BetterMe is a fitness and wellbeing app that provides home workouts, health tracking, mindfulness exercises, and more. Our tester gives an in-depth review of BetterMe’s pros and cons.

With many workout apps available, finding one that is accessible, comprehensive, and effective may be difficult. The BetterMe: Health Coaching app stands out for its simplicity, workout library, and mindfulness features.

Pros

  • simple to use and beginner-friendly
  • comprehensive platform for fitness, nutrition, and mental health
  • range of workouts to suit different mobility and fitness levels
  • typically lower cost than a gym membership
  • enables home workouts with minimal equipment
  • tracks data for nutrition, walking, menstrual cycle, and more
  • ability to interact with health coaches directly

Cons

  • uses AI to compile and narrate videos, which may not be accurate or relatable
  • unclear pricing structure
  • additional features, such as meal plans and direct coaching, require additional payment
  • may not suit already active people
  • presents unrealistic and stereotypical ‘fit’ body types
  • no community to interact with
  • can only contact customer service online

Launched in 2017, BetterMe is a fitness, diet, and mental health platform offering workouts, coaching, and health tracking via apps. It also sells clothing and exercise equipment. Below is a summary of BetterMe’s offerings:

  • Health Coaching: The main BetterMe app provides various workout videos, health tracking features, meal plans, and mindfulness lessons.
  • Mental Health: This additional app provides extra mental health content, such as guided meditations, breathing exercises, mental health coaching, and sleep sounds.
  • Business: BetterMe also provides a platform for businesses, designed to help support employee wellbeing by preventing burnout and sick leave, which may reduce insurance costs. The business app provides short, in-office or Zoom-based workouts. It also provides each employee with access to BetterMe’s Health Coaching and Mental Health apps.
  • Store: Selling workout clothing, exercise equipment, and a fitness tracker, BetterMe’s online store attempts to compete with other athleisure brands while supporting users of its app.

Tester’s thoughts on signing up with BetterMe

Our tester, Alice Porter-McLaughlin, found the sign up process simple to follow. “I started with BetterMe on my Android mobile device. I downloaded the app from the Google Play Store. Once I opened the app, the setup process started instantly and involved a quick and simple intake form.

“I was asked questions about my gender, age, height, and weight. I was also asked about my health goals, sleep schedule, areas of my body I wanted to work on, and habits I wanted to change or improve.

“This was a simple and quick process. It took me maybe 10-15 minutes from downloading the app to starting to use it.”

Alice did criticize the use of computer-generated characters that modelled unrealistic body standards.

“The characters in the quiz had exaggerated proportions and I disliked the hyper-focus on specific body parts. I was hoping BetterMe, with its claims of inclusivity and diversity, would represent a more achievable and realistic image of health. Definitely not a body-positive introduction.

“There was also a question about ‘bad habits’ that asked ‘which ones are you guilty of?’ This approach to food and lifestyle seemed a bit outdated to me.”

Below, we break down the BetterMe: Health Coaching app’s key features.

Workouts/Trainings

BetterMe’s workouts mostly use Pilates, yoga, or calisthenics techniques, though other types of workouts incorporate barre, running, HIIT, and treadmills.

Examples of the available workout classes include:

  • Fitness at Home
  • Quick Workouts
  • Fit After Baby
  • Boxing
  • Back Protecting
  • Family Workouts
  • Dumbbell workouts
  • Tai Chi
  • Restore and Relax
  • Pilates for a Toned Body
  • Meniscus Injury and Recovery

Users receive daily workout suggestions customized to the information they provide on their intake form or in daily tracking. For example, specific workout routines may be suggested if a person logs a current menstrual period. Users can explore the full workout library at any time.

Workouts are available in different durations and using no or minimal equipment. The time and equipment required is displayed clearly for each exercise when selected.

Each workout provides step-by-step instructions to follow. You can also select each individual exercise within a routine to play it separately.

Each workout routine allows for users to turn warm-ups or cool-downs off or on. This may be preferable when combining multiple workouts in one session.

During a workout, users can access the settings to individually toggle the music, voice instruction, countdown, music, and sounds on or off.

Some workouts, such as the ones for wheelchair users and treadmills, are audio only and have no visual guide.

Tester’s thoughts on BetterMe’s workouts

Our tester, Alice, was impressed by the range of workouts available.

“The list of workouts was long! Although they are mostly pilates based, there’s enough variety to choose from depending on your mood or needs that day. I do wish there was a better filtering option to make it easier to choose specific workouts, though.

“I was impressed to see workouts specifically designed for wheelchair users, people with limb loss, seniors, pre- and postpartum parents, and more. It felt inclusive, though the ‘instructors’ in the videos nearly all had the same body type.

“The video examples and instructions are extremely clear and easy to follow. They provide visual and audio timers to follow along with that are extremely helpful, and the general pacing of the exercises are achievable and well paced.”

Alice noted the daily recommended workouts were a good fit for her abilities and health goals, but more than she expected at first.

“The app recommended me three daily workouts that were each around 20 minutes. It seemed to expect me to complete all three on my first day, which surprised me – an hour of exercise seemed like a lot when I had marked myself as inactive and busy on the intake form. Ultimately, I didn’t have time to complete all three and felt like I had somehow ‘failed’ the workouts set for me that day.

Still, I found the workouts beginner-friendly and well-suited for my stated health goals. I enjoyed them and getting a daily push notification reminder was really helpful – I like ‘completing’ daily tasks and need the reminders! I could toggle the push notifications off, but they worked well for my motivation so I kept them on.”

Alice did criticize the use of AI.

“The workouts are AI-generated, so they combine multiple separate exercises into a complete routine. It’s a bit less authentic or personal than instructor-led and live workouts from other fitness brands, such as Peloton, iFIT, or Les Mills. I also really disliked the AI-generated narration, as I found the automated voice off-putting. The exercises were easy enough to follow without audio, however.

Challenges

BetterMe offers guided fitness challenges that typically last between 21 and 30 days. Some examples include:

  • Walking Challenge
  • Fasting Challenge
  • Self-love Meditation to Support Weight Loss
  • Toned Tummy
  • No Alcohol Challenge

Participating in one of these challenges enables a user to directly message a health coach.

Participation requires additional payment, which ranges from $5 to $100 depending on type and duration of the challenge, and the degree of personalized coaching.

Food and water tracking

The meal tracker allows user to log the food they eat to measure their daily calorie intake.

People can search for foods, from individual ingredients to complete meals, and adjust the portion size on a sliding scale. Each food logged will provide carbohydrate, protein, fats, and calories averages. However, the app only displays the accumulated calories for each day.

Tester’s thoughts on BetterMe’s nutrition features

Alice found the tracking features simple to use, but lacking detail.

“The food tracking was similar to what I had experienced before using the Fitbit app. It allowed me to search for a wide range of foods from a database, and adjust portion sizes with a slider, which was handy.

“I liked the simplicity of it. I found it quick to search and log foods. Logging water intake was similarly easy.

“My main complaint is that the food log didn’t display total protein, fats, or carbohydrates. I think it’s important to have a complete picture of nutritional intake and to consider the balance between different nutrients over just measuring calories, which can become an unhealthy focus for some. However, for a beginner this might be less overwhelming and easier to follow.”

Meal planning

Users can access meal plans at an additional cost. The pricing varies depending on the specific plan chosen, with discounts typically available at first sign-up.

The recommended meal plans align with the dietary information provided on the intake form. For example, BetterMe offers specific meal plans suited to the following diets:

The meal plans consist of various recipes each week. The nutritional profile for each recipe is listed clearly.

Fasting tracker

BetterMe supports intermittent fasting by providing fasting plans to follow with different fasting intervals. The app offers general guidance and recommendations for each plan.

Users can start fasting timers to help them track fasting periods. Weekly stats can also be viewed.

Mindfulness

The BetterMe app provides short mindfulness lessons on topics such as negative self-talk, habit-forming behaviour, self control, and more. These are intended to help users achieve their fitness and nutrition goals.

BetterMe also offers a separate BetterMe: Mental Health app that offers guided meditations, breathing exercises, self-help coaching, sleep sounds or stories, and more

Walk data

BetterMe has an in-app tracker that allows users to measure their daily steps, providing a graph to track their weekly steps. Users can change their daily step goal.

This may not be as accurate or comprehensive as more dedicated pedometers, such as fitness watches and trackers.

Menstruation

BetterMe offers a menstrual tracker that allows users to measure their menstrual cycle. It provides data on expected period length and indicates when someone may be in a follicular, luteal, or ovulatory phase.

The app also provides recommendations for workouts, nutrition, and more based on the user’s current menstrual phase.

Tester’s final thoughts on BetterMe

Overall, Alice recommends BetterMe as a simple and balanced workout and health app for beginners.

“I think BetterMe would best suit fitness beginners, particularly people looking for easy-to-follow home workouts, people with limited equipment, space, or time, and people with reduced mobility. It seems like a good choice if you’re hoping to lose weight or improve overall health without an intense or expensive dieting or fitness plan.

“In my opinion, BetterMe isn’t the right choice for already active people hoping to push their fitness level further. It also might not be great for people who want to have fitness instructors they can relate to, or a community to interact with.

“As someone who just wanted some simple, quick workouts and basic health tracking features, I found BetterMe ticked those boxes nicely. It wouldn’t be my main choice for workouts and fitness as I didn’t find it very innovative or interesting, but it offers some accessible features at a reasonable cost.”

“It definitely helped me get back to workouts, which was my main goal.”

BetterMe subscriptions start from $14.99 a month. The full monthly price breakdowns are as follows:

  • BetterMe: Health Coaching $14.99-$19.99
  • BetterMe: Mental Health app: $14.99
  • BetterMe Fitness Challenges: $5 to $100
  • One-on-one coaching: $49.99 to $99.99
  • BetterMe for Business: $18 per employee

Additional in-app purchases are available for features such as meal planning and more. The pricing of these vary depending on the content being accessed.

Cancellation

Users can cancel their BetterMe subscription within the app store they used to originally pay for the subscription. On desktop, users can access their account’s subscription settings and turn off the auto-renewal option.

People can use the BetterMe app for free during a 7-day trial. Afterwards, a subscription starts at $14.99 monthly. Extra features such as meal planning and personal  health coaching come at additional cost.

BetterMe costs start from $14.99 a month. However, its pricing structure is unclear and incorrect on different app stores. Additional features, such as meal planning, come at an additional cost.

On mobile, users can cancel their BetterMe subscription by cancelling it in their iPhone or Android app store they used to download the app and purchase a subscription.

On desktop, users should access their account’s subscription settings and turn off the ‘auto-renewal’ option.

Our tester found BetterMe a useful and easy-to-use workout app that she recommends for beginners and people returning to workouts.

While BetterMe champions inclusivity in its range of workouts for different mobility levels, it uses stereotypical images of ‘ideal’ body types that present a narrow view of fitness and health, which may feel alienating and discouraging to many users. Some users have also criticized the app’s confusing price structure and hidden fees.

However, many users have praised BetterMe for providing an accessible fitness app that is easy to adapt to different abilities and health goals. It has enabled many people to follow workouts and lose weight from home, and is generally more affordable and accessible than alternatives such as gym memberships.