Leave a Review Flo Period & Pregnancy Tracker
Close to great, but missing the mark for me
I was very excited about downloading Flo to take more ownership over my cycle & gain resources / insights regarding my intimate health. However as soon as I tapped over into the “secret chat” feature, I found an overwhelming presence of ideological (predominantly Christian) conversations. I know that spirituality and sex lives can be tightly connected, however as someone who doesn’t identify with organized religion, it felt like I’d just arrived to the wrong brunch party. This also immediately made me skeptical of the information being shared within the app. I’m a VERY strong believer in comprehensive sex education, which is commonly seen as being at odds with Christianity in this country—is this app actually balancing science and religion? After looking at their extensive board of medical professionals, I’d like to believe so but I’m still highly skeptical. This is where I also learned that the app was founded by two men (tech entrepreneurs), who (let’s face itttt) probably only care about women’s health in so far as $$$. All in all I wish I hadn’t paid for this app and had opted for a free alternative, as I don’t think the secret chat feature will be useful to me and I have skepticism issues regarding their approach to science / commitment to women’s well-being. The UI is beautiful, I’ll give it that.Show lessmarianne6699
Developer Response
Hi marianne6699, Thank you so much for your feedback — it’s comments like yours that help us improve the user experience! We aim to keep Flo Secret Chats a secure and enjoyable space for everyone, so overuse of vulgar and profane speech is not welcome. For the sake of clarity, comments with an overwhelming amount of swearing and obscenity may be deleted. You can help our moderation team find these comments more quickly by reporting them. If other users report this comment too, our moderation team will consider it for deletion. Some good-natured comments and replies may be deleted in an effort to keep comments and replies relevant. When someone wants to ask for advice or share an opinion, it's important to look through the groups and topics and choose the proper place for posting. If someone doesn't do this, their comment may be considered off-topic and be deleted by moderators. We understand you’re upset that some features are now available only on Flo Premium. Funds from our Premium subscriptions allow us to keep building and improving the app, while keeping basic cycle tracking free for everyone. We welcome your thoughts — email us at support@flo.health Kind Regards, Flo Support TeamNot an educational tool
The symptom tracking is great and allows me to follow my period more closely. As a concept overall, I love the app, but in practice, there are some major downfalls…
One large issue is the exclusive premium content. Almost NONE of the content is free, not even the most basic articles. I understand that the app needs to profit, but it leaves many users curious about topics they can’t even read about.
My other issue with the app is the forums. New posts are rarely added, leaving the feature unusable after going through topics. Though, the bigger issue with the forums is the lack of admins and experts addressing responses. Having a poll concerning medical issues and allowing just anyone to respond has led to many top comments that are totally misleading. I honestly find this dangerous and neglectful. Women already have a lack of sexual education, allowing posts to perpetuate harmful and misleading ideas only hurts them more. I can’t even count the number of posts I’ve seen discussing risky forms of “birth control” and comments scaring young girls with the idea that sex should be painful. Without admins and experts actually going though comments, posts are becoming conservative echo chambers that are not fact based.Show lessStopmakingmerewritemyreview
Disappointment as the app “grows”
I understand that Flo is run by A LOT of people that need to be paid so while I understand that premium is needed in order to make their ends meet to pay everyone on board. I think there are a few select things they could do to for people who can’t afford premium. Firstly, go back to letting us see more than just two months predictions of our menstrual cycle. I don’t understand why that had to be limited if it doesn’t really seem like a “premium feature”. Cycle predictions, at this point, and along with period tracking, seem to be the only TRUE free features of this app up until this update. I feel like next, “My daily insights” are also going to be a Premium Feature and I feel like that would be overly selfish of a “free” app. Another thing y’all could do is provide SOME free content of the Insights we currently have to pay to see. Like a preview if you will. This would have been a great app had it stayed accessible to teens barely getting their cycle. Women’s health is hardly talked about and a lot of girls end up feeling insecure about themselves because they see changes and feel things no one wants to talk about and a lot of that is seen here in this app. While it is a shame that Flo had to start charging, it is understandable but work on making important information accessible, please!Show less3457811946
Developer Response
Hi there, We understand you’re upset that some features are now available only on Flo Premium. Funds from our Premium subscriptions allow us to keep building and improving the app, while keeping basic cycle tracking free for everyone. We welcome your thoughts — email us at support@flo.health Kind Regards, Flo Support TeamNot a fan of new format
I used to love flo. I’ve been using the app since my junior year of high school (I’m now a senior in college). I appreciate how I’ve been able to track my period through the years, as it’s been enormously helpful to my overall health, well-being, and awareness of my body. That being said, I have really struggled with the new updates that flo has undergone. Not only has the app become significantly less user-friendly, but the constant push to “go premium” has really negatively impacted my experience. I understand why they have a premium option, and I respect that it is there, but what I don’t respect is how I’m constantly being mislead in order to be trapped into signing up for a premium subscription. I find it really irresponsible that women who don’t want to pay for this app, will be given insights about their menstrual health, only to find out that they can’t have access to the information behave they don’t have an account! I used the chat feature a few times before, and it’ll leave me responding to chats for about 5 minutes, and right before they give me an answer about my health, they say I need to subscribe! It’s honestly cruel that an app meant to help women feel more secure about their health, is constantly misleading them like this, or trying to buy their desire for basic health info! Most of which can be googled, btw. I’ve really loved using flo, but am honestly considering shifting gears if things don’t change soon.Show lessmallalalalalalalalala
Developer Response
Hi mallalalalalalalalala, Thank you for sharing this. We’re sorry to hear you’re disappointed that we moved some features out of the free plan. Premium subscriptions fund the ongoing development of the app, while keeping the basics free for everyone. We welcome your feedback. Please email us at support@flo.health. Kind Regards, Flo Support TeamToo many ads
I only want notifications that tell me when to anticipate my menses start date or ovulation, but I constantly get notifications like “Feeling frisky today? Your hormone levels are up!” “Set up a workout today” “It’s normal to feel down when your hormones drop” and other inappropriate statements that are embarrassing to receive when I am showing a work colleague something on my phone. I reported the issue to Flo and they said I had to turn off notifications altogether! It’s ridiculous how we cannot filter what we want to be notified of. Also, at the doctor’s I was asked the first date of my LMP. That’s what Flo is for. It took a full minute to open the app and click out of the annoying in-app pop ups that try to get me to use their features when all I wanted to do was go to my calendar. I don’t want to speak to your health advisor or whatever else you want me to do. I want a simple, unmessy, easy app to track my period. Lastly, I’ve been having issues opening the app and all I see is a huge ad saying “87% off Flo premium. Click next” and there is NO X at the corners to get away from the page. The only thing to click is “next” but I don’t want your premium. I have to close the entire app and reopen it to get the ad to disappear. Your app has a lot of people using it but it seems to be devolving into something sloppy and profit-hungry. I miss the days where it was a no-hassle, modest period tracker.Show lessJamieeeeeee21
Developer Response
Hi Jamieeeeeee21, Thank you for your feedback! We’re sorry to hear you had this experience. Could you please contact us directly from the app (Menu - Contact Support) or via email (support@flo.health) so we can investigate? This will help us make your experience better and improve it for millions of people. Kind Regards, Flo Support TeamDisappointing, to say the least.
I've used this app for years, and I used to swear by it. With recent updates, it's near impossible to enjoy any of the content other than the bare bones period tracking without being bombarded by the 'premium content' label on everything. This app used to be informative and accessible to all which is what drew me to it, but now I can't read an article or my health insights without paying for a subscription, which isn't really an option for me since I don't have money to spend on that.
Flo developers, you'll lose a significant amount of your users through your lack of inclusivity. It's only been more disappointing to come to the app reviews to see the same complaints as me, and also see that your response is always to contact you guys directly. Unless you're making this content more accessible and inclusive, there's no point in saying the same thing to you all through an email or a feedback message directly on the app. I'm sure this review will get the same generic response as you've given most recent reviews, but this app went downhill so suddenly and disappointingly that I can't help but speak my mind.
Will be looking for another period tracker app that isn't constantly telling me I need to have money in order to understand my body.Show lesscamymac
Absolutely love, but am a broke college student :/
I’ve had this app for a few years now and can honestly say I love it. It’s helped me with so much, including with figuring out how my medications affected me, where before I was so confused with what was going on. Watching this app evolve has been so cool, and I used to have a subscription in the earlier days, which was super handy. I also just tried the free trial of the newest premium version, which is absolutely amazing, and provided me with so much information that I actually feel somewhat educated on my body and how it works. I am a newfound broke college student and am bummed I don’t have the funds to pay for it right now (which I believe is an essential part to keeping this app running, because though we should have the right to free access about the health of our own bodies, I know I can trust this app based on the knowledge that hundreds of hours of work have been put into this by real doctors, instead of finding less trustworthy and sometimes misleading information floating around the internet). I will continue to be loyal to this app and will also hopefully soon be able to take advantage of the healthcare advice again!Show lessSammi578
Extra features only available with premium
I originally downloaded this app to track my period and my symptoms. I do still like it for that, but I also really loved when more features were added such as giving helpful bits of info about the whole cycle. This info wasn’t always that helpful for me because most of it I knew already, but I do think it’s helpful for younger people. I didn’t learn much about the menstruation cycle in school, and I just can’t imagine much has changed. It was also helpful that they gave you tips seemingly based on the symptoms you plugged in. However today I went to log my symptoms and noticed they added in stories on why we get cramps, etc., but they are all only available to premium users. And when I went to the screen that used to have helpful articles, mostly all of the information is locked for premium users. This is all information that should be provided for free. Now kids are still going to have to wade through inaccurate information on the internet because apps like this are charging for the most basic information. I understand that you need money to survive, but information menstruation shouldn’t only be available to people with money. Also you would think they could get a moderator for the chat rooms or a professional to help answer questions, but no. So the chat rooms and answers are inaccurate and overrun with teens who don’t know anything because apparently female anatomy is only available to people with money. It’s such a shame.Show lesskathynicole
Developer Response
Hi kathynicole, Thank you for reaching out. We really appreciate your feedback on version 5.0 of Flo. In this version we updated our algorithms to make Flo’s predictions even more accurate and useful, as well as added in the ability for all Flo users to further personalize the app. We also moved some features from the free plan to the premium plan, which is why you may have seen popups asking you to subscribe to our premium plan to access certain types of content. Even with this change, the core features of our app (cycle tracking and prediction) remain free for everyone. We believe cycle tracking should be available to everyone who needs it, regardless of ability to pay. For users who are interested in our more advanced options, the funds we receive from our premium subscribers enable the ongoing development of the app, and help keep the basics free for everyone. Flo is supported by a subscription-based business model. With a subscription model none of our users see annoying ads, and your data is safe and secure – regardless of whether or not you’re a subscriber. Just to give you a glimpse of the team that is working on Flo: we now have a team of over 200 passionate, dedicated employees, and over 60 medical and health experts from medical schools and hospitals – OBGYNs, Endocrinologists, Psychologists, Dermatologists, Dietitians, and more, who make sure all the content in the app is evidence-based and trustworthy. Our product managers and engineers work each day on the functionality of the App, tailoring it to your needs, goals, and symptoms. Every day our tech team works hard, implementing industry best practices and standards in data security, to keep your data safe and secure. These are just some of the costs to create a product that helps you on your journey to becoming your true best self, healthier and happier, every day. We encourage you to check out the premium version. Each day you’ll find personalized tips on wellness for that specific day, based on where you are in your cycle. Plus you can find tons of helpful information in our new Discovery section, a rich, robust, and easy-to-navigate library of multimedia health and wellness content that has replaced Health Insights. Here at Flo we have big plans for how to keep improving our app to make it even more accurate, relevant, supportive, and fun for you. We are happy that you’re a Flo user, and we will be grateful if you choose to become a premium subscriber and support the work that we do. Of course, you’re welcome to use the free version as long as you’d like. Please continue sharing your suggestions with us, and feel free to reach out at support@flo.health with any questions you have. Your feedback is truly valuable, and it helps us do a better job of improving the app for you. Kind Regards, Flo Support TeamNew update ruined it..
There should really be a way to turn off virtual assist and my daily insights. Some of us came to this app because it was clean and simple, all these new updates and features are ruining that. It’s getting more and more intrusive and cluttered with every update. I don’t need or want all this crap on my screen. If I could toggle it off it’d be great but they give you no options, just shove all this stuff in your face. Why can’t anything be simple? Why do we need advanced AI and health stories on the front page? We don’t! Just a simple app that tracks and predicts our cycles and does it well. Please get rid off all this extra junk or at least give those of us who don’t want it a way to toggle it off. I hate this app now and will be finding a new one. To the developers- please don’t ask me to contact you for a solution. It seems to be your canned answer to every negative review and I will not be contacting you. If there is a solution to this issue or you have future plans to fix this issue, please just let me know here so the whole community can see it too. Nothing is going to be fixed in this situation by me contacting you. You used to have amazing customer service and really care about your users needs. Not anymore, there hasn’t been a genuine reply to any users feedback in a long time. This use to be a great app with caring devs behind it, but I can’t say that is true anymore sadly. Zero stars.Show lessGeekyGirl007
Currently On a Free Trial
I’ve had Flo in the past and loved it. I didn’t have a phone for a year so I just recently got the app again and noticed a lot of changes, including that some features are only available through a payment. The payment is only around 14$ for the entire year.
I don’t think that’s so bad but if it’s out of budget I understand. The features on the free trial are pretty awesome so far, it’s like having access to a gynecologist because the information you give about your period has so much feedback. It’s really surprising what the app tracks and the amount of feedback you get about symptoms, tips / tools, workout ideas, food recommendations, yoga, meditation, and self- assurance. I wanted to take the time to write a review because I was really hesitant to redownload the app with the reviews talking about payments but I’m glad I did and it appreciating the free trial so far. If you’re unsure try the 1 month free trial and see how you like it.
Bonus for the awesome private community conversations that are available to everyone, so that you’re able to anonymously speak with other women/ girls on the app and freely ask questions or help respond to others. It’s just really awesome. I appreciate the appShow lessMilia G
