Calm Meditation & Sleep App Explained: Is It Worth The Subscription Cost?

The Calm Meditation and Sleep smartphone app is in a league of its own. Reaching over 50 million downloads, the app is known as the “World’s Happiest App” and was named as Apple’s “App of the Year” in 2017. The Calm app aims to make the world both happier and healthier through guided meditations, sleep stories, and many other lessons on mindful practices. Essentially, it is an an app dedicated to helping you find your calm, sleep more, stress less, and live better.

The Calm app claims to be the number one app for sleep, meditation, and relaxation with over 700,000 5-star reviews. Purchasing a subscription provides access to many guided mindful lessons, such as “Saying Yes to Life,” “Letting Go Into Sleep,” “Returning to Now,” “Easing Depression,” “Anxiety Release,” and many more. Subscribers can even fall asleep to pre-recorded stories told by high profile celebrities, such as Lebron James, Harry Styles, Matthew McConaughey, Kelly Rowland, and others.

The methods used within the Calm app are even backed by science, Calm science. The app promises to provide you with evidence-based sleep and mindfulness resources. Working closely with academic researchers and licensed clinicians in order to provide effective content to subscribers. Whether you are looking to get more restful sleep, learn meditation, or just want to feel more relaxed overall, the Calm app is a great place to start. However, all that thoroughly researched content is not going to come cheap. The Calm app costs $12.99 a month while those willing to commit to a longer subscription can opt for the yearly $59.99 plan. In fact, if you’re in it for the long haul, there’s also a lifetime subscription for $299.99.

Is Calm Worth The Subscription Cost?

A subscription to the Calm app is not going to work for everybody on the lookout for self-improvement. If you are looking to listen to relaxing music or sounds to help you fall asleep or relax, the Calm app can help with that. However, you can just as easily find a YouTube video with 10 hours of those peaceful sounds as well, and for free. Likewise, while you can listen to the Calm app’s guided lessons on how to ease depression and release anxiety, you can also find a free podcast with similar lessons. The one difference is the Calm app has both of these things, and more, available to subscribers in the one place, and that’s where the value of the subscription comes in.

The Calm app has often been compared to another meditation app, Headspace. Both are designed to help users on their journey towards a happier healthier life, and both use a subscription model to do it. In fact, the price is exactly the same when paying monthly and almost the same when opting for the annual plan. While price might not help with the decision, both the Calm and Headspace smartphone apps come with a free trial, so the user does have the opportunity to try both out for free, and before committing to a paid subscription.