Exponent (TryExponent.com) is a popular tech interview prep platform for candidates who want to land a job at FAANG and other top tech companies. If you don't mind paying a premium for their subscription or coaching session fee, it’s a decent choice for booking a mock interview with an expert, full-on interview prep courses, or peer mock interviews.
Below, we give an overview of what you should know about Exponent, how much its interview coaching sessions and subscriptions cost, and whether people seem to think they're worth it.
- Exponent services
- Exponent review (pros and cons)
- Exponent pricing
- Exponent alternatives (Top 3)
- More Exponent alternatives (by category)
- Exponent FAQs
1. Exponent / TryExponent.com services↑
Before we go through the pros and cons of signing up for Exponent, let’s first take a look at their primary services:
1.1 Subscription membership↑
Exponent offers a monthly or annual subscription membership. When you sign up, you’ll get the following benefits:
Access to all training courses
Exponent offers a range of tech interview training courses. They have role-specific training, company-specific training, and short courses targeted toward a specific topic or skill.
The first type of interview training course they offer is targeted toward a specific role, i.e. product management, software engineering, data science, engineering management, etc. This type of training course will have a comprehensive learning path consisting of different courses.
The next type of interview training course they offer is targeted toward a specific company. Some of these will be on a specific role (Google PM, Amazon SDE). Like the first type of interview training course, these have learning paths consisting of different courses.
The last type is meant for candidates targeting a specific skill such as coding, SQL, system design, etc.
Peer mock interviews
Exponent hosts pre-scheduled peer mock interviews. You sign up by choosing a schedule practice needs, and interview objectives, and Exponent does the matching for you. During your peer mock interview, Exponent will also provide further assistance by supplying you and your peer with interview questions. Free Exponent users get 5 peer mock interview credits per month. If you want unlimited peer mocks, you’ll need to get a subscription.
Exponent has acquired Pramp, a popular peer mock interview website. So if you have a Pramp account, you can link it to your Exponent account. Also, at the time of this writing, if you have a Pramp account, you can get 10% off Exponent memberships.
Slack community access
This is a private Slack community with Exponent subscribers. There you’ll find up-to-date interview information sourced from the community.
Questions database
You can access this on a free account, only you won’t be able to filter by company, which may slow down your search.
Priority job referrals
According to the website, having an Exponent subscription gives you priority access to their network of 400+ referrers at top tech companies. However, this benefit is hardly mentioned in any reviews we’ve found in online forums, so it’s hard to know exactly if it’s helpful.
1.2 Coaching platform↑
Exponent offers tech coaching services on their platform. According to the website, these coaches are “hand-picked and vetted by Exponent”. The specific coaching services offered are resume review, mock interviews, career coaching, and salary negotiation. Like IGotAnOffer, the coaches on Exponent come from the top tech companies, including FAANG.
Coaching is not included in the subscription fee. If you do sign up for an annual subscription, you get 1 60-minute coaching session for $199 (20% off).
If you do get the Ace the Interview package, you get 5 sessions of coaching, 20% off on future coaching services, 1-year access to Exponent’s courses and community, and other perks.
Now that we’ve laid out Exponent’s paid offerings, let’s take a look at their pros and cons.
2. Exponent / TryExponent.com review (pros and cons)↑
The first thing to say is that Exponent.io is completely legitimate and credible, though from our research in forums such as Reddit and Blind, the quality of customer experiences tends to vary greatly. Whether or not it’s helpful for your specific situation will depend on the services you get.
2.1 TryExponent pros↑
All-in-one interview prep platform: Exponent is quite a convenient platform as it offers various interview prep services in one place. Aside from their coaching services and the subscription inclusions, they also have free resources including detailed interview prep articles, a community-sourced interview question database, and a YouTube channel with mock interviews. So overall, their platform offers a lot of value, whether you’re a paid user or not.
Coaches: Like many top mock interview websites, Exponent has a roster of expert coaches from the most prestigious tech companies. According to the website, they’re all handpicked and vetted.
I took a look at how many coaches they have for the top roles and companies. Here are the numbers at the time of writing:
- Ex-Google product managers (PMs): 12
- Ex-Meta PMs: 11
- Ex-Amazon PMs: 13
- Ex-Google software engineers (SWEs): 9
- Ex-Meta SWEs: 12
- Ex-Amazon SDEs: 10
- Ex-Google engineering managers (EMs): 4
- Ex-Meta EMs: 4
- Ex-Amazon EMs: 5
In comparison, IGotAnOffer has a greater selection for most of these top roles.
Unlimited peer mock interviews (for subscribers): Peer mock interviews are useful, especially if you’re in the early stages of your interview prep. Exponent makes peer mocks more easily accessible by hosting them on their platform and facilitating the matches.
Access to community: One of the benefits you get when you subscribe to Exponent is access to a private Slack community of fellow tech candidates. Many people who’ve subscribed to Exponent say that this is one of the best features of the subscription, as you’ll always find someone to do interview prep with.
Money-back guarantee for negotiation package: Exponent offers a full money-back guarantee for their salary negotiation package (not for the single negotiation coaching sessions) if you don’t manage to get an increase on your offer.
ROI. Doing mock interviews with an expert from your target company helps you improve your interview performance in a way that just knocking out problems on Leetcode will not. And if you're going for a job at the likes of Google, Meta, or Amazon, spending a few hundred dollars on mock interviews is small change when put against the salary gains you stand to make.
2.2 TryExponent cons↑
Coach pricing: The pricing for Exponent’s coaching services starts at $249 an hour, making it significantly more expensive than many of its competitors. They do offer discounts if you get their bundles or packages. In particular, their Ace the Interview Program ($1499) includes 1 1-hour readiness assessment session with your coach, 5 mock interviews, 1-year access to the courses and community, and a 20% discount on future coaching sessions. You also get a 1-hour coaching session for $199 if you get the annual membership.
Subscription pricing: Exponent’s subscription pricing is one of the aspects that most users complain about on online forums. They have two subscription modes: $79 for a monthly subscription, and $12 a month for an annual subscription. If you think you’re going to need access to their interview courses for more than a month, you may want to consider getting the annual subscription, as it’s considerably cheaper. That said, shelling out $144 for prep guides and videos may be a bit too much, considering you can find a ton of excellent interview prep resources online for free.
Courses: The reviews on the website are glowing, but reviews on online forums are a mix. Quite a few on Reddit and Blind commented that they simply used Exponent’s free resources for practice and did fine. One particular user said the paid membership adds very few new videos to the ones you can get for free on their YouTube channel. One strongly worded comment outlined reasons why the courses are not worth the investment at all.
Hit-or-miss peer mock interview matches. The quality of matches you get via the website can be unpredictable. The questions Exponent provides are also hit or miss, according to some users. They can sometimes be very easy or irrelevant to the role you want to practice for.
Limited refund policy for subscription and coaching: Exponent only offers a full money-back guarantee for its salary negotiation package. But for its subscription membership, you can only get a full refund within 5 days of purchase (which may not be enough time for you to find out if the service is right for you). For coaching, you can only get refunds for unused sessions. Other than that, the website doesn’t offer any more information. You’ll have to reach out directly to their team if you’re not happy with the service.
3. Exponent / TryExponent.com pricing↑
As we’ve covered above, Exponent offers two types of paid services: coaching and subscription membership. They’re upfront about the payments, though whether they’re worth the premium price is up to you.
For coaching services, $249 is on the expensive side, when you consider that on a site like IGotAnOffer, you can book coaches who've worked at Meta or Google for 10+ years for considerably less.
Depending on your interview prep budget, getting their Ace the Interview program may offer you great value as it gives you access to the platform’s coaching services, peer mock interview community, and courses.
4. Exponent / TryExponent.com alternatives (Top 3)↑
With these Exponent’s limitations in mind, we’ve drawn up a shortlist of what we think are the three best tech interviewing coaching services available right now for candidates who want to improve their interviewing skills.
#IGotAnOffer
Okay, we may be biased here, but a 4.96 average star rating from over 17k reviews is hard to ignore.
IGotAnOffer is a coaching platform where you can book mock interview sessions. It also offers career mentoring, leadership coaching, resume review, and salary negotiation coaching sessions.
There are over 300 coaches on the platform and they’ve all worked at the very top companies in tech (e.g. Google, Meta, Amazon, etc.). Most of the coaches specialize in product management or engineering interviews, so they will be well-equipped with real-world insights to guide you through the interview process in your chosen role and target company.
Click on a coach’s profile and you can instantly see their hourly availability. Prices are clearly displayed before you book and if you’re not satisfied with your session, you get a full refund.
IGotAnOffer does not have interview training courses, but it offers free and comprehensive interview prep guides on the website and a range of high-quality mock interview videos for product managers and software engineers on YouTube.
#Mentoring Club
Mentoring Club is a not-for-profit mentoring community. Mentors volunteer their time because they want to give something back, so you can almost guarantee they’re going to be very nice people!
A quick browse of the available mentors reveals people from all over the world, with a very strong German presence (luckily, Germans always speak excellent English!). I found a nice range of profiles on there, including startup founders, managing directors, software engineers, designers, etc.
Don’t expect to be able to search specific expertise and experience in the way you can on Exponent or IGotAnOffer but there is definitely a wealth of expertise worth tapping into on this platform, and yes, it’s free.
#TechMockInterview
Tech Mock Interview offers mock interviews for tech candidates, among other job application services. Browsing their mock interviews page, you’ll find that interview coaches offer different rates based on their years of experience, expertise, and session duration, so there’s a price range for every budget.
The Tech Mock Interview coach page itself is very straightforward. You can immediately filter your coach options based on the coaching service you need. You can also filter based on the subject matter expertise that you need coaching for: coding, system design, software development manager, technical program manager, behavioral, machine learning, and data science. However, its selection of coaches is small. You will find a wider selection of experts who can coach you on the same subjects on IGotAnOffer.
5. More Exponent / TryExponent.com alternatives (categorized)↑
5.1 If you’re looking for budget-friendly options↑
#MeetAPro
MeetAPro is a relatively new mock interview website. Based on its profile, it intends to be a platform for different professional virtual services. But for now, it mainly hosts mock interviews in information technology, finance, and medical industries.
What makes it unique is you can browse the mock interview sessions based on subject matter and level. So if you’re a fresh graduate or intern-level, you can easily find specific sessions tailored to your requirements. Usually, sessions aimed at fresh graduates will be at a lower price point.
#TechInterviewCoach
TechInterviewCoach is a relatively small company and judging from the reviews it seems that there is a good chance that Andrea, the founder, will be your coach.
We’ve included it as one of our alternatives to Exponent because Andrea has a strong coaching profile and the pricing is hard to beat. But be prepared to sacrifice some of the immediacy and easy booking features you get on other platforms, as well as choice of coaches. It does offer a 100% money-back guarantee, so if you’re not satisfied, you can get a refund, no questions asked.
5.2 Best Exponent alternatives for engineers↑
#Interviewing.io
Interviewing.io offers total anonymity for its mock interview sessions. Also, some of their interview guides are superbly written and go into excellent detail.
If you’ve got the budget to spare and you’re focused on getting hired at Amazon, Google, or Meta, their multi-session dedicated coaching might be a good investment. This package pairs you with a senior interviewer from your target company who can tailor a lesson plan for you.
#IGotAnOffer
IGotAnOffer has hundreds of engineering coaches from FAANG and other top tech companies. They represent many engineering roles: software engineers, data engineers, site reliability engineers, and more. If you’re an engineer transitioning into a managerial role, you’ll find expert coaches who’ve been on that track as well.
These experts can give you inside insights into how to get and then ace your interviews at your target role and companies. They’ll help you familiarize yourself with the format of interviews so there won’t be surprises on your actual interview.
You’ll find that some of the engineering coaches on Exponent are also on IGotAnOffer, but with sessions that cost considerably less.
5.3 Best Exponent alternatives for product managers↑
#RocketBlocks
RocketBlocks is an online interview prep platform for candidates in product management, consulting, product marketing, and strategy & business operations. Like Exponent, it is a subscription-based platform. You can opt for a monthly subscription or an annual pass and get access to their drills, 1-on-1 coaching, and concept reviews. To book a 1-on-1 coaching session, you’ll have to pay $200 per hour on top of your subscription fee.
You won’t find too many ratings and reviews of their services, though there are several verified testimonials on their website and they have been recommended on some online forums.
#IGotAnOffer
IGotAnOffer has over 100 PM coaches from FAANG and other top tech companies. These coaches are best equipped to give you inside information on how to get and ace your PM interview at your target company. When you book a coach, you can tell them what kind of PM interview questions you want to focus on: product design, product strategy, leadership, etc.
Apart from helping you practice your interview skills, they’ll familiarize you with the format of interviews so there won’t be surprises on your actual interview.
The pricing is considerably lower than that of Exponent. Unlike RocketBlocks, you don’t need to sign up for a monthly subscription.
5.4 Best Exponent alternatives for interview training courses↑
#CodePath Technical Interview Course
CodePath is a nonprofit organization that offers technical courses to Black, Latino/a, Indigenous, and low-income students at no cost. The goal of the organization is to help these students get ready for internships and job search, by filling in the gaps in their education with hands-on technical training, access to the latest tech, and support from industry experts.
CodePath offers a course specifically on technical interviews, as well as other specializations such as cybersecurity, web development, and iOS and Android development, among others. Computer science students and interns on Reddit have excellent things to say about the program.
Joining a course is a bit of a time commitment, though the program schedules are designed so that you can take a course while on an internship.
Do note that their programs, as of this writing, are only available if you’re in the U.S. or Puerto Rico and/or currently enrolled in a college or university in the U.S. or Puerto Rico.
#Interview Kickstart
Interview Kickstart is an online platform that offers comprehensive tech interview prep courses. They offer 18 different courses for key roles in tech, including various domains in engineering, tech management, data, and systems.
Each course program will include a live or self-paced course, mock interview sessions, placement assistance and visa guide, unlimited coaching, and other services. The fastest program is less than 2 months. Before enrolling, you’ll have to join a webinar to learn more about their offerings and the cost.
Exponent’s Ace the Interview program is the closest to what Interview Kickstart offers in its tech interview courses. Unlike Exponent, Interview Kickstart does not offer single mock interview sessions, so they’re a good option only if you have the time and money.
6. Exponent / TryExponent.com FAQs↑
If we did a good job writing this article, you should have found something in the list above that responds to your specific needs better than Exponent.
If you didn’t, it might be that Exponent is the best fit for you after all. Particularly if you’re looking for a website that offers a variety of interview training courses, expert coaching services, and peer mock interview hosting.
To help you make your final decision, let’s cover the Exponent basics.
6.1 Who is the founder of Exponent / TryExponent.com?
Exponent was co-founded by Stephen Cognetta and Jacob Simon. Cognetta is a former Google product manager, while Simon is a former Dropbox software engineer. Both have years of experience conducting tech interview prep sessions at various big tech companies and startups.
6.2 Is the system design course on TryExponent worth it?
The reviews on Exponent’s paid content (including its system design course) are quite mixed on external platforms like ProductHunt. Some have said they’re helpful, while others complained about the amateurish videos and lackluster customer support. The best way to figure out if you’re willing to pay for Exponent’s paid content is to try the free preview and look over the contents of their course.
6.3 Is TryExponent good for interview prep?
Exponent has received mixed reviews from users on forums such as Reddit and Blind, but is generally well-respected, albeit a bit on the expensive side. It does have a good roster of tech interview coaches (though you can find a few of them on IGotAnOffer for considerably less).
6.4 How do I cancel my TryExponent subscription?
To cancel your subscription, you may have to delete your TryExponent account. To delete your account, go to your Profile page, select Settings, and scroll down to see the Delete Account button. You’ll be asked to provide your password before you can eventually delete it. Just note that once you delete your account, you won’t be able to access your remaining credits and other saved content.
If you only want to cancel your subscription but retain your TryExponent account, you may have to contact them directly, as there seems to be no direct way to cancel subscriptions on the Profile page.
7. Conclusion↑
Exponent is a reputable tech interview prep platform, offering coaching services, intensive tech interview training courses, and access to peer mock interview matching.
But is it the best option for you? Only you can decide that, although hopefully in this article we’ve helped you make a more informed decision.
If you want to know more about mock interviews in general, read our deep dive, "What is a Mock Interview?" where you'll find tips, sample questions, and videos to help you maximize your session.
If you want to learn more about other tech job prep services (interview, mentoring, resume review), check out some of our reviews:
Whichever mock interview platform you choose, we hope you’ll consider IGotAnOffer.
You’ll find over 300 mock interview coaches on our platform, and you can search by industry, role, or company to get the right match for you. You can see the coaches' hourly availability and book your online session in a couple of clicks.
