BetterHelp vs Talkspace

There are a lot of reasons people may opt for online therapy instead of seeing a therapist in person. It’s often a lot less expensive, and you can do it without leaving the house. Additionally, online therapy provides access to a much wider network of therapists and counselors than many people might normally have access to — you don’t have to settle for one of the few qualified therapists who work within your community.

Among online therapy providers, two names consistently come up — BetterHelp and Talkspace — and you may be wondering which provider is the better choice for you. Both services partner with qualified therapists, are relatively easy to use, and can cost significantly less than in-office visits would. So, which service delivers the most meaningful and beneficial online therapy service in 2024?

In this guide, we analyze BetterHelp and Talkspace, highlighting the differences so that you can determine which company is the best choice for you. For those in a hurry, here’s the bottom line.

Who we recommend in 2024 between BetterHelp and Talkspace

While our full analysis delves deeper into the hows and whys of our choice, currently we believe most people will find BetterHelp therapy to be the better option. However, if you’re seeking psychiatric services or have mental health insurance coverage, then Talkspace is more appropriate.

If you just want to see the winners in each category, the chart below breaks down the results of our evaluations of BetterHelp versus Talkspace in several key areas.

Over the past two decades, Innerbody Research has helped tens of millions of readers make more informed decisions to live healthier lifestyles. When reviewing a product or service, such as BetterHelp and Talkspace, we evaluate them based on adherence to quality, the latest medical evidence, and current health standards.

All told, our team has spent over 130 hours testing and researching both BetterHelp and Talkspace. We also conducted research on online therapy, itself, including studies on the helpfulness of teletherapy compared to in-person therapy. For our hands-on testing of each online therapy service, we created accounts, attended sessions, and spoke with customer service to ensure our information in this guide is accurate and up-to-date.

Additionally, like all health-related content on this website, this review was thoroughly vetted by one or more members of our Medical Review Board for accuracy.

Taking a look at the BetterHelp and Talkspace Better Business Bureau (BBB) and Trustpilot pages shows a stark difference between customer experiences.

BetterHelp is BBB accredited, with an A- grade, and a customer rating of 4.05 out of 5 stars from 559 reviews. A majority of the 463 total complaints are about billing issues. On Trustpilot, BetterHelp boasts a 4.5 out of 5 star rating from 6,714 reviews. As with the BBB page, most complaints are about billing concerns, with a few others being non-customers who dislike seeing ads for the company.

On the other hand, while Talkspace is also BBB accredited, it has a B grade and a customer rating of only 1.1 out of 5 from 100 total reviews. There are 476 complaints, with topics ranging from insurance difficulties and billing issues to poor therapist experiences and customer service responses taking months to receive. Talkspace doesn’t fare much better on Trustpilot, having a 2.9 out of 5 star rating from 266 reviews. The Trustpilot complaints are very similar to those on the BBB page, with more recent ones focusing on platform glitches leading to people being unable to join appointments.

Winner: BetterHelp

BetterHelp’s requirement for a higher level of experience for each therapist distinguishes it — as does the fact that the service provides frequent live therapy sessions in all plans, not just for the more expensive ones.

Therapist qualifications

BetterHelp and Talkspace both work with highly qualified therapists and will pair you with one licensed to practice in your state. Many therapists obtain licensing in multiple states, increasing the odds you can find a good fit.

BetterHelp’s baseline for quality requires that all of its therapists hold a master’s or doctorate in their field of expertise. They also need to possess state professional licensing and at least three years of experience, with 1,000 hours spent working with patients. BetterHelp subjects candidates to a process that ends up hiring just 15% of applicants, and all licensing information is easily available for patients to see.

Talkspace likewise ensures that its counselors hold at least a master’s degree and that their credentials are visible. The company states that its therapists average nine years of experience compared to the three-year requirement set by BetterHelp; however, that nine years is the average, so you might match with a counselor who has 20 years on the job or one year. With BetterHelp, you’re guaranteed someone with at least three years of experience.

You’ll be able to see these data points before you start working with someone, no matter which service you choose. And, if it doesn’t feel like a good fit, switching therapists through either service is relatively easy.

Interfacing options

With Talkspace, every plan includes messaging with your therapist. This can be done via text, voice, or video messages (not live). The messaging interface includes tools to follow crucial aspects of your progress — such as symptoms, goals, and a treatment timeline.

There are no live sessions offered in the least expensive, messaging-only Talkspace plan. If you want your plan to include weekly live sessions, you’ll need to invest in the Live + Messaging plan. You could also add a live session to any Talkspace plan a la carte, but each extra session will cost $65. Live sessions run for about 45 minutes.

By contrast, BetterHelp emphasizes regular live sessions with your therapist; even BetterHelp’s least expensive offering includes weekly live visits in the format you prefer (video, phone, or messaging). These visits are 30 minutes by default when you start, but many therapists will work with you if you want more time per session — or shorter, more frequent sessions — to feel comfortable. The majority (but not all) of BetterHelp therapists are happy to do video sessions.

Both companies offer simple, efficient messaging services to keep you in communication with your therapist. You can discuss anything in these spaces, and you can usually expect a response within 24 hours (and Talkspace’s “Guaranteed Response Time” feature can ensure you receive a prompt response a few times per day). They look and feel like instant messaging interfaces, but the conversation moves a lot more slowly, and the individual messages can get pretty long. Still, this is a great place to lay some groundwork needed to get the most out of live sessions. Clients often find that messaging can help them jot down specific ideas or reference particular events, which proves useful as discussion material in later sessions.

Quality is about more than just frequency or chat convenience. Finding the right rhythm is critical.

For some trauma patients, for example, the standard 30-minute BetterHelp session is barely enough to get to the point of comfort and safety required for progress. This is why we’re impressed that the company gives you and your therapist room to work out the routine that’s best for you. If you require it and your therapist’s schedule allows, you can have longer sessions — and more sessions — as needed. For instance, sometimes a patient and therapist determine that an every-other-week routine with one-hour sessions works best.

By comparison, Talkspace offers a 45-minute standard session time, but the fact that BetterHelp therapists can modify their session length or frequency to fit a patient’s unique needs gives it a significant advantage here.

Winner: BetterHelp

Cost is one of the primary reasons some people opt for online therapy. While the average price of in-person visits ranges from $100 to $225 per session, you can pay as little as $48.75 per week for BetterHelp’s online therapy.1

Pricing at BetterHelp

The standard pricing for BetterHelp is $65-$90 per week; most patients will either qualify for a reduced fee discount or financial aid. With the reduced fee discount, BetterHelp knocks over 30% off the cost of its services, charging you just $65/week. With financial aid, that price gets even lower, coming in at $48.75/week. And no matter the price you pay for BetterHelp, you’ll always get messaging and the ability to set up weekly live visits via phone, messaging, or video with your therapist of choice.

BetterHelp gives our readers 20% off if they sign up using our coupon code (INNERBODY). With our coupon discount added to the reduced fee of $65/week, your weekly rate becomes $52, for a combined savings of 35%. (The coupon code can’t be used on top of financial aid, however, meaning the lowest price you can get per week is $48.75.)

During the questionnaire, you can qualify for a reduced fee discount if you indicate your financial status is poor or fair and further describe yourself as one of the following:

• A student
• A veteran
• Disabled
• Unemployed
• Employed, but have low income
• Impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic

Any one of these circumstances qualifies you for the reduced fee discount.

To apply for financial aid, click the box labeled “I can’t afford therapy” during the checkout phase of the intake questionnaire. Then, describe your circumstances in greater detail (employment status, number of dependents, race, whether you live in a rural or urban environment, etc.). If your household income is equal to or less than 200% of the federal poverty level (FPL), then you’ll qualify for financial aid.2

Also, bear in mind that the financial aid lasts for 90 days, after which you’d need to reapply for it. And if you didn’t apply for financial aid during intake, but require it later on in your treatment, you’ll be able to apply whenever you need to.

Talkspace cost

Unlike BetterHelp, which only offers one plan, Talkspace has three distinct options for taking advantage of its therapy services — each at a different cost. But, similar to BetterHelp, Talkspace plans are priced by week, and you’re charged for the whole month at once.

• The Messaging Therapy plan ($69 per week) includes text, video, and audio messaging. No live sessions are included, but your therapist responds daily, five days per week.
• Talkspace’s Video + Messaging Therapy plan ($99 per week) includes the messaging capabilities of the previous plan but also lets you schedule live video sessions.
• The Video + Messaging + Workshops plan ($109 per week) adds weekly workshops to the previous plan’s features.

The most comparable Talkspace plan to what BetterHelp offers by default is the Video + Messaging plan, but it costs about $19 more per week (or even up to a whopping $51 dollars more if you qualify for financial aid from BetterHelp).

Missed session penalties

Talkspace will charge you the full amount of your session if you miss it or cancel your appointment less than 24 hours before it’s due to start; the company states that this is to ensure all therapists are paid properly for their time.

BetterHelp, on the other hand, does not charge you for missed sessions, but you won’t be able to reschedule an additional session for that month.

Health insurance and financial aid

BetterHelp does not accept insurance at this time. By contrast, some insurance companies may cover Talkspace expenses for around 40 million Americans. Cigna, Aetna, and a few other major insurers will cover the costs of Talkspace. So, if you have health insurance coverage from Aetna, Cigna, Carelon Behavioral Health, Premera or Regence Blue Cross Blue Shield, or Optum, you might be able to lower your weekly fee.

Even if you aren’t insured by one of those specific providers, Talkspace lets you check if your insurance might cover some of the cost during the signup process (there’s a long list of insurance providers to choose from). If you’re not eligible, then it could also be worth reaching out to your insurance to see if there’s any way to receive reimbursement for online therapy services.

BetterHelp’s lowest price of $48.75 per week for those who need financial assistance is not much more than what you’d pay between co-pays and premiums, however. So, in our opinion, BetterHelp’s most affordable subscription, which includes a live session each week along with convenient messaging, is still the best value.

The chart below offers a quick breakdown of the lowest costs for BetterHelp and Talkspace plans. It’s also important to note that the costs listed for Talkspace are out-of-pocket.

Winner: BetterHelp

In addition to the potential for increased comfort with the format, online therapy can add real convenience and value to counseling. Poring over patient reviews for the two therapists within a reasonable driving distance from your home (both of whom end up not having availability anyway) becomes a thing of the past. But BetterHelp and Talkspace have some important differences when it comes to usability.

Signing up

Getting started with either company is pretty straightforward, but our testers consistently found BetterHelp’s process slightly simpler and more transparent. Both companies start you out with a series of questions, including a standard depression screening.3

With BetterHelp, that questionnaire is comprehensive but not painfully long or difficult to fill out, and most patients won’t need to worry about potentially being triggered by any of the questions. You have an opportunity to input several requests regarding your therapist, including their gender, their specialty, and even their counseling philosophy. One of our testers asked for a Jungian specifically, and while the therapist he got wasn’t a strict Jungian, she was deeply versed in Jung’s approach.4

The process with Talkspace is similar to that of BetterHelp but has a couple of deficiencies by comparison. For starters, the site guided some of our testers to a questionnaire that served as their entire onboarding experience. In contrast, others went directly into a chat session with an onboarding specialist. We could not find a pattern in these differences. The questionnaire is also a little less thorough.

If you find yourself in a chat, you might get a few exchanges into it and then witness your specialist disappear entirely. Our testers had several experiences in which they revealed something personal about themselves to a specialist only to receive nothing in response. No amount of trying could restart the chat either. This may be a technical issue with Talkspace’s interface, or it may be that the specialists are overwhelmed and unable to stay on top of their chats. Whatever the cause, it was unacceptable.

Therapist matching

BetterHelp and Talkspace differ in the default ways they match you to your therapist at the outset.

When you begin with Talkspace, you’ll either fill out a questionnaire, chat with an onboarding specialist, or both. Afterward, the system matches you with a trio of therapists based on your goals and requests. You can choose from among these or ask to rerun the algorithm and get three new options.

BetterHelp, meanwhile, guides you through a series of questions about your situation and preferences and then, using a proprietary algorithm, matches you with a therapist. (You can also select your own therapist from the outset by scrolling to the bottom of the BetterHelp website and clicking on “Find a Therapist” in the footer.)

At first, Talkspace struck us as a little more flexible here, but the single therapist that BetterHelp matched to us was often a better fit than any of the three matches provided by Talkspace. This is likely the combined result of a superior algorithm and BetterHelp’s more thorough questionnaire.

Both companies make it pretty easy to switch therapists, though, so you shouldn’t worry too much about finding the perfect fit right out of the gate. The reality is that you’re liable to find a better fit faster through their systems than you would in the real world by reading reviews and spending weeks on end (and potentially hundreds of dollars per session) just to see if you get along with a therapist in person.1

Canceling your subscription

Ultimately, it’s ideal to end therapy when you and your therapist decide that you’ve adequately met your treatment goals. That said, sometimes you need to finish treatment because of other logistical concerns (cost, relocating, schedule changes, or even a change of heart).

Canceling your subscriptions to either company’s services couldn’t be more different. There’s a big red “Quit Therapy” button in your BetterHelp account settings that you can hit to initiate the process. That leads to a small survey asking you to rate your experience and offer what you think the company could have done better.

You don’t have to answer any of these questions, though. You will have an opportunity to save the text from your sessions to your computer at this point, which is extremely convenient if you plan to resume therapy in the future or seek treatment in person and you want a record of what you’ve done so far. After that, you can simply confirm your decision to end your subscription and be done with it.

Talkspace seems a little more desperate when you try to quit. The company offers a multitude of deals to get you to stay, including financial aid, which is otherwise non-existent on the website (with BetterHelp, you can apply for financial aid during signup).

What’s a little off-putting about this is that the requirements for this aid are surprisingly low, and if Talkspace made the availability of this aid more obvious, a great many people would qualify for it, ultimately increasing the accessibility of the service. Unfortunately, this makes it seem less like financial aid and more like a discount named “financial aid” to make the company sound generous.

It’s important to remember that these are businesses and that their priority is to make money. That means they’ll do just about anything to retain their customers. For instance, you can expect frequent emails urging you to continue if you get only part of the way through a signup process. Similar emails will follow after you cancel, though sometimes these may contain additional money-saving opportunities that might be enough to entice some users back into the fold.

Winner: BetterHelp

The most basic form of communication with your therapist is the same on each platform. You’ll be able to chat with your therapist via text any time you like. Most therapists will check these messages at least once a day and get you a response. It would be wise to make these messages a little more evocative than a simple hello before getting into the meat of your issues or questions; it can get frustrating having to wait 24 hours for clarification or elaboration on your needs.

Those text platforms also support video and audio messaging. It’s essential to keep in mind that none of these three methods are live interactions. You leave a message in text, audio, or video and await a response. (These are different and separate from your live sessions.)

If you have a Talkspace subscription that supports live sessions (the second and third subscription tiers), you’ll interact with your therapist in real-time using the medium you find most comfortable: text, audio, or video.

BetterHelp offers these live sessions to everyone at its basic price, and you can work with your therapist to determine the frequency and length of these live visits. Talkspace sessions, in contrast, are always 45 minutes.

Our testers found that what most people would assume is true: therapy works better in real-time. Text-based therapy can, however, be more effective for certain patients who are averse to more direct interaction.5 It can also be very helpful for noting an idea or concern that you want to reference during a subsequent session. Still, there are a lot of ways to obscure meaning and miscommunicate when you’re limited to text. It’s also harder for therapists to apply specific techniques without the benefit of real-time presence.

If you want the benefit of live sessions, BetterHelp is the way to go. It has no analog to Talkspace’s messaging-only plan, but that’s because the company believes in the irreplaceable value of live sessions. And live sessions via text are still available through BetterHelp.

Response times

Except for live sessions, any communication with your therapist will require some patience. Both companies allow messaging with your counselor, but neither strictly oversees how frequently they respond to messages. For the most part, our testers found counselors with both companies check their messages at least once a day, and many check in more frequently. Additionally, Talkspace has a unique “Guaranteed Response Time” feature that can be activated on your messages a couple of times per day, depending on your therapist’s work hours, to ensure you receive a prompt response.

Keep in mind that the response times of therapists on both platforms are similar to in-person therapists (if you even have the opportunity to message an in-person therapist at all). It’s unrealistic to expect any provider to respond immediately to your messages. If you want specific clarification about how and when your therapist will write back, it’s a good idea to ask them about their policy early on in your treatment.

Winner: Talkspace

Psychiatrists are medical doctors who focus on the treatment of patients using prescription medications. They’re qualified to provide therapy sessions and prescribe medication. You might find psychiatrists in the therapy networks of both BetterHelp and Talkspace. However, what these psychiatrists do on these platforms is different.

A psychiatrist in BetterHelp’s network won’t practice psychiatry — and, therefore, won’t prescribe medication — but can provide therapy as a mental health professional. In other words, they can bring a different perspective or set of qualifications to therapy sessions, but your relationship with them will be fundamentally the same as any other therapist on BetterHelp.

Talkspace offers psychiatry as an option unique from its talk therapy. With Talkspace, you pay $299 for an initial psychiatric evaluation and then an additional fee for every subsequent psychiatric session that you use. There are two bundle options including one or three follow-up sessions:

• Initial evaluation plus one follow-up session: $474 ($237 per session)
• Initial evaluation plus three follow-up sessions: $824 ($206 per session)

As with Talkspace therapy, its psychiatry services may be covered by insurance.

These psychiatric sessions with Talkspace are not intended to be therapy sessions but instead to check in about a prescription treatment and its effectiveness or to get a refill. It’s more about the prescription and less about talk therapy.

Bear in mind that these courses of treatment are not mutually exclusive. You may find that a combined approach including both therapy and psychiatry is the best option for your mental health needs. In this case, we feel that Talkspace has the edge over BetterHelp, as you can’t receive prescriptions from the latter.

Winner: Draw

Both Talkspace and BetterHelp can treat teens and work with couples. Talkspace may be the slightly more convenient option for couples if at least one of the participants is familiar with using the service. That’s because BetterHelp doesn’t exactly offer its couples or teens services on the BetterHelp website itself. Instead, you’ll be connected to a sister site: ReGain for couples or TeenCounseling for teens.

Experiences and prices for teen and couples counseling are similar to those of individual counseling with either company. Talkspace might be the better choice for teens seeking help on their own, as the intake specialists have resources they can provide before moving toward therapy.6 If a teenager does wish to engage in therapy, they’ll need to have a parent or guardian provide consent with a video confirmation. Beyond being just a platform requirement, this is part of most therapy state laws.

The BetterHelp teen counseling sister site, by comparison, seems exclusively geared toward parents seeking help on their children’s behalf. Ultimately, if a youth in any kind of crisis wants help, empowering them to seek it themselves is a valuable feature that TeenCounseling should incorporate.

One thing to note from our testing: we experienced difficulty creating a TeenCounseling account. Whether posing as a parent or the teen in question, chat sessions with an intake specialist repeatedly stopped mid-way. We never received an explanation for this friction, which ultimately cost BetterHelp a recommendation in this category.

Winner: Talkspace

While BetterHelp and Talkspace take these concerns seriously, their approaches aren’t completely equal. In both cases, therapists abide by the same professional rules, regulations, and laws that in-person therapists do. And both companies do all they can to thwart hackers. You may reasonably be concerned about records of your sessions or chat history falling into the wrong hands, but your therapist won’t record your audio or video sessions without your explicit consent.

Still, some differences are definitely worth nothing. Messaging is a little different, for starters. With BetterHelp, you can remove your messaging history at any time. This may come in handy if you’re merely switching therapists within BetterHelp and you don’t want conversations with your previous therapist to influence your new counseling relationship. And if you leave BetterHelp altogether, you can request the removal of all of your information. However, it’s important to point out that while your “Clinical Health Record” and related information will be removed 24 hours after your request, BetterHelp notes that all other data is removed after 10 years.

Talkspace also lets you prevent a new therapist from seeing old messaging conversations, and your message history, account information, and more can be removed by filling out the applicable form and sending it to the listed email address. In contrast to BetterHelp, Talkspace will only retain your information for “as long as your account is active” or as long as the company is providing you with services.