LeetCode Premium vs Free: Every Feature Compared, and the Four That Matter for Interviews

TL;DR: LeetCode is free to use, and the free tier is enough for most of your preparation. Premium costs $35 a month or $159 a year. Four of its features change an interview result: company tags with frequency data, the locked problems, the official editorials, and the timed mock assessments. The rest is convenience. Most candidates need Premium for one month at the end, if at all.

The full table is below. First, the answer to the question people actually type.

Is LeetCode free? Yes. You can solve most of the problems, run your code against the judge, read the discussion threads, and enter contests without paying. The judge is the part that matters, and it is free.

Is LeetCode Premium worth it? For one month, in the last two weeks before a named company's interview, yes. As a way to start preparing, no. Premium tells you which problems a company asked recently. It does not teach you the technique behind them.

This article lists every Premium feature against the free tier, explains which four matter, and gives the free setup that covers the rest.

What the free tier includes

The free tier gives you the large majority of LeetCode's problems. At the time of writing the site lists 4,055 problems, and several hundred of those are locked behind Premium. Everything else is open.

The free tier also includes the in-browser judge, which runs your code against hidden test cases. It includes the discussion thread under each problem, where other users post solutions. It includes weekly and biweekly contests, the study plans (like LeetCode 75 and Top Interview 150), and the editorial for a share of the problems.

That is a complete practice environment. What it lacks is guidance: nothing in the free tier tells you what to solve next, or which technique a new problem needs.

Every feature, free against Premium

LeetCode Premium against the free tier in one table: company tags and frequency sorting, locked problems, official editorials, mock assessments, debugger, autocomplete, no ads, and Explore cards, with the four that matter for interviews marked

Feature	Free	Premium	Changes an interview result?
Problems	Most of the 4,055	All, including the locked ones	Yes, for a few famous problems
Judge and test cases	Yes	Yes	No difference
Company tags	No	Which companies asked each problem, sorted by frequency	Yes, in the last two weeks
Official editorials	Some problems	All problems that have one	Yes, when the discussion thread is wrong
Mock assessments	No	Timed sets, randomized, with a summary	Yes, as a timing drill
Discussion threads	Yes	Yes	No difference
Contests	Yes	Yes	No difference
Study plans	Yes	Yes	No difference
Debugger	No	Step through your code in the browser	No
Autocomplete	No	Yes	No
Ads	Yes	None	No
Explore cards	Some	All	Rarely

Price: $35 a month, or $159 a year. The yearly plan only makes sense if you will be preparing for more than four months. Prices change, so check the site before you buy.

The four features that matter

Company tags with frequency. Premium shows which companies asked a given problem. It can also sort a company's problems by how often they were reported, over the last six months, one year, or two years. Two weeks before a Google onsite, this is the most useful list you can have. Three months out it is a distraction, because it makes you practice problems instead of patterns.

The locked problems. Several hundred problems are Premium only, and a few of them are famous. Six problems on the Blind 75 are locked. They are Meeting Rooms, Meeting Rooms II, Alien Dictionary, Graph Valid Tree, Number of Connected Components in an Undirected Graph, and Encode and Decode Strings. If your list includes them, you either pay for one month or solve free equivalents. We list the equivalents in Blind 75 Grouped by Pattern.

The official editorials. An editorial is LeetCode's own written solution, with the reasoning and the complexity. The free discussion threads often contain a correct answer, but they also contain wrong ones, and you cannot always tell which is which. When you have failed a problem and need to know the intended approach, the editorial is the reliable source.

The mock assessments. Premium can build a timed set of two or three problems, drawn randomly by difficulty, and score you at the end. This is the closest thing on the site to an interview clock. It does not test talking, which is the half of the interview LeetCode cannot train, but it does test speed.

The features that do not change your result

The debugger lets you step through code in the browser. It is pleasant, and a print statement does the same job. Autocomplete saves keystrokes. Removing ads makes the page cleaner. The Explore cards are short topic tutorials, and the free study plans and a pattern guide cover the same ground in more depth.

None of these will move you from a no-hire to a hire. If you are deciding whether to pay, ignore them.

When one month of Premium makes sense

Buy one month when all three of these are true. You have an interview date with a named company. You have already covered the common patterns. You have two to three weeks left.

Then use the month for exactly two things. Filter the company's problems by the last six months and solve the top 20 to 30. Run two or three timed mock assessments a week.

That is $35, once. A year of Premium bought at the start of preparation is the most common way to spend $159 on the wrong problem.

The free setup that covers most of your prep

The free tier's gap is selection and teaching, not problems. A curated list solves selection. A pattern course solves teaching.

For selection, take a free list and work it in order: the NeetCode 150, or the Blind 75. Both are free, and both link to LeetCode's judge.

For teaching, learn the pattern before its problems. Grokking the Coding Interview teaches all 42 patterns, with the tell that identifies each one in a problem statement. Then it hands you problems in an order that stretches the pattern. It costs $79 once, which is two months of Premium, and it does the one job Premium cannot do.

Then solve every problem on LeetCode's free judge. Reading a solution without running your own code teaches reading, not solving.

What about system design?

Premium is built for coding rounds. It has almost nothing for system design, which is the other half of a senior loop. If that is the round you are preparing for, spend the money elsewhere. The full breakdown is on our main site: Is LeetCode Premium Worth It for System Design Prep?

The takeaway

Use the free tier for the judge, the discussion threads, and the contests. Add a free list for selection and a pattern course for teaching. Buy one month of Premium at the end, for company tags and timed mocks, if you have a named company and a date. Skip the year.

Learn the patterns first, then use the tags: Grokking the Coding Interview covers all 42 patterns and 300+ problems in six languages. It costs $79 once, with lifetime access. Six weeks or less to go? Grokking 75 is the short version.

FAQs

Is LeetCode free? Yes. Most problems, the judge, the discussion threads, the contests, and the study plans are free. Premium adds the locked problems, company tags, all editorials, and mock assessments.

How much does LeetCode Premium cost? $35 a month or $159 a year at the time of writing. The yearly plan is worth it only if you use it for more than four months. Check the site for the current price.

Is LeetCode Premium worth it? For one month before a named company's interview, yes, mainly for the company tags. As a way to start preparing, no. The free tier plus a curated list and a pattern course covers everything Premium does not.

Which Blind 75 problems need Premium? Six: Meeting Rooms, Meeting Rooms II, Alien Dictionary, Graph Valid Tree, Number of Connected Components in an Undirected Graph, and Encode and Decode Strings. Each has a free problem that teaches the same pattern.

Does LeetCode Premium help with system design? Very little. Premium is a coding-round product. For system design, use a dedicated course or guide instead.

Can I cancel Premium after one month? Yes. The monthly plan renews each month until you cancel it, so set a reminder if you only want the final stretch.