Unacademy CAT vs MBA Wallah: Comparing Two Big-Platform CAT Verticals (2026)

By the Online Coaching 4u team

Before comparing these two on features, it's worth being upfront about what they actually are. Unacademy CAT and MBA Wallah are not standalone CAT-coaching companies, they're exam-specific categories inside two much larger, multi-exam edtech platforms: Unacademy and Physics Wallah (PW) respectively. Both platforms built their core reputations on UPSC, JEE and NEET prep, and CAT is one vertical among dozens they now also sell. That structural fact should shape how you read every claim in this comparison, including their app ratings, which are platform-wide, not CAT-specific.

What Unacademy CAT offers

Unacademy (parent: Sorting Hat Technologies) was founded in 2015 by Gaurav Munjal, Roman Saini and Hemesh Singh, growing out of a YouTube channel into a platform now covering dozens of exam "goals," of which "CAT & Other MBA Entrance Tests" is one. Its CAT offering runs live classes (evening and late-evening batches such as "IIM Sprint Batch" and "Path to IIM Batch") plus a large recorded-content library, on subscription tiers that apply platform-wide: Plus from roughly ₹3,542/month and Iconic from roughly ₹4,653/month (billed as a one-time payment for the full duration). Iconic adds physical notes, customised doubt solving, a 3-day offline GD-PI bootcamp in Bangalore or Delhi, and a "super mentorship program." Unacademy names specific CAT educators on its batch pages, including Ravi Prakash (billed as its top CAT educator, self-reported 99+ percentile three times), Lokesh Agarwal and Bharat Gupta, among roughly 40 educators the platform claims for the CAT vertical overall. A 2021 blog post cites "over 30 learners" scoring 99+ percentile that year, with named examples; the CAT subscriptions page separately states "over 8,00,000 learners trust us," a platform-reach figure rather than a success rate.

What MBA Wallah offers

MBA Wallah is the CAT and MBA-entrance division of Physics Wallah (PW), the platform Alakh Pandey started as a YouTube physics channel in 2016 and formalised as a company in 2020 with co-founder Prateek Maheshwari; PW became a unicorn in 2022. Structurally, this mirrors Unacademy CAT closely, MBA Wallah shares its parent platform's app, checkout system and much of its infrastructure with dozens of unrelated exam categories. Its live batches page (pw.live/mba/cat/batches) lists named tiers, MBA Power Batch, Elite Weekend, Pioneer, Pro, Core and Starter Kit, and states 20+ full-length mock tests, sectional tests and 15,000+ practice questions per batch, plus a "doubt engine" with live doubt sessions. We could not confirm exact current prices from a static page fetch, since pricing appears to load dynamically; a phone-counsellor callback option is prominently offered alongside self-serve checkout, suggesting a sales-assisted flow is part of MBA Wallah's funnel. Unlike Unacademy, we could not find individually named CAT faculty on MBA Wallah's official pages, only generic descriptions of educator experience and claimed percentile ranges. A June 2026 press release syndicated via PTI states MBA Wallah had "over 160 students secure admissions to top IIMs and B-schools" in the CAT 2025 cycle, with no denominator given.

Head-to-head comparison

Why "platform-wide rating" is a trap here

This is the single most important thing to understand before choosing between these two: neither the Unacademy Learner App's 4.0-star rating nor the PW app's 4.7-star rating tells you anything specific about CAT teaching quality. Both apps serve JEE and NEET aspirants in far larger numbers than CAT aspirants, and both ratings are aggregated across every exam and every educator on the platform. A high or low platform rating could be driven entirely by experiences in a completely different exam category. If you want a CAT-specific quality signal, Quora threads specifically about each brand's CAT offering are a more relevant (though still informal and unverified) source than the app-store rating.

What we could and couldn't verify

Both platforms' CAT-specific success claims (Unacademy's 30+ 99-percentilers in 2021, MBA Wallah's 160+ IIM admits in 2025) are self-published, without a named third-party verifier and, in MBA Wallah's case, without a stated denominator, so no real conversion rate can be calculated from either figure. We could not confirm individually named CAT faculty for MBA Wallah despite checking its official pages directly, a genuine information gap compared to Unacademy, which we're noting rather than filling in with a guess.

Which one should you choose?

Choose Unacademy CAT if…

You want to know exactly which named educator is teaching you and their stated track record, or you specifically want the Iconic tier's offline GD-PI bootcamp.

Choose MBA Wallah if…

You're already inside the PW ecosystem for another exam and want to add CAT prep to the same account, or PW's typically steep-discount pricing pattern (once you confirm the actual current price) works out cheaper for your budget.

Do this regardless of which you pick

Ask specifically which named educator or educators will teach your batch before paying, since both platforms run many simultaneous batches with different assigned teachers, and don't assume the app's overall star rating reflects your specific CAT experience.

See how these two compare against founder-led and legacy CAT institutes on our online CAT/MBA coaching page.

Frequently asked questions

Are Unacademy CAT and MBA Wallah separate companies?

No. Both are exam-specific categories inside much larger platforms. Unacademy CAT is a 'goal' category inside Unacademy (which primarily built its brand on UPSC, JEE and NEET prep). MBA Wallah is a division of Physics Wallah (PW), which also primarily built its brand on JEE and NEET prep. Neither is a standalone, CAT-only company.

Which is cheaper, Unacademy CAT or MBA Wallah?

Unacademy's CAT-goal subscription tiers start from roughly ₹3,542/month (Plus) or ₹4,653/month (Iconic), platform-wide pricing that applies to every exam goal, not CAT specifically. MBA Wallah's exact current batch prices were not confirmable from a static page fetch at the time of research; older third-party figures suggested discounted batches in the ₹4,000-11,000 range, but these should be treated as potentially outdated. Confirm both directly before paying.

Does either platform have CAT-specific mock tests?

MBA Wallah's own batches page states 20+ full-length mocks with 15,000+ practice questions per batch. Unacademy's CAT goal pages don't break out a CAT-specific mock count or video-hour figure in what we found, though its Iconic tier does mention 'curated test series access.'

Are the app ratings for Unacademy and PW CAT-specific?

No, and this is an important distinction. The Unacademy Learner App shows 4.0 stars from roughly 1.2 million reviews, and the PW app shows 4.7 stars from roughly 1.24 million reviews, but both ratings are for the entire app across all exams (UPSC, JEE, NEET, banking and more), not specifically for the CAT vertical. Treat these as platform-wide signals, not CAT-quality signals.

Does MBA Wallah name its CAT faculty publicly?

Not clearly. Unlike Unacademy, which names specific CAT educators (Ravi Prakash, Lokesh Agarwal, Bharat Gupta and others) on its batch pages, we could not find individually named CAT faculty on MBA Wallah's official pages, only generic descriptions like 'educators who scored high in CAT themselves' and '15 to 24 years of teaching experience.'