The same category, opposite bet on modality
Willo and Prelim are both async, one-way candidate screening tools that replace the first-round phone screen. Neither asks you to schedule anything. Both let a candidate respond on their own time, from their own device. The split is what the candidate does when they open the link: with Willo, they record a video; with Prelim, they have a text conversation.
That one difference drives everything else, and unlike the HireVue comparison, it is not about price. Willo is genuinely affordable and simple to set up. It is not an enterprise suite with a six-figure contract and an eight-week implementation. So the question between Willo and Prelim is not "which is cheaper." It is "will your candidates actually finish a video interview." For high-volume hourly hiring, the answer is usually no, and that is the whole comparison.
Completion rate is the deciding number
A one-way screen is only worth something if the candidate completes it. Asking a warehouse picker, a CNA, or a CDL driver to record themselves on camera answering interview questions adds friction at every step: find a quiet room, fix the lighting, check the audio, get the framing right, then re-record because the first take felt awkward. Plenty of strong hourly candidates just close the tab.
Industry benchmarks for async video completion sit around 30 to 45 percent for hourly roles. Text-based asynchronous screening for the same roles tends to run 60 to 80 percent, because the friction is lower. No camera, no audio, no "did I sound okay." If you are filling 40 caregiver roles, the gap between 35 percent and 70 percent completion is the difference between screening 35 candidates and 17. That is not a small edge. It is the size of your funnel. More on where applicants leak out in our note on candidate drop-off.
Where Willo is genuinely good
Willo is a well-built product, and there are real reasons to pick it.
You actually want to see and hear the candidate. For customer-facing or presentation-heavy roles, verbal delivery is part of what you are evaluating, and a transcript will not capture it. Video is the right modality there. Prelim is text-only and does not try to compete on that signal.
Flexible response formats. Willo lets candidates answer by video, audio, or text, and supports multiple-choice and file uploads in a single screen. If you want a mix of formats in one flow, that flexibility is real.
Branded, polished candidate pages. Willo supports a branded interview experience with intro videos and a consistent employer look. For roles where employer brand is part of the pitch, that polish matters.
You hire in the EU or care about GDPR posture. Willo is built with European hiring and data-protection expectations front of mind. If that is your context, it is a sensible default.
Where Prelim wins
Text matches how hourly candidates job-search. Your candidates apply from their phones between shifts, in a break room, on the bus. A text screening interview fits that reality; a video recording does not. This is the whole reason Prelim exists, and it is the one place we will plant a flag: for warehouse and logistics hiring, senior living, trucking, and food service, text completes far more often than video.
Conversational, not a list of recorded prompts. Willo is built around fixed question prompts the candidate answers one at a time. Prelim runs a conversational text screen generated from your job description, then scores each answer against what the role actually requires and returns a strong-yes / yes / maybe / no recommendation. You are reading a scored transcript, not building a question script.
Faster to review. Reading a scored text transcript takes two to three minutes per candidate. Watching a stack of video responses takes five to fifteen. At high volume that review time is the actual bottleneck, and text collapses it.
Faster to set up. Paste a job description and Prelim generates the screen in seconds. There is nothing to record, no prompts to script, no video to produce. Share the link and you are screening.
What text screening gives up
Be clear about the trade. A text screen will not tell you how a candidate sounds on the phone, how they carry themselves, or how they handle a live back-and-forth. For a receptionist, a host, or a phone-sales role, that signal is part of the job and you should not skip it. The honest move is to use async text as the volume filter and keep a short live or video step for the handful of finalists where delivery actually matters. Prelim is built to be that first filter, not the entire process. It is good at cutting a few hundred applicants down to the ten worth a real conversation, and deliberately quiet about everything after that.
Which one fits you
Pick Willo if seeing and hearing the candidate is part of the evaluation, if you want multiple response formats in one screen, or if your hiring is European and GDPR posture is a first-order concern. It is a clean, affordable async video tool and it does that job well.
Pick Prelim if you hire hourly or high-volume, healthcare aides, warehouse staff, drivers, hospitality, retail, where candidates live on their phones and a video recording is the friction that loses you the good ones. The same logic that makes text beat video against Spark Hire applies here, just at a lower price tier on both sides.
The fastest way to know is to run both against the same job. Start free, paste a job description, and share the link: create an account. We have ready-built screens for most hourly roles, including warehouse associate, CDL driver, and CNA. Browse the full templates library to match your highest-volume opening.