Compare meditation apps
Is Calm free? What the Calm app costs
Partly. Calm is free to download and has hundreds of free sessions, but most of its library needs a Calm Premium subscription. On an iPhone, the 7-day free trial turns into a yearly subscription unless you cancel at least 24 hours before it ends.
What you get for free
Calm’s help center lists what the free version includes:
- 230+ guided and timed meditations. For sessions with little guidance, look for the Less Guidance category under Discover › Meditation.
- 8 Sleep Stories and sleep sessions, including Blue Gold.
- Day 1 of every multi-day program, such as 7 Days of Focus.
- A preview of the Daily Calm.
- The Breathe Bubble, and background scenes with nature sounds and music.
Premium content has a small padlock. Anything without one is free to play as often as you like. The rest of the Sleep Stories, the daily series, the full music catalog and most programs need Calm Premium.
What Calm Premium costs
There isn’t one price. Calm says it varies by country, and that the price in the app can differ from the price on calm.com, because Apple and Google set their own prices for each country. Calm is also raising the price of its yearly plan, and long-time subscribers may move to the current price at their next renewal.
| Where | What it showed |
|---|---|
| US App Store | Calm Premium purchases from $14.99 to $95.99, and Calm Lifetime at $299.99 or $399.99 |
| Calm’s help center | Lifetime membership: a one-time $499.99, final sale |
The App Store lists the purchases without saying which is monthly and which is yearly. The price that counts is the one on the screen before you confirm. On an iPhone you can also see it afterwards in Settings › your name › Subscriptions.
How the free trial works
When you install Calm on an iPhone, it offers a 7-day free trial of Calm Premium. Calm suggests creating an account first. If you don’t cancel, the trial renews into a yearly subscription and you are charged the full yearly price. You can only use the trial once. Because the trial runs through the App Store, Apple handles the billing and the cancellation; Calm can’t cancel it for you.
How to cancel Calm on an iPhone
- Open Settings and tap your name.
- Tap Subscriptions, then Calm.
- Tap Cancel Subscription. During a trial, Calm says the button may read Cancel Free Trial.
Deleting the app doesn’t cancel anything. Cancel at least 24 hours before a trial ends to avoid the charge; you keep Premium until the trial or the paid period is over. If Calm isn’t in the list, you may have subscribed on calm.com (cancel there under Settings › Manage Subscription) or with another Apple Account.
Getting Premium without paying yourself
Calm says some employers and health plans include Calm Premium, and that in the US a subscription may be eligible for FSA or HSA reimbursement. It’s worth checking before you start a trial.
If you just want ten quiet minutes
Calm’s free version is generous if you like guided meditations and want to sample a big library. Its App Store privacy label lists purchases, identifiers and usage data under “Data Used to Track You”. If all you want is a short, quiet sit each day, Stille is free with every feature included: tap Meditate, listen to ten minutes of gentle sound, and a soft gong ends the session. There is no account, no ads and no subscription, and its label says “Data Not Collected”. Stille has no Sleep Stories, courses or teachers, so it doesn’t replace everything Calm does. See Stille vs Calm for how they differ.