Article

By Filip Kowalski · Updated September 20, 2026

Endel review (2026): what it costs and which mode is worth it

Person with headphones resting on a park bench under a tree

Endel does what it says it does, and the soundscape really is rebuilt as the day moves. It earns its money in the Focus mode during work, earns very little of it in Sleep, and you cannot find out what it costs until you are inside the app. Every figure below comes from the live listings and from Endel’s own pages, checked 2026-09-10.

What Endel costs

The odd part comes first, because it changes how you read every other review of this app.

Endel has no pricing page. endel.io/pricing returned a 404 on 10 September 2026, and the 404 page itself offers a “Get a Secret Discount” link, which tells you roughly how the company thinks about a list price. The homepage carries no price either. The Google Play description names the three plan shapes (one month, twelve months, lifetime) and no amounts.

The only place Endel publishes numbers is the in-app purchase list on its own App Store page. On 10 September 2026 that list held ten entries carrying eight different prices, three twelve-month plans sharing the top figure:

Plan	Prices shown on the US App Store
1 month	$2.99, $7.49, $19.99
12 months	$34.99, $59.99, $79.99, $119.99
lifetime	$124.99

Google Play, the same day, showed “$6.00 - $249.99 per item”, a ceiling twice the App Store’s lifetime figure.

None of that is dishonest. A four-to-one spread on the yearly plan is what promotional offers and regional pricing look like from outside. It does mean that any review quoting “Endel costs X a year” is quoting the one offer that writer happened to be shown, and that the number on your own signup screen is worth a screenshot, because the person sitting next to you is shown a different one.

Where these numbers come from

Endel’s US App Store listing: “Endel: Focus & Sleep Sounds”, subtitled “ADHD Productivity Timer”, version 4.8.8 released 3 September 2026, published by Endel Sound GmbH, 4.6 stars from 34,000 ratings, and the in-app purchase list above.
Endel’s Google Play listing: 4.3 stars from 22,300 reviews, 1 million-plus downloads, last updated 3 August 2026, first released 29 May 2019.
endel.io on the same day, for the four mode cards, the “Backed by neuroscience” heading and the focus and stress figures under it, the stated inputs, the claim of “over 4 million downloads”, and the absence of a price.
Android Police, a burnout-app roundup by Irene Okpanachi published 22 November 2025, the one hands-on account we could open that is not selling anything.

Facts about Endel come from those four sources, and the judgements are ours. Slo is our own app and it competes with Endel, so read the praise and the criticism with that in mind. Slo is a manual sound mixer for iPhone, Android and Mac, and 180 of its sounds play free in a browser at slonoise.com; its figures come from the app source, version 3.132, on 14 September 2026. Evidence that steady sound improves sleep is weak and mixed, and no app here, ours least of all, can promise you a better night.

The ratings tell you which platform to buy on

4.6 stars from 34,000 ratings on iOS against 4.3 from 22,300 on Android is a wide gap for the same content, and the release dates point the same way: on 10 September the iOS build was a week old and the Android one five weeks. Endel started on Apple, won Apple’s Watch App of the Year in 2020, and still ships a watch app that runs on its own. Android gets a real version and a Wear OS face, without the same attention.

The download numbers say the same thing. Endel’s own site claims over 4 million downloads across every platform it runs on, and Google Play accounts for 1 million-plus of those, so most Endel users are on an iPhone.

Which mode you bought it for

Endel sells one subscription and a shelf full of soundscapes, but almost everyone buys it for one of three jobs, and the three are not equally good value.

Focus

This is the strongest case. You listen for a defined stretch while you are awake to notice it, and a generated stream that never repeats does have an advantage over a loop you come to know by heart. It is also where Endel’s own claims get loudest. The homepage says “Neuroscience shows Endel consistently improves focus and lowers stress” and puts numbers on it, including a 7x increase in focus and a 3.6x decrease in stress. We have not reviewed the work behind those figures and take no position on them. Buy the mode because you like listening to it, not because of a graph.

Relax

The middle case, and what people praise about it has little to do with adaptation. Okpanachi’s hands-on account picks out two decisions: sounds fade out gradually when you switch modes, so the next one arrives without a gap, and the black-and-white interface spares a stressed person one more screen shouting at them. Small things, and they are a large part of why the app stays installed.

Sleep

The weak one, and the mode most people buy it for. You are unconscious for the hours when the adaptation is supposed to earn its keep, and to a sleeping person a fixed loop and a generated stream are the same thing. That makes Sleep the mode to test against something free before you pay for anything.

A number for sleep would change our mind here. Endel publishes focus and stress figures on its homepage, none for sleep, and no source we could open supplies one.

What Endel does that Slo does not

Generation, first of all. Endel builds audio as you listen, from inputs its site names as time of day, weather, heart rate and location. Slo plays 200+ recorded files and lets you set a volume on each, and nothing in it reacts to the clock, the weather or your pulse. It has no stories, no guided meditation, no sleep tracking, no alarms and no recorder. If what you liked was opening one app, pressing one button and getting a soundscape that had already decided what to be, a manual mixer will feel like a step backwards, and that is worth knowing before you install anything.

Endel also runs where we do not, on an Apple Watch app that works with the phone left behind, on Alexa and on Wear OS. It has commissioned work from James Blake, Grimes, Alan Watts and Richie Hawtin as well, which is not something anyone matches by adding more rain files.

Where the review turns negative

The missing price is the main charge, and it is not a cosmetic complaint. A company that will not publish a figure has decided to price each customer separately, and the four 12-month prices on its own listing show how far apart those decisions land.

The subtitle is the second charge. “ADHD Productivity Timer” on a Health & Fitness listing implies a lot for an app that is, in the end, sound. Endel’s own copy is more careful than its own subtitle.

Third, the free tier sits behind the payment screen. Endel’s App Store text explains how to reach it: “Skip the payment screen by tapping ‘X’ in the top-right corner of the offer. The Free Edition of Endel will start automatically.” Writing that in a store listing, and not on the screen where it would help, is a decision about how many people find it.

If the subscription was the actual problem

The test that settles it is whether you need generated audio at all, and running that test costs nothing.

We make Slo, an ambient sound app for iPhone, Android and Mac, with 200+ recorded sounds in it and 89 free for good. You can stack as many layers as you want and set a volume on each, so a quiet pad sits under a deep rumble at whatever level suits you, and a saved mix keeps that balance. The timer covers 15 minutes to 24 hours, with a fade-out of up to 2 minutes at the end. Playback carries on in the background on iPhone and Android, and sounds download the first time you press play, so a saved mix still works with the phone offline. The rest of the library is a monthly or yearly subscription, or one lifetime payment, which is what a $119.99 renewal is being weighed against. In a browser, the 180 sounds at slonoise.com play free with no account.

Slo answers one question, the one where you would rather set the background yourself and then stop thinking about it. It does not answer the adaptive one at all. For the wider field, including the generated options, our Endel alternatives guide lists six.

Questions people ask

How much does Endel cost?

There is no single answer, which is the finding rather than a dodge. On 10 September 2026 the US App Store listing showed three monthly prices ($2.99, $7.49 and $19.99), four yearly ones ($34.99 to $119.99) and a lifetime purchase at $124.99. Google Play showed a band of $6.00 to $249.99 per item. endel.io publishes no price at all. Whatever price your screen shows is your price.

Does Endel really adapt to heart rate?

Endel says so on its own site, listing time of day, weather, heart rate and location as inputs, and its Apple Watch app won Apple’s Watch App of the Year in 2020. We have not measured how a heart-rate change alters the output, and neither has any source we could open.

Is Endel worth it for sleep?

It is the weakest of the three jobs people buy it for. Sleep is the use where a fixed loop works about as well as a generated one, because you are unconscious for most of it, and it is the one you can test for free before paying anything. Run brown noise or rain for a week from the 180 free browser sounds at slonoise.com, with a timer, and see what you miss.

How many modes does Endel have?

The count depends on which page you read. On 10 September 2026 endel.io showed four (Relax, Focus, Sleep, Activity) while the Google Play description listed six (Relax, Focus, Sleep, Recovery, Study, Move). Treat mode counts in any article, this one included, as a snapshot.

Is Endel free?

There is a Free Edition, and Endel’s own App Store text tells you how to reach it: skip the payment screen by tapping the X in its top-right corner, and the Free Edition starts on its own. You will not find that instruction on the screen itself.

Sources

Endel on the US App Store, listing and in-app purchase list, read 10 September 2026, for the version, the subtitle, the ratings, every price above and the Free Edition instructions
Endel on Google Play, read 10 September 2026, for the Android rating, the download band, the six-mode list, the plan shapes and the purchase range
endel.io, read 10 September 2026, for the four mode cards, the stated inputs, the neuroscience claims and their figures, the download total and the missing pricing page
Android Police, Irene Okpanachi’s burnout-app roundup, 22 November 2025, for the hands-on account of mode transitions and interface design
Slo app source, version 3.132 (sound list, timer, fade-out and store products), and the slonoise.com sound catalogue, reviewed 14 September 2026