---
title: LeetCode Premium Price in India + 9 Cheaper Alternatives (2026)
description: LeetCode Premium costs about ₹2,900/month in India. 9 free and cheaper LeetCode Premium alternatives — and the one month Premium is actually worth buying.
url: https://usegreenroom.app/blog/leetcode-alternatives-india
last_updated: 2026-07-10
---

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Interview prep · India

# LeetCode Premium price in India — and 9 cheaper alternatives (2026)

May 28, 2026 · Updated July 10, 2026 · 12 min read

![LeetCode Premium price in India — and 9 cheaper alternatives (2026) — cover illustration from Greenroom, the AI mock interviewer](/assets/blog/leetcode-alternatives-india-hero.webp)

LeetCode is the default. Most Indian engineers prepping for FAANG, mid-tier product, or US-remote roles end up there. But if you're searching for a **LeetCode Premium alternative**, it's usually for one honest reason: Premium costs about ₹2,900 a month in India, billed in dollars, and most of what it sells can be assembled cheaper — or free — from tools built closer to home.

Over the last two years I've used or seriously evaluated every major **alternative to LeetCode** available in India. This is the honest write-up: what each is good at, what it costs in INR, and when to actually use it. I'll mention our own tool (Greenroom) at the end because it sits in a different category — voice and behavioral, not algorithm grinding — but I'll be fair about where it doesn't replace LeetCode.

## LeetCode Premium price in India: what ₹13,000 a year buys

First, the number everyone asks: **LeetCode Premium price in India** is the same as everywhere else — $35/month or $159/year, which at current exchange rates lands around ₹2,900/month or ₹13,000–13,500/year. There's no regional pricing, and it's billed in USD, so add your bank's forex markup.

What that buys: company-tagged questions, frequency-sorted problem lists, premium-locked problems, video editorials on some problems, and the debugger. Here's the honest mapping of each Premium feature to its cheapest credible substitute:

| What Premium gives you | The cheaper way to get it |
| --- | --- |
| Company-tagged questions | GFG company-wise practice (free) — then ONE month of Premium in your final 6 weeks if your target is company-tag-sensitive (Amazon, Google) |
| Curated, frequency-sorted lists | Striver's SDE Sheet + NeetCode 150 (both free) — arguably better ordering than LC's own lists |
| Video editorials | NeetCode Pro or AlgoExpert (~₹8,000 one-time for a year — about 60% of Premium's yearly cost) |
| Premium-locked problems | Codeforces + CodeChef problem pools (free, effectively unlimited) |
| Debugger + interview simulation | Nothing matches the debugger; the "interview simulation" is silent typing — voice mocks (Pramp free, Greenroom ₹499/mo) train the part it skips |

The pattern: Premium's value concentrates into one short window — company-tagged grinding right before onsites. Paying ₹13,000 for twelve months of that is how most Indian preppers overspend. The rest of this guide is the stack that covers everything else.

## What you actually need (not what LeetCode sells you)

Before listing alternatives, the framing question: what do you need a coding platform for? Most Indian preppers need *some combination* of these four things, not all of them:

- **Pattern learning.** Two-pointer, sliding window, DP shapes — taught in order, with explanations.
- **Volume and variety.** Thousands of problems, company tags, hard problems.
- **Contest pressure.** Timed, rated, with a leaderboard you can credibly cite on a resume.
- **Interview simulation.** Talking out loud, mock interviews, behavioral, system design.

LeetCode does (1) and (2) well, contest (3) okay, and (4) barely at all. The right alternative depends on which of these you're under-served on.

## 1. GeeksforGeeks Practice (free + ₹999 Premium)

The Indian classic. Almost every working engineer in India has used GFG at some point — usually angrily, because the article quality is uneven. But the **Practice** section is much better than the article section, and DSA Self-Paced + Practice problems together cover the same ground as LeetCode at a fraction of the cost.

**What works:** Indian-context problem sets (TCS, Wipro, Infosys, plus product-company tracks). Editorials in clean Hindi-English vocabulary. The Striver SDE Sheet is hosted here and is, in my opinion, a better Indian-specific structured path than NeetCode.

**What doesn't:** The UI is busier than LeetCode. Test case feedback is less precise. The "premium" gate moves around, which is annoying.

**Use when:** you're early in DSA prep and want an India-priced, India-structured path. Many candidates do Striver + GFG Practice instead of LeetCode for the first 3 months and switch to LC only in the final 6 weeks.

## 2. Codeforces (free, contest-first)

Not really a LeetCode alternative — it's a parallel universe. Codeforces is competitive programming first, interview prep second. But for Indian readers, a Codeforces rating of 1600+ (specialist) carries unusual weight on a fresher resume, especially for off-campus FAANG.

**What works:** Free. Forever. Best contest infrastructure on the internet. Editorials are written by problem setters who genuinely know the problem. If you can hit purple (1900+), almost any FAANG India new-grad loop will feel mechanical to you.

**What doesn't:** Most CF problems aren't shaped like interview problems. Codeforces teaches you obscure ad-hoc patterns and number theory that almost never appear in real interviews. Time-to-interview-ROI is low compared to LeetCode.

**Use when:** you're a student, you have time, and you want a credentialing signal on your resume. Skip if you're a working engineer with 6 months to a target role.

## 3. CodeChef (free, Indian, recently revamped)

CodeChef is Indian (Bengaluru, by the way), free, and after the 2024–2025 revamp the Practice and Learn sections are genuinely competitive with paid platforms. The Long Contest is gone, but the Starters series happens every Wednesday and is well-calibrated for beginner-to-intermediate.

**What works:** Razor-sharp Indian audience focus. Recently added structured Learn DSA path. Solid editor and judging infrastructure. The CodeChef DSA Certification is starting to appear on Indian resumes and recruiters at Indian product companies recognize it.

**What doesn't:** Lower problem density than LeetCode if you're past the basics. Less company-tagged content. Editorial quality varies more than CF.

**Use when:** you want a free Indian platform with structured learning *and* weekly contest pressure. Great for working professionals who can't commit to 6-hour Saturday CF rounds.

## 4. InterviewBit / Scaler Topics (freemium, ₹0 to ~₹2,500/mo)

InterviewBit was the Indian LeetCode for years. It's now part of Scaler. The free track is genuinely usable, structured by topic in interview-relevant order, and the explanations are written for the Indian audience explicitly.

**What works:** The topic ordering is more interview-aligned than LeetCode's "explore" cards. Time-to-first-AC is fast because the UI doesn't fight you. Mock interviews on the platform are okay for entry-level.

**What doesn't:** Heavy upsell into Scaler bootcamp. Problem variety is smaller than LeetCode. Hard problems are less hard than LC's hard tier.

**Use when:** you want a free, India-built, structured first pass through DSA before you graduate to LeetCode hards.

## 5. HackerRank (free + paid certifications)

HackerRank is still the platform most Indian product companies use for the screening round — Razorpay, PhonePe, Atlassian, Cred, and many more. So preparing on HackerRank serves a specific purpose: **familiarity with the actual screening environment**.

**What works:** The "Interview Preparation Kit" is a decent 100-problem starter set. The free Skill Certifications (Problem Solving, REST API) are genuinely recognized by Indian recruiters — get them, they cost nothing.

**What doesn't:** Problem quality at the harder end is below LeetCode. Editorials are minimal. Once you're past the screening phase, there's no reason to keep using it.

**Use when:** you have a screening round on HackerRank coming up, or you want a free certification line on your resume.

![Greenroom session where Ari asks a question generated from the candidate's own GitHub repository](/assets/blog/pool-github-question.webp)

Greenroom reads your GitHub — the questions come from your actual code.

## 6. AlgoExpert / NeetCode Pro (paid, ~$100/yr each)

Both are video-explanation-first. AlgoExpert is ~$99 for a 1-year license; NeetCode Pro is similar. In INR, that's roughly ₹8,000 — less than LeetCode Premium for the same period.

**What works:** Video explanations are higher-quality than typed editorials for visual learners. NeetCode 150 is one of the best *curated* problem lists on the internet — better than LC's "Top Interview 150" because the ordering reflects how solving one problem unlocks the next.

**What doesn't:** Problem count is small (150–170). You'll exhaust them in 3–4 weeks of focused work. After that you need another platform anyway.

**Use when:** you've tried solving problems and find yourself stuck and demoralized. The video format unblocks more people than they like to admit.

## 7. Striver's SDE Sheet (free, hosted multiple places)

Not a platform — a curated list of ~180 problems by Raj Vikramaditya (takeUforward / Striver). The list itself is free. You solve the problems on LeetCode or GFG.

**What works:** For Indian preppers specifically, this is the single most-used structured path. The ordering is interview-realistic. The free YouTube walkthroughs for every problem are detailed.

**What doesn't:** It's a list, not a platform. You still need somewhere to solve problems, and Striver-via-LeetCode means you're paying for LC anyway.

**Use when:** always. Even if you use LeetCode, follow Striver's ordering. It's better than going topic-by-topic on LC's built-in explore.

## 8. Pramp + Interviewing.io (free + freemium, simulation)

Neither is a LeetCode alternative for problem-solving — they're alternatives for *the interview itself*. Pramp pairs you with another engineer prepping; you take turns. Interviewing.io connects you with real engineers from FAANG-adjacent companies.

**What works:** Real-human friction. The closest free simulation of the actual experience. Crucially, both train the talking-out-loud-under-pressure skill that LeetCode cannot.

**What doesn't:** Scheduling pain from India. Pramp works at IST evening if you're willing to be paired with whoever's online — usually US or European. Interviewing.io's free tier requires you to demonstrate competence first.

**Use when:** you're 4–6 weeks out from a real loop. Stop grinding LeetCode at this point and start simulating instead. We wrote about the tradeoff between AI mocks and human mocks if you're choosing between them.

## 9. Greenroom (free tier + ₹499/mo Pro, voice-first)

This is ours, so weigh accordingly. Greenroom isn't a problem-solving platform — it's an AI voice interview that reads your GitHub before the session and asks questions about *your* code and projects. Free tier: 1 voice mock per month. Pro: ₹499/mo (about $10) for more.

**What works:** Practices the part LeetCode can't — talking through your reasoning out loud, recovering from blanking, explaining a design choice you actually made. Feedback is specific to what you said. Particularly useful for Indian senior-engineer interviews where the question is "tell me about a system you built and why" rather than "solve this graph problem."

**What doesn't:** If you need DSA pattern grinding, this isn't the tool. You still need LeetCode or GFG for that. Greenroom complements, doesn't replace — the full head-to-head is in our Greenroom vs LeetCode comparison.

**Use when:** you have real projects on GitHub and you want to practice talking about them out loud — which is the actual hard part of senior-and-above interviews in India.

## What I'd actually pay for (India budget edition)

If you're a working professional in India with a 6-month prep horizon and a budget of ~₹3,000/month max:

- **Months 1–3:** Free — Striver SDE Sheet + GFG Practice + CodeChef contests. Spend ₹0.
- **Months 3–5:** Add NeetCode Pro (one-time ~₹8,000) for the curated 150 set with video unblocks. Optional: LeetCode Premium for one month (~₹2,900) when you need company-tagged questions. Our DSA coding interview preparation guide for India maps this stage week by week.
- **Months 5–6:** Drop pure problem-grinding. Use Pramp (free) for human mocks, and Greenroom (₹499/mo) or another voice tool for daily reps without scheduling pain.

Total spend: roughly ₹10,000–14,000 over 6 months. Most Indian engineers spend more than this on LeetCode Premium alone, distributed less effectively.

## What to skip entirely

- **YouTube "FAANG cracking" courses charging ₹15,000+.** Almost none teach anything the free Striver/Striver-adjacent content doesn't cover — our FAANG interview preparation guide for India covers the same ground free.
- **LeetCode Premium for the whole 6 months.** One month at the right time gives you 80% of the value.
- **Scaler / Coding Ninjas full programs.** They work for some people, but the price-to-outcome ratio for someone with a CS undergrad is poor. They're better positioned for non-CS transitioners.
- **"AI-generated 1000 interview questions" PDFs.** Volume is not signal. Curated 150 beats unfiltered 1000 every time.

## Is anything actually better than LeetCode?

For silent, typed DSA volume at the hard end — no. If someone tells you a site is flatly **better than LeetCode** at the thing LeetCode does, they're selling something. The honest claim is narrower: several of the platforms above are better *for a specific job* — GFG for India-priced structured prep, Codeforces for a resume-visible rating, NeetCode for curated ordering, and voice tools for the spoken rounds that decide offers at the senior level. "Websites similar to LeetCode" is the wrong search; "what am I under-served on" is the right question, and the four-need framing at the top of this post answers it faster than another platform tour.

## One last thing

The honest reason most Indian preppers stay on LeetCode despite the cost is that switching feels risky. You've built up notes, a streak, a solved-problems list. The sunk-cost feeling is real.

If you're going to switch — or stack — do it deliberately, with a written plan for what each tool is for. The mistake isn't using LeetCode. The mistake is using only LeetCode for the parts it doesn't train: *speaking*, *recovering*, *explaining your own past work*. Those are the parts the interviewer is actually evaluating.

If you want to practice the talking-out-loud part — and have Ari ask questions about your actual GitHub projects rather than generic ones — Greenroom's free tier is at usegreenroom.app. If you're earlier in prep and need DSA volume, Striver + GFG + CodeChef is a free, India-built stack that will get you most of the way.

## Frequently asked questions

### What is the best free LeetCode alternative in India?

GeeksforGeeks Practice for interview-pattern coverage with Indian company tagging, Codeforces if you want contest pressure, and Striver's SDE Sheet as a free structured path. Most Indian engineers do best with one structured sheet plus timed practice.

### Is LeetCode Premium worth it in INR?

Only if company-tagged questions for your specific targets matter to you. For most candidates in India, free alternatives plus a structured sheet cover the same ground at zero cost.

### Do these platforms prepare me for the spoken interview rounds?

No — every platform on this list trains typed, silent problem-solving. The spoken rounds (explaining your approach, project deep-dives, behavioral) need voice practice, which is where a tool like Greenroom complements any of them.

### Which platform should freshers start with?

Start with GeeksforGeeks or Striver's sheet for structure, then add CodeChef or Codeforces once fundamentals are solid. Switching platforms constantly is procrastination dressed as research.

### What is the best LeetCode Premium alternative?

It depends on which Premium feature you're replacing. GeeksforGeeks company-wise practice replaces company-tagged questions, Striver's SDE Sheet and NeetCode 150 replace the curated lists, and NeetCode Pro or AlgoExpert replace video editorials at roughly half the yearly price. Most Indian candidates only genuinely need Premium for one month of company tags right before onsites.

### How much does LeetCode Premium cost in India?

About ₹2,900 per month or ₹13,000–13,500 per year — LeetCode charges $35/month or $159/year in USD and has no India-specific pricing. For comparison, that yearly figure buys GFG Premium, NeetCode Pro, and six months of Greenroom Pro combined.

### Is GeeksforGeeks better than LeetCode?

For Indian service-company and campus prep, usually yes — GFG's company-tagged Indian problem sets and INR pricing fit better. For top-end problem quality and FAANG-style hards, LeetCode is still stronger. Many Indian candidates run GFG for the first months and one month of LeetCode Premium at the end.