How Calm Won Wellness

Unravel the journey of Calm, a wellness app that transformed the landscape of digital health. Discover how it harnessed the power of mindfulness and meditation to emerge as a beacon in the wellness industry.

Good Better Best is a weekly deep dive on pricing and packaging strategies written by Rob Litterst.

Meditation has been my white whale. No matter how hard I’ve tried, I haven’t been able to build a consistent habit

• Tim Ferriss has this quote: “If you can’t carve out 10 minutes to meditate every day, then you really need 20.”
• This habit was supposed to be helping me, but my inability to stay consistent made me more stressed out
• Another reason I was inconsistent is the Headspace packaging model: the first 10 sessions were free, but then you had to upgrade to a paid subscription.

Packaging: Commoditizing the Basics

Headspace offers a free trial that includes the first 10 sessions from the Headspace Basics series

• The goal of Basics is to help beginners build momentum towards a meditation habit through guidance from a professional
• They charge $12.99 monthly or $69.99 annually ($5.83 per month).
• Calm takes a different approach
• While users need to pay to access premium features, Calm gives the basics away for free
• This not only helps fuel their acquisition funnel but also sets customer value expectations

Conclusion: The Future of Wellness Apps

In the mindfulness space, it’s a fool’s errand to chase Calm and Headspace

• Their success comes down to alignment between three factors
• Positioning
• Product and packaging
• Looking forward, the best opportunities for new wellness apps will likely be derived by unbundling one component of wellness and tailoring a product to serve that specific niche

Positioning: Inputs vs outcomes

Calm pivoted their messaging to capture a broader target

• In August 2017, their hero copy shifted to “Welcome to Calm”
• Switching focus from meditation to the desired outcome appealed to an idealized state
• By incorporating Sleep Stories and Soundscapes, they were not solely focused on meditation
• Retaining paid users also requires a quality product

Product: The Art of Bundling

Calm offers multiple entry points to wellness, allowing users to chart their own path to inner peace

• Sleep Stories, a professionally narrated tale, helps listeners fall asleep
• In 2018, Headspace released their own version of Sleep Stories called Sleepcasts
• The difference between them is how they approach packaging

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