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Headspace costs $69.99 a year or $12.99 a month. Calm‘s help centre gives its annual plan as $79.99 a year, though Calm also says it’s changing that price, so treat it with care (more below). On the headline numbers the two apps are $10 a year apart, which is not enough to decide anything.
What decides it is a simpler question: will you open the app at least once a week for a year? If the answer is no, neither is worth paying for, and the cheapest plan is the one you don’t buy.
What each company charges
Headspace’s figures were read from its own plan pages on 3 November 2026. Calm’s main site put a human-verification check in front of every pricing page we requested, and we didn’t attempt it. Calm’s figures come from its own help centre, read the same day.
| Plan | Headspace | Calm |
|---|---|---|
| Annual, one person | $69.99 ($5.83/month) | $79.99, not confirmed current |
| Monthly, one person | $12.99 | Not published on any Calm page we could read |
| Family, six accounts | $99.99 a year | $119.99 a year |
| Student | $9.99 a year | No student plan found |
| Lifetime | None | $499.99 once |
| Free trial | 14 days (annual), 7 days (monthly) | 14 days on the web, 7 days in the app |
About Calm’s $79.99. It appears in Calm’s article on web free trials, whose text was last edited in February 2026. A separate Calm notice, current as of November 2026, says Calm is “updating the price of our yearly subscription” but doesn’t give the new figure. It sends readers to the live plans page, which is the one we couldn’t read. So $79.99 is Calm’s own most recent published number, and we can’t confirm it’s still what new subscribers pay. Check the price at checkout before you buy.
Calm does sell monthly plans: its help centre says to choose “Monthly (or Quarterly)” at the end of its sign-up quiz. It just doesn’t print the price anywhere we could find, so we haven’t guessed one.
The calculations
1. Annual versus monthly (Headspace). Divide the annual price by the monthly one: $69.99 ÷ $12.99 = 5.4 months.
Twelve months on monthly billing costs $155.88, against $69.99 upfront. So if you’ll keep Headspace for six months or more, annual is cheaper. If you’re trying it to see whether meditation sticks, three months on monthly costs $38.97, nearly half the annual price, with no commitment beyond that. Our guide to annual vs monthly billing has the general version of this rule.
We can’t run the same sum for Calm without its monthly price.
2. Cost per session. This is the calculation that matters most for an app you have to remember to open. Divide the annual price by the number of times you’ll realistically use it.
| How often you use it | Sessions a year | Headspace annual ($69.99) | Calm annual ($79.99) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Daily | 365 | $0.19 | $0.22 |
| Three times a week | 156 | $0.45 | $0.51 |
| Once a week | 52 | $1.35 | $1.54 |
| Twice a month | 24 | $2.92 | $3.33 |
To use it on yourself, count how many times you used a meditation or sleep app last month, including free ones and YouTube, and multiply by twelve. That’s a more honest number than how often you plan to use it.
3. Family plans, per person. Both family plans cover six accounts.
- Headspace: $99.99 ÷ 6 = $16.67 per person per year
- Calm: $119.99 ÷ 6 = $20.00 per person per year
Both pay off at just two people. Two Headspace annual plans cost $139.98, so the family plan saves $39.99 even with four seats empty. Two Calm annual plans at $79.99 cost $159.98, so Calm Family saves $39.99 too.
The rules differ in a way that matters. Headspace’s family plan FAQ says everyone has to enter the same physical address. Calm’s family plan article says members don’t need to live together, but all six must be 18 or over. It also says Calm doesn’t support Apple Family Sharing, so the plan has to be bought on Calm’s website. For more on which subscriptions share across households, see our guide to family sharing.
4. Calm’s lifetime membership. Calm’s help centre prices it at $499.99, paid once. Against the $79.99 annual plan, that’s $499.99 ÷ $79.99 = 6.25 years. You’d need to keep paying for Calm into a seventh year before lifetime comes out ahead.
If Calm’s yearly price goes up, as its own notice suggests, the break-even comes sooner: at $99.99 a year it would be five years. But two terms on the same page cut the other way. Lifetime memberships are final sale with no refund, and they cover one person only, not a family plan. Our look at software you could buy once instead of renting covers when a one-off price is a good deal. The short version is that you should have kept paying for something for a year before you buy it for life.
5. Students. Headspace’s student plan is $9.99 a year, for students aged 18 and over in the US and a handful of other countries, verified through SheerID. That’s $60 less than the standard annual plan. The page points to an FAQ for renewal terms, which we didn’t find, so check what it renews at once you graduate.
The trials, and what happens after
Both apps start you on a free trial that turns into a paid plan unless you cancel.
- Headspace: 14 days free on annual, then $69.99 in one charge. Seven days free on monthly, then $12.99 a month.
- Calm on the web: 14 days free, then the annual charge. Calm says to cancel at least 24 hours before the trial ends.
- Calm in the iPhone or Android app: 7 days free, and Calm says in-app trials default to an annual plan. Buying monthly through the app means starting a trial, cancelling it, and waiting for it to end.
Calm’s help centre says cancelling a web trial straight away still leaves you with access for the full 14 days, so you can cancel on day one and decide later. We didn’t find the same statement on Headspace’s pages, so set a reminder for the day before its trial ends instead. Our guide to free trials covers setting up the reminder.
Refunds. Calm’s refund policy allows refunds within 30 days of a purchase made on Calm.com. App Store purchases go through Apple. Headspace’s help centre sends App Store and Google Play refunds to those stores, and we didn’t find a stated refund window for subscriptions bought on Headspace’s own site. If you renewed by accident, use our guide to finding forgotten subscriptions to work out who is charging you first.
Before you pay: check whether you already have it
Both companies sell to employers and partners. Calm’s help centre lists free access through some employers, plus partner deals such as cash back for Chase Sapphire cardholders and an extended trial for Hilton Honors members. Headspace’s plan pages say its subscription is HSA/FSA eligible, so if you have one of those accounts, the $69.99 can come from pre-tax money. Check with your plan administrator first.
Calm’s help centre also notes that the same Premium content unlocks however you got access. A free plan through work is the same app as the one you’d pay $79.99 for.
Verdict
Buy Headspace annual if you already meditate or use a sleep app most days and want one to pay for. At $69.99 it’s the cheaper of the two, its price is confirmed on its own page, and at three sessions a week it works out at 45 cents a session.
Buy Headspace’s student plan if you qualify. At $9.99 a year, it barely needs any use at all to make sense.
Buy Calm if Sleep Stories are what you’re after (Calm’s help centre counts hundreds of them, all locked to Premium except a few), or if you’re sharing with adults who don’t live with you. Calm Family allows that and Headspace Family doesn’t. Check the annual price at checkout, because we couldn’t confirm Calm’s current figure.
Don’t buy either if:
- You’d use it fewer than twice a month. At that rate you’re paying about $3 a session, and Calm’s free tier or free audio on YouTube will cover you.
- Your employer, insurer or credit card already offers it. Look before you pay $70–$80 for something you may already have.
- You’re tempted by annual billing to “commit” to a habit you haven’t started. Try three months of Headspace at $12.99 instead. If it doesn’t stick, you’ve spent $38.97, not $69.99.
- You’re thinking about Calm Lifetime and haven’t paid for Calm for at least a year. It takes over six years to pay off, and it can’t be refunded.
Headspace prices verified on headspace.com/subscriptions, /family-plan and /studentplan on 3 November 2026. Calm prices from Calm’s help centre (support.calm.com) on 3 November 2026. Calm’s own pricing pages showed a human-verification check and couldn’t be read, and Calm says its yearly price is changing, so the $79.99 annual figure isn’t confirmed as current. Prices are in US dollars and may exclude tax.