BetterHelp vs Headway: Will Insurance Make Therapy More Affordable?

Conventional wisdom suggests insurance will always make therapy more affordable.

But when we put leading therapy providers, BetterHelp and Headway, side-by-side and compared the two, we found this isn’t always the case.

In fact, on deeper analysis we noticed each provider has dramatic differences in how they operate, their quality of service and corresponding customer reviews.

For this reason, we’ve decided to weigh in on the Headway vs BetterHelp debate, and give our recommended best pick as of 2024.

Overall Best: BetterHelp is our recommended online therapy provider because it has much better reviews, is accessible globally, and in many cases, is more affordable than the private therapy sessions found via Headway.

To get started with BetterHelp, click here to fill in their brief questionnaire.

Discussing Psychology readers get 15% off their first month with BetterHelp.

BetterHelp vs Headway: How do they differ?

BetterHelp is an online therapy platform with it’s own app and in-house therapists, while Headway is a directory that helps you search for US-based mental-health practitioners based on your selected requirements.

What’s the difference between a therapy platform and a therapy directory? Let’s take a look below.

Therapy Platforms vs Directories

A therapy platform, like BetterHelp, provides 'end-to-end' therapeutic support using their own in-house therapists.

Therapy platforms typically have dedicated phone and/or desktop applications that support a range of communication channels for therapy as well as in-app tools and resources. 

A therapist directory, on the other hand, is a tool that helps you find therapists based on requirements you select.

Therapy directories such as Good Therapy, Network Therapy, Alma and Headway etc do not provide therapy as a service. Rather, they connect you with private therapists who facilitate this service as part of their own private clinic.

Now that we know the difference between therapy platforms and directories, let’s get into how Headway and BetterHelp compare.

BetterHelp vs Headway: A 2024 Comparison

Features	BetterHelp	Headway
Cost of online therapy	From $65-$90 per week, billed every four weeks. Typically one session per week.	Varies between $20 to $50 per session, not including the cost of your insurance plan.
Average customer reviews	Averages between 4.6 to 4.8 out of 5 on major review platforms.	Averages 1.9 out of 5 rating on Trustpilot. Approximately eight complaints on Better Business Bureau.
Services offered	Emotional and mental health support for individuals. Option for group webinars available.	Headway connects clients with mental health professionals who accept insurance for virtual or in-person therapy sessions.
Communication method	Live chats, phone calls, video calls. Members can message their therapist anytime.	Virtual and in-person (where applicable). Virtual appointments are typically conducted via video.
Insurance accepted	No	Yes. You must have insurance to book an appointment with Headway.
Payment method	Credit card or PayPal	Bank account or credit card.
Link to provider website	Click here to visit BetterHelp.	Click here to visit Headway.

BetterHelp Online Therapy

BetterHelp is the world’s largest online therapy provider, having supported more than 3 million clients worldwide.

The platform has over 30,000 licensed therapists, all of whom provide psychotherapy (talk therapy) to help people overcome life’s difficulties and mental health struggles.

As per BetterHelp’s website, its mission is:

“Making professional therapy accessible, affordable, and convenient—so anyone who struggles with life’s challenges can get help, anytime and anywhere.”

The platform’s therapists are accredited, experienced, and can help with various issues, including depression, relationships, anxiety, trauma, grief, and more.

BetterHelp operates 100% online, with sessions conducted via live chat, phone, and video, allowing you to communicate in whatever way feels most comfortable.

Online therapy prices starting at $65/week. Cancel anytime.

Headway Therapist Directory

Headway is a free-to-use therapy directory connecting clients with private mental health professionals who accept insurance.

According to their website, Headway helps clients with insurance save up to 75% per session, making therapy more accessible to low-income people and families.

Currently, Headway is only available in certain states across the USA.

However, the company recently raised US$70 million in funding, part of which will be used to help provide affordable, insurance-based therapy nationwide.

Using the directory, you can connect with a diverse group of mental health professionals, such as:

• Psychotherapists
• Counselors
• Psychiatrists
• Psychologists
• Social workers
• Psychiatric nurse practitioners

Headway has also partnered with Violet Health, a platform that strives to make mental health support more accessible to minority communities, including

• BIPOC: Black, Indigenous, and people of color
• LGBQ: Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and queer
• TGNC: Transgender and gender non-conforming

This vital step toward accessibility demonstrates Headway’s passion for providing mental health support for all.

BetterHelp vs. Headway: Pricing

BetterHelp

A BetterHelp subscription typically costs between US$65 and US$90 per week, which totals approximately US$260‒US$360 billed every four weeks.

It is worthwhile noting that BetterHelp pricing can vary, depending on your:

• Therapeutic preferences.
• A therapist’s availability.
• Your location.

You can pay for BetterHelp sessions via PayPal or credit card.

Headway

Headway claims the price of sessions is between US$20 and US$50 if you have insurance, rather than the US$200-US$300 you would typically pay with in-person treatment.

To obtain an estimated cost and quote for your therapy sessions, you must first enter your details and insurance information with Headway.

The cost of each session depends on your insurance plan’s behavioral health benefits.

The price of your sessions may also fluctuate based on your out-of-pocket accumulation and deductibles.

As soon as you secure an appointment with a practitioner, Headway collects payment.

When collecting payment, the directory reads your insurance benefits in and then automatically bills you the cost of therapy, taking into account insurance deductions.

This greatly reduces the amount of admin and waiting time necessary when using insurance for therapy.

Headway currently accepts the following insurances:

• Aetna
• Cigna
• Oxford
• United
• Anthem Blue Cross
• Blue Shield insurance

Payment is made to Headway via bank account, credit card, or, in certain cases, with some Health Savings Accounts and Flexible Spending Account cards.

Which is more affordable?

At this point, you may be wondering which provider is more affordable out of BetterHelp and Headway.

Taking the costs at face value, Headway seems to be the more affordable option, coming in at US$20‒US$50 per session, compared to BetterHelp’s US$65-US$90.

However, Headway’s cost is dependent on you having health insurance, which can work out to be several thousand dollars per year.

Its affordability is very dependent on your personal circumstances and insurance provider, but broadly speaking, individual healthcare plans in the USA can cost somewhere in the range of $7,739 per year.

The cost works out to be about US$148 per week spent on insurance.

Even if we assume Headway’s lower cost of $20 per session and assume one session per week, which is quite typical, that works out to be ~US$168 per week.

This is almost double BetterHelp’s higher-end cost of US$90 per week.

Therefore, I’d say BetterHelp is, in many cases, more affordable than Headway.

The caveat here, of course, is that many insurance plans don’t just cover mental health but many types of medical costs, including emergencies and general health care. 

So it would be inaccurate to say that the above figure of US$148 per week for insurance goes entirely toward mental health support.

BetterHelp vs. Headway: Services

BetterHelp

BetterHelp’s therapists are licensed, credentialed, and have at least three years and 1,000 hours of counseling experience.

Due to having over 30,000 practitioners, BetterHelp offers support for a wide range of difficulties, including:

• Anxiety
• Depression
• Stress
• Relationships
• Unhealthy eating
• Trauma
• Sleeping difficulties
• Parenting
• Addiction
• Family disagreements
• Grief
• LGBTQIA+ difficulties

BetterHelp offers individual counseling, with an additional option for group webinars.

You can choose from a wide array of therapeutic modalities; some of the most popular are:

• Psychotherapy
• Cognitive behavioral therapy
• Exposure therapy
• EMDR therapy
• Dialectical behavior therapy
• Group therapy through webinar sessions

If you’re looking for non-psychiatric support for your mental health challenges, BetterHelp is an excellent choice for end-to-end coverage.

A subscription grants you:

• Weekly sessions with a therapist.
• The ability to utilize BetterHelp’s dedicated app and resources.
• Members can also message their therapist at anytime.

Therefore, we’d place BetterHelp on par with or maybe even better than traditional in-person talk therapy, especially when you consider that, in most cases, it is more affordable than in-person therapy if you don’t have insurance.

Headway

Headway currently offers therapeutic services in 16 states across the USA. These states are the following:

• Ohio
• Washington
• Virginia
• Texas
• Michigan
• New Jersey
• North Carolina
• New York
• Georgia
• Illinois
• Maryland
• Colorado
• California
• Florida
• District of Colombia
• Massachusetts

Headway works with over 20,000 licensed practitioners, including 15,000 therapists, alongside psychiatrists, counselors, social workers, and psychiatric nurse practitioners.

The provider, therefore, offers both traditional talk therapy as well as psychiatric treatment.

It’s worth noting that this sets Headway apart from BetterHelp, in that out of the two, Headway can offer prescriptions for psychiatric medications.

Headway’s practitioners range in specialization; marriage and family therapy and individual talk therapy are available.

Because of the vast array of practitioners, like BetterHelp, Headway covers a variety of mental health issues. These include:

• Depression
• Anxiety
• Trauma
• Family issues
• Marital problems
• Stress
• Grief
• Women’s issues
• Relationships difficulties
• Anger management
• PTSD
• Bipolar disorder

Overall, if you have health insurance and you’re looking for psychiatric support from a mental health professional nearby, Headway can be a good directory to find the support you need.

Therapist & Mental Health Professional Details

Features	BetterHelp	Headway
Can health professionals prescribe medication?	No	Yes
Can you choose therapists?	Choose your therapist after your initial match.	Yes. Headway offers a range of therapeutic practitioners to choose from.
Are mental health professionals licensed?	Yes	Yes
Time taken to match with a therapist	Can be matched within 48 hours.	Can be as soon as 48 hours, but the average time taken is six days.
Frequency and duration of sessions	Sessions typically occur weekly.	To be decided between client and therapist.

BetterHelp

Once you have completed BetterHelp’s brief signup questionnaire, you can expect to receive a personalized match within approximately 48 hours.

On occasion, however, the match may take a few days, depending on therapists’ availability and your preferences.

The platform works by matching you to a therapist based on your sign up questionnaire responses to help create a more personalized experience.

BetterHelp typically offers 30- to 45-minute blocks for sessions once per week.

In addition, with BetterHelp, you can change your therapist whenever you wish, by selecting the “More” tab followed by “Change therapist” in your BetterHelp app.

Headway

Once you have chosen your location and entered your insurance details, Headway will show you a list of practitioners.

Headway’s directory has a very comprehensive set of filters, which allow you to be very selective with the practitioner you match with.

The length of therapy sessions depends on the practitioner but an initial phone call to meet the practitioner will typically be around 15 minutes, and then you will agree on a session length together.

The general rule of thumb is 45 minutes for sessions.

Resources

BetterHelp

BetterHelp has a very robust app with useful journal prompts, worksheets and various other in-app features.

The provider also offers many blog posts in the “Advice” section of its website.

These blogs provide insightful content about many areas of online therapy, such as how to find the right practitioner, the difference between psychologists and psychotherapists and much more.

BetterHelp’s FAQ page also answers 25 of the most commonly-asked questions, giving answers to any initial queries.

It also allows you to contact the support team by submitting a question in the “Contact” section.

This three-pronged approach to customer support demonstrates that BetterHelp holds its client’s well-being at the heart of what it does.

BetterHelp has also clearly demonstrated a willingness to contribute to charity in the mental health space:

• It has partnered with the likes of Paul George and Venus Williams to raise and give away $3 million worth of free therapy to vulnerable people.
• BetterHelp has also given over $44,261,898 in discounts and financial aid for low-income individuals, with 62,583 months of free therapy donated to vulnerable communities.
• In August 2022, BetterHelp also launched a scholarship fund for emerging scholars within the mental health field.

Headway

Headway doesn’t have an app, but it does have a directory. The directory is laid out in an informative way that is very user-friendly.

The directory offers various filters to narrow down your search, including your:

• Concerns
• Preferred psychiatric care type
  Location
• Insurance provider
• Availability
• Gender
• Ethnicity
• Modality
• Language
• And more.

The directory is also excellent if you’re interested in in-person therapy sessions because it shows the exact location of the practitioners, allowing you to choose a convenient match in terms of your location.

However, the directory’s therapist listings don’t give you any indication of the cost of sessions.

Even when you click on a practitioner’s profile, you’re usually given a ballpark figure of US$0‒US$250, which does not allow you to choose your practitioner based on price.

In order to get visibility into the estimated cost per session, you have to go through the entire sign-up process. This includes submitting your payment and insurance details, which is not very user-friendly.

On the plus side, Headway offers a detailed breakdown of how insurance works, especially around specifics such as

• Co-pay
• Deductible
• Co-insurance

The breakdown gives people an in-depth understanding of how insurance payers can reduce the cost of therapy through Headway.

Last, although Headway does not have an app, it supports a seamless online booking system with a calendar for scheduled therapy sessions.

This feature is useful in that it allows you to see up-to-date, real-time therapist availability to cut down on wait times and increase accessibility.

BetterHelp vs. Headway: Account Setup & Communication

BetterHelp

When you sign up with BetterHelp, you will be prompted to fill in a short questionnaire about your current challenges, expectations for therapy and more.

Your answers can then be used to help match with a therapist.

The account setup and communication process is straightforward—you can access BetterHelp on your browser or via the mobile app.

Once you match with your therapist, you can schedule weekly online sessions.

Each session with your therapist can be conducted via live

• Video sessions
• Audio calls
• Live chat sessions

These are all managed within the BetterHelp app itself.

Headway

Setting up an account with Headway is easy and very user-friendly.

Headway asks for your name, email address, and password when you create an account.

You then need to verify your account before entering your insurance details.

Once you enter your insurance details, payment, and personal information, you can view the estimated cost of each Headway therapy session with each available practitioner.

When it comes to finding therapists near you via the directory, you don’t even need to sign up.

You can simply adjust the filters by key information such as your insurance provider, location, and more, and a list of available practitioners will be displayed.

You can click on a practitioner you consider suitable and then book a time slot with them after signing up with Headway. Their availability is visible when you click on their profile, making booking a time slot easy.

Headway therapists support in-person therapy as well as virtual therapy. Virtual therapy is typically done via video sessions using 3rd party video platforms such as

• Doxy.me
• Zoom
• Google Workspace

Overall, Headway’s communication and support is not as robust as that of BetterHelp.

However, this is to be expected because Headway does not have a dedicated app (it’s just a directory).

On the plus side, out of the two providers, Headway is the only one that can offer in-person therapy.

Arguably, this is more robust than digital communication channels because some patients may find in-person therapy allows for a deeper connection with their therapist.

Customer Reviews

BetterHelp

BetterHelp scores 4.6 stars out of 5 on Trustpilot and 4.8 across almost 100,000 reviews on the Apple App Store.

Its investor, Teladoc Health, also scores 4.8 on the Apple App Store across over 415,000 reviews.

In looking through the client ratings, reviews highlight the warmth and empathy of the therapeutic practitioners, emphasizing their high level of expertise and experience.

While many individuals found therapy quite a confronting idea, many said their practitioners put them at ease, making them feel comfortable and safe enough to open up.

Headway

Customer reviews suggest Headway provides an easy and quick way to find local therapists.

You don’t have to worry about whether they accept your insurance because Headway only lists practitioners who are willing to accept insurance payments.

That saves you a great deal of time.

However, four Better Business Bureau complaints based on dispute resolution and communication issues are apparent.

Headway also has a low Trustpilot score of just 1.9 stars out of 5, with many negative reviews claiming they were incorrectly billed large sums.

This seems to be a recurring issue with therapy providers that accept insurance payments as we found very similar reviews in our SonderMind and BetterHelp analysis.

In addition, there are also very concerning reviews online claiming Headway therapists are not credentialed.

Overall, Headway’s reviews are disappointing compared to BetteHelp’s ratings, which are almost double that of Headways, depending on the review platform you’re visiting.

Get started with BetterHelp here.

Final Verdict

Overall, BetterHelp is the clear winner.

It has better reviews, in many cases is more affordable than Headway, provides more wrap-around support, and is more transparent regarding therapist experience and pricing.

For this reason, we chose BetterHelp as our recommended online therapy platform.

To match with a therapist at BetterHelp, fill in this brief questionnaire.

Online therapy prices starting at $65 per week. Cancel anytime.

FAQ

Can I get a free trial before I commit to therapy?

Neither provider offers free trials.

Will my Insurance pay for the services?

BetterHelp does not accept insurance, which means you can’t use health insurance to subsidize the ongoing cost of therapy sessions.

In contrast, Headway only lists mental health practitioners who accept insurance.

Can I cancel my subscription if I am not happy with the service?

You can easily cancel your BetterHelp subscription in the “My Account” section in your BetterHelp app.

Headway’s cancellation process isn’t so simple. Because you don’t pay a subscription for Headway, you have nothing to cancel besides an existing appointment. However, you must fill out a contact form to delete your account.

Are the therapists licensed?

BetterHelp’s therapists are licensed, credentialed, and have at least three years and 1,000 hours of direct experience.

Headway’s practitioners are also licensed and credentialed with a range of experience. However, practitioners’ profiles don’t always state their range of experience.

Do I have the option of online and offline therapy

BetterHelp’s services are 100% online. It offers mental health support via chat, messaging, audio calls, and video chat. BetterHelp does not provide in-person therapy.

With Headway, you can choose whether to pursue online or in-person therapy. However, this service is limited to 16 US states.

Do they have customer support services?

BetterHelp has a “Contact us” page where you can fill out a form which will allow their customer support to contact you.

Reviews indicate that BetterHelp provides excellent support and timely responses.

Headway offers support from 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. ET from Monday to Friday with an online chat service.

When you click on the option for customer support, a chat box opens up, and you answer a series of multiple-choice questions, receiving automated guidance as answers.

How We Select Products

Product reviews, comparisons and write-ups are based on personal testing experience, customer review analysis and/or product research.

All product review information is liable to our product review process.

For Emergencies

In the case of an emergency, online therapy is not suitable. If you are at risk of self-harm or require emergency mental health assistance, contact your country/states emergency or suicide hotline.

If you are in the US, your emergency line is: 911. US Suicide Hotline: 988.

For an international list of suicide hotline numbers, visit this link here.