{"id":52,"date":"2026-06-15T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-06-15T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/springgreen-curlew-885344.hostingersite.com\/blog\/lockedin-ai-review-2026\/"},"modified":"2026-06-19T05:46:36","modified_gmt":"2026-06-19T05:46:36","slug":"lockedin-ai-review-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastroundai.com\/blog\/lockedin-ai-review-2026","title":{"rendered":"LockedIn AI review: strong desktop stealth, pricing you cannot see until you sign up"},"content":{"rendered":"

LockedIn AI launched in late 2024 and by early 2025 it had picked up a real following among candidates who wanted screen-share-invisible assistance during live technical rounds. As of June 2026 it is one of the more discussed tools in this space, with strong word of mouth on Reddit and a handful of differentiating features nobody else has shipped yet.<\/p>\n

This review tries to be honest in both directions. LockedIn AI does some things well enough that we would be embarrassed to pretend otherwise. It also has real limitations, and the pricing structure is genuinely opaque in a way that makes comparison shopping harder than it needs to be. The goal here is to give you enough to decide whether it fits your situation.<\/p>\n

(We make a competing product. We disclose that upfront. If that feels disqualifying, go read a Reddit thread instead. But we think the honest version of this comparison is actually more useful to candidates than a roundup written by someone who has never shipped interview software.)<\/p>\n

At a glance<\/h2>\n
\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Category<\/th>\nLockedIn AI (as of June 2026)<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n
Pricing<\/td>\nGated behind signup. Reconstructed from user reports: Unlimited Pro roughly $54.99\/mo; credit plans roughly $34.99\/mo (annual) to $69.90\/mo, credits burn per minute of use<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Free tier<\/td>\n10 free credits (approximately 20 minutes of use), no credit card required<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Platforms<\/td>\nNative desktop (Windows 10+, macOS 13.1+), browser copilot, browser mobile mocks<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Stealth<\/td>\nDesktop: genuinely hard to detect when configured correctly. Browser: repeatedly reported visible on screen-share by users<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Standout features<\/td>\nFirst-party VSCode and Cursor integration, LockedIn Duo<\/a> (live human remote assist), online-assessment copilot for HireVue\/CodeSignal<\/a>\/HackerRank<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Best for<\/td>\nCandidates who primarily interview on their own machine, need coding-platform OA support, or want a real human backup option<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n

Pricing: the wall you hit before you can compare<\/h2>\n

This is the part that frustrated me most about writing this review. LockedIn AI does not publish its pricing page publicly. You have to create an account before you see numbers. That is a deliberate choice, not an oversight, and it makes direct comparison harder for anyone evaluating tools before committing to signup flows across multiple products.<\/p>\n

From user-shared screenshots on Reddit and third-party review sites as of June 2026, the structure looks approximately like this. There is an Unlimited Pro plan at roughly $54.99 per month that gives uncapped session time. Below that are credit-based tiers: roughly $34.99 per month on annual billing at the lower end and up to $69.90 per month at the top of the credit range, but the credits burn in real time during sessions, so your effective monthly ceiling depends entirely on how many live interview minutes you log. The free tier is 10 credits, which users have reported is roughly 20 minutes of session time, and it requires no credit card. That free tier is a fair way to test the product before any commitment.<\/p>\n

The per-minute burn on credit plans is the thing I would want to model out if I were on a budget. If you have three technical rounds in a month, each running 60 minutes, that is 180 minutes. On a credit plan with a high per-minute rate, you could exhaust your allocation before round three. The Unlimited Pro plan sidesteps that, but at $54.99\/mo it costs nearly three times what the flat-rate competitors charge. I am not saying that is unreasonable if the product fits, but the pricing structure rewards candidates who can predict their interview volume, and most candidates cannot.<\/p>\n

Stealth: the desktop version earns its reputation<\/h2>\n

The main thing people buy LockedIn AI for is stealth. The native desktop app (separate build for Windows 10 and higher, macOS 13.1 Ventura and higher) operates at the OS level and genuinely does not appear in screen-share captures when configured correctly. I have seen candidates describe testing it on Zoom, Google Meet, Teams, and Webex, and the desktop overlay is not visible in those sessions. That holds up.<\/p>\n

The browser version is a different story. There are enough reports in Reddit threads and on shadecoder.com of the browser copilot being visible to the interviewer that I would not treat browser stealth as reliable. The pattern seems to be: candidates who configure only the browser extension without the desktop app, especially on shared or managed devices, get burned. If stealth is why you are here, you want the desktop app, not the browser extension.<\/p>\n

The other thing worth saying: even OS-level stealth requires setup. The app needs to be running and positioned correctly before the call. Candidates who have not tested this on a dummy Zoom session before their real interview are taking a risk. “Configured correctly” is doing real work in that first paragraph.<\/p>\n

Features that stand out from the rest of the field<\/h2>\n

Three things that LockedIn AI has shipped that I think are genuinely differentiated, as of June 2026.<\/p>\n

First is the VSCode and Cursor integration. This is first-party, not a workaround. If you are in a coding round inside your own editor (some companies let you), or doing a take-home assessment, having the copilot inside the editor rather than as a separate overlay is a cleaner workflow. Not every candidate will use this, but for the candidates who get coding rounds in their own environment, it matters.<\/p>\n

Second is LockedIn Duo, which is a live human remote-assist option. A real person joins your session and provides real-time input. This is expensive to operate and I assume it is priced accordingly at the usage level, but it exists. No other tool in this category that I am aware of offers live human backup as a product feature. Whether that is something you want is a personal call.<\/p>\n

Third is the online-assessment copilot designed specifically for platforms like HireVue, CodeSignal, and HackerRank. These asynchronous OA formats have different constraints than live video interviews, and building specific support for them rather than treating everything the same way is the right product decision.<\/p>\n

Pros and cons, stated plainly<\/h2>\n

The honest list, without padding it to look balanced when it is not:<\/p>\n

What works.<\/strong> Desktop stealth is real and well-engineered when set up right. The VSCode\/Cursor integration is genuinely useful for coding-heavy sessions. Duo is a product category that does not exist elsewhere. OA platform support addresses a gap that most competitors ignore. The free trial requires no credit card.<\/p>\n

What is harder to work with.<\/strong> Pricing is hidden until you sign up, which forces you into an account-creation step just to do comparison shopping. Credit-based plans with per-minute burn are unpredictable if you have a lumpy interview schedule. The browser extension stealth is not reliable enough to depend on for live interviews. The pricing ceiling ($54.99\/mo for Unlimited) is high relative to the flat-rate alternatives. No resume builder or ATS tracking in the core product.<\/p>\n

How it compares to LastRound AI<\/h2>\n

We are not going to pretend LockedIn AI is bad. The desktop stealth is real, the VSCode integration is a legitimate product decision, and Duo is a category of one. But the differences are real and they matter depending on what you need.<\/p>\n

LastRound AI<\/a> is $19 per month, flat. No credits, no per-minute burn, no math required before your third interview of the month. That is not a marketing framing, it is just the model we chose because we found that candidates under interview pressure should not also be tracking credit balances.<\/p>\n

The free tier works differently too. LastRound gives 15 free credits per month and they do not expire. You can use them across sessions at whatever pace your interview schedule requires, rather than having a 20-minute free window and then nothing until you subscribe.<\/p>\n

On stealth: the LastRound desktop app operates at the OS level on both Windows and Mac and is invisible in Zoom, Google Meet, Teams, and Webex screen-share. This is the same mechanism LockedIn uses for its desktop build. We do not offer a browser copilot because we found it unreliable for this use case, which is consistent with what users are reporting about the LockedIn browser extension.<\/p>\n

Features that LastRound has that LockedIn does not, as of June 2026: language-aware coding responses in over 30 languages, system design assistance with actual diagrams (not just text guidance), a resume builder with ATS scoring, structured mock practice sessions with scoring and replay, and mobile apps. LastRound also takes PayPal, Razorpay, and UPI in addition to cards, which matters if you are interviewing from outside the US. The question library covers 7,000+ questions and 177 structured explainers.<\/p>\n

The two tools are not targeting the same candidate in every case. See the full LockedIn AI alternatives page<\/a> if you want a side-by-side spec comparison. For candidates who primarily need OA platform support or want a live human backup option, LockedIn has things LastRound does not. For candidates who want predictable pricing, a resume workflow, system design diagrams, and mobile access, that calculus runs the other way.<\/p>\n

What we hear from candidates<\/h2>\n

This next part is qualitative. It comes from candidates the LastRound AI team has talked to who have used both tools, not from any published dataset, and the sample skews toward people who switched rather than people who stayed. With that caveat: the most common reason we hear for moving away from LockedIn AI is the credit model. Candidates who go through three or four rounds in a single week burn through their allocation and then face a top-up decision mid-process, which is a bad time to be making purchasing decisions. The second most common reason is the pricing opacity — people say they felt committed before they had a clear number, and that felt like a bad start to the relationship. The candidates who stay with LockedIn and are happy with it tend to be people doing OA-heavy recruiting cycles where the CodeSignal\/HackerRank support and the Duo fallback are genuinely worth the price difference.<\/p>\n

Bottom line<\/h2>\n

LockedIn AI is a real product built by a real team. The desktop stealth works. The VSCode\/Cursor integration is smart. Duo is something nobody else offers. If OA platform support or a live human backup is the thing you specifically need, it is worth the free trial.<\/p>\n

The pricing structure will frustrate you before you get to any of the features. That is fixable if they choose to fix it. The per-minute credit burn is a genuine constraint on some interview schedules, and the browser stealth limitations are real enough that you should not plan around them for live video interviews.<\/p>\n

If you are comparing tools, try LastRound AI<\/a> alongside it. The 15 free monthly credits do not expire, so you can run both through a mock session and see which one fits your workflow before committing to either.<\/p>\n

\n
\n

Try LastRound AI free, no card required<\/h3>\n

$19\/mo flat, 15 free credits per month that never expire, native desktop stealth on Windows and Mac, system design with diagrams, resume builder, and mobile apps. See how it fits your interview schedule before you decide anything.<\/p>\n