Report updated Apr 17, 2026
Calm
For individuals seeking to manage stress, improve sleep quality, and build consistent mental health habits, ranging from meditation novices to experienced practitioners.
Calm is a challenged health & fitness app that is available. With a 4.7/5 rating from 2.6M reviews, it faces significant user friction. Users particularly appreciate content quality, though subscription and billing issues remains a common concern.
What is Calm?
Current Momentum
v6.93 · 3d ago
MaintenanceCalm is currently in a maintenance phase, focusing on routine performance optimizations and bug fixes. No major feature updates have been deployed in the recent release cycle.
Active Nemesis
Headspace: Sleep & Meditation
By Headspace
Other Rivals
7-Day Rank Pulse 🇺🇸
Health & FitnessRating Pulse 🇺🇸
Recent User Mood
What makes this app unique?
What Does It Look Like?
What Are The Key Features?
Bedtime stories narrated by well-known talent designed to help adults and children fall asleep
Original 10-minute daily programs to build consistent mindfulness habits
Video lessons on gentle stretching and movement to relax the body during the day
Extensive collection of guided sessions for anxiety, focus, and stress management
How much does it cost?
- Free version with limited content
- Monthly subscription at $16.99/mo
- Yearly subscription at $79.99/yr
- Lifetime access for $399.99
Uses a freemium model to drive high-volume user acquisition, but currently faces backlash for aggressive annual billing ($80) after short trials.
Who Built It?
Calm.com
Providing high-production mental wellness and sleep support through celebrity-led content and clinical B2B2C partnerships.
Portfolio
3
Apps
What other apps does Calm.com make?
Explore the full Calm.com report
Portfolio breakdown, audience, momentum, and every app published by Calm.com.
What do users think recently?
High confidence · Latest 100 of 2.6M total reviews analyzed
How did the latest release land?
What is the recent mood?
Recent user voice shows a frustrated sentiment. Users appreciate content quality, but report subscription and billing issues and navigation and ui frustrations.
What Users Love
What Frustrates Users
View the full user-sentiment analysis
Mood gauge, ratings & review-volume history, every praise / complaint / request, and sentiment over time.
What is the competitive landscape for Calm?
How's The Health & Fitness Market?
How does it evolve in the Health & Fitness market?
Calm is climbing the charts.
Rank progression
185 active rankings tracked — 30-day window
The rivals identified
The outtake for Calm
Strengths to defend, gaps to attack
Core Strengths
- Premium celebrity-led content strategy (Cillian Murphy, Rosé)
- Massive historical rating volume and brand recognition
- Diverse content types including 'Daily Move' and weekly music updates
Critical Frictions
- Aggressive and non-transparent billing/cancellation processes
- Unintuitive UI and search functionality following recent updates
- Poor customer support responsiveness and reliance on AI
Growth Levers
- Expansion into B2B/Enterprise wellness to compete with Headspace Health
- Introduction of gamification to counter Gen Z-focused apps like Finch
- Interactive sleep content to address the innovation from Loóna
Market Threats
- Headspace's superior UX and clinical validation
- Balance's aggressive 'First Year Free' acquisition strategy
- Insight Timer's massive free library undermining the subscription value
What are the next best moves?
Overhaul the subscription cancellation and refund flow.
Subscription and billing issues are the #1 complaint theme, causing severe reputational damage and churn risk.
Refine search and navigation UI to improve content discovery.
Users report the recent UI updates make it 'almost impossible' to find specific content, directly impacting daily active usage.
Implement a human-in-the-loop support tier for billing disputes.
Complaints regarding 'AI nonsense' and month-long wait times for billing issues are driving users to leave 1-star reviews.
Feature Gaps vs Competitors
- Structured 'Courses' approach (available in Headspace)
- Customizable sound mixer for sleep (available in BetterSleep)
- Interactive 3D sleep environments (available in Loóna)
- Gamified habit building (available in Finch)
- Hyper-personalized daily plans (available in Balance)
Key Takeaways
Calm is a content powerhouse currently being undermined by its own operational friction. While its celebrity-led Sleep Stories provide a strong competitive moat, the Upset user base and declining Free chart rankings suggest that aggressive monetization and poor UX are creating a significant opening for Headspace and Balance to capture market share.
Where Is It Heading?
Declining
Upset user sentiment driven by billing and UI frustrations — high churn risk.
Rankings for 'Free' downloads fell by 9 positions — slowing acquisition.
Maintains #6 Grossing position — strong existing revenue engine from legacy users.