have but a requirement. For everyone else, it's concentration-risk insurance: you avoid depending on a single jurisdiction that can change the rules without warning.