My experience with BetterHelp in Australia - A detailed review

After months of advertising and testing the waters, BetterHelp officially launched in Australia this month (June, 2024).

To celebrate they offered a free trial for June, so I thought it was the perfect opportunity to give it a go and document my experience of getting therapy using the BetterHelp app. Read below to find out what worked well and what didn't.

Why I wanted to try BetterHelp

Being a father of twin toddlers and running my own business causes a lot of stress in my life, so I decided to take the leap and speak to a therapist about it to hopefully learn techniques to alleviate some of that stress.

I had previously been put off trying BetterHelp due to the high cost (read my previous post on how it compares to Medicare costs), and the fact that it's a subscription service, as I never felt I needed therapy indefinitely. But, the free trial made it easy for me to finally give it a whirl.

The signup process

To start I went through the questionnaire, which asked me a series of probing questions to help determine my current state of mind. These questions included things about my sleeping and eating habits, whether I'm religious and what issues I'm struggling with. I ticked the boxes for parenting and stress and continued.

The questionnaire took me around 5 minutes to complete, at which point I was prompted for my payment details. Thank god for the free trial as otherwise I would have had to fork out $360, without even knowing who my therapist would be yet.

BetterHelp's normal cost without the promotion is $110 per week ($476 per month), that's equivalent to almost 60 subscriptions to Netflix per month! A hefty investment for most people.

Waiting for my match

After putting in my payment details I landed on the main therapy application where I could communicate with my therapist and schedule sessions. I was instructed that they were looking for a therapist for me, which could take up to 48 hours, so in the meantime, I just waited for the email notification from them and took a look around the application.

Trying out the journal

I checked out the Journal feature, which turned out to just be a basic text box where I can write updates to myself with an option to share them with my therapist. I found this feature very underwhelming and was expecting a lot more, such as advice, prompts, assessments and clinical frameworks, but none of that was included.

Trying out the group classes

In addition to the journal, there are classes that I can book, which are essentially webinars that cover a range of mental health topics. Unfortunately, these are run by American therapists on American timezones, so all the classes are in the early morning, and as sleep deprivation is already one of my issues with young toddlers, I didn't fancy waking up at 3am to attend an online webinar.

Scheduling my first session

Exactly 28 hours later I got an email notification from BetterHelp that my match was in! I was pleasantly surprised that I was matched with an experienced Psychologist who specialises in stress. I had assumed that not very many Psychologists would be on BetterHelp, due to their notorious low pay, with therapists being paid as little as $45 for an hour session (as reported by this recent Guardian news article), as it turns out my assumption was proven correct when I went to switch therapist - more on this later.

Scheduling my first video session was easy and there was availability for the next day, which was great to see. I booked in for a few days at 9:45am and sent my therapist a welcome message and let her know that I was looking forward to our first video session. I was surprised the session may only be 30 minutes, so I decided to check this at the start of our session.

My first session was a disaster.

Excited to meet my therapist for the first time, I prepared a list of topics I wanted to discuss and found a quiet spot in my house. I jumped back on the BetterHelp application and clicked the join session button. The video player popped open with the "Waiting for your therapist to join video session" message. So I waited...

...and waited...

5 minutes...

10 minutes...

15 minutes...

After 20 minutes, I finally gave up. I left the session and sent a message to my therapist to check that everything was OK and to see if she was still available for another session.

I then jumped on the BetterHelp support page to let them know what happened and to see what I should do next, but because their support team are all running on American timezones, no one was available to help me. So I sent an email to their support team and gave up for the day.

Switching therapists

The next day I had a reply from their support team, where they apologised and gave me an additional session credit to make up for the missed session, which I felt was the very minimum they could do.

As I hadn't heard back from my therapist about the missed session I decided to roll the dice and switch to a different therapist.

I filled in information about the type of therapist and after a few issues with the page not loading I was finally shown a list of therapists to choose from. This time, there were no psychologists listed only counsellors, and while this isn't necessarily a bad thing (there are some great counsellors out there), it does limit the type of support available through BetterHelp. For those not familiar with the differences between psychologists and counsellors, check out the article What is the Difference Between a Counsellor and Psychologist?

As I couldn't find any therapist that suited me I decided to wait another 24-48 hours to be matched by BetterHelp. 24 hours later I was matched with a social worker, who didn't seem to specialise in the things I was looking for, but I thought I'd give it a go.

I again scheduled a session and this time my therapist did show up. My session went on for 40 minutes where we discussed different coping strategies as a new parent and ways I can relieve stress. Unfortunately, the advice all seemed very generic and I didn't make a connection with my therapist and decided she wasn't right for me.

Rather than switching to another therapist again, I decided to cancel my membership.

Cancelling my membership

After my 2 therapists did not work out and wasting over a week to have my first session I decided to cancel my membership before having to fork out the $476 to continue.

Although I had to jump through quite a few hoops to get there I did manage to cancel my subscription online.

Would I recommend BetterHelp?

No, I would not recommend BetterHelp in Australia and the main reasons for this are:

1. You have no control or visibility over who your therapist will be before being locked into a monthly subscription and paying a hefty fee

2. Not everyone requires a weekly therapy session indefinitely, most people see real benefits after having 5 to 6 sessions, so the weekly subscription is then wasted. The latest stats from Medicare show a person has an average of 5 sessions with their psychologist.

3. It's very expensive for what it is. It seems like the majority of people will be paying $110/week for a 30 minute video call with a counsellor. Given all Australians have access to Medicare rebates, it can work out a lot cheaper to see a qualified psychologist, to learn about the price difference check out my blog post on the comparison of BetterHelp and Medicare costs.

4. BetterHelp subscription is not covered by any private health insurance or government schemes (such as Medicare or NDIS). That means you lose access to all rebates and subsidies and have to pay out of pocket for everything.

5. Although they now have some Australian therapists, the support team and group classes all run in American time zones, which makes it difficult to use. This may change over time and improve as they become more established, but for now, it's another issue to navigate.

What's the alternative?

Choosing your own therapist and connecting with them directly can lead to a much better outcome for yourself at a fraction of the cost of BetterHelp.

You can also take advantage of free consultations, which enable you to have a short 15 minute video call with your therapist, free of charge, to ensure they are the right fit for you.