Balance: Meditation & Sleep reviews
What users love and hate, from real reviews
A guide-led meditation and sleep app with strong content and Ofosu's calming voice, whose reputation is being undone by auto-renewal, surprise annual charges, and a bug that cuts playback short.
What users love
Ofosu's voice and the guidance are the main reason people get hooked
The most common compliment: a calm, 'not hokey' male voice (Ofosu) people want to come back to daily. The guidance is praised as gentle, consistent, and beginner-friendly — the voice is what turns the app into a daily habit.
Ofosu's voice is very calming and soothes me in an instant. Love the clean interface.
I absolutely love this app and Ofosu's voice is the right amount of calming and "not hokey"
the man's voice is very gentle and hypnotic, making you eager to use this every day or night.
Teaches meditation from scratch through structured plans — not just a dump of hundreds of tracks
Many arrived as skeptics who'd never meditated, and the step-by-step plans (Foundations, beginner courses) actually taught them the practice. The skill progression — and not repeating instructions once you've advanced — is a repeated highlight.
It teaches you meditation from the very beginning and that was something I never experienced before.
the guided plans are excellent and set you up for your own practice. it is best to start with the beginner course
It also remembers when last you've done a meditation and doesn't repeat the instructions.
Personalization and a meditation for every situation feel seamless
Users value that the app adapts to their goals and mood, asks questions at the start and mid-plan, and offers a meditation for nearly any situation — anxiety, sleep, focus, kids, walking, shower — without the overwhelm of Calm or Headspace.
The best meditation app I've tried. I really like how it adapts to me and what I need.
I love the variety of choices and that they have a meditation option for almost every situation.
it's clear, it's calm, it's organised, and I'm really impressed with the personalisation which feels seamless!
What users hate
Annual auto-renewal charges a year later, after the user has long forgotten the app
The single most common complaint: people tried the trial, dropped or deleted the app, and a full year later get hit with a $60–123 charge with no email warning. The yearly-only billing turns 'forgot to cancel' into a major surprise expense.
They didn't give me any alerts that my free trial was ending and I've ended up being charged for a year.
I downloaded this app a year ago... I did not like it or use it. I then unistalled immediately. a year later, I've had £61.99 taken from my bank
fast forward 12 months and I get smashed with a $123 automatic renewal that I never wanted
Playback stops mid-meditation and won't resume when you press play
A widespread recent bug: audio freezes after 8–15 seconds or a few minutes, and the play button does nothing — you have to restart the whole session. It's worst for sleep, where the sound dies overnight. Clearing cache and reinstalling don't help, and the promised 'post-holiday' fix never lands.
Unusable, meditations stop a couple minutes in and won't restart.
now the player stops after about 30 seconds. Hopefully they can fix it soon. Pixel 10pro
App stops audio playback and will not continue after hitting play button again.
Charges keep coming even after cancellation, and refunds are near-impossible
People cancel and the card still gets charged, sometimes for years. Refund requests get ignored, met with 'we can't find your email,' or flatly refused — driving users to freeze cards, dispute with their bank, and file cybercrime complaints.
After cancelling this app they continued to charge me $70. I had to dispute the charges with my bank and block this company.
they will still try and bill your bank card. they have been attempting my card weekly since May.
Now they are claiming they can't find my email in the system to refund me.
Charges for an app the person never installed or subscribed to
A distinct cluster: users get charged $69–75 for a subscription they say they never signed up for — sometimes for an app not even on their phone. It reads as fraud and erodes trust more than any bug.
this app is not even downloaded on my phone but I still got charged $69 an annual fee
I'm being charged for this app but did not subscribe to it.
I've never seen this app before in my life but somehow was charged for a subscription to it. Seems super scammy.
Free access used to exist — now everything is paywalled and loyal users are locked out
A classic bait-and-switch: people who for years used a couple of free sleep sounds or shared the free-year link now hit an un-closable subscription popup. Free content is gone, and many simply can't afford the 40–85€/year price.
I've used this app (for sleep meditation) for years and now they switched to forcing you to pay upon opening the app.
like so many other apps they've finally done the switch part of the bait and switch.
now I can't access anything, not even the free content, due to the pop up trying to force a subscription.
Sleep sounds and soundscapes help people drift off — until a bug or crackle ruins them
People love the sleep sounds (rain, thunderstorm, brown/white noise) and use them nightly — but these break the most: playback dies when the screen sleeps or the app is minimized, the hour timer gets stuck, and Deep Sleep and Sound Asleep develop a 'crackling' noise. For anyone who paid purely for background sound, it makes the purchase worthless.
Everytime you play white noise and minimize the app it stops. only happens 50% of the time.
The sleep sounds (specifically Deep Sleep and Sound Asleep) have a "crackling" noise that sporadically occurs.
I use the brown noise every night to help me sleep. getting sick of the app bugging and stopping the playback for no reason.
Cancellation is buried behind a long, deceptive 10-page 'fake' flow
Users describe a deliberately confusing cancel flow: a 10-page sequence that tricks you into thinking you've already unsubscribed, instead of a simple redirect to Google Play. There's no cancel button on the subscription page — which in several countries is outright illegal.
the reason why is because there is a fake unsubscription process on the app, long enough (10 pages long) and intentionally deceitful enough to trick you into thinking you have already unsubscribed.
If it take me more then 5 min to find where to cancel a subscription not only you deserve one star but I will treat you as a scam.
I cannot find the unsubscribe button which is illegal in Australia. fix it.
Too much talking in the meditations — the guide gets in the way of actually meditating
Some experienced practitioners complain the narration is near-constant and repetitive, with no toggle to dial down how much the guide speaks. Others add that the meditations feel same-y ('visualize a beach') and amount to instructions rather than silence.
there is waaaay too much speaking and "guidance". I understand a degree is required, but this is near constant and so repetitive.
95% of the "meditations" are just you visualizing yourself on a beach or in a forest, with no other options to skip.
The speaker cuts in a bit too often. Having a toggle to narrow how much they speak would be super nice.
No monthly option and (now) no lifetime — yearly-only pricing prices out low-income users
People love the content but the pricing model pushes them away: there's no monthly tier, the one-time lifetime option was removed, and the lump-sum yearly charge is out of reach for those on fixed incomes. It especially stings that the yearly price ($70) now exceeds what lifetime access used to cost ($60).
now have to cancel because you do not offer a monthly pay option. It's just not cost friendly
Over priced app that auto charges more for one year of app access than they were charging for A LIFETIME of access. It was 60 for life, now it's 70/year.
no option to buy a lifetime subscription anymore?!?!
Progress, streaks, and the calendar don't log correctly, sapping motivation
Gamification cuts both ways: a tracking bug fails to log completed sessions (especially sleep), streaks get out of sync, and there's no way to reset progress or change your goal. For some, the sparse badges (jumping from 30 days straight to 365) demotivate them enough to quit.
the tracking bug makes it harder to stay motivated because it feels like your progress isn’t being recorded properly.
the app doesn't register progress for sleep mediations often - there seems to be some glitch
Great app but let down by no ability to reset progress. Would be so simple to implement too.