The short answer
A free pacer does the pacing job. If what you want is a cue that says breathe in now, hold now, breathe out now, there is one at the top of this page, and your first three sessions cost nothing and ask nothing of you. After that this site charges too — one plan, $10 a month or $100 a year — and it should be said plainly that paying does not make anyone better at counting to four.
What the paid apps sell is a different product wearing similar clothes. They sell a library: recorded voices, courses that run for weeks, music, sleep stories, teacher personalities, and the small machinery of habit — streaks, reminders, a graph that goes up. Some of that is genuinely good, and for some people it is the thing that turns an intention into a practice. But it is not pacing. Nobody has a proprietary version of 4-7-8. The pattern is four counts in, seven held, eight out, everywhere, forever, for free.
So the useful question is not which breathing app is best. It is: do you need a metronome, or do you need a teacher? This page answers the first question in about ten seconds and the second one honestly, with the current prices next to each name.
What you are actually paying for
Every subscription in the table below buys some combination of five things. It is worth knowing which one you want before you pay for all five.
- A voice. Somebody talking you through it, so you are following instead of deciding. This is the single biggest thing a free pacer cannot give you, and for people who find silence uncomfortable it is worth the money on its own.
- A curriculum. A sequence that starts easy and builds, so you do not have to design your own practice. Headspace built its whole business on this.
- Production. Recorded music, sound design, sleep stories, celebrity narrators. Expensive to make, and the main reason a meditation subscription costs what a streaming service costs.
- Habit machinery. Reminders, streaks, history, a progress screen. Real value if it works on you, and mildly corrosive if it turns a calm practice into a chore you are failing at.
- Hardware. One product here is a physical object rather than software, which is a genuinely different experience and a genuinely different price.
What you are never paying for is a better pattern. If a paid app has a technique you like, you can run the same counts on any free timer, including this one. That is not a criticism of paid apps; it is just what the product actually is.
Breathing apps and prices, September 2026
Everything in this table was read off the vendor's own listing on 13 September 2026, in US dollars unless stated. Prices differ by country, they change without warning, and buying inside an app can cost more than buying on the vendor's website. Where a listing does not label what a price buys, this table says so instead of guessing.
| App | Price | Free tier | Offline | Runs without an account | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Help Me Breathe | Three sessions free, then one plan: $10 a month or $100 a year, with three days free first. | Three sessions, with everything that paces: all seven patterns, every session length, audio and vibration cues. The pages for anxious moments and panic attacks run without limit. | Yes — installs as a web app and keeps running with no connection. | For the first three sessions. After that, an account and the plan. | Pacing a pattern you already know, right now, on whatever device is in your hand. |
| Headspace | $12.99 monthly, $69.99 annually. Listing also shows a $94.99 purchase. | A free trial. The listing does not itemise what stays free afterwards, so the size of the free tier is not verified. | Not verified — the listing does not mention offline downloads. | No | A teacher, a course structure and a produced library with a consistent voice. |
| Calm | $14.99 monthly, $69.99 annually. The listing also shows Premium at $79.99, $29.99 and $16.99 without saying what period each covers. | The listing says Calm "is free to download and use" and that some of its programs and features stay free permanently, without saying which, so the scope is not verified. | Not verified — the listing does not mention offline downloads. | No | Sleep stories, music and a wide relaxation catalogue where breathing is one shelf among many. |
| Breathwrk | $9.00 monthly, listed as "Breathwrk Premium 900 Monthly". Pro purchases from $1.99 up to $69.99 also appear with no billing period labelled — those periods are not verified. | Free to download. The listing does not itemise what stays free, so the size of the free tier is not verified. | "Offline Access" is listed as a feature. | No | A deep, breathwork-only catalogue, and the cheapest monthly subscription on this page. |
| Othership | $17.99 monthly, $129.99 yearly. | Five sessions, rotating: the listing says it keeps "5 free sessions on our app that rotate regularly". The guided journeys are the paid product. | Not verified. | No | Long, musical, emotionally intense guided breathwork rather than a quick reset. |
| Breathe+ (iOS) | $9.99 monthly, $29.99 yearly, or a one-time $69.99 unlock. Ads removable for $3.99. | Free to download, ad-supported (ads removable as a separate purchase). The listing describes 1–60 minute sessions, adjustable inhale and exhale lengths and optional holds, but does not say which of those sit behind the paid unlock — so the size of the free tier is not verified. | Not verified. | Not verified. | An iPhone-native pacer where you can pay once instead of subscribing. |
| moonbird (device) | €179 for the device. App Premium exists with a 7-day trial — its price is not stated on the page, so: price not verified. | The basic app is included with the device. | Not verified. | Not verified. | Following a breath by touch instead of by screen, especially at night. |
Three notes on the table. The offline column is mostly empty on purpose. App Store listings are marketing pages, and only Breathwrk's actually names offline access as a feature; for the others the listing simply does not say, so we have not filled the gap from memory or from a review site. If offline matters to you, the reliable test is the one in the next section: put the phone in airplane mode and open the app. And Breathwrk's App Store listing now names Peloton Interactive, Inc. as the seller, and states that "Peloton All Access, Guide and App+ Members have Breathwrk provided for free as part of their membership" — so if you already pay Peloton, check before you pay twice, and treat the app's roadmap as a fitness company's roadmap rather than an independent studio's. And every paid product in that list needs an account, this site included once its three free sessions are used, because a subscription has to be attached to something; the honest difference between them is how many sessions you get before that point, and the price after it. Until September 2026 the account column was the one where this site won outright. It no longer is, and the table says so rather than quietly dropping the column.
How to test a breathing app in ten minutes
Reviews are less useful here than a short, structured try. The differences that matter are all things you can feel in one sitting.
- Pick one pattern and stick to it. Use box breathing or a simple five-in, five-out. Testing three apps on three different patterns tells you nothing.
- Run five minutes in each one, sitting in the same chair. Same time of day if you can. Your nervous system is the instrument, so keep the other variables still.
- Watch what happens in the first fifteen seconds. Count the taps between opening the app and breathing. One is good. Four, plus a subscription screen, is a tax you will pay every single day.
- Turn the screen away and see if you can still follow. A good pacer works by sound or by feel. If you have to keep looking at it, it will not survive a dark bedroom.
- Try it in airplane mode. This is where a lot of subscription apps quietly fail, and it is exactly the moment — a plane, a hospital corridor, a basement — when you most want it.
- Notice how you feel about being sold to. If a session ends and the app immediately shows you a streak you broke and an upgrade offer, ask whether that is what you want attached to your calmest three minutes.
Score them on those six and the decision usually makes itself. In our experience the free pacer wins on speed and offline, and the paid app wins the moment you want somebody else to decide what you are doing today.
When paying is worth it, and when it is not
Pay when
- You want a voice. Following instructions is a different psychological experience from following a circle, and for many people it is the difference between practising and meaning to practise.
- You want a course. If "what should I do today" is the thing that stops you, a curriculum is worth $70 a year.
- You are buying sleep audio, not breathing. Calm's sleep catalogue is a real product; just be honest that you are buying stories and music.
- You already practise daily and want to go deeper into breathwork specifically. That is where a dedicated app earns its keep over a general meditation subscription.
- Screens are the problem. Then you are shopping for hardware, not software.
Do not pay when
- You want a timer. You have one. It is free and it is above this paragraph.
- You are buying it to make yourself start. A subscription is not motivation; it is a monthly reminder that you are not using it.
- You need it at 3am tonight. Set up nothing. Open a pacer and breathe.
- You are in a difficult moment right now. Go to breathing for anxious moments instead of shopping. That page has no ads, no upsell and no affiliate links, on purpose.
- The free tier already covers you. Every app in the table is free to download, and several of them leave something usable outside the paywall — five rotating sessions here, a working pacer there. Live inside the free tier for a fortnight before you decide the paid layer is the part you were missing.
The case for and against a breathing device
Devices are the one category where the "just use a free pacer" answer gets weaker, so it deserves a fair hearing.
moonbird is a handheld object that physically expands and contracts. You hold it, your hand follows it, and your breath follows your hand. Its own store page lists it at €179, says the basic app is included, and offers a 30-day money-back guarantee. The premium app tier starts with a 7-day trial; the page does not publish what it costs afterwards, so we are not going to invent a number — that price is not verified.
The case for it is specific and real. It works with your eyes closed, which a screen cannot. It does not need to be unlocked, which means it does not put you three taps from your inbox at 2am. It suits people who find counting itself stressful, and people — a child, a grandparent, someone mid-panic — for whom any interface is one thing too many. Whether following a breath by touch is easier than following it by sight is something you would have to test on yourself — we have not found a trial that compares the two — but it is a genuinely different sensory route, and it is not one a web page can offer you.
The case against is equally simple. It is €179 for a job a circle on a screen does for nothing, and the practice, not the object, is what produces the effect. If you have not yet breathed deliberately for five minutes a day for two weeks, a device will not create that habit; it will just be an expensive reminder of it. That is why the honest recommendation is sequenced: use the free timer daily for a fortnight, and only then decide whether the thing you are missing is hardware.
If you decide a physical pacer is what you want
moonbird's own store is the place to buy it. Buying direct rather than through a marketplace is deliberate: the vendor's own store is what carries the 30-day money-back guarantee it advertises, and we do not use marketplace affiliate links anywhere on this site. This is an affiliate link — if you buy, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you.
If you want a library and a teacher
There is one paid app on this page we are willing to point at, and we will be plain about why. Headspace is the best-built version of the thing a free pacer cannot be: a structured course with a consistent voice, made by people who have been refining the same idea for over a decade. Its US App Store listing showed $12.99 monthly and $69.99 annually on 13 September 2026. If the reason you are not practising is that you do not know what to do, that is a fair price for someone telling you.
Calm is a comparable product at a comparable price, and to our ear its sleep catalogue is the stronger of the two. We do not link it. We could not find an affiliate program for Calm, so a link from us would earn nothing anyway, and rather than dress that up as editorial independence, we would rather tell you the mechanics: we are showing you the price and letting you find it yourself.
Headspace
A guided meditation and sleep library with breathing exercises inside it. $12.99 a month or $69.99 a year on the US App Store as of 13 September 2026, after a free trial. See Headspace's current pricing — this is an affiliate link, and we may earn a commission if you subscribe, at no extra cost to you. If all you wanted was the breathing, the free timer above is genuinely the better answer.
Before you buy anything that involves holds or fast breathing
Most of the paid catalogues include patterns that go well beyond slow, even breathing: long breath retentions, rapid hyperventilation-style rounds, and "energizing" sessions. Those are not equivalent to a five-in, five-out pacer, and no app screens you before selling you one.
Do not practise breath holds or fast breathing, in any app, if any of these apply
- You are pregnant.
- You have a cardiovascular condition, or uncontrolled high blood pressure.
- You have epilepsy or any seizure disorder.
- You have asthma, COPD or another respiratory condition, unless your clinician has cleared it.
- You have had surgery recently, or you have glaucoma or raised eye pressure.
- You have panic disorder — breath holds in particular can trigger the exact sensations you are trying to settle.
Never practise fast breathing or holds in water, while driving, or standing up. If you feel dizzy, tingly or lightheaded, stop and breathe normally. On this site, the energizing breath timer asks you to confirm you have read its safety note before it will start, and slow patterns like heart coherence breathing carry none of this risk.
What the evidence shows
The research supports the practice, not any particular app. In a randomised study of 108 participants published in Cell Reports Medicine, one month of a daily five-minute exercise found that "breathwork, especially the exhale-focused cyclic sighing, produces greater improvement in mood (p < 0.05) and reduction in respiratory rate (p < 0.05) compared with mindfulness meditation". That is a real result from a real trial, and it is also a modest one: one month, self-reported mood, and a comparison between two active practices rather than against nothing.
A systematic review of slow breathing in Frontiers in Human Neuroscience reached a similar shape of conclusion, reporting "interesting albeit limited evidence of a relationship between physiological parameters and psychological/behavioral outcomes in healthy subjects undergoing slow breathing techniques", and attributing that limitation to how differently the studies were run. Note the word limited. Slow breathing is a cheap, low-risk thing that a fair amount of evidence says helps people feel calmer. It is not a treatment, and nothing on this page or in any app you can buy will treat a condition. There is more detail, with the caveats intact, on what the research says.
Common questions
Do I need to pay for a breathing app?
No. If what you want is a cue that tells you when to breathe in and when to breathe out, a free pacer does that job completely. Paid apps are worth money when you want the things a pacer cannot give you: a produced library of guided sessions, a voice to follow, a curriculum, sleep audio, or a coach. Those are real products. They are just not the pacing.
What is the best breathing app without a subscription?
If you want no subscription at all, a web pacer is the simplest answer, because there is nothing to install and nothing to cancel. On iOS, Breathing Exercises: Breathe+ is the closest app equivalent: it is free to download, ad-supported, and its App Store listing shows a one-time Unlock Everything purchase at 69.99 US dollars alongside its subscriptions, so you can pay once instead of monthly. Help Me Breathe's timer runs three sessions with nothing to sign in to; after that it is part of one plan at $10 a month or $100 a year, with three days free first.
Is Headspace or Calm better for breathing exercises specifically?
Neither is primarily a breathing app. Headspace is a meditation course library with breathing exercises inside it, and Calm is a relaxation and sleep catalogue with breathing exercises inside it. On 13 September 2026 their US App Store listings showed Headspace at 12.99 dollars monthly and 69.99 dollars annually, and Calm at 14.99 dollars monthly and 69.99 dollars annually. If you want breathing and nothing else, a dedicated breathwork app or a free pacer fits better and costs less.
Are breathing devices like moonbird worth the money?
Sometimes. moonbird is listed at 179 euros and expands and contracts in your hand so you follow it by touch instead of by looking at a screen. That matters if screens keep you awake, if you find counting stressful, or if you want something a child or an older relative can use without an interface. It does not pace better than a free circle on a screen. Try a free pacer daily for two weeks first; if you are still practising, the device is a reasonable upgrade, and moonbird's own page offers a 30-day money-back guarantee.
Do free breathing apps work offline?
Some do. A pacer is simple enough to run entirely on your device, so it should work in airplane mode. Help Me Breathe installs as a web app and keeps working with no connection. Subscription apps built around streamed audio usually need you to download sessions in advance, and they need a connection at least occasionally to check that your subscription is still valid.
Why does this page link to Headspace at all if the free option is enough?
Because for some people it is the right purchase, and because we would rather say so plainly than pretend the free tool solves everything. If you want a teacher, a course structure and hundreds of produced sessions, a free pacer will not give you that and Headspace will. The Headspace and moonbird links on this page are affiliate links and are marked as sponsored. No other app here pays us anything, and where we do link one it is a plain unpaid citation to the listing a price came from.
Where every price on this page came from
Prices are the easiest thing on a comparison page to get wrong, and the easiest thing to fudge. So here is the paper trail. Each figure below was read off the vendor's own public listing on 13 September 2026. App Store prices are the United States store and differ by country. Subscription prices change without notice, and buying inside an app sometimes costs more than buying on the vendor's website, so treat every number here as a reading taken on one date rather than a promise.
- Headspace — US App Store listing, seller Headspace Inc., app free to download. In-app purchases shown include Monthly Subscription $12.99, Annual Subscription $69.99 and Headspace Plus $94.99, alongside further entries named Headspace and Headspace Plus that repeat the $12.99, $69.99 and $94.99 figures; the description itself states "Subscription options: $12.99/month, $69.99/year." The listing refers to a free trial without stating its length, does not itemise what is free afterwards, and does not mention offline downloads — hence two "not verified" cells in the table. App Store listing, opened 13 September 2026.
- Calm — US App Store listing, seller Calm.com, Inc., app free to download. The listing states that "Calm offers an auto-renewing monthly subscription at $14.99/month and an auto-renewing yearly subscription at $69.99/year". Other Calm Premium purchases shown at $79.99, $29.99 and $16.99 with no period labelled. On the free tier it says only that Calm "is free to download and use" and that some of its programs and features stay free permanently, without saying which, and it does not mention offline downloads. App Store listing, opened 13 September 2026. This is a plain citation, not an affiliate link; we could not find a Calm affiliate program to join.
- Breathwrk — US App Store listing, seller Peloton Interactive, Inc., app free to download. Purchases shown include "Breathwrk Premium 900 Monthly" at $9.00, Breathwrk Pro at $1.99, $3.99, $5.99, $7.99, $38.99, $49.00 and $69.99, and two entries named simply Breathwrk and Breathwrk English at $29.99 — none of the Pro or $29.99 entries labelled with a billing period. "Offline Access" appears in the feature list. App Store listing, opened 13 September 2026.
- Othership — US App Store listing, seller Breathwork Plus Inc, app free to download. Subscriptions shown at $17.99 monthly and $129.99 yearly. The listing states: "We also maintain 5 free sessions on our app that rotate regularly, these are available to anyone who downloads our app." App Store listing, opened 13 September 2026.
- Breathing Exercises: Breathe+ — US App Store listing, developer Dynamic App Design LLC, app free to download. Purchases shown: Unlock Everything $69.99, Yearly Subscription $29.99, Monthly Subscription $9.99, Remove Ads $3.99, Unlock Themes $3.99, Unlock Usage History $3.99. The listing describes "Guided session lengths from 1-60 minutes", "Free-form session lengths", "Adjust inhale, exhale lengths from 1-32 seconds" and "Add breath holds from 1-32 seconds if desired", which is where the free-tier cell in the table comes from. It does not say whether an account is required, so that cell is "not verified". App Store listing, opened 13 September 2026.
- moonbird — the device is listed at €179 on moonbird's own store, which advertises "Free returns & shipping" — with free shipping stated as applying above €/$/£100 — and a "30-day money-back guarantee". The page states that "The basic version of the app is included with your device", says elsewhere "No subscription needed", and states that Premium "starts with a 7-day free trial, then auto-renews to a monthly or yearly plan" — without publishing what those plans cost, so the Premium price is not verified. Read on moonbird.life, 13 September 2026. We have not repeated the link here because the two moonbird links higher up the page are affiliate links, and a source citation should not also be a thing that pays us.
- Help Me Breathe — this site. The timer runs three sessions with nothing to sign in to, all seven patterns and all session lengths included; after that it is part of the one paid plan, $10 a month or $100 a year, three days free first. We are obviously not a neutral party about our own product, which is exactly why the recommendation above is "use the free thing", including when the free thing is somebody else's.
If you find a price here that is out of date, tell us at contact@helpmebreath.com and we will correct it and date the correction. A comparison table nobody maintains is worse than no table at all.
A note on what this is
Nothing here is medical care and none of it replaces treatment. Prices change; this page was checked on 13 September 2026 and we will date any correction. Read the medical disclaimer.