It’s that time again. This World Mental Health Day, we’re proud to present our third-annual Online Therapy + Wellness Awards, where we *personally* have tested over 100 mental health apps and services to bring you the best tools and resources on the market. So whether you’re looking for a therapist who just gets you or foolproof sleep strategies for some much-needed shut-eye—our winners will make it clear which of the countless options are most worth trying.

With the boom of online therapy and self-care behaviors over the past few years, there is a huge opportunity to expand mental health services via digital means while also addressing the challenges that can come with in-person care (for instance, therapy deserts and provider shortages, just to name a few).1 More than ever, the services we’ve tested are helping people across the country take charge of their mental health from wherever they are.

How We Chose the Winners

After evaluating the landscape to select the apps and services with the most impact, we personally tested57 online therapy services and 25 directories. We also thoroughly tested 9 apps with therapy-based tools, 12 sleep apps, and 17 meditation apps to sample their offerings and determine which are the best for where you are in your mental health journey.

Methodology for the 2023 Online Therapy + Wellness Awards

Meet the Experts

Led by our team of subject matter experts and licensed therapists—Amy Marschall, PsyD, Nic Hardy, PhD, and Hannah Owens, LMSW—we evaluated and chose winners across 5 categories: online therapy, therapy directories, therapy tools, sleep, and mindfulness apps.

Amy Marschall, PsyD

Clinical Psychologist Nic Hardy, PhD Psychotherapist Hannah Owens, LMSW Mental Health Editor

Drumroll Please…

After a robust review and thorough testing of the ever-growing world of digital mental health help, here are the winners of Verywell Mind’s 2023 Online Therapy + Wellness Awards.

Best Online Therapy Services

The last few years have seen the online therapy market explode with more options than ever, covering a wider variety of conditions and reaching smaller niches of people to ensure that as many Americans as possible have access to therapists who understand their issues.

This year’s winners are the services identified by our testers as the best across a variety of categories, factoring in critical elements like affordability, comprehensiveness, accessibility, and more.

See Our Winners

Best Therapy Directories

One of the most difficult parts of therapy is getting started. Many people don’t know where to look or have particular needs that can’t or won’t be met by the first therapist they find.

Our winners in this category are helping to expand the reach of therapy services to historically underserved populations, and providing therapy-seekers with a helpful and user-friendly starting point for anyone in the midst of a therapy journey.

See Our Winners

Best Mindfulness & Meditation Apps

There’s a lot about meditation that feels intimidating to someone who wants to implement it into their mental health toolkit but doesn’t know how. Like how long, how often, what do you think about (or not)? And while there isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach to meditation, there are apps and services that can answer all these questions and more.

This year’s winners showcased user-friendliness, affordability, and variety, which made us feel more comfortable easing into our meditation practice and practicing mindfulness within our day-to-day lives.

See Our Winners

Best Sleep Apps

Struggling with sleep? We know the feeling. And by we, we mean the estimated 50 to 70 million Americans who have chronic, or ongoing, sleep disorders.2 

Our winners for best apps in this category have helped lull our testers to sleep with relaxing sleep stories, sleep-tracking tools, unique bedtime meditations, and resources to help us put those late-night doomscrolling habits to bed once and for all.

See Our Winners

Best Therapy Tools

Access to therapy is a privilege. Most services don’t work with our insurance (and that’s given we have insurance), and time is money. For those of us who don’t have the means to sacrifice either and/or need a supplement that can help us put the skills we would otherwise learn in therapy into practice, CBT-based apps are a great way to fill in the gaps.

While they’re not a substitute for therapy, our winners in this category were chosen based on their interactive activities and challenges, breadth of self-help topics, and helpful coping skills and techniques.

4 july 2019