Insight Timer Review: Is the Meditation App Worth It?

Mental health is incredibly important, and as technology advances, many mental health apps have been developed. One such app is the Insight Timer meditation app. In this review, we’re going to take a look at how the app works, its main benefits, and whether it is worth the money. Take a look to learn more.

Summary

Insight Timer is a popular meditation app. It offers users a huge library of meditation practices, including guided meditations, mentoring, yoga, and mood journaling. It is an excellent option for beginners to practice meditation and can help users to support better overall mental well-being.

What Is the Insight Timer App?

Insight Timer offers a huge library of meditation practices for users to choose from, helping them master their practice and find inner peace. It includes guided meditations, deep breathing exercises, and other information on the practice to help users be in the present moment.

On top of the daily meditations, Insight Timer offers users live yoga classes, workshops, and mentoring to support better overall mental well-being. Yoga has been found to be a restorative practice, useful for positive thinking and better sleep.

The app is designed to help users reduce anxiety and stress and is thought to promote better sleep quality. Unlike other meditation apps, Insight Timer offers sessions from a huge number of expert teachers and allows you to choose your own meditation practice.

⭐ Rating	4.3
✅ Pros	Meditations, yoga classes, workshops
❌ Cons	Buggy app, some features only available in the premium version
🍎 Operational system	iOS and Android
🔔 Can it be used offline?	Yes
💰 Price	$60 a year

Who Is the Insight Timer App for?

Like many mindfulness apps, Insight Timer is designed for those looking to boost their mental health, focus on the present, and reduce stress and anxiety. It is a good app for beginners to learn more about meditation, but the amount of information on the app could be slightly overwhelming, especially if they have never heard of many of the practice styles.

The app is also useful for people wanting to develop their yoga practice. Yoga is good for mental well-being but can also be used for chronic pain and other conditions, like treating post-traumatic stress disorder. Getting more exercise has been proven to boost mood and alleviate some of the symptoms of mental health conditions, so regular exercise, even as much as a daily walk, can help you feel better.

What Does the Insight Timer App Do?

The main part of Insight Timer is the meditation practice options. It offers an extensive library of different meditations. Options include guided and unguided meditations, body scans, sound baths, and other sound-based meditation practices.

Meditation is a proven method of reducing symptoms of anxiety, stress, and other mental health conditions. It can also improve mood, promote better sleep quality, and boost cognitive function.

On top of that, the app offers mentoring, live talks, and workshops. These features are run by a variety of expert teachers and can usually be viewed in the archive, too. They cover many topics, including meditative practice, relationships, and more.

The app also focuses on yoga. You can join live classes or search the archive for lessons. The app offers everything from yoga for grief to yoga for the back and shoulders. You can find a range of classes suited to all fitness levels.

How to Use the Insight Timer App?

The app lacks some flares that other meditation apps have, but the layout is relatively easy to use. When you log on, you will see easy-to-navigate buttons used to find everything from meditation practices to yoga classes to live events. You can also use the search function to find specific classes you have liked before or to find new practices to try.

Users can use the meditation timer whenever it suits them and follow specific courses. Unlike some other apps, like Sensa, Insight Timer does not give individualized schedules, so users will need to set out their own daily practices and choose when to practice each day.

Benefits of the Insight Timer App

The Insight Timer app has many benefits, which we have summarized below for you to check out.

#1 Ad-free

One of the best parts of Insight Timer is that it is ad-free, though when using the free version of Insight Timer, you may get pop-ups about the premium subscription. Being ad-free makes Insight Timer much more user-friendly and significantly improves the app experience.

#2 Hundreds of meditations

Insight Timer has an almost overwhelming amount of meditations to try. This is brilliant for people who have been meditating for years, and it can help beginners try as many different types of meditation as possible, promoting a deeper practice.

The meditations are also suited to various conditions, meaning you can find a suitable practice for stress, anxiety, or simply to relax or sleep. The practices come guided and unguided, which means that if you need more help, there are options for you, too.

#3 Workshops

The available workshops cover a huge variety of topics and come from many experts and advanced practitioners from around the world. This is a standout feature of Insight Timer as it sets the app apart from its contemporaries.

The online workshops help users deepen their practice. The sessions are in groups and cover a huge variety of well-being topics. Past workshops have included living with awareness and reiki sessions.

These workshops allow users to expand their practice outside of meditation and yoga and show them new ways to live mindfully.

#4 Engaging meditations

Insight Timer is a meditation app that offers lots of engaging meditations. This is beneficial, as many other mental health apps do not provide engaging meditation practices.

Beginners may find it difficult to learn meditation and may become easily distracted. The Insight Timer meditations are incredibly engaging and seek to educate users, helping them focus and understand each practice properly.

#5 Live yoga classes

Yoga is a therapeutic practice, and offering live classes encourages users to get their daily exercise. Exercise has been shown to promote better mental health, so joining a live yoga class, a gym class, or going for a daily run can help people feel better mentally.

Yoga has also been found to reduce stress, anxiety, and depression. Additionally, it supports better sleep quality, promotes overall well-being, and improves a person’s quality of life. It may also be suggested as a holistic practice alongside treatment plans for chronic pain and other conditions.

The classes available on Insight Timer can be accessed by all fitness levels and can be used as an introduction to yoga for those who have yet to try it.

#6 Meditations for kids and teens

Insight Timer provides meditations for children and teens, allowing people of all ages to access this therapeutic, healing, and calming practice. The app has a space for parents to learn further about how to help their children, and meditations are designed specifically for people of these ages.

Cons of the Insight Timer App

As with all apps, Insight Timer does have some drawbacks, which we have summarized below.

#1 Multi-session meditations only available with the premium subscription

While Insight Timer has many free meditations, there are times when you need a premium subscription to progress. You cannot have multiple meditation sessions a day with the free version. Additionally, you cannot pause, rewind, or fast-forward a meditation without Insight premium.

#2 App can be buggy

Some users have reported that the app has some bugs, which might make it difficult to use and may make people choose other mental health apps instead. Bugs include the app glitching and freezing, and some users have found the premium version pop-ups annoying.

#3 Additional fees for mentoring and workshops

While the app offers the largest free library of meditations, the mentoring and workshops available on the app do come with additional fees. Workshops begin at around $20 a person per session, which can be an inaccessible amount for some users.

How Much Does the Insight Timer Cost?

Insight Timer is a free app. However, you can pay for a premium plan which costs $60 per year, billed annually. On top of this, some of the features come with additional fees, even if you pay for a premium plan.

FAQs

Comparison Table

How We Tested

When we review apps, we measure them in a few categories: quality, effectiveness, price, and brand reputation. Take a look below to see how we have rated Insight Timer in each of these areas.

Quality 7/10

Insight Timer is an app of good quality. We have rated it 7/10 because of its extensive meditation library and its use of a diverse range of practices. A higher rating would have been given had there not been reports of glitches on the app.

If you’re using an app to improve your mental health, it is important that it is of good quality and that it runs smoothly.

Effectiveness 7/10

Meditation, yoga, and other wellness practices have been found to improve mood, alleviate symptoms of stress and anxiety, and promote better overall well-being. Insight Timer focuses on all of these aspects and seeks to educate its users.

Where it falls behind is the lack of structure. Other mental health apps, like Sensa, set out daily practices and give users an individualized plan suited to their needs, helping them stay on track and motivating them to keep going.

Insight Timer has been given an effectiveness rating of 7/10 because, while the promoted practices are proven to work, it lacks the structure that may be needed to push users to continue their treatment plan.

Price 8/10

At $60 billed annually, Insight Timer is a relatively affordable app, bringing incredible value for the money’s worth. Many mental health apps have a monthly fee, so paying a one lump sum may be easier for some people.

However, $60 is still a large sum of money that some may not be able to afford. In addition, other products have a smaller subscription fee that offers similar features as Insight Timer.

Brand Reputation 9/10

Insight Timer has a good reputation and attracts many experts from around the world. This leads to a huge diversity of practitioners on the app and allows users to be educated by many. We’ve given Insight Timer 9/10 in this category, as we believe it is a trustworthy app from a brand with a good reputation.

Conclusion

Insight Timer is a useful app for those looking to learn new mindfulness practices. However, apps such as BetterHelp, Sensa, Noom Mood, or Talkspace can offer much more than meditation.

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