Before you pay for an English test, stop and check something: you might not need to take one at all. More students qualify for waivers than realize it, and a waived test is money you keep.
The most common route is prior education in English. If you finished your last degree at a university where English was the medium of instruction, many schools will take a medium of instruction letter from your school instead of a score. Some want it on official letterhead, some want transcripts showing English medium courses alongside it. Get the letter early. Registrars move slowly and application deadlines don't.
The second big category is country based. Citizens and long term residents of majority English speaking countries usually skip the test automatically. Less famous, and this one matters: several UK universities waive the requirement for students from certain international boards who cleared an English cutoff, often 70 percent or higher in CBSE or ICSE. That single rule saves thousands of students a test fee every year.
Then there are the substitutes. A strong SAT reading score, an IB diploma in English, a recognized foundation program, any of these can count at the right school. And a handful of universities will waive the test after a short interview, if your spoken English is obviously strong.
Now the honest part, because I'd be doing you a disservice otherwise. A waiver gets you past admissions. It does not get you past actual university coursework. If your academic writing is shaky, skipping the test just moves the problem to your first semester. I know students who qualified for an English test waiver and still did six weeks of prep for their own sake. That's not wasted money. That's insurance.
Wondering if you qualify? The study plan at internationalstudyhelp.fyi checks your waiver options before you touch a single practice test.