Calm reviews
What users love and hate, from real reviews
A hugely popular app for meditation, sleep and anxiety relief: people genuinely love the content, but almost everything is locked behind an expensive subscription and dark billing patterns.
What users love
The content is genuinely life-changing — the core reason to love it
Despite everything, long-time users keep it for years and say it helped with sleep, anxiety, panic attacks and even trauma — for many it's part of their daily routine and a genuine "lifesaver".
This has been a tremendously useful tool to help me out of a 6 month long panic loop. My fight or flight response has been stuck wide open
Calm has done as much for my mental health as months of intended therapy in healing the trauma from my past.
this app has changed my life. I could not imagine my life without it
Sleep stories and narrator voices put you out in minutes
The standout loved feature is the sleep stories and narrator voices (Tamara, McConaughey): people fall asleep before the story ends and listen to them nightly for years.
Mr. McConaugheys' voice is so calming and mesmerizing you can't help but drift off to sleep.
Tamara voice is amazing in the daily calm. it's so inviting and relaxing.
I listen to the stories every night to fall asleep. I no longer wake in the middle of the night
Rich variety: meditations, soundscapes, breathing, kids section
What wins over those who stay is the variety and quality: guided meditations, soundscapes, breathing exercises and a strong kids section — something to match whatever mood you're in.
So much different content, always updated but my old favourites remain. The sleep stories, meditations , sondscapes are amazing. Kids section is fantastic!
I really like its wide variety of content, including guided meditations, sleep stories, breathing exercises, and relaxing music
The guided meditations, sleep stories, and ambient soundscapes are incredibly high quality.
What users hate
There is effectively no free tier — only a trial
Ads promise "free", yet on opening nearly everything is locked: people can't even try the app without subscribing or handing over card details, and they call it false advertising.
it immediately asks me for 79.99 after I login shame on you do better
there is nothing free about this app
can't even try it without subscribing. bogus!
Charged during the trial, then can't cancel
The most frequent money complaint: people cancel within the trial window but still get hit with the full annual charge, and the app "won't allow" cancellation — they read it as outright fraud.
Charged me for a year on the second day of the free trial!!!
I canceled my subscription during the trail phase through the application. I was still charged for the annual subscription fee.
tried to cancel it before trail period is over but app didn't allow. finally they took yearly charge
Cancellation is buried behind dark patterns
Unsubscribing means clicking through several "are you sure?" screens with a tiny cancel button, or hitting a "something went wrong" error — users explicitly call out dark UX from an app that's supposed to be about calm.
I had to click three or four "are you sure" type pages where the "cancel" button was tiny and hard to click at the bottom of the page. This is not how honest and reputable apps behave.
they make it extremely complicated and difficult to Unsubscribe
I am trying to cancel my membership and first you make it tricky
Support goes silent and refunds are nearly impossible
When a disputed charge happens, people wait weeks or months for any reply: the chatbot is useless, there's no phone number, and Google and PayPal bounce them back to Calm.
Support has not gotten back to me in a MONTH
they double charged me, then ignored all my emails. no phone number available. won't return emails or money!! scam
Requests for support take months to be addressed. My request for a refund was pointed to a workflow with Google Play that doesn't work.
Too expensive for what you can get free on YouTube
At $70–200 a year the price feels out of proportion: for sleep sounds and white noise people find free alternatives on YouTube, Spotify or Alexa and don't see what they're paying for.
I'm not paying a subscription fee just to hear sleep sounds Alexa usually plays. Forget that!
can't do anything without paying $200 a year lol garbage
I can find the same thing on you tube and its actually free..
The anxiety-critical content sits behind the paywall
What stings most is that the emergency stuff — an SOS-for-anxiety meditation or panic session — is exactly what's locked: people compare it to running an ad before a video on how to perform CPR.
An 'SOS for anxiety' meditation being blocked behind a paywall tells you everything you need to know about the ethical standing of this company.
hiding an emergency anxiety meditation behind a pay wall is just greed. it's like having an ad before showing a video of how to perform CPR.
Everything is locked behind an expensive subscription. There's only a few clips that are unlocked. Useless.
Cluttered UI makes finding anything stressful
Navigation and search are a mess: the basic breathing exercise is buried in Discover → Tools, searching "mindfulness" returns 7000 identical "daily calm" results, and in a moment of distress you simply can't find what you need.
Terrible search. Searching mindfulness returns 7000 "daily calm". Filtering by time to remove the short meditation
couldn’t find the basic breathing exercise—it’s hidden under Discover → Tools
too hard to navigate confusing stressful not for me
The "Take a deep breath" splash enrages on every launch
The unskippable "Take a deep breath" splash hangs on a blue screen and reappears every time you reopen the app — the opposite of calming, and for some it even triggers PTSD.
it just freezes on a blue screen for infinity saying 'take a deep breath', or some such infuriating nonsense. I can't describe how much I hate this feature.
the 'Take a deep breath' needs to be removed from the start. PTSD victim and it just sets me off.
Just Breath, I absolutely hate this. Each time I minimise the app and go back in there it is.
Constant crashes, freezes and stuttering audio
Even paying long-time users hit the app freezing on "three dots", cutting stories off at night, stuttering audio or looping on the login screen — especially after updates and on newer devices.
lately it cuts out/ crashes/ freezes constantly. Have emailed the developers.
The app is completely broken. no content loads at all and there's an error that says the content is unavailable
Constantly stops during stories and meditations. I loved this app to begin with, but the glitches just get more and more frustrating.
AI content and celebrity focus disappoint
Some long-time users feel it's degrading: "Daily Calm" is AI-generated with robotic audio, and there's a focus on big-name celebrities over actual substance; a few uninstall purely over the amount of AI content.
You are generating really bad daily calm with ai, the sound is robotic I really loved the daily calm, but i can't concentrate anymore
There seems to be a focus on big name celebrities rather than actual content.
deleted the app and changed my mind immediately about purchasing a subscription when I saw the amount of AI generated content
The custom "personalised plan" turns out to be empty
People are drawn in by an EMDR/sleep quiz promising a personalised program, but after paying and handing over data they get the same generic recommendations — and the data they gave never carries over.
went through the bother of getting a 'personalised emdr plan' only to find that nothing was carried over. So I just provided Calm with a bunch of marketing information for no benefit at all.
I filled in a questionnaire on bilateral stimulation to set up a customised "plan", and when I paid and logged on all I got is generic recommendations.
initial screening offered a personalised programme which never eventuated... content appears no different from what one might find oneself
The bot check and login lock people out entirely
Getting in requires a hold-to-verify "I'm human" check that loops on "try again", plus login bugs and Google sign-in incompatibility — some people can't even create an account and uninstall before starting.
I held my thumb there, would get the checkmark, it would show three dots blinking, then ask me to try again.
can't get past the bot test. keeps saying try again. uninstalled.
I can't prove I'm a human and not a robot. unable to even create an account as a result.
Pushy upsells and pop-ups during the actual sessions
Even premium subscribers get bombarded with "upgrade to Family" pop-ups, upsells and notifications mid-meditation — irritating and at odds with the whole point of calming down.
Stop with the upgrade ad for the love of pete! I already have premium. I don't Need family.
in the free trial there are so many constant pop ups and reminders to pay money that it ruins the experience.
what an aggravating app, pop ups everywhere you look, I thought this was supposed to be calming?