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HelpGuide surveyed real Brightside Health users and our staff personally tested this online therapy and psychiatry platform to rate it on provider quality, value, user experience, and overall satisfaction.
HelpGuide surveyed real Brightside Health users and our staff personally tested this online therapy and psychiatry platform to rate it on provider quality, value, user experience, and overall satisfaction.
We independently test and review all of the services we recommend. When you sign up through our links, we may earn a commission, which helps support our nonprofit mission.
Brightside Health is a mental health platform that specializes in the treatment of depression and anxiety disorders, along with related conditions such as bipolar disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), and insomnia. The platform offers individual and teen therapy, psychiatry, intensive outpatient programs, and a suicide prevention program. Brightside is available in all 50 states and Washington D.C., and accepts major insurance plans such as Aetna, Cigna, Anthem, UnitedHealthcare, and Ambetter. It also accepts some Medicare and Medicaid plans.
While insurance co-pays average $15 to $30, depending on your plan and deductible, you can also pay out of pocket for both therapy and psychiatry services. Brightside charges a monthly therapy subscription fee of $299 that includes weekly, 45-minute video sessions. Brightside’s psychiatry plan costs $95 per month, or you can combine therapy and psychiatry for a monthly fee of $349.
As part of our in-depth review of the platform, we surveyed over 200 real Brightside users in May and June, 2025 and two of our staff members conducted hands-on testing. One of our staff testers attended weekly online therapy sessions and had an initial consultation with a psychiatry provider. A second tester signed up for just online psychiatry. As well as attending live sessions, our testers messaged their providers between sessions, contacted customer service, and used the extra features the platform offers, such as video tutorials.
Brightside earned largely favorable feedback for both online therapy and online psychiatry from our user surveys and our own testing experiences. Our staff testers appreciated the same- and next-day appointments that were available on Brightside. In our surveys, 68 percent of Brightside therapy users and 53 percent of Brightside psychiatry users managed to get a first appointment within three days. Where Brightside felt short for us was not enabling users to view a provider’s bio before booking an appointment—you can just see their name and type of license. Feedback from testers and users reported high levels of provider satisfaction, though. 85 percent of therapy users and 87 percent of psychiatry users were satisfied or very satisfied with the care they received on the platform.
HelpGuide’s in-house testers had very positive experiences during their online therapy and online psychiatry sessions. Similarly, 85 percent of Brightside therapy users and 87 percent of Brightside psychiatry users were satisfied or very satisfied with their experiences on the platform.
Our staff tester reported that rather than matching you with a single provider, Brightside offers you a list of therapists to choose from. However, the platform only supplies a name and license type for each therapist. You can’t read any more about them until after booking an appointment. To make an informed choice of therapist, our staff tester had to Google each name to find out details such as their background and experience, the type of therapy they practice, and their focuses or specialities. Since the most important factor in effective therapy is finding a therapist who’s a good fit for you, we’d like to see Brightside offer much more upfront information about their providers. 53 percent of the therapy users we surveyed had to try at least two therapists on Brightside to find the right match.
Once he selected a therapist, our staff tester was able to book a next-day appointment. His first session began with the therapist explaining telehealth laws, how a crisis would be handled, and reminding him that everything he said was strictly confidential. Our tester felt she was extremely professional and was able to quickly put him at ease. For the rest of the session, the therapist explored how our tester was feeling, the issues he was facing, and what he hoped to get out of therapy. The session finished with the therapist messaging him some extra materials to look over and some mental health exercises to try.
Despite considering his first therapist a good fit, for the purposes of testing our staff member switched therapists and found it a simple process—although he was again irritated about not being offered more information about the therapists available. His second therapist proved an equally good fit, though. Our tester summed up his experience on Brightside as: “Very good. The platform was easy to navigate and the therapists were knowledgeable and goal-driven.”
Our survey respondents reported benefits such as: “I’m able to manage life’s roadblocks with a more positive mindset,” “I learned how to talk myself down from negative thinking,” and “I have improved focus and confidence.”
Our staff testers reported that signing up for psychiatry on Brightside was a little faster than therapy. Like 71 percent of our survey respondents, our testers completed the process in less than 20 minutes. Since Brightside doesn’t reveal background information on its psychiatric providers until after you book an appointment, our testers were forced to do additional research off the platform before making their choices.
Despite this inconvenience, both testers were able to book appointments within two days (83 percent of users secured an appointment within six days). Our staff testers also found providers on Brightside who were empathetic, understanding, and a good match for their needs. All the providers offered were psychiatric mental health nurse practitioners (PMHNPs) rather than psychiatrists. This was true of just 18 percent of our survey respondents; 51 percent of users were matched with a psychiatrist.
In their sessions, our staff testers asked detailed questions about the medications their providers suggested, how they worked, and any common side effects they should look out for. They were both impressed with the thoroughness of the answers they received. One tester asked for more time to think about the options the nurse practitioner had offered. “She told me to take as much time as I needed and that she was available to be contacted through the platform whenever I was ready.”
Our second tester was equally impressed. His provider “explained the pros and cons of different medications very clearly and was able to answer all my questions in great detail.” He felt comfortable trusting her recommendations and both testers compared their experiences favorably with in-person psychiatry.
The Brightside users we surveyed were also impressed with the quality of their experiences. 83 percent would recommend Brightside’s online psychiatry services to a friend or colleague. “Everything felt organized and efficient, from sign-up to follow-up,” reported one user. “It was encouraging to work with a provider who truly listened,” said another.
Brightside Health accepts many major insurance plans for its mental health services. When paying out-of-pocket, it operates on a monthly subscription model for both online therapy and psychiatry. The platform’s out-of-pocket psychiatry prices are among the lowest we found and online therapy is also very competitively priced.
| Brightside Health cost | Average competitor cost | Average in-person cost | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Therapy, out-of-pocket | $75 per session | $60-200+ | $100-200+ |
| Therapy, with Insurance | $15-30 average copay | $0-50 average copay | $0-50 average copay |
| Psychiatry, out-of-pocket | $95 per initial appointment, $95 per follow-up | $95-299 initial appointment, $95-200 per follow-up | $150-700+ for initial appointment, $150-400 per follow-up |
| Psychiatry, with Insurance | $15-30 average copay | $0-50 average copay | $0-50 average copay |
The aspects of Brightside Health that stood out the most for us included the platform’s:
Affordable self-pay costs. 26 percent of Brightside users paid for therapy on Brightside out-of-pocket with no insurance. Brightside’s monthly subscription fee for therapy is $299, which works out to about $75 per live session, a little more than BetterHelp or OnlineTherapy.com, for example, but neither of those platforms offers psychiatry. Brightside’s out-of-pocket cost for psychiatry is just $95 per month, one of the lowest self-pay costs we found. Combining therapy and psychiatry can be an even better value at a monthly out-of-pocket cost of $349. Also, 24 percent of users we surveyed managed to obtain financial aid or discounted pricing from Brightside.
Quality providers. “My therapist was easy to talk to,” said one Brightside user. “I felt like I was taken seriously and treated with compassion,” noted another about their psychiatric provider. These sentiments were mirrored by our staff testers and our survey respondents as a whole. There will inevitably be good and bad providers on any platform, but the overall feedback on Brightside was very favorable. 79 percent of users rated their therapist’s level of empathy and understanding as high or very high, while 84 percent thought their psychiatric provider was responsive or very responsive to their questions and concerns.
Based on our testing and user feedback, we feel Brightside Health could improve in the following areas:
Provider biographies. To get the most out of online therapy or psychiatry, it’s crucial to find a provider who makes you feel understood, supported, and cared about. When Brightside offers you a selection of available therapists or psychiatrists, though, it doesn’t provide any information beyond the person’s name and qualifications—until after you’ve booked an appointment. Our staff testers were forced to research each provider elsewhere, which proved a major frustration. When you’re trying to find someone who you’ll feel comfortable opening up to about intimate subjects, the more information a platform can offer about them, the better.
Length of questionnaire. Our staff tester completed his therapy sign-up in about 15 minutes but noted that he had to answer a total of 93 questions. 43 percent of users felt that reducing the length of the questionnaire would improve the sign-up process. Our staff tester acknowledged that such an in-depth screening can help produce suitable matches, but if you’re in a fragile state or anxious to start therapy as soon as possible, it could feel a little overwhelming.
Brightside Health scored consistently well in our research and testing across multiple categories. It is one of our top picks for Best Online Therapy Platforms, Best Online Therapy Platforms that Take Insurance, and Best Online Psychiatrist Platforms.
As well as accepting major insurance plans to pay for online mental health care, Brightside also offers affordable out-of-pocket prices, especially for online psychiatry or when combining online therapy with psychiatry.
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