Cluely is a real-time AI assistant that listens to your conversation and feeds you suggested responses through an on-screen overlay. It started in the interview-cheating space and has since broadened into a general-purpose meeting and sales copilot.
Verdict: 3 out of 5. Cluely is a capable, well-marketed product with a genuinely strong feature set for meetings and sales, but a documented security history and stealth gated behind its most expensive tier hold it back, especially if interviews are your only use case. Full disclosure before we go further: we build GhostPilot, a competing interview copilot, so we are biased. We have tried to counter that by citing a source for every claim, conceding where Cluely is genuinely good, and debunking a fake scandal about Cluely that we could have used against it. You are spending real money during a stressful job search. You deserve straight information, not a hatchet job.
What is Cluely?
Cluely listens to a live conversation and surfaces suggested answers on an overlay only you can see. Its founder's "cheat on everything" framing is part of how it got famous, and it was squarely an interview tool at launch. Since then it has pivoted toward general meetings, sales calls, and note-taking, which is a sensible business move but does change who it is best for.
Today, Cluely suits people who live in recurring professional conversations: sales reps, account managers, customer-facing teams, and anyone who wants an assistant briefed on their material for calls that happen every week. It is less centred on the one-off, high-stakes job interview than it once was. If your need is interviews specifically, that pivot matters, and we come back to it below.
It is a real product with real polish and the brand recognition that comes from being one of the loudest names in the category. None of what follows is a claim that Cluely is junk. It is not.
Cluely pricing in 2026
| Plan | Price | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | 5 AI responses per day |
| Starter | $20/mo | More responses, core features |
| Pro | $75/mo | Higher limits, and screen-share stealth sits behind this tier |
Pricing as of 2026, check Cluely's site for the latest, as these change often.
The number that matters most for interview candidates is the last row. The free and Starter tiers let you try the assistant, but the screen-share stealth most candidates actually want is gated behind the $75/mo Pro plan. For what is often only a few weeks of active interviewing, that is a steep monthly commitment to unlock the one feature you came for.
What Cluely does well
Credit where it is due, because Cluely earns some.
The playbook feature is genuinely strong. You upload documents so the AI answers in context, and it is well-built for sales calls, customer meetings, and any recurring professional conversation where you want the assistant briefed on your material in advance. For ongoing meeting and sales work, this is the feature that justifies the product, and it is more mature than what we offer in that lane. We are an interview copilot first, and we have not built out the same depth for recurring sales workflows.
Wide model selection. Cluely lets you pick across a range of models (GPT, Claude, and Llama options have all been documented), so if you have a preferred model or want to compare outputs, you have room to do that. Not every competitor offers that breadth.
Brand recognition. Cluely is one of the most-searched names in the category, and that visibility comes with a real user base, active development, and a body of public discussion you can read before you buy. Being well-known is not nothing when you are trusting a tool with a live conversation: a larger user base means more independent reviews, more forum threads describing real-world behaviour, and a higher chance that any showstopper bug has already been found and written up by someone other than the vendor. With smaller tools you are often the one discovering the rough edges.
It is also worth saying that the overlay itself works. The core experience (live transcription feeding suggested answers onto a screen only you can see) is solid and responsive in normal use. Most of the criticism in this review is about price structure, security culture, and fit for interviews specifically, not about whether the product functions. It functions.
Where Cluely falls short
This is the uncomfortable part, and every claim below is documented. We are not inventing anything, and we are hedging anything we cannot stand behind.
Stealth is gated behind the $75/mo tier. As noted in the pricing table, the screen-share invisibility most interview candidates want is a Pro-only feature. You cannot test the thing you actually need on the cheaper plans.
The June 2025 security findings. Security researcher Jack Cable, formerly at CISA and with over 10,000 HackerOne reputation, reverse-engineered Cluely's desktop app and found system prompts stored in plaintext, no Electron sandboxing, and a vulnerability chain (a postMessage flaw) that enabled silent, continuous screenshot capture from a single link click. These are independently reproducible findings from a credible researcher, not rumours. The thread documenting them drew over a million views and was discussed on a well-known bug-bounty podcast, so this was a public, widely-examined audit rather than a quiet disclosure. It is a client-side application vulnerability, not a server breach, which arguably makes it worse: anyone running the desktop app was exposed to exploitation.
Cluely's first instinct was to silence, not fix. Rather than patch the vulnerabilities, Cluely's initial response was a DMCA takedown against Cable's posts, claiming they contained proprietary source code. CEO Roy Lee initially denied it, then an engineer admitted he had filed it without leadership approval. The company later apologised and donated roughly $1,000 to the EFF. The reflex to silence a researcher before fixing the bug tells you something about the security culture, and if you are about to trust a tool with your interview audio, how the vendor reacts when someone finds a flaw is exactly the signal you want. This is not a reassuring one.
The compliance certifications are of questionable validity. Cluely's SOC 2 and ISO 27001 certifications were issued by Delve, a compliance vendor exposed in March 2026 for generating potentially fraudulent audit reports. An investigation analysed 494 SOC 2 reports and found 99.8% contained identical text in company-specific sections, including identical grammatical errors, with draft reports containing auditor conclusions before clients had submitted evidence. Cluely is listed as a Delve client, so "SOC 2 certified" here means a lot less than it sounds.
The CEO admitted fabricating revenue. In March 2026, Roy Lee admitted on X that the $7M ARR figure he gave TechCrunch in 2025 was fabricated (his actual figures came to roughly $5.2M combined). He called it "the only blatantly dishonest thing I've said publicly." That is not a security issue, but it speaks directly to whether you can take the company at its word on anything else, including how it handles your data.
It is less interview-specialised now. The pivot toward general meetings and sales is reasonable for the business, but it means the product is no longer centred on the interview use case the way it once was.
One thing cuts the other way, and we are going to say it plainly. You have probably also seen the claim that Cluely suffered an "83,000-user data breach" attributed to a threat actor called "Ivy Dark Agent." We investigated it and found it to be fabricated, most likely seeded by competitors for SEO. It is not listed on Have I Been Pwned, no major security publication covered it, and the named threat actor does not exist in any threat intelligence database. We could have used that scary headline to sell you GhostPilot. We are telling you it is fake instead, because the real, verified problems above are enough, and because we would rather you trust us than catch us smearing a competitor. Full write-up here: I Investigated the Alleged Cluely Data Breach.
Cluely vs the alternatives
If Cluely's tradeoffs do not fit your situation, here is where the honest alternatives sit, including ours.
GhostPilot (our tool) is an interview copilot first. It runs as a standalone Chrome extension with no mandatory download, which is the thing that sets it apart from Cluely's desktop-only approach. Its cheapest real-interview test is a $29 Session Pass (three full two-hour interviews, one-time, no subscription), and the free tier gives you 10-minute live sessions with unlimited AI answers and no credit card. On stealth, GhostPilot's tab-share hiding works on the free extension, and the optional Windows desktop app's overlay is excluded from screen capture at the OS level on Windows 10 (build 2004 or later) and Windows 11 for whole-screen shares, on any paid plan rather than only the top tier. We are deliberately precise about what is and is not covered, because overpromising on stealth is how people get caught.
Where Cluely genuinely beats us: if your need is ongoing meetings and sales calls rather than interviews, Cluely's playbook system and general-purpose meeting features are more mature than ours. That is its lane, not ours.
For the full landscape (Final Round AI, Parakeet, LockedIn AI, the open-source Natively, and where each fits), read our Cluely alternatives guide, and for the wider category our pillar on the best AI interview copilot.
Want honest stealth without the $75/mo gate? GhostPilot's free tier includes live transcription and AI answers, no card. Or a $29 Session Pass for three full interviews.
Get GhostPilot →The verdict
3 out of 5. Cluely is a capable, polished product, and for the right user it is a reasonable buy. The score is not lower because the playbook feature, the model selection, and the active development are real strengths, and the most viral accusation against the company (the 83K breach) turned out to be fabricated. The score is not higher because the documented security history is genuinely concerning, the company's first instinct was to DMCA a researcher rather than fix the flaw, the compliance certifications are now in question, and the stealth that interview candidates want is locked behind the $75/mo tier.
Buy Cluely if your primary use case is sales calls and recurring meetings, you value the playbook feature and model choice, and you have read the security history above and decided you are comfortable with it. For that user, it earns its place.
Do not buy Cluely if you are an interview-only user who wants cheap, honest stealth. Paying $75/mo to unlock screen-share invisibility for a few weeks of interviewing, from a vendor with this track record, is hard to justify when lower-cost, interview-first options exist.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Cluely worth it? For sales and meeting users, yes, it can be: the playbook feature and model selection are strong, and the active user base is real. For interview-only users, it is a harder sell, because the stealth most candidates want is gated behind the $75/mo Pro plan and the company carries a documented security history. We rate it 3 out of 5 overall, with that score leaning higher for meetings and lower for interviews.
Is Cluely safe? Cluely has genuine, independently verified security concerns: plaintext system prompts, an unsandboxed Electron desktop app, a screenshot-capture vulnerability chain found by researcher Jack Cable, and compliance certifications issued by Delve, a vendor accused in 2026 of generating fraudulent audit reports. Separately, the widely-cited "83,000-user breach" appears to be fabricated, most likely by competitors. The fake breach is not real; the documented issues are. Whether that is "safe enough" is a judgement only you can make with those facts in front of you.
Is Cluely free? Cluely has a free tier, but it is limited to 5 AI responses per day, which is not enough for a full interview. Paid plans start at $20/mo (Starter), and screen-share stealth sits behind the $75/mo Pro tier. By comparison, GhostPilot's free tier gives you 10-minute live sessions with unlimited AI answers and no card.
Is Cluely good for job interviews? It can do interviews, but it has pivoted toward general meetings and sales, so it is no longer as interview-specialised as it once was, and the stealth interview candidates want is a $75/mo Pro feature. Interview-first tools tend to be a better fit and a cheaper entry point for that specific job.
What is the best Cluely alternative? It depends on your use case. For interviews specifically, we would point you to our Cluely alternatives guide, which ranks the options and names the tradeoffs. GhostPilot is our pick for cheapest entry and a no-download Chrome-first approach, Final Round AI is the most established (but pricey), and Natively is a free open-source clone if you are technical.
Closing
Cluely is a capable general-purpose meeting assistant that has drifted away from the interview use case it started in. For sales calls and recurring meetings, it earns its 3 out of 5 and then some. For job interviews specifically, between the gated stealth, the documented security history, and that pivot, there are better-fitting and cheaper options. The honest move is to weigh the facts above against what you actually need, and not to take any vendor's marketing (ours included) at face value.