Youper may be an unfamiliar name in the world of online therapy and emotional support, but the platform’s use of artificial intelligence (AI) paired with well-established tools and techniques makes this option worth a look. Unlike other online mental health services, the Youper app provides zero contact with a therapist, a trained listener, or even a peer support person.
As a self-described “pocket AI therapist,” Youper is a multidisciplinary effort to understand the users’ feelings and offer helpful feedback 24 hours each day across the globe.
What Is the Youper App?
The Youper app connects the user to an AI therapist, named Youper, whose job is to assess each person’s mental health needs and recommend a range of interventions to resolve symptoms and improve feelings of self-worth and happiness.1 The Youper service is only available in app form as there are no web-based options.
Youper strives to boost and protect a users’ emotional health by:1
- Changing their day with quick conversations
- Calming their mind to help them fall asleep faster
- Increasing feelings of focus and balance with mindfulness
- Understanding themselves, tracking their mood, and monitoring their symptoms
Based on aspects of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and mindfulness, Youper’s emotional health assistant promises to delve deeper into the user’s experience than the typical wellness app.2
Youper can help:
- Understand the root causes of mental health conditions
- Add insights regarding contributing factors
- Change thinking patterns that are not helpful
- Decide how to address a stressful person or situation
Youper hopes its AI process will yield more personalized and helpful solutions to symptoms, rather than only offering a one-size-fits-all approach.
Users seem to find success with the service. According to a Youper survey with a sample size of over one million people, 80% of respondents felt a reduction in “negative moods” after only one conversation on the app.2
Who Is the Youper App Right For?
With over one million app downloads and users in more than 150 countries, it seems like Youper could be right for many.2
Youper might be a useful app for:
- Young people: Of course, the app isn’t only for young people, but according to the site, most of their users are young people. This group of people may be more comfortable interacting with AI and be drawn to the app as a way to manage daily stressors.
Someone seeing a therapist: Youper never tries to position itself as an app to replace therapy. It hopes to be a complement to the ongoing work of in-person or online therapy options. - People with limited mental health exposure: Youper explains important, and sometimes complicated, mental health information in simple and streamlined ways. This process helps introduce some techniques and concepts that could improve a person’s well-being, regardless of their therapy status.
- People without insurance: Mental health treatments can easily cost $100 or more per session. Meanwhile, many of Youper’s features are free. Depending on the symptoms and severity, Youper could provide some relief as affordable treatment options are explored.
- People with mild mental health symptoms: People who occasionally struggle with low moods, anxiety, frustration, and poor sleep may not have symptoms intense enough to seek out professional mental health treatment but still need something to improve their life. Youper could fit their needs.
- People who are very busy: When a person’s life is chaotic and inconsistent, it is challenging. Youper offers an AI therapist who is always available, day or night to help with managing basic emotional needs.
Most of all, Youper is right for people who are hoping to learn more about their emotions and set small goals to feel better.
Who May Want an Alternative to the Youper App?
Youper can help many, but some will find plenty of areas where the service is lacking. Most notably, people may see the lack of direct person-to-person contact as a major barrier. Many will expect the traditional therapy experience of interacting with a person and may reject the notion of a computer offering recommendations.
Other people who will seek an alternative to the Youper app include:
- People with significant mental health issues: People with severe depression, anxiety, addiction, and other severe mental health problems should seek out face-to-face evaluations and treatments from professionals to better understand and manage their conditions. Youper cannot provide adequate support when symptoms are severe.
- People who lack motivation: Youper is not necessarily a self-help tool, but it does require a lot of independent work on the part of the user. People who struggle to actively follow through may not benefit from Youper.
- People who want medication services: Just as Youper does not offer professional talk therapy, it does not offer psychiatric evaluations or medication therapy. Traditional services may be a better match for these people.
- People who lack social connections: Some people do not have many social supports and struggle to engage in interpersonal relationships. These people should consider getting out of the home and engaging an in-person therapist to build these life skills.
- People who don’t like CBT: Cognitive behavioral therapy is a popular and very useful therapy, but it may not be right for every person. Youper leans heavily towards CBT, so people looking for something else should explore other options online or in-person.
Youper App Pricing & Costs
Youper has two options when it comes to pricing and costs—the free version and the premium offering. With no cost associated, all users are immediately directed to the free version of the site.
The free option includes:3
- Basic conversations that help users with mood tracking skills
- Mood charts to monitor the user’s emotional changes over time
- Insight and information about what could be creating the mood changes
- Prompts to beginning journaling
- One “emotional health check-up”
- A personality test
- Goal setting recommendations
At first, the free version seems to offer plenty of information and feedback for users, but after only a few days of use, people may feel that they have already explored all the free version has to offer. Soon enough, desirable features are presented, but they are behind a paywall.
The premium version of Youper costs $3.75 each month, with the service billed yearly at $44.99.
The premium plan includes:3
- Advanced conversations with the AI using psychological techniques drawn from CBT and acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT)
- Additional journaling with gratitude and intentions prompts
- Guided practices focusing on mindfulness, breathing exercises, improved sleep, and relaxation skills
- The ability to identify and track mental health symptoms like anxiety, depression, panic, and social phobias
To illustrate the differences, the free Youper version allows people to complete one monitoring screening. If a free user completes the anxiety inventory, they will have to upgrade to the premium version to participate in additional recommended screenings.
Youper offers the choice of additional premium plans that allow more people to utilize the service for a smaller fee.
The Youper group plans include:
- Youper Premium Duo. Allows two separate premium accounts for $5.83 each month—billed yearly for $69.99
- Youper Premium Family. Allows six separate premium accounts for $8.33 each month—billed yearly for $99.99.
Perhaps, the most noteworthy detail here is the very low fee associated with the premium version. Six friends or family members could share a subscription for less than $1.40 per month. For $16.50, a person in the group could receive a year of mental health support from Youper.
Youper addresses issues of confidentiality and privacy concerns by clearly stating that these accounts are completely independent of each other. No one has access to any of the users’ information regardless of their standing on a shared plan.
How to Get Started with the Youper App
The people behind the Youper had a focus on making the app as engaging and easy to enter as possible. The interface is quick and responsive, which helps reinforce the user’s experience throughout all stages of the process.
Here’s how to get started with the Youper app:
Youper – Establishing Goals
Step 1: Download the App and Move into the Service
Once you download the Youper app, the user is taken directly to the main interface where you begin interacting with Youper, the emotional health assistant. Pretty quickly, Youper moves the conversation towards how you’re feeling and establishing goals.
At this point in the process, Youper does not offer users the ability to respond to messages freely. Instead, users select answers and replies from available options Youper pre-populates.
Youper keeps the conversation flowing quickly while maintaining an upbeat and cheerful disposition.
Step 2: Track Moods and Set Goals
Youper works to create new habits through repetition of mood tracking and goal setting. Drawing from principles of CBT, Youper asks how you are feeling, what is making you feel that way, and what you could do during the next 24 hours to change the way you feel.
Then, the user sets a time for a notification from Youper to pop up and ask about the experience. You can track your mood and see if the behavior helped improve your well-being.
Youper – Create an Account
Step 3: Create an Account
Other apps and online support services want information and personal details immediately, but with Youper, a person could go days without creating a user name or profile. Youper says that creating an account will help the service personalize the experience and enhance the results.
The process is quite simple with the user picking a username and password and answering a few questions related to:
- Age
- Work status
- Previous experience with mental health and mental health services
At this point, the app offers a premium set of services for the first time. People that want the paid version can pay the fee right from their device with the credit card information linked to their account.
Step 4: Go Premium
Once the premium features are unlocked, the user can complete a list of screening questions to assess for anxiety, panic, and depression. They can also gather new insights and information about themselves from the personality inventory. Although the personality test is free, the premium version increases the amount of information and feedback provided.
Youper – Track Progress
The premium version allows users to use on-demand features like soundscapes, breathing exercises, and meditations ranging from six to 15 minutes. You can also document gratitudes, set new goals, and record feelings.
Step 5: Track Progress Over Time
Youper seems to focus on the long-term health and well-being of its users. By recording information and data, Youper tracks trends in your thoughts, feelings, and behavior to provide insights and recommendations.
A user may not see the trends develop right away, but with consistent and honest use of Youper, some useful information may emerge. Perhaps certain days of the week are problematic or nights with poor sleep trigger unwanted symptoms. Whatever the connection, Youper can help you find the link.
Pros & Cons of Youper Based on User Reviews
Youper is available in the Apple App Store and Google Play, and according to the reviews on the App Store, Youper is a very well-liked app. Based on more than 13,000 ratings, the app has a current rating of 4.9 stars out of 5. Not only that, but the app is rated as #200 in the Health and Fitness category.
Although the Youper page does not claim any age restrictions, the App Store limits downloads to users 12 years old and above.
Pros
With so many positive reviews, users have plenty of compliments for Youper.
Some of the reviewers included pros such as:
- Being so helpful when transitioning to a new medication to track, monitor, and report mood and anxiety changes to the psychiatrist
- Being useful during therapy sessions so the therapist can review the symptoms experienced over the last week and which coping skills were used to manage these effects
- Feeling thankful that the app works as a diary and way to record thoughts and emotions
- Appreciating the way the app explains which techniques to try and the reasoning behind them
- Being so happy that the app has a free version that is still helpful, since many people with mental health struggles may lack money
- Enjoying the sense that you are actually talking to someone rather than only interacting with a computer
- Finding value in the app asking “How are you?” every day as a way to check-in and continue the work
- Valuing the CBT framework and its ability to identify problematic thinking or acting patterns
With so many reviews, it seems that Youper is a favorite app for the million people who have downloaded and the thousands of users who took the time to record their opinions and share their thoughts.
Cons
Users tend to love Youper, but even the most-loved apps have some detractors.
Some reviewers who noted the cons of Youper said:
- The app offered little content that was not available for free online other places and saw no value to Youper
- The platformed relied too much on CBT and would prefer if other therapy styles were more prominently featured
- All of the responses from the AI seemed repetitive, predictable, and at times, patronizing
- Recent app updates made the free version less functional compared to the past
- The premium version should allow a month-to-month payment, since a year is a long commitment for any app
- The AI could not do anything to decrease current distress and only offered to record and track symptoms
- The AI is not actually intelligent and only repeats the same scripted answers
- The app spends too much time prompting users to invest in the premium version and may even promote feelings of guilt by saying that the user’s emotional health is “worth the cost”
Youper vs. BetterHelp & Talkspace vs. 7 Cups vs. In-Person Therapy
When someone is investigating the options for mental health services, Youper may come up, but so will online and in-person therapy options like BetterHelp, Talkspace, and 7 Cups. Each choice offers a set of pros and cons that warrant some time, effort, and energy to explore.
Youper vs. BetterHelp/Talkspace
BetterHelp and Talkspace offer a set of services that aim to replace traditional therapy options. With a combination of chatting with a mental health professional, completing live video or telephone therapy sessions, and even the option to be evaluated for medication by a psychiatrist, these programs have a lot of offer.4,5
Youper opts for a process that is fully automated and focuses on AI rather than trained and licensed mental health providers. With frequent prompting and measures to track and record symptoms, Youper brings self-help options into the 21st century.
Youper vs. 7 Cups
Youper vs. BetterHelp or Talkspace may seem like an “apples to oranges” comparison, but the service more closely resembles 7 Cups. Both platforms exclusively use a chat-based interface, with the main difference being who or what is on the other end of the conversation.6
Youper uses AI technology crammed full of researched and evidence-based Cognitive Behavioral Therapy information, and 7 Cups uses volunteer Active listeners who may have no formal education in the mental health field, aside from some training from 7 Cups. 7 Cups also offers the option of online therapy by formally trained therapists in the paid plan.
Youper vs. In-Person Therapy
Based on the level of interaction, personalization, and face-to-face sessions in traditional talk therapy, it seems that only a few will see Youper as a favorable comparison to in-person therapy. When it comes to cost, though, an entire year of Youper will be cheaper than even just the copay for a few in-person therapy sessions.
Rather than viewing Youper and in-person therapy as competitors, it could be helpful to view these services as a team working together to boost someone’s mental health and well-being. By meeting with a therapist once a week and following through with skills and tracking offered in the Youper app, a person could be well on their way towards fewer unwanted mental health symptoms and higher levels of happiness.
Final Verdict on the Youper App
Like so many other online emotional support services and apps, the only way to tell if Youper is right for you is to try it yourself. Many people will appreciate the streamlined and transparent interface based on a solid foundation of CBT. These people will find the AI comforting, the prompts encouraging, and the coping skills helpful.
Other people will be frustrated by the repetitive responses and emphasis on the recommendations to sign up for the premium service. These people may be better suited to emotional support services that offer contact with a real person.
Fortunately, the most anyone has to lose by using Youper is $45 and some time out of their day. With Youper, the risks are minimal, and the potential benefits are immense. With this being the case, Youper is worth a try.
