Calm vs Lullable: an honest comparison

The two listings, side by side

Both figures come from each app's own App Store listing, US storefront, read on 26 October. Apple sets prices by country and they change without notice, so the listing is the figure that counts.

• Calm — free to download. The listing says there are never any ads and that some programs and features are free permanently. Its In-App Purchases panel lists several Calm Premium items from $14.99, with $69.99 among them; it does not say which is monthly and which annual, so we do not either.
• Lullable — free to download, with Lullable Premium listed at $2.99 monthly and $19.99 annually. Five full stories, among them Aristotle, the Greatest Philosopher, play end to end without paying.

Read flatly, Lullable's year costs less than a third of the lowest Calm figure of $69.99 that the listing shows. That is a fact about the price, not a verdict on the apps.

What Calm does that Lullable does not

The concessions first, because they are real.

Calm's listing describes meditation from beginner to advanced, breathing exercises, music, and 7- and 21-day programs, alongside the sleep shelf. Lullable has none of that. If you meditate in the morning and listen at night, one subscription covering both is the sensible purchase, and switching to something narrower to save money would be a false economy.

Calm also names its narrators: Matthew McConaughey, Stephen Fry, P!nk and Bob Ross, among others, and says it has more than 100 exclusive Sleep Stories with new ones added monthly. Lullable's catalogue is a fraction of that size, and nobody in it is famous. For some listeners a recognisable voice is the point. For others it is the opposite of the point, which is the argument we made about boring voices to fall asleep to, but it is a taste, not a ranking.

Who should choose Calm

Choose Calm if you want one app for the whole day, if a famous narrator is part of the appeal, or if you want the largest possible shelf to rotate through. Its free tier is also more generous in kind than ours: a permanent set of programs, without advertising, according to its own listing.

Who might prefer Lullable

Lullable suits the person who already knows what works for them at night: a long, flat voice that gives its ending away early and then gets quieter. If your difficulty is a mind that keeps commenting, stories built for overthinkers are the narrow tool for it, and we wrote at more length about what Calm costs and what to weigh against it. If price is the main question, the wider price comparison includes Headspace too.

Is Calm worth it, then?

For someone using the whole platform, the annual price is reasonable value. For someone using one shelf of it, they are paying for a building to use one room. Both statements are true at once, which is why the free tier of either app is the better test than any comparison page, this one included.