Cluely is a desktop app that listens to your calls, reads your screen and shows AI answers in a window that it says stays hidden from screen sharing. It launched in April 2025 with the line "cheat on everything" and now sells itself as "Meeting AI that helps during the call, not after." Pro costs $19.99 a month, and the tier that hides it from screen sharing costs $149.99 a month, billed monthly. Its own refund policy excludes "detection by screen-sharing software", Trustpilot scores it 1.6 from 23 reviews, and several large employers say live AI help in an interview breaks their rules.
A disclosure: ApplyEze sells job search software, so read this as a review by a company in the same market, though not a direct rival. ApplyEze finds openings and completes job applications, and it has no interview feature, so we have no copilot to sell and no first-hand use of Cluely to report. The review pages that rank for Cluely are mostly written by rival interview copilots. Everything below comes from Cluely's own pages, read on 18 October 2026, plus Trustpilot, Apple's App Store and the news reports linked in the text.
What Cluely is
The company is Cluely, Inc., which gives a San Francisco address for legal notices in its terms of service (last updated 10 June 2025). Its founders are CEO Chungin "Roy" Lee and COO Neel Shanmugam, both former Columbia students, according to TechCrunch.
Today's homepage calls it the "#1 Undetectable AI for Meetings" and lists what it does:
- Listens in. "It picks up the context of your meeting in real time."
- Answers on demand. "Hit Cmd/Ctrl + Enter and Cluely helps you with AI in the moment."
- Never joins the call. "There are no bots and no extra people on the guest list."
- Hides from screen share. It "never shows up in shared screens, recordings, or external meeting tools."
- Sits where you look. "Cluely window is fully moveable so you can position it exactly where you're looking."
- Takes notes. Shareable meeting notes, and questions over past meetings.
It names Zoom, Slack, Webex, Microsoft Teams and Google Meet as compatible. There is a desktop app and an iPhone app, "Cluely: AI Notetaker", whose App Store listing says it "Pairs with Cluely for Mac and Windows". The homepage does not mention interviews or exams. That App Store listing does: it offers "real-time AI coaching" for job interviews. So does the product's history.
From "cheat on everything" to meeting AI
Cluely grew out of an interview tool. TechCrunch reported on 21 April 2025, based on Lee's own account, that Columbia suspended him after he and Shanmugam built a tool to cheat on software engineering job interviews (Columbia declined to comment). The same day, Cluely announced a $5.3 million seed round from Abstract Ventures and Susa Ventures with the line "Cluely is out. cheat on everything." TechCrunch described the product then as "a hidden in-browser window that can't be viewed by the interviewer or test giver."
The manifesto is still on the site. It opens "We want to cheat on everything," lists "Sales calls. Meetings. Negotiations.", and ends "So, start cheating."
A second TechCrunch report, on 5 March 2026, covered two later events. Cluely raised a $15 million Series A from Andreessen Horowitz in June 2025, and it has since rebranded as an AI meeting note-taker. The same report says Lee had given TechCrunch a $7 million annual recurring revenue figure in summer 2025, then retracted it on X as "the only blatantly dishonest thing i've said publicly online." The numbers he posted for June 2025 showed consumer ARR of $2.7 million and enterprise ARR of $2.5 million.
| Date | Event | Source |
|---|---|---|
| April 2025 | Seed round of $5.3 million; "cheat on everything" launch | TechCrunch, 21 April 2025 |
| June 2025 | $15 million Series A from Andreessen Horowitz | TechCrunch, 5 March 2026 |
| March 2026 | CEO retracts the $7 million ARR figure | TechCrunch, 5 March 2026 |
| October 2026 | Sold as meeting AI; Undetectability tier still on sale | Cluely pricing page |
The repositioning is real, but it is a change of audience, not of feature. The most expensive plan still exists to keep the window out of a screen share.
Pricing
Cluely's pricing page shows three plans, as of October 2026. In our headless browser the numbers did not render, but the page's own HTML, read on 18 October 2026, lists the monthly prices, and its title says "Pro from $11.99/mo". The annual toggle shows a "-40%" badge on Pro and "-70%" on Pro + Undetectability.
| Plan | Billed monthly | Billed annually | What it adds |
|---|---|---|---|
| Starter | Free | Free | "Limited AI responses", "Limited meeting notetaking", up to 3 files |
| Pro | $19.99 a month | "from $11.99/mo billed annually" | "Unlimited AI responses", unlimited notetaking, latest models, priority support |
| Pro + Undetectability | $149.99 a month | 70% off shown; price did not render | "Completely hidden to meeting screen sharing software" |
Toolradar, which says it verified the page in October 2026, shows the same $19.99 and $149.99 monthly prices and no annual ones. The 40% badge on Pro matches the stated annual price: 60% of $19.99 is $11.99 (our arithmetic). We could not find an annual price for the Undetectability tier on Cluely's page, so we do not give one.
What a year costs, using Cluely's monthly prices and its stated annual Pro price (our arithmetic):
| Plan | Paid monthly for 12 months | Paid annually |
|---|---|---|
| Pro | $239.88 | $143.88 |
| Pro + Undetectability | $1,799.88 | not shown on the page we read |
The whole difference between the two paid plans is one feature. On monthly billing, hiding the window from screen sharing costs $130 a month more than Pro.
Renewal and refunds. Read these before paying for the top tier.
- The terms say a subscription "WILL BE AUTOMATICALLY RENEWED FOR SUCCESSIVE BILLING PERIODS AT OUR THEN-CURRENT PRICING" unless you opt out, and that "All Fees are non-refundable and non-creditable, except as expressly set forth in this Agreement."
- The refund policy (last updated 20 April 2025) offers "a 24-hour refund policy for our software subscription ONLY in the condition that you are able to show video evidence that it is not working on your computer." It then says: "Concerns like detection by screen-sharing software, or slowness in solution generation are not refundable." It also excludes Windows 10 computers.
- The cancellation policy lets you cancel any time in account settings, keeps access to the end of the paid period, and says "we do not offer pro-rata refunds."
Put the first and second points together. The $149.99 plan is sold on being undetectable, and the refund policy says that being detected is not grounds for a refund. If the feature fails in the call that mattered, the written rules leave you with the charge.
What users say
Two review sources give opposite pictures.
| Source | Score | Count | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Trustpilot | 1.6 ("Bad") | 23 reviews | 96% one star, 4% five star; profile unclaimed |
| Apple App Store | 4.7 | 568 ratings | iPhone notetaker app, seller Cluely, Inc. |
Both read on 18 October 2026. The samples are small and measure different things. App Store ratings are mostly taps from people using the free iPhone notetaker. Trustpilot reviews are written, and the company has not invited customers to post them, so they skew toward people with a complaint.
The Trustpilot themes, paraphrased:
- Charges after cancelling. Several reviewers between April and July 2026 say their card was charged after they cancelled, including one who cancelled through Stripe.
- Renewals for an unused product. Reviewers in September and October 2026 describe being charged for a year, or a renewal of about $100, for software they say they had not used.
- Refunds refused. A reviewer on 15 October 2026 says a request for an exception was declined. Others say support replied only with automated answers.
- Annual billing they did not expect. One September 2026 reviewer says a one-month trial defaulted to annual billing and that EU cancellation rights were not honored. That is one person's account.
- Detectable in practice. A January 2026 reviewer says the app was fully detectable as a separate window.
- Reliability. A March 2026 reviewer says a transcription tool that stops mid-conversation is worse than none.
On the other side, some Reddit users report that it worked for them in technical interviews, for example in a May 2025 r/leetcode thread whose top reply draws a line between online assessments and live interviews. And an April 2026 r/leetcode post argued that Cluely and similar copilots are detectable in coding interviews, including through their hotkeys. Both are individual accounts, not tests.
Interviews: employer rules and the risk to you
Cluely's homepage no longer mentions interviews, but the Undetectability tier works the same way in an interview as in a sales call. The question that matters is what the employer allows.
What employers have said
| Employer | Stated rule | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Amazon | Candidates "must acknowledge they won't use unauthorized tools during the interview process" | TechCrunch, 21 April 2025 |
| Amazon | "Failure to adhere to these guidelines may result in disqualification from the recruitment process" | ITPro, 14 March 2025, citing Business Insider |
| Goldman Sachs | "prohibits the use of any external sources, including ChatGPT or Google search engine, during the interview process" | Fortune via Yahoo, 11 June 2025 |
| CEO Sundar Pichai suggested "some fraction of the interviews being in person" | CNBC, 9 March 2025 |
Business Insider's reporting, summarized in its 28 February 2025 newsletter, said Amazon's internal guidelines treat AI help as an "unfair advantage" that stops it from judging a candidate's "authentic" skills.
How people get caught. Hiding a window from a screen share does not hide the person reading it. CNBC reported that interviewers watch for eyes moving to the side, other apps reflected in glasses, and answers that sound rehearsed or miss the question. Cluely's homepage advertises a window you can place "exactly where you're looking", which addresses only the first of those. Video interview platforms add their own checks; our HireVue guide covers HireVue's published flags.
What it can cost. At the employers above, the stated outcome is disqualification from that process. An offer made on answers you could not give alone also sets you up for a job you may not be ready for, and the refund policy will not cover a failed call.
Recording consent is on you. Cluely listens to the other people on the call. Its terms make the customer responsible for complying with laws "governing the monitoring or recording of conversations". California's Penal Code section 632 makes it an offense to record a confidential communication "without the consent of all parties". Whether live transcription counts depends on the facts and the state. This is general information, not legal advice.
A safer use. AI that helps you prepare raises none of these issues. Practice answers out loud against the posting, using our interview prep plan, and compare paid practice tools in our Final Round AI review, which covers its mock interview features and refund terms.
Claims we could not verify
Several things circulate about Cluely that we left out or kept at arm's length.
- The annual Undetectability price. It did not render on Cluely's page, and the price site we checked shows only the monthly $149.99. Figures for it on other blogs disagree with each other, so we give none.
- Undetectability itself. Cluely says the window is hidden; a Trustpilot reviewer and a Reddit poster say otherwise. Neither side has published a controlled test, and results likely depend on the meeting app and setup.
- Revenue and user numbers. The CEO has retracted one revenue figure himself. Treat any Cluely metric that is not in a filing as marketing.
Alternatives, by what you actually want
| If you want | Look at | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Meeting notes | A notetaker that joins the call openly | Cluely's own site compares itself with Otter and Granola |
| Interview practice | Mock interview tools, or rehearsal on your own | No employer rule is broken by practicing |
| Answers during a real interview | Nothing, at employers that forbid it | The stated penalty is disqualification |
| More interviews to begin with | The application stage | More well-matched applications, sent from a tailored resume |
Where ApplyEze fits
ApplyEze works at the opposite end of the search and in the opposite spirit. It is a desktop app for macOS and Windows that completes job applications, and it does nothing during interviews. Its browser is visible by default, so you can watch every field it fills, and a dry-run mode fills the form and never clicks Submit. If you are deciding where AI belongs in your search, our roundup of AI job application tools covers the application side.