AI Course Fees in India (2026): Free to IIT, Compared

By Deepak Sharma, Marketing Manager at BootcampGuide and Content Lead at TestMu AI. B2B SaaS content strategist, certified in Selenium, Cypress, Playwright, Appium, Automation Testing and KaneAI. Published 2026-10-30. 17 min read

Topics: Artificial Intelligence, Course Fees, AI Course, India, Original Research

By Deepak Sharma, BootcampGuide. Every fee below was read off the provider's own page on 31 October 2026, from an Indian connection, unless marked otherwise. We list courses from several of these institutes; none of them paid to appear in this article or saw it before it was published. See sources.

AI course fees in India run from ₹0 for YUVA AI for All and Elements of AI to ₹7,08,000 for IIT Bombay's online postgraduate diploma, and about ₹14.8 lakh to ₹19 lakh for a private B.Tech in AI. The median paid AI programme we checked costs about ₹1 lakh. Live AI bootcamps of five to nine months mostly cost ₹60,000 to ₹1.1 lakh. Executive and IIT-linked programmes cost ₹1.4 lakh to ₹3.25 lakh.

We compared more than 40 AI courses, certificates and degrees, 33 of them paid non-degree programmes, and read each fee off the provider's page rather than from a fee aggregator. Then we worked out what the fee pages leave out: the all-in amount after GST, what EMI really adds, what an hour of teaching costs, and whether your city changes the price.

AI course fees in India at a glance

All-in amounts add 18% GST where the provider quotes "+ GST" (our arithmetic). Degree figures are programme or tuition fees and exclude hostel and mess.

Key takeaway: About ₹1 lakh is the middle of the Indian AI course market. Half of the 33 paid programmes we checked cost less than that. Above ₹1.4 lakh you are mostly paying for a university or IIT name and a longer programme, not for proportionally more teaching: an hour of live teaching costs ₹71 on PW Skills' Premium plan and ₹1,750 on Simplilearn's Applied Generative AI programme.

AI course fees by course type

Free AI courses with a certificate (₹0)

Start with YUVA AI for All if you have never used AI tools at work: it takes one afternoon, is free, and the government launched it under the IndiaAI Mission in November 2025. It teaches AI literacy, not engineering. Elements of AI goes a little deeper into what AI can and cannot do, and its introductory course involves no complicated maths or programming. NPTEL's Introduction to Machine Learning is the serious free option, taught by Prof. Balaraman Ravindran; its January to April 2026 run has finished, so check NPTEL for the next one. ISRO's Indian Institute of Remote Sensing has also run free five-day AI and ML courses, but only in occasional sessions, and we could not find one open at the time of writing.

A warning on "free Google AI course" searches: Google AI Essentials is not free. Coursera's page says so directly: "No, you cannot take this course for free." You get a 7-day trial, and you can apply for financial aid.

AI certification exams and subscriptions (₹3,691 to ₹6,999)

Coursera Plus is the best-value paid option on this page if you can study alone. One year on offer costs less than most single courses here, and Google AI Essentials takes under 10 hours. Microsoft's more advanced Azure AI Engineer certification has been retired, so check that a course still prepares you for a live exam before paying for "AI-102 training".

Low-cost AI courses (₹4,999 to ₹23,600)

This is the band most beginners should try first. PW Skills' Premium plan gives you 126 hours of live weekend classes for less than ₹9,000, which is the lowest live price we found. The trade-off is that its page marks "Guaranteed Job / Internship: No", and career guidance sessions and AI mock interviews come only with Premium. Note the terms too: PW Skills' Basic plan is non-refundable.

Live AI bootcamps (₹34,999 to ₹1,10,000)

Two things explain most of the spread here. The first is what "AI" means: an agentic AI course usually assumes you can already code, while a data science and AI course starts with Python and statistics. The second is the certificate on the end. Masai's two IIT-linked programmes cost about ₹60,000, which is the lowest price we found for an IIT-linked AI certificate. Check what level each one expects before you compare prices: our guide to the top AI courses in India sorts them by what they teach.

Executive and PG AI programmes (₹1,40,000 to ₹7,08,000)

Scaler's ₹3,99,000 is the highest fee here apart from IIT Bombay's ePGD, and our Scaler fees breakdown explains what it includes. IIT Bombay's ePGD is the most expensive non-degree option here, and it comes with the closest thing to a formal academic credential: a postgraduate diploma rather than a certificate of completion.

AI course fees after 12th: B.Tech, BS and degree costs

After 12th, an "AI course" usually means a degree, and that changes the sums completely.

The IIT Madras online BS is the standout for a 12th-pass student who cannot, or does not want to, go through JEE. You pay by the course, you can stop at the Foundation level for ₹48,000, and IIT Madras gives fee support of 50% or more to eligible students, depending on category and family income. Its page also lists a route on to a PG Diploma in AI and ML (₹4,86,000 to ₹5,90,000 in total) and an MTech in AI and ML (₹6,86,000 to ₹7,90,000 in total). Tuition at the IITs is lower for families with lower incomes, and SC, ST and PwD students at IIT Bombay pay no tuition. For private B.Tech programmes, budget for hostel, mess and exam charges on top unless the college says they are included, and check whether the fee rises each year, as it does at Chitkara.

Weighing a degree against a shorter course? Bootcamp versus degree in India sets out what each one does and does not get you.

Fees by specialisation: generative AI, AI engineering, AI and ML

"AI course" covers very different products, so compare within a type. These bands use the same courses as the tables above.

If you cannot code yet, a course pitched at intermediate learners is money badly spent, whatever it costs. Learn Python first, using the free NPTEL or Coursera routes, and you will also qualify for the cheaper agentic AI courses.

IIT AI course fees: Roorkee, Patna, Madras and Bombay

Searching for the "IIT Roorkee AI course fees" or the "iHub IIT Patna AI course fees"? These are the current prices, and they vary by more than 10 times for the same three letters on the certificate. That is the point to take from this table. An E&ICT Academy or i-Hub certificate is a real credential from a body linked to an IIT, but it is not an IIT degree and it does not make you an IIT alumnus. Ask each provider who issues the certificate and exactly what it says. If you are looking for BITS instead, the "BITS Pilani AI/ML course fee" most people mean is the WILP M.Tech at ₹3,34,400 for four semesters: ₹1,500 to apply, ₹18,500 for admission and ₹78,600 a semester. It is for working graduates in technical roles, and it is a degree.

AI course fees in Bengaluru, Delhi, Pune, Hyderabad, Chennai, Mumbai and Kolkata

Many guides quote city-by-city ranges. The classroom courses we could verify work differently: a provider usually charges the same fee in every city where it teaches.

A classroom AI course typically costs ₹5,000 to ₹10,000 more than the same provider's live online version, so the choice comes down to whether you learn better in a room. upGrad's offline centres also advertise merit scholarships of up to 50%. Small local institutes may quote lower, but we only list fees we could read on a provider's own page. You can filter classroom batches by city in the full course listing.

AI course duration and fees: how long does an AI course take?

"AI course kitne saal ka hota hai?" A B.Tech takes four years and a certificate takes 3 to 9 months, while an AI literacy course can be finished in an afternoon. Length does not predict price well: a 3-month programme here costs ₹1,10,000, while a 12-week one costs ₹14,999.

What an hour of AI teaching costs

Months tell you how long a course lasts, not how much teaching you get. These programmes publish their hours, so we divided the fee by them.

An hour of live teaching costs about 25 times more on Simplilearn's Applied Generative AI programme than on PW Skills' Premium plan. Hours are not identical: batch size, mentor access and project feedback all differ, and a provider's "hours of learning" can include self-study, so treat those rows as a floor on the true price of live teaching. Where a provider says "80+" or "240+", the true cost per hour is a little lower than shown. Still, the table tells you what to ask. If a provider will not tell you how many live hours you are getting, you cannot judge its price. We ran the same exercise for data analyst courses and cyber security courses.

Hidden costs: GST, EMI and refunds

• GST at 18% on fees quoted "+ GST". Great Learning's ₹2,75,000 becomes ₹3,24,500, a difference of ₹49,500. Simplilearn, Newton School, Imarticus and Scaler's IIT Roorkee programme state their fees include taxes, and upGrad's pages say no tax applies. Others do not say, so ask.
• EMI that costs more than paying upfront. Masai's IIT Patna programme costs ₹59,720 upfront, or ₹7,631 for nine months: ₹68,679, which is ₹8,959 more. Its AI Officer Programme costs ₹1,08,100 upfront, or ₹20,719 for six months: ₹1,24,314, which is ₹16,214 more. Whenever an EMI is offered, multiply it out, and ask whether "no-cost EMI" is what you will actually be paying.
• Non-refundable fees. Intellipaat's AI page says no refund applies once you enrol, and its IITM Pravartak page calls the fee non-refundable. Masai's application and ₹4,000 registration fees are non-refundable. Coding Ninjas refunds in full within 7 days, and Codebasics within 30 days. PW Skills' Basic plans cannot be refunded.
• Countdown prices. Codebasics rises from ₹42,000 to ₹54,000 after 10 November. Newton School's Data Science and AI page showed "Final 3 seats available" and a timer with under a day left when we read it. DataMites shows ₹1,54,000 cut to ₹1,01,745; AccioJob ₹1,00,000 cut to ₹75,000. A struck-out price is the seller's number. A timer is not a reason to pay today.
• The exam. A course that prepares you for a certification does not always pay for it: AI-900 is ₹3,691 and NPTEL's exam is ₹1,000.
• Tools. Ask whether API credits or GPU time for your projects are included. Some paid AI tools bill you separately, which is rarely on a fee page.
• Lost income. A full-time classroom batch can cost more in lost pay than any fee on this page.

AI courses with placement: what the fee buys

Most providers here state, in their own FAQ, that they do not guarantee a job. Intellipaat's Generative AI page says "We don't guarantee a job". Great Learning says its PG programme "does not offer placement guarantees". Imarticus says "we can't guarantee a specific job". Codebasics says "We don't make false job guarantees". PW Skills marks "Guaranteed Job / Internship: No".

Two go further, with conditions. AnalytixLabs says it runs both Placement Guarantee and Placement Assistance programmes, and that the guarantee programmes refund 50% of the fee if you do not secure a qualifying role within six months of certification, subject to eligibility. AccioJob says it offers "placement assurance programs, subject to meeting eligibility criteria and course requirements." Read those conditions before paying, and ask which programme you are actually buying.

Before paying for placement support, ask three things in writing: what share of the last batch was placed and at what salary, how many interviews you are promised, and what happens to your fee if you are not placed. Pay-after-placement plans shift part of that risk to the institute, and our pay after placement guide shows what they cost at each salary band.

AI course eligibility: after 10th, 12th or commerce?

After 10th: YUVA AI for All, Elements of AI and Jio AI Classroom ask for no qualification, so you can start with them now.

After 12th: Beginner courses such as PW Skills, Codebasics and the free options are open to you. For a degree, B.Tech in AI usually needs Physics, Chemistry and Maths, and the IIT route goes through JEE. The IIT Madras BS has its own qualifier process, with applications for the January 2027 term open until 29 January 2027.

After 12th commerce or arts: You can take AI literacy courses straight away. For a technical AI job, learn Python and statistics first; for an AI-aware role in marketing, finance or management, an applied AI course is enough. Non-technical students often do better with a role-based course than with an engineering one.

Working professionals: Executive programmes can set their own experience requirements, and BITS WILP's M.Tech expects a B.E., B.Tech, M.Sc or MCA. Ask the provider in writing if you are unsure, because a course that sets no bar will still leave you behind if you lack the basics.

Is an AI course worth the fee?

Start with what the job pays. PayScale's India data, updated 11 July 2026, puts a machine learning engineer with under a year's experience at ₹5,96,082 a year in average total pay, and ₹8,40,657 at one to four years. That sample is small, at 39 and 156 profiles, so treat it as a guide. On those numbers a ₹75,000 course is about six weeks of a first-year engineer's pay, and a ₹3,99,000 programme is about eight months.

So a mid-priced course can pay for itself quickly, if it gets you a job you would not otherwise have got. That "if" matters. Entry-level AI engineering roles usually expect solid programming, and a certificate alone rarely closes that gap. The free and low-cost courses teach most of the same concepts. What you pay more for is live feedback, a project someone has reviewed, and interview practice. Buy those when you know you need them.

How to choose a price band

Before paying anyone, get three things in an email: the all-inclusive invoice amount, the refund window, and the number of live hours. You can compare batches and start dates in the course listing, or browse every institute we list. If you are still unsure how to judge a programme, our nine-step guide to choosing a bootcamp walks through it. For related fields, see the top data science institutes in India and what coding bootcamps cost in India.

Sources and how we checked

Fees were read on 31 October 2026 from each provider's own page, from an Indian connection, so rupee prices are what an Indian visitor sees. We loaded most pages in a browser because many show their fee only after the page opens. Simplilearn's pages would not load that way, so we read them through a separate page fetch. The IIT fee circulars come from a search of official IIT documents. Course durations for a few bootcamps come from our own listings where the course page did not show them. Where a page shows a struck-out price, we quote the price you would pay and say so. Where a page contradicts itself, we say which figure we used. The median uses each of the 33 paid non-degree programmes once, at the current all-in price of its main plan. Offers change by batch, and some expire within days, so confirm the amount in writing before paying.

1. FutureSkills Prime: YUVA AI for All (free, 4 hours 30 minutes) and All India Radio News on its launch
2. Elements of AI (free) and Jio AI Classroom (free, 12 languages, certificate on JioPC)
3. NPTEL: Introduction to Machine Learning, IIT Madras (12 weeks, ₹1,000 exam) and IndiaAI on ISRO's five-day course
4. Coursera: Google AI Essentials, Machine Learning Specialization and Coursera Plus (₹6,999 a year on offer, ₹13,999 list)
5. Microsoft Learn: Azure AI Fundamentals (AI-900) (₹3,691 in India) and Azure AI Engineer Associate (retired)
6. PW Skills: Gen AI Engineering (₹4,999 and ₹8,999; FAQ lists ₹9,999 and ₹14,999 as the full prices) and Data Science With Generative AI (₹6,999, ₹34,999 and ₹39,999)
7. IIDE: Online AI Bootcamp (₹10,000 + taxes)
8. GeeksforGeeks: AI Engineering (₹14,999, ₹28,599 list)
9. Codebasics: AI Engineering and Data Science Bootcamp (₹18,000) and AI Engineering Bootcamp (₹42,000 until 10 November 2026, then ₹54,000)
10. AnalytixLabs: Generative AI, Agentic AI, Full Stack AI and Data Science and GenAI
11. Intellipaat: Agentic AI, AI with Microsoft, Generative AI and IITM Pravartak Data Science and AI
12. Masai School: AI and ML, IIT Patna, AI and ML, IIT Roorkee and AI Officer Programme (fee tables and EMI)
13. AccioJob: Data Science and AI (₹75,000 and ₹80,000) and the AccioJob homepage (placement assurance FAQ)
14. DataMites: Artificial Intelligence Engineer (₹1,01,745 discounted, ₹1,54,000 list)
15. upGrad: Data Science and Agentic AI, Executive PG in Applied AI and Agentic AI and offline centres (₹1,49,999)
16. Coding Ninjas: GenAI and Multi-Agent Systems with IBM (₹1,00,000)
17. Scaler: Advanced AI Engineering with IIT Roorkee (₹1,10,000 including taxes) and AI and Machine Learning Program (₹3,99,000)
18. Simplilearn: Post Graduate Certificate in AI and ML and Applied Generative AI (₹1,40,000 including taxes)
19. Newton School: Applied Agentic and GenAI Systems (₹1.5 lakh) and Data Science and AI (₹2,45,000)
20. Great Learning: AI Engineering and MLOps, Generative AI, Agentic AI, PG in AI and ML and ePGD with IIT Bombay
21. Imarticus Learning: PG Program in Data Science and AI (₹1,99,000 inclusive of all taxes)
22. IIT Madras: BS programme fee structure, BITS Pilani WILP B.Tech and M.Tech in AI and ML
23. IIT Bombay and IIT Delhi 2026-27 fee circulars, Chitkara University: B.E. CSE in AI and ML and SRM: B.Tech CSE with AI and ML
24. PayScale: Machine Learning Engineer salary in India (updated 11 July 2026)