BetterSleep Review: 300+ Offline Sleep Sounds, a Snore Recorder and Premium From £11.99

BetterSleep, once known as Relax Melodies, is a sleep app built around a sound mixer. You layer rain, fans, brown noise, brainwave tones and music into your own blend, then add a sleep story, a guided meditation or the sleep recorder, which tells you whether you snore. It began with a founder who developed tinnitus and insomnia after a concert in 2006 and wanted something to help him drift off.

We like it for two specific reasons. Every sound, including your saved mixes, plays offline without downloading anything, which is exactly what you need on a sleeper train with no signal. And the mixer lets you build a noise that covers the particular racket of a particular room, from a dorm full of zips to a hotel air conditioner with a rattle. Here is our BetterSleep review: what is free, what Premium costs and how it compares with Calm and Headspace.

Offer detail	What you get
Promo Code	None needed. BetterSleep says promotional offers appear occasionally in the app
Welcome offer	A free trial of Premium for new subscribers, offered when you first open the app
Who qualifies	New subscribers and long-time users who have never bought a plan; one trial each
Key terms	Renews automatically unless cancelled 24 to 48 hours before the trial or period ends; subscriptions are non-refundable, reviewed case by case
How to claim	Download the app or start at bettersleep.com and accept the trial offer

BetterSleep at a glance

• Owner: BetterSleep Health, LLC, Montreal, Canada (app developed by Ipnos Software Inc.)
• Launched: as Relax Melodies, created by Philippe Lapierre with Alex Bérubé
• Platforms: iOS, Android, web, Apple Watch
• Free plan: a very limited selection after the trial; full access needs Premium
• Paid from: UK App Store Premium options from £11.99; yearly $59.99 in the US
• Offline use: all sounds and mixes; SleepTales and meditations once downloaded; Music needs streaming
• Ratings: App Store (UK) 4.7/5 from 21k ratings; Google Play 4.2/5 from 397k reviews

Our verdict

BetterSleep is the most flexible noise machine in your pocket, and for travellers its offline sounds are the main event. The mixer, the timer and the snore recorder are genuinely useful in strange rooms. The downsides: it moved to a paid-only model in 2025, prices are hidden until you open the app, long-time users report losing sounds they had paid for, and the interface has become busier. Take the trial before a trip, build two or three mixes and judge it on a noisy night.

Pros

• More than 300 sounds and music tracks that you can layer into custom mixes
• All sounds and saved mixes play offline with no download step
• More than 100 SleepTales plus 250+ meditations and hypnosis sessions
• Sleep recorder catches snoring and sleep talking; recordings themselves are not stored
• Family plan covers five people for $119.99 a year

Cons

• Paid-only since 2025, with a very limited selection once a trial or plan ends
• Prices vary by region and platform and are not published on the website
• The Music section streams only, so it fails offline
• Some long-time users say previously bought sounds were locked after the change
• Subscriptions are non-refundable except case by case

What BetterSleep does and who it is for

At its core BetterSleep is a sound mixer. Pick from rain, wind, fans, trains, white, pink and brown noise, binaural tones and short melodies, adjust each volume and save the mix. On top sit SleepTales (bedtime stories for adults across fairy tale, mystery and sci-fi), guided meditations and hypnosis, music playlists, a sleep timer and a sleep tracker that records sounds in the night.

It suits light sleepers, people with tinnitus who like a background sound, and anyone who sleeps badly away from home. On the road it shines in three places:

• The hostel dorm. Twelve beds in Berlin, a 04:00 arrival unpacking their entire rucksack. Earbuds in, a brown noise and heavy rain mix on a 90-minute timer, and the zips fade into the weather.
• The hotel room. The air conditioning in a Rome hotel clicks every few minutes. A steady fan sound at a similar pitch makes the click far less noticeable.
• The overnight train. The Caledonian Sleeper out of Euston, or a night train across the Alps, with patchy signal all the way. Your saved mixes and downloaded SleepTales play on regardless.

Is BetterSleep free? Free vs Premium

Not any more. BetterSleep’s help centre says it moved to a paid subscription model in 2025 and no longer offers free access to its full content. New users get a free trial when they first open the app; after a trial or subscription ends you keep “a very limited selection of content”. Premium opens up the full library of sounds, meditations, stories, music and features such as the tracker.

BetterSleep does not publish the trial length on its help pages, so check the terms on the screen before you accept, and note that cancelling needs to happen 24 to 48 hours before it ends.

BetterSleep price: plans and the cheapest way to pay

BetterSleep sells monthly, quarterly, yearly and Lifetime plans, and says prices vary by region, platform and current offers. The UK App Store lists ten Premium price points between £11.99 and £99.99 without naming the plan lengths.

Plan	UK £	US$	€
Premium (UK App Store price points)	£11.99 to £99.99	$15.98 to $133.25	€14.23 to €118.66
Yearly (regular US price)	£45.02	$59.99	€53.43
Family, 5 members, yearly	£90.04	$119.99	€106.86
Lifetime	One-off payment, price shown in app	Varies	Varies

The UK row is BetterSleep’s own App Store pricing; other figures are conversions. The US yearly and family prices come from BetterSleep’s help centre.

The cheapest way to pay. For a household or a group of friends, the Family plan works out at about $24 each a year, 60% less than five separate yearly plans. For one person, yearly beats monthly if you use it on more than a couple of trips. Students get a discount through BetterSleep’s student programme. A plan bought on the website also works on iOS and Android, so you can buy wherever the price is lowest for you.

Features that matter for sleeping away from home

Offline sounds. BetterSleep’s help centre is clear: all sounds, including custom mixes, work offline automatically. SleepTales and meditations work offline once you tap the cloud icon to download them. The Music section always streams.

A downloads tip. There is no downloads folder. BetterSleep suggests adding downloaded stories and meditations to a playlist or your favourites so you can find them when you have no signal.

Timer. Set sounds to fade after a set time, so your phone is not playing rain until breakfast.

Sleep recorder and tracker. Leave your phone by the bed and it records noises such as snoring, then shows sleep and wake times, a sleep score and phases. Handy if a travel companion insists you snore.

Apple Watch and Apple Health. The app works with watchOS 9 or later and can integrate with Apple Health.

Colored noises. White, pink and brown noise each have a different character; brown is the deepest of the three, and BetterSleep has a help page explaining the difference.

Privacy and safety

BetterSleep’s privacy policy, updated May 2026, names BetterSleep Health, LLC in Montreal. It says it does not sell personal information for money, but that it has “sold” or “shared” identifiers, commercial information, internet activity, geolocation and inferences for personalised advertising, as US privacy laws define those terms. Sleep data goes to analytics providers, and to other apps only if you opt in. On the sleep tracker, the policy says the derived data is stored but the recordings themselves are not.

The UK App Store privacy label says purchases, identifiers and usage data may be used to track you across other companies’ apps and websites. You can ask for your data to be deleted by email or through your account. DailyStoke found no regulator action against the company.

What users say about BetterSleep

BetterSleep scores 4.7 out of 5 on the UK App Store from 21,000 ratings and 4.2 on Google Play from about 397,000 reviews, with more than 10 million downloads. Its Trustpilot page has only a handful of recent reviews. Recent complaints focus on the move to paid-only access and a busier interface.

Janet A, on Trustpilot in March 2026, was a fan: “BetterSleep changed my life. I like the stories, but the best is the recordings.”

On the UK App Store, fraizersmum wrote in February 2021: “The meditations in particular really help me quiet my mind let go of worries and stresses”.

Natasha P, on Google Play in May 2026, was locked out of sounds after the change: “I can get to about 4 sounds only.”

And Iwan R, also on Google Play in February 2026, was blunt: “don’t spend money when you can get better for free on YouTube.”

How to get started and how to cancel

Getting started

1. Download BetterSleep from the App Store or Google Play, or start at bettersleep.com.
2. Accept the free trial and note the end date shown on screen.
3. Build two or three mixes before you travel, for example brown noise plus rain for dorms and a fan sound for hotels, and save them.
4. Download a few SleepTales or meditations and add them to a playlist.
5. Set the timer, and test everything in flight mode before you leave.

Cancelling

1. iPhone: Settings, your name, Subscriptions, BetterSleep, Cancel Subscription; or in the app, Profile, Account, Manage.
2. Android: Google Play, Subscriptions, BetterSleep, Cancel subscription. There is no in-app cancel option on Android.
3. Website: log in at bettersleep.com, then Profile, Settings, Account, Manage Subscription, Cancel Subscription.
4. Cancel 24 to 48 hours before the trial or billing period ends. Subscriptions are described as non-refundable, with web requests reviewed case by case; Apple and Google handle refunds for store purchases.

BetterSleep vs Calm vs Headspace

	BetterSleep	Calm	Headspace
Free plan	Very limited after trial	Limited free content	Limited intro content
Paid from	£11.99 (UK App Store)	Calm Premium, up to £49.99 (UK App Store)	£9.99 a month, £49.99 a year
Best for	Custom noise mixes and snore recording	Sleep stories and soothing audio	Structured meditation courses
Offline	Sounds always; stories after download	Downloads on paid plan	Courses and sessions; not Sleepcasts
App Store rating (UK)	4.7 (21k)	4.7 (326k)	4.8 (347.1k)

Pick BetterSleep if noise is your problem: dorms, thin hotel walls, snoring partners or a train that rattles.

Pick Calm if you fall asleep best to a story and want a polished, soothing library.

Pick Headspace if you want to learn meditation properly and use it for stress as well as sleep.

BetterSleep alternatives

• Calm: sleep stories, music and nature sounds in a polished package.
• Headspace: meditation courses with Sleepcasts and sleep music; courses download for flights.
• Insight Timer: thousands of free meditations and sleep tracks, with an optional Premium tier.
• YouTube and Spotify noise tracks: free hours of rain and brown noise; downloading for offline play needs a paid plan.

BetterSleep FAQs

Is BetterSleep free?
No longer in full. Since 2025 it is a paid subscription app with a free trial for new users and a very limited selection of content afterwards.

How much is BetterSleep Premium?
Prices vary by region and platform. The UK App Store lists Premium options from £11.99 to £99.99, and BetterSleep’s regular US yearly price is $59.99.

Does BetterSleep work offline?
Yes for all sounds and saved mixes, and for SleepTales and meditations you have downloaded. The Music section needs a connection.

Is BetterSleep good for sleeping in hostels or on trains?
It is one of the better options, because the sound mixes play offline and you can build one to mask the specific noise around you.

Is there a BetterSleep student discount or promo code?
There is a student programme. There are no public promo codes, though BetterSleep says offers occasionally appear in the app.

How do I cancel BetterSleep?
Cancel where you paid: iPhone Settings or the app, Google Play, or your account on bettersleep.com, at least 24 to 48 hours before renewal.

Can I get a refund from BetterSleep?
Subscriptions are non-refundable, but BetterSleep reviews web requests case by case. Apple and Google handle refunds for store purchases.

Visit BetterSleep

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