1) The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted mental health services and increased demand for self-care apps that support mental well-being. 2) Popular meditation apps like Calm and Headspace saw a surge in downloads in early 2020 and have continued growing their user bases. 3) The top meditation apps generated $195 million in revenue in 2019, a 52% year-over-year increase, showing strong and growing demand for mental wellness tools.

1. How to Build a
Mental Well-being
App?

2. Good mental health is absolutely
fundamental to overall health
and well-being,
Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus,
Director-General of the World Health Organization.

3. Time to Invest
in Mental Health
COVID-19 has interrupted essential mental
health services around the world.
Time to invest more in life-saving mental health
programmes during the pandemic and beyond.

4. Need of the Hour
- Self-care Apps
Self-care apps put people’s mental health and
well-being front and center.
These apps help people find serenity and happiness
through digital therapies. (And it works.)

5. More Reasons to
Build an App
Experts feel that with the stigma around mental illness
on the decline, the surge in self-care app usage has
become even more evident.
Some of these apps have witnessed tremendous
success within a few years of their launch.
2020

6. It's Time to
Build!
From habit-tracking to anxiety management, these
apps pretty much cover everything. As a result, the
demand for these apps has soared even higher.
Here's how you can build a mental well-being app.

7. Basic Features to Start Off with
The following are some of the basic features that you need to incorporate while creating such an app:
Registration Personal Profile Programs User Progress Gamification
Blogs Community Notifications Settings App Support

8. Ensure Customer
Satisfcation
Time to focus on specific app characteristics.
Quizzes
and Tests
Effective
Content
Minimal
Design
Data
Security
Artificial
Intelligence
Multilingual
Capability

9. Major Players | Major Growth
Some of the major players have witnessed a massive increase in their app downloads in April 2020.
According to Sensor Tower, in the first quarter of 2018, the top 10 grossing self-care apps
in the US earned $27 million in worldwide revenue.
Apps Number of Downloads
3.9 million downloads
1.5 million downloads
1.4 million downloads
Calm
Headspace
Meditopia

10. Thriving
Meditation App
Market
As per the latest reports, the top 10 meditation apps of 2019 made
a $195 million revenue, a whopping 52% year-over-year increase.
The revenue growth not only comes from an active user base but
also from first-time users. For instance, around 52 million first-time
users downloaded one of the top 10 meditation apps in 2019.
$0
$20m
2016 2017 2018 2019
$195m
$128m
$55m
$19m
$40m
$60m
$80m
$100m
$120m
$140m
$160m
$180m
$200m
$220m
Sensor tower store intelligence*

11. What's the
Subscription Model?
Many meditation apps have started offering free subscriptions
for healthcare workers amid this coronavirus pandemic.
These apps have waived off their annual subscription fees to
provide free coaching to help healthcare staff cope
with life’s uncertainties.
What would be your subscription model? Free? Premium?
Freemium? It is a business call!

12. Summing up
Although the wellness app market was a lucrative space for
investors even before the pandemic, we’ve seen unprecedented
growth in this sector in recent months, as more people
incorporate self-care practices into their personal spaces.
From March to May, Calm logged roughly 350 million sessions,
while Headspace, the second most-used, came in at around
150 million sessions.
350
million
sessions
Calm logged roughly
350 million sessions
Headspace, the second
most-used, came in at
around 150 million sessions
*
Apptopiadata*
150
million
sessions

13. Interested to
Launch Your Mental
Well-Being App?
If you’re looking to tap into this growing trend, create a self-care
app that provides users mental health support on-the-go and
gives you an edge over your peers.