Equa vs Madrona Meditation
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Equa
This app offers a personalized mindfulness training experience with interactive feedback to build attentional control, mental resilience, and overall well-being. It addresses common challenges faced by new meditators by providing guidance and support throughout the practice.
- Attentional control training
- Mental resilience building
- Personalized mindfulness coaching
- Interactive feedback system
- Well-being improvement
- Guided meditation practice
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You’ve meditated before. Did it work? Be honest…you don’t actually know. Equa does. Equa is a meditation app that turns your practice into something you can measure. Using only the motion sensors in your phone, Equa tracks your breathing while you meditate and turns it into feedback on what actually changed during the session. No watch, no ring, and no headband needed. Using your respiration data, you can now see how your practice went, and watch your meditation skills develop over days and weeks – so you can tell whether it’s working instead of guessing. If you are new to Equa, you can try the app for free. After the trial, choose your own price on our sliding scale, or become an Equanaut and make Equa possible for someone else! Equa needs no additional hardware. Simply rest your phone on your chest and let the sensors inside do the work. How it works: Meditation Insights Equa reads your breathing from your phone’s accelerometer during a session and shows you what changed. You get your breath rate in breaths per minute, how it shifted from the start of the session to the end, and where that sits relative to your own baseline. The respiration algorithm was developed with researchers at Carnegie Mellon University. Breath Rate Breath rate is one of the clearest physical signals that a session is doing something, and Equa tracks it every time you sit. Trends Single sessions vary. Practice shows up over weeks. Equa charts your breath rate and session history over time so you can see your progress over time. Science We didn’t just make this up. Equa’s Chief Science Officer, Dr. David Creswell, runs the Health and Human Performance Lab at Carnegie Mellon University, where he’s spent two decades studying how mindfulness training actually changes the body’s biological stress outcomes. One study found mindfulness training reliably lowered cortisol and blood pressure under stress. But participants didn’t report feeling less stressed – they just were. “How do you feel” was never going to catch that. So we built something that does. Training & Curriculum: Equa treats meditation the way a training program treats a physical capacity. Sessions ask you to stay with discomfort rather than escape it, because that is where stress resilience is built. The curriculum offers a structured path through Unified Mindfulness’s core skills: Concentration Power, Sensory Clarity, and Equanimity. Equa offers a science-backed framework for mindfulness training. What else you can do in the Equa app: Review any past session and its breathing data Set practice reminders that fit your schedule Follow guided sessions for stress, focus, and attention Track and build on your practice Equa provides products and services designed for general wellness and education purposes. Equa is not a medical device, is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease, and should not be used as a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Breath rate measurement provides feedback on your meditation practice and is not a diagnostic tool. After this, Equa offers two auto-renewing subscription options: Play what you want slider Price - Varying This subscription is for six months and auto-renews after six months. - Title of auto-renewing subscription: Pay as you go. - Length of subscription: 1 month - Price of subscription: Varying - Privacy policy can be found here https://equahealth.io/privacy-policy. - Terms of Use (EULA) can be found here https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula. Year Subscription This subscription is for 12 months and auto-renews after 12 months. - Title: Annual Membership - Length of subscription: 1 year - Privacy policy can be found here https://equahealth.io/privacy-policy. - Terms of Use (EULA) can be found here https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula.
Madrona Meditation
This app offers guided meditations created by therapists to help users manage stress, anxiety, and distractions. It provides flexible sessions for daily support or deeper journeys, focusing on living more humanely.
- Therapist-curated content
- Flexible session lengths
- Focus on living more humanely
- Integrates with Apple Health
- Explores context and 'why' of practice
- Guided by experienced clinicians
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Madrona Meditation is an app for daily living & everything that comes with it—good, bad, or ugly. Madrona is the first meditation app created and curated by therapists. We’re integrating the contemplative with the clinical into original new content. To fill-in whenever you fall out. LIVE MORE HUMAN(ly) Too busy. Too distracted. Too anxious. Too exhausted. It’s inhuman! So, how about making a little space and time to reset and re-balance? Discover what it’s like to live in a more humane way, with room for your self, feelings and relationships. FLEXIBLE. CONSISTENT. EASY. Madrona is always here for you, whatever your schedule allows. 5 minutes between meetings, 30 minutes for a walk, 1 hour on weekends, or stuck at the airport Whether you need a quick one-off for daily support or full-blown course as part of a deeper journey: Our meditations are always flexible and friendly. FOR CURIOUS PEOPLE Meditation is more than a soothing voice and simple instructions. Minds. Behaviors. Relationships. Emotions. Discover what it means to love being human. Explore the context and "why" of your practice, letting your curiosity lead the way. Madrona is a journey for those who want to learn, not just follow. GUIDES YOU CAN TRUST No self-appointed “influencers.” No pseudo-spiritual narcissists. No overconfident public intellectuals. Madrona is created and curated by master’s and doctoral level clinicians, with thousands of hours of meditation training. We have practiced with Buddhist monks, in monasteries, and with renowned teachers. Before ever teaching another soul, we lived, breathed, and worked with these practices for years. You'll have the option to save your meditation sessions as Mindful Minutes in your Apple Health App. SUBSCRIPTION PRICING AND TERMS Madrona offers two auto-renewing subscriptions: $14.99 per month $119.99 per year This price is for US customers, and pricing in other countries may vary. The actual charges may be converted to your local currency depending on your country of residence. If you select the auto-renewing subscription membership option, payment will be charged to your Apple ID account at confirmation of purchase and your Madrona subscription will automatically renew in a year unless auto-renew is turned off at least 24 hours before the end of the current period; your credit card will be charged for renewal through your Apple ID account within 24-hours prior to the end of the current period. You can turn off an auto-renewing subscription at any time from your Apple ID Settings but refunds will not be issued for any unused portion of the term. Here is a link to our Privacy Policy: https://www.madronameditation.com/privacy/ Here is a link to our Terms of Use: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is monetization model: Madrona Meditation at free with in-app purchases against Equa's subscription. Madrona Meditation also leads on review sentiment (83% vs 69%). Equa's advantage is update cadence (weekly vs every 3 weeks) and ratings volume (249 vs 30). On price, rating, ads and in-app purchases there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
Both are free to download. Equa sells 10 in-app purchases, starting at $2.99 per month and Madrona Meditation sells 10 in-app purchases, starting at $4.99 per month. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 4.9 for Equa against 4.8 for Madrona Meditation. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Equa has 249 ratings behind it against 30, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews are what separate them: 69% of Equa's written reviews are positive against 83% of Madrona Meditation's.
Equa ships an update weekly, Madrona Meditation every 3 weeks. The most recent releases landed on November 7, 2026 and October 30, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Equa | Madrona Meditation |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.9 (249 ratings) — better | 4.8 (30 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 69.0% of reviews | 83.3% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 249 — better | 30 |
| Update frequency | Weekly — better | Every 3 weeks |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Monetization | Subscription | Free with in-app purchases — better |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 15.1 — better | 16.0.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 94 MB | 76 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Equa Health, Inc. | Madrona Meditation, LLC |
Customer experience
Equa
Madrona Meditation
Bugs and requests
Equa
Reported bugs
6 issues- Login page not working
- Tapping feedback not detecting double taps
- Accomplishments not logging accurately
- Cannot proceed past lesson 13 as a premium subscriber
- App redirects to subscribe screen for premium content
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- No way to reset user's meditation experience level
Requested features
8 requests- Add more content/lessons
- Sync with Apple Health
- Improve tapping detection accuracy
- Provide more guidance on dashboard usage
- Offer more than one reminder for micro-exercises
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- Add ability to reset profile/experience level
- Clarify course structure/outline
- Add more lessons beyond the initial 41
Madrona Meditation
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
Equa
- Monthly Subscriptoin7 Days trial$2.991 Month
- Monthly Subscriptoin7 Days trial$7.991 Month
- Monthly Subscription1 Month trial$11.991 Month
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- Monthly Subscription7 Days trial$12.991 Month
- Monthly Subscription7 Days trial$14.991 Month
- Monthly Subscription7 Days trial$17.991 Month
- Resilience Starter Kit7 Days trial$29.996 Months
- Yearly Subscription1 Year trial$39.991 Year
- Annual Membership7 Days trial$64.991 Year
- Yearly Equanaut7 Days trial$149.991 Year
Madrona Meditation
- Monthly Membership14 Days trial$4.991 Month
- Monthly Discounted Membership3 Months trial$9.991 Month
- Madrona Monthly14 Days trial$12.991 Month
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- Monthly Membership1 Year trial$14.991 Month
- Madrona Monthly1 Month trial$14.991 Month
- Monthly Membership14 Days trial$14.991 Month
- Annual Membership14 Days trial$35.991 Year
- Annual 50% off Promo14 Days trial$59.991 Year
- Annual Membership1 Year trial$119.991 Year
- Annual Membership14 Days trial$119.991 Year









