HackerRank

Technical hiring platform with a metered attempt allowance and per-attempt overage charges on its entry tier

As of 1 September 2026, HackerRank's pricing is not published; the vendor quotes on request. A coding assessment and technical interview platform whose entry-level Starter plan bundles a fixed number of candidate assessment attempts per year, with each additional attempt billed separately, while the Pro tier removes the per-user seat limit entirely rather than the attempt metering itself. Softwr lists it under Recruitment. HackerRank is made by HackerRank (Interviewstreet, Inc.), available on Web.

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Overview

What HackerRank does

HackerRank for Work provides coding assessments, structured technical interviews and a large problem library spanning algorithms, data structures, system design and role-specific skills, used across the technical hiring funnel from initial screen through onsite interview. It is one of the longest-established platforms in this space, also known for its public competitive programming community, which feeds into its assessment content. The distinguishing commercial fact is how its entry tier is metered: the Starter plan runs around 100 US dollars a month (billed annually) for one user licence and both the Screen and Interview modules, but includes only 120 candidate assessment attempts a year, with each additional attempt billed at roughly 20 US dollars. The Pro plan, around 450 US dollars a month billed annually, removes the per-user seat restriction and unlocks a larger question library and ATS integrations, but the underlying idea that assessment volume itself is a metered, billable resource carries through the pricing structure. Buyers are engineering organisations screening software engineering candidates at meaningful volume, from startups on Starter through larger technical organisations on Pro or custom Enterprise plans. The trade-off is that a hiring surge, a viral job posting, or simply underestimating attempt volume at signup turns into real per-attempt overage costs on the entry tier, and a team that outgrows the single-user Starter licence has to jump to the much larger Pro commitment rather than adding seats incrementally.

What people use it for

A startup hiring a small, steady volume of engineers where the Starter plan's 120 annual attempts comfortably covers the pipeline
A larger engineering organisation needing unlimited user seats across many hiring managers, better served by Pro
A company wanting both automated screening and live structured technical interviews in one platform
An organisation that wants a large, established question library spanning algorithms, system design and role-specific skills

Where it falls short

Concrete and checkable, so you can decide whether any of them matter to you. This is the half of a review a vendor will not write about HackerRank.

The Starter tier meters candidate assessment attempts (120 a year included) with roughly 20 US dollars per additional attempt, so a hiring surge or an unexpectedly popular job posting turns directly into overage costs.
Starter includes only one user licence, so any team with more than one recruiter or hiring manager needing direct platform access must jump to the far larger Pro commitment.
The jump from Starter to Pro is a large step, roughly 100 to 450 US dollars a month, with no published mid-tier option for a team that has outgrown Starter but does not need Pro's full scale.
As with any automated coding assessment tool, heavy reliance on it as an early filter risks screening out strong candidates who underperform in artificial timed test conditions.
Enterprise-tier features such as custom question libraries and SSO are quote-only, making full cost comparison against Codility or other competitors impossible without entering a sales process.

Cross-shopped

What people choose instead of HackerRank

Each pairing was judged by two reviewers asking whether a buyer would genuinely weigh the two against each other. The ones that failed were deleted rather than published.

HackerRankvs
Codility
Codility: If you want an invite-capped rather than attempt-metered pricing structure to compare against
HackerRankvs
Xray Test Management
Xray Test Management: If you are separately evaluating QA testing tools rather than hiring assessment tools

Pricing

What HackerRank costs

Taken from the vendor's own pricing page. Prices move, so check before you buy.

Starter

$100 /mo

1 user licence
Screen and Interview modules included
120 candidate attempts per year included, roughly $20 per additional attempt

Pro

$450 /mo

Unlimited user seats
4,000+ question library
ATS integrations included

Enterprise

On request

Custom quote
Custom question libraries and SSO
Dedicated support and account management

Capabilities

Features

Coding assessments
Auto-graded coding tests across a large library of problems and languages
Structured technical interviews
Live, collaborative coding interview tooling with shared notes and scoring
Screen and Interview modules
Separate but integrated tools for initial screening versus later-stage interviews
Role-specific question libraries
Problem sets tailored to specific engineering roles, including system design
Proctoring and integrity checks
Plagiarism and AI-use detection during assessments
ATS integration
Sync with major applicant tracking systems, expanded on the Pro tier

Answered, with sources

Questions people ask

Each answer names the page it came from, so you can check it rather than take our word for it.

What happens if we exceed our included assessment attempts on Starter?

Each additional attempt beyond the included 120 a year is billed separately, at roughly 20 US dollars per attempt.

How many users does Starter support?

One user licence; teams needing more than one seat must move to the Pro plan.

Does HackerRank offer live interviews as well as automated tests?

Yes, both a Screen module for automated assessment and an Interview module for live, collaborative technical interviews are included from Starter upward.

Keep looking

Where to go from HackerRank

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Softwr does not host reviews and shows no star rating for HackerRank, because a rating we did not collect is not ours to publish. What is here is the pricing and platform detail from the vendor’s own pages, limitations we could state concretely, and alternatives a reviewer confirmed people weigh against it. Tell us if any of it is wrong.

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