Waking Up: Meditation & Wisdom reviews
What users love and hate, from real reviews
A meditation app built around Sam Harris's approach, heavy on the theory of consciousness and non-duality — deeper and more intellectual than rivals, but expensive, locked hard behind a paywall, and inseparable from its polarizing founder.
What users love
Content goes deeper than rivals: not just meditations but a theory of mind
The core reason people love it — the app teaches the 'why' and the 'what', not just the 'how'; theory, philosophy and practice together deliver something Headspace or Calm don't.
Whereas most other apps I've tried stick to surface-level instructions, Harris instead nails it by using the right vocabulary to shift your perspective on the working of your consciousness while meditating. He goes a level deeper, especially with the theory lessons next to the practice lessons.
the app has a "theory" section going deeper into the theory behind meditation, a "life" section with all kinds of interesting topics, "conversations" and "Q&A", all really valuable
Better (and more technical, info dense) than headspace
The 28-day intro course actually teaches you to meditate from scratch
For beginners the intro course makes meditation 'click' where years of trying other apps failed — it eases you into the practice and locks in the habit.
I am on day 10 of the introductory course and it has clicked. I'm seeing immense progress
28 days on this app has helped consolidate my understanding of the practice and how to do (or not do...) in a way that 8 years on and off with a couple of other apps and teachings could not.
The introductory course is an excellent introduction to meditation which really eases you into the practice very well.
Genuinely life-changing and builds a daily meditation habit that sticks
The most frequent praise — the app genuinely changed lives and let people sustain a daily practice for the first time, where other apps and attempts had failed.
This has changed my life. I love it. I actually like meditating!
I finally have a daily meditation practice. Thank you.
This is the first meditation app that I've been able to stick with and I've stuck with it for 6 weeks now.
Scholarships and discounts make the app accessible to the broke
Despite the steep price, the team grants free 'scholarships' and discounts without hassle to those who can't pay — and many call it out gratefully.
during harder financial times it was great that they gave me the free scholarship without any hassel or asking questions
I live well below the poverty line and am extremely grateful for the discounted subscription. I'd never be able to afford it otherwise.
Thanks to this company for making it available even if you can't afford it.
Support is responsive, friendly and fast
Customer support (Karl gets named repeatedly) replies fast, in a human way and actually solves billing and tech issues — a real bright spot amid the cancellation complaints.
I had some problem requesting thr partial scholarship on the App, but Karl from the team instantly helped me out. Best App, best content, even better customer support!
Amazing app! Customer service is outstanding. Thank you, Karl, for your assistance.
When I emailed with questions about billing, they were prompt and kind in their replies.
What users hate
The price stings: $150-160 a year, double the alternatives
A ~$150 yearly sub (some were quoted up to $300) feels like a rip-off for meditation; many walk away to cheaper apps without ever trying it.
Nobody put the price in their reviews so here it is: $161 per year. Not even going to bother trying the app for that price! Absolutely wild!!
it's crazy how much you have to pay after the trial: $149.99 a year. I wish it was lower.
300 bucks a year!! Thats just a rip off.
Everything is paywalled — not a single free session to evaluate
You're forced to create an account and commit a card before you can try anything; zero free content reads as dishonest and a waste of time.
makes you create an account just to learn it's a paid app. like come on, be upfront, and not waste people's time!
not a single session is free. you should allow users to test the app before asking them to subscribe.
ZERO free content to evaluate whether this is worthwhile
Sam Harris the person drives people away: hard to separate his politics from the practice
Many love the content but can't meditate to a man whose politics (Palestine, trans issues, censorship) they find appalling; there are literal pleas for a 'version without Sam'.
However, Sam appears to be an unhinged Zionist and Islamophobe who supports Genocide and Ethnic Cleansing. How mindful can Sam actually be. Please provide a version of Waking Up without Sam.
Not going to meditate to a transphobe, that expresses gender essentialist beliefs, and likens transgender people to a social contagion.
it's getting harder for me to seperate Sams political views and teachings
Buggy, freezes and crawls — especially at login and offline
Freezes at startup/login, endless installs, crashes after sign-in and no real offline mode — technical reliability repeatedly fails.
installed, reinstalled app, but it continuously freezes at login.
just downloaded and keeps crashing after login
was never able to install it...just kept spinning and spinning.
Cancelling the subscription and deleting the account is nearly impossible
You can't cancel in-app (laptop only), the 'delete account' button is dead, and people get charged after cancelling — it reads as a deliberately predatory trap.
Beware of trial! I was charged $149.99 after I had already cancelled! Support has not gotten back to me.
Want to cancel subscription, but cannot via app.
The "delete account" button is fake and cannot be pressed.
Sam's voice and delivery relax some and grate on others
A chunk of users find Harris's voice off-putting and his speech too fast, too wordy and too complex — it literally snaps them out of meditation.
Sam Harris is a VERY bad narrator for meditation. He talks too fast.. Too much.. And uses a complex language that literally snaps your out of meditation.
Sam Harris' voice is like nails on a chalkboard to me
Sams voice also has a level of smugness about it that rather than relax me filled me with rage.
After the intro course there's no clear path — beginners get lost in the library
A huge library with no structured roadmap: once the 28-day course ends, beginners don't know what to do next and feel lost.
this app feels like a bookshelf of millions of sessions and meditations but with no path.
it lacks guidance apart introduction course. When you finish it, if you're a beginner, u kinda feel lost.
I finished the Introductory 4 weeks and I cannot find the next course which was recommended.
Too advanced for beginners: 'meditate without a head' and 'the self is an illusion' alienate
Billed as a starting point, the course veers into advanced non-dual techniques ('you have no head', 'the self is an illusion') mid-way, and groups of beginners quit around the same day.
this app was good until about day 22ish when we are told to meditate like we dont have heads. two friends and I both quit at this point.
you will probably be frustrated by the sessions about "having no head" and Sam's assertion that the self is an illusion
This is an app for experienced meditators, that want to deepen their meditation practices
No captions or text for the audio — hard to follow and absorb
Lectures and theory are audio-only with no text or captions, so some listeners struggle to grasp the dense content — a recurring request for transcripts.
there is no caption for the audio lessons or audio theories. Which makes me hard to listen and grasp without captions.
make some of the audio available in text as well as audio, particularly the theory section
I'm enjoying the app. The only thing I would change is to make some of the audio available in text as well as audio
Sync and playback-progress saving keep breaking
Listening progress doesn't save and resets to 00:00, history disappears, and desktop and mobile don't sync — small but nagging glitches even for paying fans.
despite listening to conversation for at least 30 mins it is nowhere to be seen at either continue listening or history. This was an issue previously for me, got fixed and is now an issue again.
Desktop and app doesn't sync properly many times.
many times it resets to 00:00 and I'd have to manually go back; and again this doesn't sync with the desktop