Headway vs. BetterHelp: Which Online Therapy is Better?

It turns out that virtual mental therapy, psychiatry, and medication management have recently become the most preferred pathways to holistic mental healthcare devoid of social stigma and embarrassment.

This is particularly true for patients whose emotional states were heavily compromised during the COVID-19 pandemic, which persisted even after it officially ended.

However, online mental healthcare platforms in the US are rising, considering the increasing demand for psychological well-being services from the comfort of your home.

The statistics from a national poll by the American Psychiatric Association confirm the above fact. It revealed that approximately 66 percent of American adults shifted to telehealth services in 2021.

These digital platforms are excellent and are doing a great job of simplifying access to mental healthcare. But choosing one particular service that best fits your needs has become more challenging now. I will compare Headway with BetterHelp in this article to help you take the next steps.

About BetterHelp

BetterHelp is an online mental therapy/psychotherapy or talk therapy platform founded by Danny Bragonier and Alon Matas in 2013. The company is based in Mountain View, California, but serves globally.

Providing economical, easily accessible, and convenient mental healthcare is the motto of the digital platform that has an extensive network of more than 30,000 licensed practitioners.

About Headway

Headway was primarily founded by CEO Andrew Adams along with co-founders Kevin Chan and Dan Ross in 2019. Andrew Adams’s constant struggle to find a good therapist who would accept his insurance inspired him to establish Headway.

The platform works like a search directory or a marketplace of mental healthcare providers. It helps people suffering from mental health issues to directly connect with licensed therapists/psychiatrists who take their insurance.

Headway vs. BetterHelp: Detailed Comparison

1. How does it Work?

Let’s see how both platforms work:

BetterHelp

BetterHelp provides subscription-based, easy access to good-quality virtual counseling via multiple modes of communication. It works like most virtual mental healthcare platforms out there. I was paired with my counselor a day after completing a detailed questionnaire.

My first few requests were rejected, so the matching process is based on the availability of the therapist, their location/state, your location/state, and individual consultation requirements.

I could easily talk to my therapist via chat, text message, phone, and video calls for up to 45 minutes.

BetterHelp does not provide psychiatric evaluation, diagnosis of mental illnesses, couples, and group therapy. However, here is the interesting part: if you are proactively invested in your psychotherapy treatment, there are a lot of supportive resources to improve treatment outcomes and help you stay on track at all times.

My mental therapy journey was supported by 150 digital worksheets, convenient progress tracking modules, access to a community forum, and over 20 insightful group seminars with experts, free of charge.

Headway

Unlike BetterHelp, Headway follows a pay-per-session pricing model, and it is essentially a therapist search directory.

The network of mental healthcare practitioners on this platform is not as wide as BetterHelp, but I would say the search filter-based method really stands apart. It helped me find the best providers based on precisely set criteria.

I could use multiple parameters to easily narrow down my search for therapy/psychiatry providers, such as my state, my insurance provider, my specific mental health concern, consultation requirement whether I needed talk therapy, medications, or psychiatric assistance, gender, ethnicity, mode of communication and so on.

This was quite hassle-free as I had upfront access to the profiles of all the shortlisted counselors/psychiatrists without having to sign up, log in, or answer extensive quizzes.

2. Pricing/Affordability

Let’s understand the pricing criteria of both platforms:

BetterHelp

BetterHelp is more of a therapist-pairing platform, but it also takes care of billing for you, unlike Headway, where you are not matched to a particular therapist/psychiatrist.

The platform follows a surge or dynamic pricing structure that calculates the overall cost of talk therapy based on factors such as your state, the qualifications, and experience of the therapist paired with you, the availability of your therapist, whether it is in sync with your availability, and so on.

You are expected to spend anywhere from $60 to $90 or more, depending on your specific therapy requirements.

I was charged $75 per week and was billed every four weeks. The benefit of this pricing model was that I could schedule as many sessions as needed in a week with my provider. Counselors may or may not accept this request, but I always have the option to switch providers.

So, if you think you may require multiple consultations in a week based on the severity of your mental issue, BetterHelp services are more cost-effective.

Headway

The primary task of this search directory is to process bills based on insurance plans because you will not be eligible to use Headway services if you do not have insurance.

Headway did not charge me directly because this was entirely dependent on how my provider functioned, our states of residence, my individual preferences, and how many sessions I had with him. Every consultation was chargeable for me, which is costly if there is no insurance coverage.

But your search criteria can even bring down per session cost to $8 or $10, which is great on the affordability front. It all boils down to your requirements and the therapists shortlisted to serve you.

3. Insurance Coverage

Below, I’ve explained the insurance coverage criteria:

BetterHelp

BetterHelp does not provide any insurance coverage, so it cannot be directly compared with Headway in this regard. You are eligible to get financial aid if you are a student, a veteran, or are underprivileged, and you can even use your HSA/FSA cards for payment.

The platform is definitely more affordable than conventional mental therapy as there is a straightforward monthly subscription plan. However, due to the dynamic pricing model, there will always be some uncertainty when it comes to the total cost of therapy.

Headway

Headway accepts most insurance carriers in the US, except Medicare and Medicaid.

There is a cost estimation calculator on the website that helped me evaluate minimum spending on my treatment. However, I was not quite happy with insurance processing and billing errors, so I would suggest avoiding the platform as it leads to a lot of back and forth.

4. Accessibility

BetterHelp

BetterHelp’s community of licensed providers is spread out throughout the globe, so patients in any corner of the world are free to connect with them.

Once you are matched with your therapist, you can even let them know about your language preferences. BetterHelp has mental health providers from around the world, so if you are lucky, you may find one who is fluent in your native tongue.

I would suggest discussing this with your therapist in the first session itself so you do not have to move out of your comfort zone every time a conversation happens. This way, you will be able to express more confidently and help your therapist understand you or your issues better.

Headway

Headway services are not yet available in all states in the US. However, if you live in a state where the platform is operational, the directory is equipped to help you find the right therapist who may be able to have conversations with you in your native language.

You can choose the language of your choice, and all the providers in relevant active areas/states/locations across the US fluent in that language will pop up on your screen.

Headway is currently active in 24 American states, which are as follows:

• Washington
• Virginia
• Texas
• Oklahoma
• Oregon
• Ohio
• Tennessee
• Pennsylvania
• Michigan
• North Carolina
• New Jersey
• Minnesota
• New York
• District of Columbia
• Maryland
• Massachusetts
• Florida
• Illinois
• Georgia
• Louisiana
• Arizona
• Connecticut
• California
• Colorado

The digital platform is in the process of expanding its services to other states, but BetterHelp seems to score higher due to its seamless accessibility.

5. Privacy

BetterHelp

BetterHelp is a HIPAA-compliant digital mental healthcare platform, and you can also use its services anonymously by signing up using a nickname. You can continue all your sessions without revealing your real name, but you may have to provide an emergency contact number to your therapist.

Despite promising complete data protection to clients, there are quite a lot of privacy concerns after the Federal Trade Commission accused the company of violating its privacy policy by compelling its patients to disclose sensitive health information and other personal details.

The platform has been fined by the FTC for unlawful disclosure of IP addresses and email addresses of around 5.6 million users to Snapchat. BetterHelp is also accused of selling the email IDs of roughly 2 million patients to Facebook without their consent for blatant promotion and advertising.

This seems like a huge blot on the otherwise clean reputation of BetterHelp.

Headway

Headway has a transparent privacy policy that mentions the platform collects quite a bit of patient information, such as their name, IP address, email address, postal address, username, password, phone number, purchase records, session recordings, age, gender, search history and more for:

• Data analysis to enhance user experience while using the platform
• Improving the quality of customer service
• Improvement of services 
• Marketing communications
• Providing customer support to individual patient accounts and more

6. Available Treatments

BetterHelp

BetterHelp only specializes in professional psychotherapy, also known as talk therapy, and the services are strictly available to adults aged 18 years and above.

The platform has come up with individual websites for counseling teenagers, couples, and people from the LGBTQ community. However, it is not authorized to provide any psychiatric treatments, medical diagnosis, or prescription management services.

BetterHelp caters to all categories of mental health problems. I am listing a few of them:

• Depression, anxiety, stress
• Body dysmorphic disorder
• ADHD
• Grief management
• Love, family issues
• Dementia
• Abuse
• Huntington’s disease
• Marriage problems
• The mental health of men and boys
• PTSD, panic attacks
• Neuroticism
• Paranoia
• Parenting issues
• Personality disorders
• Phobias
• Psychosis
• Impulse control disorder
• Bipolar disorder
• Midlife crisis and more

Headway

Headway addresses a wide range of mental disorders, but you can also specify your issues after scheduling a session in case your mental condition is not mentioned in the search filter:

• Anxiety
• ADD
• ADHD
• Bipolar Disorder
• Infertility issues
• Relationship problems
• PTSD
• Post-pregnancy problems
• Depression
• Anger management
• OCD
• Stress and trauma
• Family issues
• Eating disorders
• Sleeping disorder
• Women’s issues
• Men’s issues
• Grief and loss management
• Substance abuse issues
• LGBTQIA+ issues

7. Pros and Cons of BetterHelp

Let’s see some of the pros and cons of both platforms:

8. Pros and Cons of Headway

Conclusion

BetterHelp semi-automatically chooses the right provider for you based on your needs, whereas Headway gives more control and flexibility. It helps you pick a provider from a narrower list of nominated providers according to your criteria.

So, Headway may seem preferable, but it also has a ton of poor reviews. Unfortunately, its services are only available to those who have insurance support.

BetterHelp is more suitable for patients without insurance as the platform does not accept any insurance carriers, including Medicare and Medicaid. However, you will neither get any psychiatric treatments nor medication prescriptions or diagnoses for complex mental disorders.

Headway scores a mere 1.9 out of 5 on Trust Pilot, unlike BetterHelp, which has an excellent rating of 4.5 out of 5. You can go for BetterHelp if you need counseling, but try looking elsewhere if psychiatry or medication management is your goal. Alma could be a better choice than Headway.

I hope this gives you enough information to freeze your decision about which online therapy is better.