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HelpGuide’s staff surveyed real users and personally tested Talkspace to rate the platform on therapist and psychiatrist quality, affordability, privacy and security, user experience, and effectiveness.
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Talkspace is one of the largest online therapy platforms in the United States (it is also available in countries such as Canada and the UK) and offers individual, teen, and couples therapy as well as online psychiatry. The platform accepts insurance from major providers such as Aetna, Anthem, Cigna, Optum, Regence, TRICARE, and Blue Cross Blue Shield, with an average copay of $15-30. If you’re paying out of pocket, Talkspace offers a messaging-only therapy plan for $69 per week or live video sessions for $99 per week. Psychiatry services are $299 for an initial appointment, and $175 for follow-up sessions.
Our team surveyed over 200 Talkspace users and tried out the platform for ourselves. Both the survey responses from real Talkspace users and our testing experiences were largely favorable for both online therapy and online psychiatry. Here’s what we found:
Talkspace allows you to pay for mental health care with or without insurance. When paying out of pocket for therapy, both our testing and user feedback found that Talkspace delivered good value. The cost of out-of-pocket psychiatry, however, was on the higher end, although the users we surveyed still felt it was good value for the quality of care they received.
| Talkspace cost | Average competitor cost | Average in-person cost | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Therapy, out-of-pocket | $69 – 109 | $60-200+ | $100-200+ |
| Therapy, with Insurance | $15-30 average copay | $0-50 average copay | $0-50 average copay |
| Psychiatry, out-of-pocket | $299 initial appointment, $175 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 |
Our sessions on Talkspace for both online therapy and online psychiatry were extremely positive. These results were largely mirrored in our surveys of Talkspace therapy and Talkspace psychiatry users:
Below, we share our hands-on experiences with Talkspace’s therapy and psychiatry services, along with additional insights from surveyed users.
We felt that the first Talkspace therapist we matched with was an excellent fit. He seemed very understanding and empathetic, with a good sense of humor. 82 percent of the Talkspace users we surveyed also felt that their therapists were empathetic and understanding.
Our first session lasted for longer than the scheduled hour and went beyond the usual intake questions that we expected in an initial session. The session was productive, and we appreciated the therapist’s insights and observations. The therapist offered some helpful CBT techniques to practice before the next session.
The subsequent sessions continued in an equally productive way. Each session felt quite loose and casual rather than structured and formal. When we messaged the therapist between sessions with questions or updates, we received responses within a few hours.
We would have been happy continuing therapy with the first provider, but as part of testing, we went through the process of changing therapists. Only 23 percent of the Talkspace users we surveyed tried to switch therapists, and of those, the vast majority felt it was an easy process. We felt the same. When switching, you can keep or revise the preferences you selected during the sign-up process (you can choose a different gender of therapist or one who specializes in a different condition, for example). Then you’re provided a list of new therapists to choose from (in our case, we were given five options).
86 percent of our survey respondents would use Talkspace again, and only two percent reported that they were less than satisfied with the quality of therapy. 77 percent felt they’d made real progress towards their personal goals. “I have better coping skills and less anxiety,” reported one Talkspace user. “I feel more aware of my feelings and how to help myself,” said another.
While our insurance check for online therapy took just moments to approve, it was a more complicated process when signing up for online psychiatry. Despite being covered for online psychiatry, Talkspace was unable to verify our insurance, even after we submitted an insurance card and ID. Rather than delay further, we chose to pay out of pocket instead.
As with therapy, we were quickly matched with a psychiatry provider (this time, within just two hours). The provider was a psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner (PMHNP), and her earliest appointment available was over a week away. This long wait for an appointment wasn’t reflected in our survey of Talkspace psychiatry users. 71 percent of respondents were able to make their first appointment within three days, 93 percent within six days. And it should be noted that when scheduling in-person psychiatry, wait times are often much longer.
We were impressed by the psychiatric provider. She was empathetic and understanding, easy to talk to, and reassuringly thorough in her assessment. The initial appointment included a crisis screening and a detailed assessment of symptoms and medical history. We appreciated how cautious the provider was about prescribing medication unnecessarily. The nurse practitioner recommended blood work to rule out underlying causes, rather than simply prescribing medication, seemed a responsible first step.
While initial psychiatry appointments on Talkspace are scheduled for 60 minutes, the provider managed to cover everything in about half that time. At the end of the appointment, the nurse practitioner initially wanted to schedule a follow-up appointment in three weeks. However, once she realized we were paying out of pocket, she pushed that to four weeks to help manage the expense—another thoughtful touch.
Talkspace users we surveyed had similarly positive experiences with their providers and the quality of psychiatric care. 84 percent of psychiatry users reported making real progress towards their goals. “I felt heard and validated throughout my entire Talkspace experience,” said one of the users we surveyed.” Talkspace felt like a modern, flexible way to get psychiatric care,” said another.
These aspects of Talkspace stood out the most for us:
Quick insurance check. Talkspace accepts most major insurance plans and allows you to check your insurance coverage and find out what your co-pay will be without having to create an account (most other platforms require you to create an account first). This alone makes it worth checking Talkspace when shopping around for online therapy using your health benefits.
Intuitive matching process. Being matched with a provider isn’t for everyone. Some users prefer to choose from a list of available therapists or psychiatrists, where they can research and compare providers’ qualifications and backgrounds. Others find that being matched can be a good way to get started quickly. As it is, both our staff tester and our survey respondents were overwhelmingly pleased with the providers they were initially matched with. Only 23 percent of Talkspace therapy users and 20 percent of Talkspace psychiatry users felt the need to switch providers. If your provider isn’t a good match, switching is simple—83 percent of therapy users and 90 percent of psychiatry users who switched thought it was an easy or very easy process. When switching, the platform generates a list of suitable providers for you to choose from.
High-quality care. Both our hands-on testing and our survey responses revealed widespread satisfaction with the level of care offered on Talkspace, as well as the wide selection of therapists and psychiatry providers. We were impressed with the thoroughness and effectiveness of all our providers on the platform. Similarly, 92 percent of users rated the experiences with their therapists highly or very highly. 86 percent of psychiatry users on the platform reported that they were satisfied or very satisfied with the medication management and psychiatric care they received from Talkspace.
Based on our testing and user feedback, we feel Talkspace could improve in the following areas:
Self-pay cost of psychiatry. If you’re on a budget and paying out of pocket for psychiatric care, Talkspace may not be the ideal choice. Its self-pay costs for psychiatry and medication management services are at the high end of the platforms we reviewed. That said, most (85 percent) of the Talkspace psychiatry users we surveyed considered the platform to be a good or very good value.
The length of the questionnaires. Our hands-on testing and user feedback differed on this point. We completed the sign-up process in under 20 minutes, as did 80 percent of the Talkspace users we surveyed. Still, 33 percent of our survey respondents felt the intake questionnaire was too long and 34 percent found some of the questions unclear.
We felt the detail of the questionnaires and crisis screeners was necessary for a reliable provider match. But if you’re someone easily frustrated by answering questions, a platform where you simply select a provider from a list may be a better fit.
Ease of deleting your personal information. In the U.S., your personal health information is protected under HIPAA and Talkspace clearly states on its website that it “will not share or disclose your personal information to anyone.” However, once you’ve finished treatment, you can ask for the platform to delete from its records all the information you’ve disclosed in questionnaires and to your providers. You can also request that your data be similarly deleted. To achieve this, we had to contact customer support and fill out various forms, a process that we felt could’ve been made simpler. Some other platforms require just a single email to achieve the same thing. That said, the majority of the users we surveyed (79 percent) felt confident or very confident that Talkspace would protect their personal information.
We selected Talkspace as one of our top picks for Best Online Therapy Platforms, Best Online Therapy Platforms that Take Insurance, Best Online Psychiatrist Platforms, and Best Online Couples Therapy Platforms. The platform has consistently received high marks from HelpGuide testers and survey respondents for both its therapy and psychiatry services.
If you’re using insurance to pay for online mental health care, Talkspace is worth considering for its wide selection of providers and overall quality of care. Talkspace’s out-of-pocket fees for therapy are also competitive. However, if you’re looking to self-pay for psychiatry, you may be able to find better value elsewhere.
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