BetterMe launched in 2017 to help “create a healthier world,” supporting everyone no matter their physical ability, age, or gender.

It stands behind a value of diversity and inclusivity, as well as simple accessibility. The four directional points in BetterMe’s compass include:

1. BetterMe’s Health Coaching App: What you’d consider its standard app, offering all-in-one AI-workout videos, meal plans, calorie and step trackers, food logs, and mindfulness education.
2. BetterMe’s (other) Mental Health App: Similar to the Calm app, this platform offers breathing exercises, guided meditations, and ambient sleep sounds for day- and nighttime balance and peace, plus access to mental coaching.
3. BetterMe’s Online Shop: Similar to Lululemon or Fabletics, BetterMe offers Men’s and Women’s workout Catsuits, athleisure wear, and stylish, nonstandard exercise equipment for Pilates, barre, and light weights. It also sells its own fitness tracker band.
4. BetterMe’s Business Platform: The brand’s solution to well-being for employees and a solid perk offering from employers. The BetterMe for Business platform offers a slew of 5- to 10-minute individual (in-office) or team (Zoom) exercises, a burnout prevention program. Each employee will also receive the Health Coaching App and the Mental Health App.

Healthline sent two testers into the BetterMe world to try out its experiences for a month. Additionally, our expert dietitian explored their website and provided her takeaways.

We investigated hard costs and dove into instruction, presentation, workout variety, meal practicality, and ease of use for logging water intake.

Though most of the workouts are Pilates-based, there’s an extensive library of workout types, including calisthenics, body weight, gym/treadmill, and modified workouts or active recovery routines.

Currin especially loved all the attention devoted to the degrees of physical ability. Accessible workouts include:

• back-pain relief
• dance for seniors
• injury-protecting
• injury recovery
• limb loss workouts
• osteoarthritis care and relief
• pre- and postpartum
• posture
• post-cast recovery
• tai chi
• wheelchair fitness
• wheelchair recovery

You do receive a custom workout routine based on your intake questionnaire, but there’s a neatly organized workout library in the app if you want to improvise.

Currin said: “I really liked how it almost seems as though you can run through an entire week of workouts and not repeat an exercise twice! They are very varied in workout options and durations. I liked being able to add my Spotify to integrate my music, but I’ll be honest, they played the instrumental version of popular music, and I enjoyed it!”

Filtering workouts is only possible within each workout type bucket. But you can narrow it down by:

• body focus
• duration
• equipment
• experience level

Currin and Murray were surprised at the AI-powered fitness instruction.

“It was a little jarring at first sight because I was like ‘this lady is moving funny.’ It took me a beat to realize it was an AI video but after that, you kind of fall into step. It was just that some of the movements didn’t seem possible for me — especially when you’re up against a wall,” Currin said. She wished that, at those moments, there was a real person with an average body demonstrating.

“But other than that, I liked the cadence of the demonstration, then the ‘now you try it’ phase.” Murray agreed.

“The timers and videos that are provided with the workouts are super helpful; they even have the techniques showing during the cool-down timers, so you can ensure you have the right form.”

Murray also felt that “BetterMe’s workouts are impressively well-suggested and tailored to individual fitness goals, offering a personalized and effective experience. The app’s intuitive approach and varied exercise routines ensure that users stay motivated and can easily track their progress. Overall, BetterMe provides a comprehensive and engaging workout solution that seems to cater to a wide range of fitness levels and preferences.”

The Meal Planning section offers a range of cuisines for your dietary style, including:

• Balanced
• Bulking
• Cutting
• Gluten-Free
• Keto
• Lactose-Free
• Mediterranean
• Paleo
• Pescatarian
• Traditional
• Type 1 Diabetes
• Type 2 Diabetes
• Vegan
• Vegetarian
• Keto Vegan
• Fish-Free Keto
• Fish-Free Keto Without Eggs
• Fish-Free Traditional
• Egg-Free Keto
• Egg-Free Pescatarian Keto
• Egg-Free Keto Without Nuts
• Egg-Free Traditional
• Pescatarian Keto
• Nut-Free Keto
• Fish-Free Keto Without Eggs
• Nut-Free Keto Vegan

There are a few bugs in BetterMe’s programming. For example, under the Calorie Tracker info, Currin’s Cuisine was listed as “English” instead of her app-recommended “Mediterranean Diet.”

Murray explored the meal-planning section and said: “I found the nutrition and diet section to be somewhat lacking, as it could benefit from more detailed meal plans and dietary guidance. Overall, it’s a solid choice for those seeking fitness support, though improvements in the nutrition aspect would make it even better.”

Currin didn’t love that the water logging didn’t offer 20-ounce increments for her. “Maybe it only allows you measurements that total your daily recommended intake but I think it should offer all standard cup or bottle sizes. If you go over or under, that’s on the individual, methinks.”

BetterMe offers manual intermittent fasting tracking that also allows you to customize your fasting time ratio plus educate you on fasting tips, facts, and science. You also have a view of your weekly stats.

Currin was motivated to return to 16:8 fasting after stopping for several years due to unrelated health issues.

“I was ready to get back on the bandwagon, and BetterMe made it a gentle segue. I was even nervous about being hungry, the potential for cluster headaches, and fatigue, and I found the educational components super helpful. There was an [education] lesson on how you can start your day with coffee, even butter in your coffee, to help stay your hunger while not breaking your fast.”

The Mindfulness Section of BetterMe offers educational sections you can read as slides or listen to the 3-minute lessons on self-control, ruminations, negativity, and your thought life as it relates to nutrition and fitness.

Currin noticed the AI narration on mindfulness mispronounced some words, like “catastrophizing,” which, for her, threw off the credibility and authoritativeness of the mindfulness coaching lesson.

For an extra fee, you can engage in fitness challenges and direct message a BetterMe coach.

Currin found the online apparel and equipment store interesting. She observed it sold barre, Pilates, and light “sculpt” weight equipment that looked trendy, svelte, and high end. BetterMe also sells athleisure and workout gear.

“The men’s ‘catsuits’ stood out to me. I don’t know what its sales are like but BetterMe retail site definitely makes what could be considered sexy contouring bodysuits and other athleisure nonbinary and available to all.”

BetterMe’s fitness band and tandem fitness tracking app is regularly $129.99 but is presently on sale for $59. Replacement straps are just $14.

Yes, there is an option to cancel by turning off “auto-renewal” in your account’s subscriptions settings if you signed up on your desktop. Otherwise, subscription will renew at the end of each subscription period — weekly, monthly, or every 3, 6, or 12 months.

If you signed up in your mobile app, you’ll need to cancel within your iPhone or Android app store subscription on your phone.

At 2 weeks, both Currin and Murray felt BetterMe helped build habits that could eventually lead to more awareness, nutritional mindfulness, and fitness, if-not desired weight changes. Here’s how to get started.

Our reviewers do not recommend the desktop version of the intake questionnaire but say getting started on mobile is your best bet.

“The registration process took a matter of maybe 8 minutes and was super easy. I went through my usual browser, so even the payment process went super quick, since everything was auto-filled,” Murray said.

Currin’s take wasn’t to far off.

“It took me less than 10 minutes [to create an account]. I found it just OK. I felt it was limiting in the body types and BMI conclusions. I didn’t find it culturally inclusive, and I found the exaggerated illustrated options for your “dream body” and avatar a turn-off.”

She adds that: “The examples of body types was also limiting and inaccurate to me. The ‘woman’ had the same large boobs, and just her stomach and arms got bigger and bigger when you had to choose your weight category or body shape/body type.”

Currin said she did like the first-person example quotes it gave on certain questions to prompt how you view yourself. “They were relatable and helped me answer queries.”

Both testers liked that the personalization of your profile doesn’t feel overwhelming. You can select your own image or keep their avatar, you can choose to track water and/or intermittent fasting. You can also select your cuisine type to help you reach your fitness goals while still fitting your preferences or dietary limitations.

BetterMe seems to be a highly inclusive option for a range of mobility and physical nuances. Users praise its simplicity with workouts, water and step tracking, and healthy recipes for many diet types.

However, our testers and some users didn’t love the embedded pricing and inflexibility with contacting customer service, ambiguous charges, and refund difficulty. Our expert and reviewers also didn’t love the gendered and stigmatizing body imagery along with the lack of cultural competency with weight stigma and “dream” body types.

But if you can get past the imagery and stick to the tools and resources you want to utilize, this may just be the simplest and most accessible fitness app for all ages and mobility stages.

If you’re interested in trying BetterMe, you can get started below.