# The Confessionals — user reviews > 107 indexed App Store user reviews of The Confessionals by Merkel Media LLC, rated 4.78/5 from 239 ratings. - Source: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/the-confessionals/id1666683243/reviews - App overview in markdown: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/the-confessionals/id1666683243.md - Rating breakdown: 5★ 218 · 4★ 7 · 3★ 4 · 2★ 2 · 1★ 8 ## What do users think of The Confessionals? Overall sentiment: positive **Pros** - 🙏 Life changing - 🤝 Great community - 🎉 Awesome app experience - 🔥 Best podcast - 👍 Engaging content - 🙌 Vital for Christians - 🤩 Fantastic listening - 💯 Excellent UI - 🥳 Awesome podcast and app - 🙏 Inspiring and informative **Cons** - 🤔 Confusing navigation - 🐛 Buggy app experience - 🔒 Difficult to unsubscribe - 🤯 Convoluted platform - 🚗 Lacks CarPlay integration - 🔍 Poor search functionality **Commonly reported bugs** - Login issues - Playback problems - Freezing and crashes - Unresponsive scrubbing **Most requested features** - Sleep timer - Simplified category buttons - Larger text for mobile - Cleaner episode layout - Ability to track progress - Integrated podcast feed ## Newest reviews (19 of 107) ### 5/5 — My new favorite social media *2025-08-07, version 5.5.2* I love the community that this app creates. It’s safe. Non toxic conversations. The app is easy to use. Tony should get an innovation award for this app fr. JRE take notes! ### 5/5 — BEST POD APP AROUND! *2025-08-07, version 5.5.2* Hands down the best app you could ask for. Especially if you are someone involved in the podcasts community… it’s basically a private social media platform for like minded people to come together! There’s no other application like it around! Great work to all involved in making this happen! ### 5/5 — Great *2025-08-07, version 5.5.2* Great app and great interviews ### 5/5 — Great Podcast! *2025-08-07, version 5.5.2* I absolutely love Tony and The Confessionals podcast. Its a REAL honest place to be able to discuss so many different topics with no judgement. This podcast has really caught my attention and really pushed me to dig deeper into my faith. I love how just super interesting the interviews are and how no subject is off limits. Keep up the great work! ### 5/5 — Excellent podcast *2025-08-06, version 5.5.2* I love The Confessionals podcast and highly recommend it. I’ve been a fan for over a year now and still working on listening to the older episodes while staying caught up with the new. Tony’s style is engaging and he treats each guest with respect. There is a great variety in guests and topics that keep things fresh and interesting. So glad to have discovered the show! ### 5/5 — It gets weird *2025-08-06, version 5.5.2* Get this app five stars or get six finger smacked ### 5/5 — Built Different! *2025-08-06, version 5.5.2* This app was designed and developed with the intention that the members of the community can share, comment and search for content that speaks to them. It delivers on all those points. Other than a few minor glitches, this app is awesome. ### 5/5 — Keep it rolling! *2025-08-06, version 5.5.2* Love this app. A one stop shop to a great community. I get my daily fix of paranormal news here. Keep it rolling! ### 5/5 — Awesome podcast! *2025-08-05, version 5.5.2* This is one of my favorite podcasts and this app is like a collection of every podcast and a social media app all in one. Its the total package. ### 5/5 — great community *2025-08-05, version 5.5.2* Tony is cultivating an interesting little community. Great show too!!! ### 5/5 — Best Podcast Out There *2025-08-05, version 5.5.2* Tony is a fantastic interviewer and the topics he covers are mind blowing. You won’t regret listening! ### 5/5 — Amazing podcast *2025-08-05, version 5.5.2* Tony Markel always has amazing guests with amazing stories, and he just has a great personality. By far my favorite podcast. ### 5/5 — 👍👍👍👍 *2025-08-05, version 5.5.2* Love it!! Can’t say enough. Great interviews. Great app. ### 5/5 — Great content *2025-08-05, version 5.5.2* I’ve been a listener for over a year and the show continues to intrigue with fascinating guests and accounts. ### 5/5 — Best of the Best! *2025-08-05, version 5.5.2* I’ve loved the Confessionals since discovering it while listening to Blurry Creatures. It is NOT the same thing - at all! Tony Merkel’s engaging and entertaining conversations with his guests - mostly “unknown” folks telling their anecdotal stories of interactions with cryptids, specteral entities and others from “the other side” with a wonderfully portioned serving of battling with demonic and interacting with other supernatural beings. This app brings it all even more to life! Chat with the guests, learn more about their experiences and interact with a diverse community of different cultures with different points of view on this amazing forum where you can disagree and still love each other. Spiritual Warfare and relational storytelling of people who have “been there and made it back” from Ritualized Abuse and generational iniquity are some of the most compelling stories. ### 5/5 — great app *2025-08-05, version 5.5.2* The app just keeps getting better and better and easier to access. The content is not provoking and I’m curious to see what’s coming next! ### 5/5 — Deeper than most *2025-08-05, version 5.5.2* I started listening to the Confessionals a couple years ago during a time in my life where I had just started going to church after my wife decided to take a step back from Catholicism. The show gradually started to move to more of a spiritual tone and at the same time my wife had given me a choice to quick drinking or leave. I stayed, quit drinking, and then Christ started applying pressure. He seemed to be everywhere smacking me in the face to go do the Lord’s work. Then, my favorite podcast about bigfoot and aliens went completely armor of God/Spiritual Warfare mode after getting attacked after an episode titled the Dark Shift. The day the Confessionals truly changed my life was an interview Tony did with Pastor Troy Brewer, I walked away from that episode on a mission to clean my life up, put on the armor of God and be the Father he intended me to be. Great work all around by Merkel media, Free the Rabbits is also an absolute masterpiece of a podcast, the amount of energy Joel puts into research is incredible! ### 5/5 — Love It! *2025-08-05, version 5.5.2* If you love The Confessionals you'll love this app! Tony has built a community that feels like family, and the app is easy to navigate. 5 stars! ### 5/5 — Awesome app and community *2025-08-05, version 5.5.2* Tony’s app brings it all together in one place. A place for people like me to gather, share, learn and feel welcomed. ## Most critical reviews (10 lowest-rated) ### 1/5 — How Convoluted *2025-12-15, version 5.5.2* The least straightforward platform ever. It’s as if they expect the customer to intuitively know how to navigate their app. I signed up a few days ago for the yearly subscription. They required a $3.95 fee and only take payment at the first of the month. So, January 01, 2026 would be the date when they take $70.00 for the year. I couldn’t find anywhere how to unsubscribe, but by some miracle, found a form that appeared to be where I could. I filled it out and submitted it, but I don’t know for certain that I’ve been unsubscribed because then I saw mention of needing to go to the website for that. Couldn’t find a link to the website … I even did a Google search and can’t find it. I haven’t received any confirmation from Merkle that I’ve been unsubscribed. Google says to find what I need on Spotify podcast, or the App Store … NOPE!! What kind of company hides like this? I want to unsubscribe because it’s too difficult to do anything with the app platform. Nothing is clear and it’s very frustrating. Now, not being able to be sure that I’m unsubscribed and unable to locate a link to Customer Service/Support, (the exception being that there’s a communication link that’s only for those who have a story to share), really makes me question the integrity of the service. I’m here, giving a review, because there’s no link to the website or anything else related to subscription, (which was one of the instructions for unsubscribing). ### 1/5 — Hard to use *2025-02-25, version 5.5.1* Really liked the old app as it was so much simpler to use,the new updated app is just a mess,it’s geared more as a social media app than an audio app I just can’t use it anymore I’m afraid,just gonna use the player on the website ### 1/5 — Rebuilt no CarPlay integration *2025-01-19, version 5.4.2* Nice app. Can’t use it while driving. ### 1/5 — Create account *2024-07-05, version 1.0.32* Can’t create an account. App goes directly to log in after installation. ### 1/5 — Love the podcast, app is lacking *2024-02-15, version 1.0.32* I absolutely love the podcast and ran out of free shows to listen to so I bought membership. The app has so many issues on iOS. Love the lay out of it but I can't even get an episode to play 95% of the time. ### 1/5 — Cannot log in *2023-07-16, version 1.0.25* Friends, kinda defeats the point if your app is glitchy and won’t let me log in! I did password reset and all, got the email, inputed the code + my new password + password confirmation (which met all requirements), went back to login, and it STILL said failed login. Oh and then it locked me out for five failed attempts. 🤦🏻‍♀️ ### 1/5 — I can’t login *2023-06-05, version 1.0.25* I can’t really review the app because I only get invalid ID when I try to logi in. I haven’t received support sooo…I don’t know ### 1/5 — App review not a show review. *2023-04-16* The show is a 10 out of 10 but this app is another story. Functionally it is broken episodes don’t load well. Scrubbing and touch responsiveness overall is reminiscent of an app from 10 years ago. I have to say I have used wrapper apps ones that are more website than app that function better. Social functions are basic just conversations at random circa early 2000’s chat room. Social stuff didn’t need to be apart of this app with a well established discord that it has. All the app needed to do was be better than castos and in my opinion it’s not. I’d much rather prefer a member feed in Apple Podcasts over this. I’ll still use it still support but had to be honest. **Developer response:** Sorry you feel this way. Most people agree that this app is a much better experience than the third party app we were using as it was pretty much unusable for Android users. And providing an exclusive space for members to socialize amongst each other we feel is always a great idea. With there being so many apps that fans connect with the show on, this gives us a centralized location to where we can prioritized our attention and interactions as well. ### 2/5 — App bugs? *2023-09-07* Instant fan from the first eight count of the intro music!! Bought an annual membership so I could binge add free so of course I downloaded the app. Wellll… I will not use it because it is not user friendly at all. New shows are not updated promptly for top fans who pay to have early access. App feeezes. Has trouble connecting to a speaker or headphones causing me to have to close everything. Reload open and cross fingers it will play. Unfortunately most times not. It’s just not a great app for stress free listening of my #1 podcast. Because of that I’ve not been able to binge old episodes or overtime. So sad. Please fix it. ### 2/5 — Needs solid updating. *2023-07-30* The app is ok but lacks functions one would find podcast apps. 1. Doesn’t integrate with CarPlay. Now phone use in cars is becoming a traffic offense apps need to consider this a core feature. Without it’s unusable while driving. 2. Can’t read episode titles. They’re cut off. So unless you know the number and first word you can’t figure it out. 3. Fast forward reverse. Most apps give you 5 sec 10 sec or 15 sec burst advances of reverse. Not here 4. Remember where you function works sometimes. 5 Scrolling an episode is difficult. I believe the episodes technically are steaming via the app which is why there’s a delay. Either way this feature doesn’t work well. ## Most praised reviews (10 highest-rated) ### 5/5 — Thank you! *2025-08-10, version 5.5.2* My favorite app. Very interesting and shocking. By following The Confessionals, The Holy Spirit woke my soul up. Seriously. I’m walking with Jesus again. ### 5/5 — Great Show *2025-08-09, version 5.5.2* If you’re interested in all things paranormal this is the show for you!! ### 5/5 — Vital for Christians! *2025-08-08, version 5.5.2* Tony and family have created one of THE MOST vital and relevant apps for these end times that we are living in! The information provided is on the razors edge of what we as Christians need to navigate through all of the biblical prophecies being fulfilled and how closely they are tied with the supernatural and even cryptids! Just as importantly it encourages and motivates my walk with Jesus through the many guests who have the most incredible stories and experiences. The ONLY channel that I use my hard earned money to purchase a membership! Worth every penny! ### 5/5 — Best app ever *2025-08-07, version 5.5.2* This is the best app for the best podcast ever… keeps us all involved and informed…. Merkel is changing lives through the grace and love of the lord…!!! ### 5/5 — Love this podcast *2025-08-07, version 5.5.2* Thanks for listening to God and starting this podcast. It increased my faith in God. ### 5/5 — Best Podcast *2025-08-07, version 5.5.2* This is the best podcast in this realm. Tony is so good. My favorite. The app is second to none ### 5/5 — Best podcast *2025-08-07, version 5.5.2* Best paranormal podcast out there!!! ### 5/5 — Fan-freakin-tastic!!! *2025-08-07, version 5.5.2* Love this app! It’s such a great platform for the community to stay up-to-date on everything and connect with each other! The ability to watch all the episodes in the app is also a huge bonus! ### 5/5 — Terrific Listening *2025-08-07, version 5.5.2* This app is the perfect place to listen to interesting topics, with interesting people. Tony does a great job, bringing in amazing guest. ### 5/5 — UI is on par *2025-08-07, version 5.5.2* The UI is amazing. Very easy to navigate and also - one of the most profound and insightful podcasts out there. I love that we have our own community for the podcast. This is very unique! --- *Data collected daily from the US App Store and indexed by [AppsHunter](https://appshunter.io/). User reviews are verbatim App Store reviews. Ratings, prices and chart positions refresh continuously; this snapshot is from 2026-08-12.*