BetterHelp Review: A Detailed Analysis

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Founded only in 2013, BetterHelp has taken off as one of the leaders in online therapy. BetterHelp offers over 33,000 licensed professionals with experience helping people cope with the most common mental health issues. But, it’s not just about the sheer size of their service that has pushed more than 2 million people to use their platform. Their ability to deliver an effective, user-friendly, and affordable therapy solution has created the benchmark against which other online therapy providers are measured.

Company Profile

Remember, BetterHelp started in 2013. Less than two years after experiencing rapid growth, they were bought by Teladoc, the largest telehealth provider in the country. With hundreds of employees and Teladoc’s considerable resources behind them, BetterHelp has been able to focus on making its platform among the best in every area. Moreover, the one thing that truly stands out is that BetterHelp realizes that human-to-human contact should not be replaced. Rather, they are simply leveraging new technology to meet the expectations of today’s consumers.

Signing Up Process

If usability is your concern, then look no further. BetterHelp designed one of the most intuitive platforms I have tested. For starters, you will need to sign up for an account. There is no need to use your real name or any other real credentials. If you don’t feel comfortable, using an alias is completely fine. Once you’ve registered, you will be led to fill out a short questionnaire in a multiple-choice format.

Once you have completed the questionnaire, you will be led to the secured payment page. After entering your payment details, BetterHelp pairs you with the appropriate therapist based on your answers, using their matching algorithms. BetterHelp has reported that most customers are satisfied with who the algorithm has paired them with. If you are not happy, you can always request a new therapist. Once paired with the therapist, you will be led to a secure chat room that only you and your counselor can access. Additionally, this room is active 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

While chats are almost always not in ‘real-time,’ BetterHelp counselors make extraordinary efforts to reply as quickly as possible. Moreover, should you want an actual ‘live chat,’ you simply need to schedule it in advance with your counselor. The same goes for live phone and live video sessions. All plans come with unlimited chatting – via desktop/app, phone, and video – tops in the industry (generally, other online therapy providers will charge an additional fee for phone/video sessions). Starting a phone session is easy as well. You simply need to schedule a date and time with your counselor before receiving phone counseling.

BetterHelp Plans and Pricing

Considering what I’ve known to be the average cost of in-person therapy, I was initially expecting this service to cost hundreds of dollars per month. However, it turns out that BetterHelp is one of the more affordable online counseling services on the market, and significantly less expensive than any in-office alternative I’ve seen. Their plan costs approximately $80 to $90, though they change their prices frequently and they can reach upwards of $100 per week at times. Keep in mind that you can save some money if you sign up for longer periods.

Also, they do offer financial aid for those that qualify. The plan includes unlimited counseling via messaging with a dedicated therapist, as well as weekly live sessions via video or voice conferencing that typically last 30 to 45 minutes.

Ease of Use

From a user experience standpoint, BetterHelp’s platform is very straightforward. Simply log in to your account and you will be directed to your dedicated chat room. If you have ever used any chat service (like Google Chat or Skype), BetterHelp’s functionality is very similar to these. You send messages with the click of a button and receive answers as soon as your counselor replies. Moreover, you don’t need to be connected to BetterHelp’s platform at all times. You will receive email notifications informing you of a reply from your therapist. You can access their platform both on your desktop and your mobile devices. Their mobile app is free to download and available for iOS and Android, though you must be a paying subscriber to use the platform.

As far as communication with the therapists, BetterHelp offers a variety of options. In addition to the text-based messaging that comes standard with each plan, live sessions can be conducted via live chat and video on both desktop and mobile devices, as well as over the phone.

What is BetterHelp Therapy Like?

Some have said therapists cannot help people online as much as they do “in-office.” There are numerous factors involved in determining how helpful a therapist can be, many of which have to do with the individual session itself (and not the distance between you and your counselor). Knowing this, I kept an open mind when BetterHelp paired me with a therapist named Idiana Morales. Being that I currently reside in Florida, BetterHelp paired me with Mrs. Morales as she is a Licensed Mental Health Counselor (MS, LMHC) in Florida.

As I had started feeling anxious and stressed out for close to a year, I instantly felt some comfort when I saw Mrs. Morales’s credentials. Her specialties are stress, anxiety, relationships, family, and anger (with experience in several other fields as well) – essentially the areas I needed help with. It is difficult to accurately describe how helpful Idiana was in a simple review like this, but I will try my best.

I am a Type-B personality at heart. Nothing ever bothered me too much. That changed after 8 years of marriage when I started feeling anxious and also began harboring animosity toward certain family members. Idiana was able to help me unpack my feelings and tackle the underlying issues head-on, and in a considerate, timely, and professional manner. Overall, the level of support given by my counselor was phenomenal.

Confidentiality and Privacy

I have seen people suggest that online therapy is not safe. These naysayers claim that in the digital age, nothing is safe. Perhaps that is true, but how safe are “in-office” appointments? Your sessions may not be saved but your session files and summaries are most likely saved on your therapist’s computer. This is just as susceptible to attack as BetterHelp; however, a hacker would likely have an easier time gaining access to your therapist’s office computer rather than BetterHelp’s sophisticated firewalls.

BetterHelp is serious about privacy and takes several steps to ensure anonymity and confidentiality. The BetterHelp browsing encryption system (SSL) is provided by Comodo, a world leader in data security, while messages between you and your counselor are further encrypted with bank-grade 256-bit encryption. Moreover, since all BetterHelp counselors are state-certified, they are subject to strict local and federal privacy laws, including HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act). Your medical and other health information is private and not shared with insurance companies since BetterHelp doesn’t cooperate with insurance companies.

While the company’s data sharing and user privacy have been criticized due to demographic targeting tools on platforms like Meta (formerly Facebook), it appears that their use of anonymized customer data is no different than most other companies advertising on social networks.

Counselor Qualifications

All BetterHelp counselors are licensed, trained, and accredited at the state level, and each holds either a Master’s Degree or a Doctorate Degree in their respective field. Moreover, they all have three years and 1,000 hours of hands-on experience, at a minimum. The counselors are psychologists, family therapists, clinical social workers, or licensed professional counselors with a broad range of expertise.

Specialties and Areas of Expertise

One major benefit of using BetterHelp is that its therapists can treat many common mental health issues. Though this may seem like a given, it isn’t. Several online counseling services do not offer a full range of areas of expertise. Some of the main areas that BetterHelp covers are:

• Addiction
• Anger
• Anxiety
• Bipolar
• Career
• Chronic Impulsivity
• Conflict
• Depression
• Eating
• Educational Assessments
• Family
• Grief
• Health
• Intimacy
• LGBTQ
• Life Transitions
• Parenting
• Relationships
• Religion
• Self-Esteem
• Sleeping
• Social Behavior
• Stress
• Substance Abuse
• Trauma & Abuse

While you may certainly use BetterHelp for help with your marriage, you will probably find it more useful to sign up with their sister company Regain, a platform specializing in online marriage and couples counseling.

Media

Over the years BetterHelp has been a recognized brand due to their extensive coverage in the media. This is in addition to national TV ads and partnerships with celebrities and athletes including Ariana Grande and Venus Williams.

Their coverage in the press, however, has not always been positive. There have been a few brief scandals in which some of their partnerships were suspected of being misleading or having taken advantage of vulnerable people who place their trust in online influencers and celebrities. However, these issues have been addressed by spokespeople for BetterHelp and have mostly questioned the company’s ethics rather than the quality of its service.

Bottom Line

There are numerous reasons why BetterHelp is among the leading online therapy services. Experienced and licensed therapists, low monthly cost, rigorous screening of therapists, and a user-friendly interface make them a worthy choice. In addition, BetterHelp was included in a study by the University of California, Berkeley, which concluded that users with depression experienced significant symptom reduction after using their services. Though they have been at the center of some controversy over the years, this has not throttled their growth and they continue to be the top option for online therapy.