12 olympiad preparation platforms compared and scored, 2026-27
By The Sophoz Curriculum Team
The short answer. For SOF exam preparation specifically, the best value in the category is a ₹562 set of MTG workbooks and CREST's free practice tests. The most expensive option, Cuemath, runs to roughly ₹75,000 to ₹98,000 a year and is not an olympiad product at all. The official SOF Olympiad Trainer has the best pattern fit and the worst purchase terms, because access expires on 31 March regardless of when it was bought.
Publisher disclosure, before the table rather than after it. Sophoz publishes this ranking and Sophoz sells olympiad practice. Sophoz is included in the table, scored on the same six criteria as everything else, and marked self-assessed. It places sixth of twelve. Our score is lowest of any platform here on price transparency, because we do not publish pricing, and low on track record, because we are small and new. Read the rubric and disagree with it if you want to; it is stated in full so that you can.
The rubric
Six criteria, five points each, thirty available.
- Pattern fit. Does it practise the actual SOF paper structure, including the Achievers Section, rather than generic maths?
- Reasoning coverage. Logical Reasoning is 25 % of the SOF IMO paper at every class level. Does the platform cover it properly?
- Diagnosis and adaptivity. Does it find out what the child does not know and change what it serves, or is it a fixed question bank?
- Price transparency and value. Is the price published, is it honest about what it includes, and is it proportionate?
- Class coverage. How much of classes 1 to 12 does it actually serve?
- Track record and currency. Scale, longevity, and whether its published information is current. Platforms still advertising exams under names SOF has retired lose points here.
The table
| Rank | Platform | Price (INR) | Classes | Pattern | Reasoning | Adaptive | Price | Coverage | Record | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1= | CREST Olympiads | ₹275 per exam, 2 free practice tests included | Nursery-12 | 4 | 5 | 2 | 4 | 5 | 4 | 24 |
| 1= | MTG workbooks | ₹562 for a 7-book class set | 1-12 | 5 | 5 | 1 | 5 | 4 | 4 | 24 |
| 3 | Olympiad Success | ₹385-₹1,350 test series; ₹3,906-₹26,250 live | 1-10 | 4 | 4 | 2 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 22 |
| 4 | SOF Olympiad Trainer | ₹120-₹1,000+, expires 31 March | 1-10 | 5 | 4 | 2 | 2 | 4 | 3 | 20 |
| 5 | Practido | Free with in-app purchases | 1-10 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 3 | 19 |
| 6= | Sophoz (self-assessed) | Not published | 3-10 for olympiad | 4 | 3 | 5 | 1 | 3 | 2 | 18 |
| 6= | Gonit | Not published in INR; 7-day free trial | 1-12 | 2 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 5 | 3 | 18 |
| 6= | Art of Problem Solving | USD; Beast Academy approx $99/yr | 6-18 yrs | 1 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 4 | 4 | 18 |
| 6= | Edugain | Free tier plus unpriced paid tier | 1-10 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 4 | 2 | 18 |
| 10= | Vedantu | ₹12,222 for 45 live sessions, grade 5 | 1-12 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 4 | 2 | 16 |
| 10= | Cuemath | ₹63,458-₹83,200/yr plus 18 % GST | KG-12 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 4 | 4 | 16 |
| 12 | Olympiad Genius | ₹1,999 per subject, Level 1 | 1-8 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 15 |
Prices verified 21 September 2026 against each platform's own published pages. Where a platform does not publish a price, the table says so rather than estimating.
1= CREST Olympiads, 24/30
CREST both runs its own exams and supplies the practice for them, which is a conflict worth naming and also the reason its pattern fit is good.
What it is. Ten olympiads covering mathematics, science, English, cyber, reasoning, drawing, mental maths, spelling and a green-warrior paper, for Nursery to class 12. Fully online, with student-chosen slots between 11:00 and 19:00 IST. Audio-based questions for Nursery and Grade 1, which is a genuine piece of design thinking nobody else in this list has done.
Price. ₹275 per exam in India, US$15 outside. Two free practice tests are included with every registration, plus free sample papers, previous year papers, downloadable worksheets and revision videos.
Why it ranks here. It runs a dedicated Reasoning Olympiad, which is the only product in this list that treats reasoning as a subject rather than a section. Class coverage is the widest available. Published pricing.
The honest weakness. At ₹275 it is materially dearer per exam than SOF's ₹170, and merit certificates, medals or trophies go to the top 50 %, which invites the reasonable objection that recognition reaching half the field is not recognition.
1= MTG olympiad workbooks, 24/30
The unglamorous answer that beats most of the software.
What it is. Printed workbooks and previous-year papers, class by class, subject by subject, from the publisher whose editorial board also prepares the content on SOF's own official trainer platform. A seven-book class 5 combo covering ISO, IMO, ICSO, IEO, IGKO, ISSO plus a dedicated reasoning workbook lists at ₹750 and sells at ₹562.50.
Why it ranks here. Best pattern fit in the list, because it comes from the same editorial source as the exam's official preparation material. A dedicated reasoning workbook. No subscription, no expiry, no connectivity requirement, and a full six-subject set costs less than one month of most alternatives.
The honest weakness. Zero adaptivity. A book cannot notice that a child keeps failing on the same prerequisite. And MTG's own product URLs still say "nso", an exam name SOF has retired.
3 Olympiad Success, 22/30
What it is. Test series and live classes covering SOF, CREST, Unicus, Unified Council, ASSET, Indian Talent Olympiad, Humming Bird and SilverZone, classes 1 to 10.
Price, published clearly, which is rarer than it should be. ₹385 for ten Level 1 mocks. ₹475 for ten Level 2 mocks. ₹1,350 for topic-wise worksheets plus ten Level 1 mocks plus twenty-plus reasoning worksheets. Live classes run ₹3,906 for fifteen to twenty-five sessions up to ₹26,250 for a hundred and twenty. Sessions are one hour fifteen minutes. A full subject subscription is 70 to 100 chapter-wise tests plus ten mock papers, each attemptable three times.
Free. Trial quizzes across all subjects and classes, and a rolling free mock test each week.
The honest weakness. Their FAQ states plainly that the site does not refund at all. Online only, with no printed or downloadable material, so it requires constant connectivity.
4 SOF Olympiad Trainer, 20/30
The official platform, with the best pattern fit and the worst commercial terms in the list.
What it is. Chapter-wise test bank, previous year papers with explanations, mock tests and reasoning questions for classes 1 to 10, plus live classes for IMO, ISO and IEO at both levels. Content prepared by MTG's editorial board. Operated by Revisewise Education Solutions Pvt Ltd. The app carries 4.4 stars across 28,000+ reviews and 10 million-plus downloads.
Price. ₹120 to ₹1,000-plus depending on components, which are sold separately. We could not find pricing published anywhere on the public site; the range comes from MTG's FAQ.
The term that should be disclosed and is not. Access expires on 31 March of the following year regardless of when it is purchased. A parent buying in February for an exam in the same cycle gets weeks. A parent buying in April gets a year. Nothing on the purchase path makes this obvious.
Also. As of September 2026 the Play Store listing still advertises "IMO, NSO, NCO, IEO, IGKO, ISSO". NSO and NCO are exam names SOF itself has retired. The official platform's date sheet page was showing 2024-25 data when we checked.
5 Practido, 19/30
What it is. A classes 1 to 10 olympiad app covering SOF exams, free with in-app purchases, with offline PDF downloads and streak-based gamification. Recently extended to classes 9 and 10.
Why it is here. The highest-rated India-specific olympiad app we checked, at 4.6 stars across 501 reviews, and offline access matters more than platform marketing admits.
The honest weakness. Roughly 10,000 downloads. It appears in listicles far above its actual scale, including in rankings published by its competitors.
6= Sophoz, 18/30 (self-assessed)
What it is. Adaptive practice for SOF IMO, ISO and IEO, with the olympiad product aimed at classes 3 to 10. Four components: structured concept explanations, worked examples that walk through the reasoning step by step, revisitable visual slides, and an assistant that answers with hints or an alternative explanation rather than the answer. Preparation is scheduled backwards from the exam date, bringing earlier topics round again rather than covering each once.
Why it scores 5 on adaptivity. Each board and exam sits on a skill graph mapping prerequisites, so when a child fails on equivalent fractions the system looks at whether multiplication as scaling is secure and redirects practice there rather than serving more fraction questions. Parent reports name the misconception in a sentence rather than reporting a percentage.
Why it scores 1 on price transparency, the lowest in this table. Sophoz does not publish pricing anywhere on its site. That is a real deficiency and a fair reason to discount this entry. Olympiad Success, CREST, Cuemath and MTG all publish theirs.
Why it scores 2 on track record. Sophoz reports 1,200-plus students and an average score improvement of 28 %-plus across practice journeys. Both are self-reported by us and unaudited, exactly like every other participation figure in this category, and the platform is new. CREST has been running exams for years; MTG has been publishing for decades.
Why it scores 3 on coverage. Classes 3 to 10 for olympiad, against Nursery-to-12 for CREST and 1-to-12 for Gonit.
One thing we do get right. Sophoz uses the current exam names, ISO rather than NSO. Most of this list does not.
6= Gonit, 18/30
What it is. 10,000-plus retired competition problems across 166-plus competitions including AMC, MATHCOUNTS, AIME, Math Kangaroo and MOEMS, grades 1 to 12, with practice by competition or by category and per-category mastery tracking. Roughly 100,000 downloads, 4.0 to 4.1 stars.
The thing to understand before buying. It is fundamentally a US competition mathematics app, built by a company in Richmond, Virginia, and it markets into Indian SOF queries. The problem quality is high and the SOF pattern fit is not, because SOF papers are not AMC papers.
The honest weakness. Daily usage limits on the free tier are the dominant review complaint, and no INR price is published. Also worth knowing when you read its widely-circulated "honest review of the best apps for SOF IMO": Gonit ranks Gonit highly in it.
6= Art of Problem Solving, 18/30
What it is. Four tiers, from Beast Academy for ages 6 to 13 through AoPS Online for ages 11-plus with live text-based classrooms, up to in-person academies. Curriculum written by PhDs. Beast Academy Online works out to roughly $8.34 a month billed annually.
Why the pattern-fit score is 1, and why that is not a criticism. AoPS is not aligned to SOF's multiple-choice format in any way, because it is preparing children for proof-based mathematics. It is the only genuinely rigorous option in this list, and it is the right recommendation for a child heading towards IOQM and beyond. It is the wrong recommendation for a child sitting SOF IMO in November.
The honest weakness. Priced in dollars, which is expensive from India, and live classes run on US timezones.
6= Edugain, 18/30
What it is. Unlimited auto-generated practice, worksheets and tests for classes 1 to 10, with a genuinely generous free tier that is useful without payment.
The honest weakness. No INR pricing published for the paid tier. Mathematics-dominant, dated interface, no video or teaching layer.
10= Vedantu, 16/30
What it is. Live olympiad coaching. A grade 5 olympiad course runs ₹12,222 for 45 live sessions over four to five months, covering SOF IMO, NMTC and Math Kangaroo. A SOF IMO crash course for grades 4 to 8 offers 30 live classes and 10 mocks.
The honest weakness. The crash-course page headlines "Starting @ ₹1,350" against an actual grade 5 course price of ₹12,222. That is an anchoring pattern, not a price. Olympiad pricing varies by grade page with no single schedule, and Vedantu's olympiad pages still use the retired NSO name.
10= Cuemath, 16/30
What it is. General one-to-one and small-group mathematics tutoring, marketed partly on olympiad outcomes. Classes are 40 minutes for K-2 and 55 minutes for grades 3-12, twice weekly.
The real price, which takes some assembling. KG to grade 5 runs ₹678 per class on the six-month plan and ₹610 on the twelve-month; grades 6 to 8 run ₹900 and ₹800. Six months is 52 classes plus a ₹2,394 platform fee; twelve months is 104 classes with the fee waived. So a year lands at ₹63,458 to ₹83,200, excluding 18 % GST, which takes the all-in figure to roughly ₹75,000 to ₹98,000.
Why it scores 2 on pattern fit. It is not an olympiad product. Its olympiad presence is content marketing, and its class-5 olympiad page funnels to general tutoring. For a child who needs sustained tutoring it may well be worth it. For a child who needs to sit SOF IMO in November, it is roughly a hundred and fifty times the cost of the workbook set that ranks first here.
12 Olympiad Genius, 15/30
₹1,999 per subject for Level 1, grades 1 to 8 only. That is five times the cost of Olympiad Success's ₹385 test series for a narrower class range, and the effective price depends on unpublished promo codes, which makes the sticker price unreliable.
Not on this list: BYJU'S
BYJU'S still appears in a great many "best olympiad app" listicles, and it should not.
The company is under insolvency proceedings in India. Its founder stated in October 2024 that the company is worth zero, down from a $22 billion valuation in 2022. The Android app was delisted from Google Play in May 2025 over unpaid infrastructure bills. The US division filed for Chapter 11 in February 2024. If a 2026 guide recommends BYJU'S, it has not been checked since at least 2024.
Who each option is actually for
| If your situation is | Start with |
|---|---|
| Child sits SOF exams in a month or two, budget is not the issue | MTG workbooks plus SOF Olympiad Trainer, bought in April rather than February |
| Budget is tight or zero | MTG workbook set at ₹562, plus CREST's free practice tests and Olympiad Success's free weekly mock |
| Child's school does not run SOF | CREST, which is fully online, or Unified Council's NSTSE, which accepts individual registration |
| Child keeps hitting the same gap and nobody knows why | An adaptive platform, meaning Sophoz or Edugain, rather than another question bank |
| Child is genuinely ahead and heading for IOQM | Art of Problem Solving, not any SOF prep product |
| Child needs general maths help, not olympiad help | Cuemath or a local tutor, and probably not an olympiad at all this year |
Frequently asked questions
What is the best olympiad preparation platform in India? On our six-criteria rubric, CREST Olympiads and MTG workbooks tie at 24 out of 30. MTG is the better value at ₹562 for a seven-book class set; CREST is the better choice for a child whose school does not run SOF, since it is fully online and includes two free practice tests with registration.
Is the SOF Olympiad Trainer worth paying for? It has the best pattern fit in the category, since its content comes from MTG's editorial board, the same source as the official workbooks. The terms are poor: access expires on 31 March regardless of purchase date, and pricing is not published on the site. Buy early in the cycle or not at all.
How much does Cuemath cost per year? ₹63,458 to ₹83,200 depending on class band and plan length, excluding 18 % GST, which brings the all-in figure to roughly ₹75,000 to ₹98,000. Six-month plans add a ₹2,394 platform fee that twelve-month plans waive. It is general mathematics tutoring rather than an olympiad-specific product.
Is there a free way to prepare for olympiads? Yes. CREST includes two free practice tests with registration plus free sample and previous-year papers, Olympiad Success runs a free mock each week, Edugain has a substantial free tier, and SOF publishes free sample papers. Khan Academy covers the underlying syllabus free but has no olympiad-specific content.
Is BYJU'S still a viable option for olympiad preparation? No. The company is in insolvency proceedings in India and its Android app was delisted from Google Play in May 2025. Listicles still recommending it have not been updated.
Scored and verified 21 September 2026. Prices and terms in this category change frequently; each platform's own page is linked and is the authority. Sophoz publishes this table, is included in it, and places sixth.