Life Can Be Hectic, so We Tried 7 Cups Online Therapy for Its Flexibility and Convenience — Here’s How It Went

The trick is finding the online therapy provider that best fits your needs and schedule. “It’s kind of hard to get out, leave your job, and have a weekly hour-long or 45-minute appointment,” says Thea Gallagher, PsyD, a clinical associate professor in the department of psychiatry at the NYU Grossman School of Medicine. “So, now a lot of my patients [will schedule a therapy session] on their lunch break — they’ll figure it out in their schedule, they’ll block off a meeting, and it really only takes that 45 to 50 minutes of time out of their day, and so they can make it work. [With online therapy] I think there’s greater ease of scheduling.”

We’ve reviewed BetterHelp, Talkspace, and other online therapy platforms in the past, and we’ve found that each service varies a bit. Many offer talk therapy, while others offer couples therapy, family therapy, psychiatry services, prescriptions for medication, and more. 7 Cups is yet another online therapy platform, but its major claim is that it offers “free emotional support” through chat rooms run by “trained listeners” who are available 24 hours a day. Additionally, 7 Cups offers 24/7 unlimited messaging with your therapist or counselor (with or without one 45-minute live video or audio session each week for an added fee).

We tested 7 Cups’ premium membership and online therapy options for one month, sampling the service’s unlimited messaging, once-weekly live video sessions, AI counseling through its Noni chatbot, and community-led chat rooms. Here’s what we liked, what we didn’t, and who we think would benefit most from this service.

Signing up for either the free, premium, or online therapy services with 7 Cups is surprisingly easy. On the 7 Cups home page, there are multiple options to start the signup process. From the top navigation bar, you can click “Free Chat” or “Community” to access the free services. For online therapy, click “Considering Therapy” from the same navigation bar, or scroll down the home page and select “Get Started” in one of several locations.

Signing Up for a Free 7 Cups Account

As with all online therapy providers, prior to signing up, you’ll need to answer a series of intake questions to determine what services you would benefit most from. The questions for Free Chat begin with gender, religious beliefs (Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Judaism, spirituality, etc.), relationship status, country of residence, and your reason for visiting 7 Cups.

After completing the intake questions for Free Chat, you’ll be given the option to opt for or skip online therapy services. The free account provides 24/7 emotional support through trained listeners, an AI chatbot, and community chat groups and forums, but chats with Noni and trained listeners are limited in number. There are no free options for messaging or meeting with a licensed therapist.

Signing Up for a Premium Membership With Therapy

If you prefer to opt into the online therapy services from the beginning, click “Considering Therapy” or “Get Started.” For therapy services, there are additional intake questions that cover your goals for therapy and the style of therapy you prefer (structured or unstructured), as well as questions about your overall mental health, general health, and sleep habits. After answering about 15 questions, you’ll be directed to a payment page where you will choose your plan: unlimited messaging or unlimited messaging with live therapy sessions. Payment for the first month will be processed immediately.

Once your payment is complete, you’ll be matched with a counselor or therapist and gain access to the 7 Cups portal. From there, you can message your provider, request a live appointment, interact with the AI chatbot, participate in community chat rooms and forums, and engage in one-on-one conversations with a trained listener. If you don’t want 7 Cups to automatically match you with a therapist or counselor, you can request one through the directory of professionals available through the site.

Those opting for the free service will have to answer a prompt about whether they are in a mental health crisis, experiencing homicidal or suicidal thoughts, or in an abusive relationship. In these cases, online therapy may not be appropriate.

We were surprised to see that the fine print of the contract we were sent stated a different provider than the one we worked with. 7 Cups clearly advertises licensed therapists on their website, but it’s unclear what a user must do to get in contact with one.

Users should be aware that the contract also states, “Listeners and Therapists are neither employees nor agents nor representatives of 7 Cups, and 7 Cups assumes no responsibility for any act or omission of any such Listener or Therapist.”

It also notes, “7 Cups does not verify the skills, degrees, qualifications, credentials, or background of any Listeners. While 7 Cups does verify the license, qualifications, and credentials of Therapists providing services through 7 Cups, you acknowledge that we do not guarantee such verification of the skills, degrees, qualifications, credentials, competence, or background of any Therapist. It is your responsibility to conduct independent verification regarding any Therapist that provides you with Therapy Services.”

The agreement does not mention counselors, which is the qualification of the person we were set up with. In the United States, therapists must be licensed in the states where they are practicing. Therapists may hold licenses in several states, enabling them to practice virtually through services like 7 Cups or at different practices. 7 Cups seems to be providing both therapy and counseling, but it fails to clearly note which one you will be provided.

There are licensed therapists available, but there isn’t much transparency as to who gets matched with a licensed therapist and who doesn’t, and why. If you sign up for therapy through 7 Cups, we strongly recommend immediately verifying the credentials of the person you are matched with. Meeting with an unlicensed therapist or a therapist that’s not licensed in your state could lead to refusal of coverage by your insurance company. It could also be illegal for an unlicensed therapist or a therapist without a license in your state to provide therapy. And since licensed therapists are accountable to licensing boards, if you encounter an issue with your treatment, there may be no accountability. If the person you are matched with is not a licensed therapist in your state, you may want to request a new match. You can do this by contacting customer service or requesting a new match through the person you are matched with, via your private messaging portal.

We also stress that you read the fine print closely before signing up for online therapy. Make sure you are getting what you pay for, and only sign up for the services you know you will use.

Once you are granted access to the online therapy services portal, you’ll immediately receive an automatic message from your therapist welcoming you to 7 Cups. However, as previously stated, we were not set up with a therapist licensed in the United States, but rather with a counselor based in the United Kingdom.

Your therapist or counselor may ask a bit more about you and your reasons for seeking help, as well as work with you to set up your first appointment. Keep in mind that the messaging is unlimited, and you can use this time to get more comfortable with your therapist or counselor before your first appointment. However, they are only required to respond once every 24 hours, between Monday and Friday (more on this later). While ours responded more often, those experiencing slower response times may not find this feature all that helpful.

When we signed up for therapy sessions, we were pleasantly surprised by how easy it was to message our therapist and set up our first appointment. We also appreciated that we were able to get a live session scheduled within four days of signing up. This is a big improvement over other platforms we’ve tested, where it can take one to two weeks before you’re able to get an appointment.

Unlimited Messaging Therapy

7 Cups’ messaging therapy membership offers unlimited messaging with your therapist or counselor, 24/7. While this seems like a great feature on the surface, the issue is that the therapists and counselors are only contractually bound to reply to each patient once a day, from Monday though Friday. So, while you certainly can send a hundred messages a day to your therapist, unless the therapist is online and willing to message back and forth with you for an extended time, it’s more likely that your messages will go unanswered for a few hours or more.

We were fortunate, however, in that despite the time difference, our therapist was quite responsive and did not limit his messaging to once a day. In fact, after a few days of us not messaging him, he reached out to check in and make sure everything was okay, which we greatly appreciated. That being said, other online reviewers have had different experiences, so accessibility likely varies by therapist.

Live Once-Weekly Therapy Sessions

During our testing period, we met with our therapist for live sessions four times. During those sessions, we discussed holiday anxiety, work, relationships, and more. Our therapist quickly put us at ease, and the fact that we had messaged back and forth prior to our first session made the meeting less awkward. While each session is supposed to last 45 minutes, ours tended to stretch to more than an hour.

Even though our sessions went over the typical time limit, we found that they went by quickly, without awkward pauses, and without us feeling rushed or ignored.

Free Support Services

In addition to messaging and live therapy, 7 Cups offers free:

AI counselor, Noni: Noni is an active listening bot — it does not provide advice of any kind. The bot is far from perfect, and its answers don’t always make sense.

Structured group chats: These groups are community-led support for anxiety, depression, and general sharing. The guidelines for the group state: “This is a structured group chat where any member can share for 7–10 minutes what’s on their mind. For everyone to benefit, we all need to observe, support, share (and repeat!). There is zero tolerance for unsupportive behavior.”

One-on-one chats with trained listeners: At any time, you can request a chat with a trained listener in a private chat room. The listener is another community member who has taken the 7 Cups active listening course and is volunteering their time. These listeners are not licensed therapists or counselors. Anyone can become a listener through the 7 Cups course.

Community-led sharing page: Any member can post about anything they are feeling or thinking. Some posts are as simple as requesting funny photos to add humor to the community’s day.

Path: Users can engage in a self-led growth path focused on the areas they are most concerned about, such as anxiety, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), depression, and more. You’ll then select learning materials to use as you work to grow and overcome your concerns. The learning materials are essentially articles about various mental health conditions and tips for overcoming things like anxiety or depression.

We’ve tested several online therapy services, including BetterHelp, Mindful Care, LiveHealth Online, and Rula — and all of them, including 7 Cups, offer quick and easy signup. While some of these services offer couples therapy, family therapy, group therapy, and more, 7 Cups focuses mainly on individual and teen mental health services.

Our biggest concern with 7 Cups is the quality of the therapists’ and counselors’ credentials and how they compare with those of other online therapy providers. In the United States, licensed mental health providers typically hold an independent clinical license, such as licensed clinical social worker, licensed marriage and family therapist, or licensed professional counselor. During our testing, the counselor we were set up with had credentials in mindfulness-based cognitive therapy, which requires certifications, not licenses. While these credentials may be valid in the United Kingdom, they don’t equate to those of a licensed therapist in the United States. Our counselor also held a degree in clinical and analytical hypnotherapy and psychotherapy from a university in the United Kingdom. This was not an issue that we came across during our testing of other online therapy platforms.

It also should be noted that being matched with a therapist from a different country or culture may not be as helpful if they do not understand the context of the issues you bring to therapy. Taking on a patient who is from a culture that the therapist is unfamiliar with can, in some circumstances, even be considered malpractice.

The 7 Cups website and app are both very intuitive, and we never had trouble finding what we were looking for. We love the messaging feature, which allows patients to reach their counselor or therapist between sessions. While most of the messaging is asynchronous (meaning it’s not a live chat), that’s typical for telehealth providers that allow messaging between sessions.

As with all online therapy providers, the sheer ease and convenience of getting mental health help when and where you want it is often a winning bet. Being able to do so with a few clicks makes it easier than having to make a phone call, and at 7 Cups, online therapists and counselors are available for video or audio sessions as well as messaging. “There’s greater access to care, because a lot of providers are licensed in a number of different states, so you have more therapist availability [with virtual therapy],” Gallagher says. “The wait lists are shorter because you can see people who are licensed in multiple states, and you don’t have to travel to see them. And also people who live in more remote areas can find someone more easily as well.”

That being said, we think 7 Cups may be best for someone seeking mental health coaching, rather than therapy. The lack of clarity in terms of provider qualifications and location makes us pause, and the fact that the providers might only message their patients back once per day tells us that this isn’t a platform for those in need of more in-depth treatment.

7 Cups may also be a good option for someone who is just seeking a sense of community. This platform allows users to have community interactions via group chats, talk about their feelings with dedicated listeners, and even chat with the AI bot, Noni. We think it’s a good tool for those who are too busy for in-person coaching and support groups.

Everyday Health has tested more than 65 different online therapy companies to find the best of the best for anxiety, depression, ADHD, affordability, convenience, families, and more. Each company is vetted by the same standards for both its services and business practices. We do this by interviewing and speaking with dozens of different licensed therapists, surveying real online therapy users, and testing each service with professional journalists, editors, or therapists.

While testing 7 Cups, we paid special attention to:

• The ease of navigating the site
• The services available
• The signup process
• How in-depth the intake questions were
• The cost for each service
• How we were matched with a therapist
• The therapists’ credentials
• Technical difficulties during live sessions
• Ease of switching therapists, as well as changing or canceling sessions
• General feel of the services, and if our goals for therapy were met