Is Cluely Legit? What Reviews and Its Own Policies Say (2026)

Is Cluely legit? What its reviews and its own policies say about billing, refunds, support and staying hidden, and how Verve AI compares.

"Is Cluely legit" is a fair question to ask about a product that became well known through provocative marketing before most people had tried it. The attention makes it easy to find strong opinions and harder to find a plain account of what you get, what it costs and what happens if it does not work for you.

We wrote this for job seekers and professionals who are thinking about paying for Cluely and want that plain account first. It covers who makes it and what it is designed for, what its customers say, what its own policies state about refunds, support and staying hidden during screen sharing, and how it compares with Verve AI if your reason for looking is a job interview. We make Verve AI, so weigh our view accordingly; the facts about Cluely come from its own website, its help center and its public Trustpilot page in October 2026.

Is Cluely legit?

Cluely is a legitimate product from a real company. Its terms name Cluely, Inc., with an address in San Francisco, and it has a working desktop app for Mac and Windows, an iPhone app, a free plan and published terms and policies. It has also raised venture funding, including a round that TechCrunch reported was led by Andreessen Horowitz.

The product does what its site describes, which is to transcribe meetings, take notes and answer questions on request. Whether it is the right tool for you depends on what you plan to use it for, and its own documentation is clearer about that than its advertising.

What is Cluely actually designed for?

Cluely presents itself today as an AI notetaker and meeting assistant. Its help center says it is for meeting assistance across sales, project briefs and support, and it directs people with interview use cases to a separate product. One help article states that Cluely is not designed for interview evasion.

That matters if you arrived here because of a job interview. Cluely will respond when you ask it something during a call, but it is positioned, priced and supported as a tool for meetings, and its refund policy says so explicitly.

What do Cluely reviews say?

Cluely's Trustpilot profile is small and strongly negative, with a score of 1.7 out of 5 from 22 reviews, nearly all of them one-star. The profile is unclaimed, so the company has not replied to reviews there.

Most of those reviews are about billing. Reviewers describe being charged for an annual plan when they expected a monthly one, continuing to be charged after cancelling, and being unable to get a refund. The next most common theme is support, with several reviewers saying they could not reach a person. The remainder concern the product itself, including transcription that stopped partway through a conversation and answers that were not useful.

Twenty-two reviews are a small sample for a product with a large user base, and people who are satisfied with a notetaker rarely go to Trustpilot to say so. The pattern in the complaints is still worth noting, because it lines up with what Cluely's own policies say.

What do Cluely's own policies say?

Four points from Cluely's published pages are worth reading before you subscribe.

Its refund policy is narrow. Cluely offers a refund within 24 hours only when the software does not work on your computer. Its help center lists forgetting to cancel, changing plans and interview-related detection as reasons that are not eligible, and it does not give partial refunds when you cancel partway through a billing period.

Subscriptions renew automatically, and its help center says it does not offer a direct switch between monthly and annual plans, so it is worth checking which billing period is selected at checkout.

Support is handled by an AI assistant. Cluely's help center says that its team is small and that it does not yet have a dedicated support agent, and it asks for patience with slower direct replies.

Staying hidden has conditions. Cluely is visible to screen sharing unless you are on the Pro + Undetectability plan at $149.99 a month and have enabled the feature. Even then, its help center says Zoom requires a particular setting, that sharing your entire screen in Microsoft Teams will show it, and that it cannot ensure undetectability with proctoring software.

How does Cluely compare with Verve AI for interviews?

The answer to "is Cluely legit" is yes, but whether it suits you is a separate matter. If your interest in Cluely is for work meetings, it is a reasonable product to consider at $19.99 a month for the Pro plan. If your interest is a job interview, the comparison with a dedicated interview copilot looks different.

The core difference is what each was designed for. Cluely is made for everyday meetings, where you activate it when you want a prompt and what it offers tends to be general knowledge about the topic. Verve AI is built and tuned for interviews, a single high-stakes conversation in which you cannot stop to ask for help. It detects the interviewer's questions and answers without being asked, and it keeps the context of the whole conversation so that follow-up questions are answered in light of what came before. It works from your resume and the job description, and it includes a coding copilot, mock interviews and knowledge banks for 20 interview domains.

It also includes Stealth Mode in the desktop app on every plan, including the free one, so you can test screen sharing before you pay. With Cluely the equivalent feature is on the $149.99 plan, compared with $84.99 a month for Verve AI Pro. And Verve AI's paid plans include email support and an in-app chat that goes directly to our support team.

Our Verve AI vs Cluely comparison goes through the two in detail, and Is Verve AI legit? covers who our product is for and how reliable it is. You can also start on Verve AI's free plan and try three live sessions without entering a card.

If you are looking at dedicated interview copilots, we have also written Is Sensei AI legit? and Is LockedIn AI legit?.

FAQ

Is Cluely a scam?

Cluely is not a scam. It is a venture-backed company with a working product and a free plan. The negative reviews it has received are mostly about billing, refunds and support, which are real problems for the people affected but are different from fraud.

Can Cluely be detected?

Cluely is visible to screen sharing by default. Its undetectability feature is included only in the Pro + Undetectability plan, and its help center lists situations where it can still be seen, including full-screen sharing in Microsoft Teams, Zoom without a specific setting, and proctoring software.

Does Cluely give refunds?

Cluely offers a refund within 24 hours only if the software does not work on your computer. Its help center says that forgetting to cancel, changing plans and interview-related detection are not eligible, and that it does not give pro-rated refunds.

Who owns Cluely?

Cluely is operated by Cluely, Inc., a company based in San Francisco, according to its terms of service and privacy policy.