Most people arrive at Cluely's pricing page expecting $19.99/month and leave having found the number that actually applies to them: $149.99/month, which is the tier where the app becomes hidden from screen sharing.
That's the usual reason for looking elsewhere. The second reason is quieter — Cluely is a meeting assistant. Its lead feature is note-taking, its answers are triggered with Cmd/Ctrl + Enter, and its transcription covers 12+ languages. For meetings that's a sensible design. For a live interview it means paying a premium for the one thing you needed, and pressing a key every time you need help.
Here's what to look at instead.
What to judge an alternative on
Four things separate these tools, and price is only one of them.
Is undetectability included or upsold? This is where Cluely loses people. Check whether the plan you'd actually buy is the invisible one.
How is it hidden? "Nothing visible on screen" and "nothing in the process list" are different guarantees. The first covers someone watching a screen share. The second also covers software that enumerates running processes, or an interviewer who asks you to open Activity Monitor.
How do you control it? A keyboard shortcut is an event. Some assessment platforms log keyboard input. If that's your environment, the input method is part of the threat model rather than a preference.
Is usage metered? Credits and session caps are fine until you're forty minutes into an interview watching a counter.
The alternatives
Velin AI — best if undetectability is the point
$34/month, $228/year, or $324 once for lifetime. Undetectability isn't a tier — every plan is hidden at the OS level: absent from the dock, menu bar and Activity Monitor, running under the process name V Module, click-through, never the active window.
Two things Cluely doesn't do at all. It can be driven by custom mouse gestures, so there's no keystroke for a keyboard-monitoring platform to log. And it supports invisible notes — cheatsheets you prepare in advance, placed on screen, absent from screen shares and recordings. For behavioural rounds those are often more useful than a generated answer.
Answers are ambient in live mode rather than summoned, 57+ languages against Cluely's 12+, unlimited session length, unlimited usage on every plan.
The catch: desktop only, no mobile app, and $34/month is more than Cluely's $19.99 base tier if you don't need to be hidden.
InterviewMan — best on annual price
$30/month, or $144/year, which works out to $12/month — the cheapest serious option here and cheaper than Velin. Unlimited minutes and unlimited session duration, invisible in dock and Activity Monitor, and the broadest named platform list of anyone: Teams, Zoom, Meet, Amazon Chime, Webex, Lark/Feishu, HackerRank, CoderPad, Codility.
Their social proof is proportionate too — 57,000+ users and 4.9★ from 257 reviews, which is a believable ratio.
Worth knowing: part of their stealth is a two-device mode, so some of the undetectability depends on a second device rather than the machine you're interviewing on. Fine if you control the room, harder if you don't. They also claim the product "has never been detected," which no software can support.
LockedIn AI — best if you need it everywhere
The broadest platform coverage in this category: Windows, macOS, iOS, Android, and Chrome, Edge, Chromium, Opera and Brave. It also has VSCode and Cursor integration, HireVue support, mock interviews with competency scoring, and 50+ languages with accent recognition.
They publish a 116ms average response time, which is faster than Velin's stated 120ms.
Worth knowing: their pricing page lists tier names — Unlimited, Credits, Lifetime, General, Professional — without prices. You find out the cost after you start signing up. The presence of a Credits tier alongside Unlimited suggests metered usage. And their invisibility is described by outcome ("no UI elements visible") rather than by where the software sits.
Final Round AI — best if you want to practise first
From $25/month, cheaper than Velin. The widest feature surface of any tool here: AI mock interviews with scoring, an AI resume builder, post-interview reports, speech clarity analysis, 26+ languages, and live assistance through their Interview Copilot™️. It's cross-industry rather than engineering-only.
If your problem is that you're underprepared rather than that you need help in the room, this is the better buy — and Velin has no mock interview mode, no resume builder and no post-interview analytics at all.
Worth knowing: invisibility is one feature among many here rather than the architecture, and it's described in terms of what the interviewer sees. No mention of dock, Activity Monitor or process naming.
Summary
| | Entry price | Undetectability | Control | Usage | |---|---|---|---|---| | Cluely | $19.99/mo | $149.99/mo tier | Keyboard shortcut | Unlimited on Pro | | Velin AI | $34/mo | Included on all plans | Keyboard, clicks or gestures | Unlimited, all plans | | InterviewMan | $12/mo annual | Included; two-device mode | Not stated | Unlimited | | LockedIn AI | Not published | Included | Not stated | Credits tier exists | | Final Round AI | $25/mo | Included | Not stated | Not stated |
Which one
Stay with Cluely if meetings are the real use case and you don't need to be hidden — the $19.99 tier is good value for notes and recaps, and it's the only one here with an iOS app.
InterviewMan if annual price decides it and a two-device setup works for you.
Final Round AI if you want to practise and be scored before the interview, not just get through it.
LockedIn AI if you need mobile, a browser build, or your editor — and you don't mind signing up to learn the price.
Velin AI if being invisible is the whole point, you want gesture control so there's no keyboard input to log, and you'd rather pay $324 once than rent the feature at $149.99 a month.
Already narrowed it to two? The head-to-head with Cluely goes deeper on the pricing split and the control question. The invisibility breakdown explains the OS-level mechanism.
Competitor pricing and features were taken from each company's own site on 12 August 2026. Pricing pages change — check before you buy.