Comparison

Bounce Back Now vs Safety Plan

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

Bounce Back Now

This app offers private, self-paced emotional recovery tools for individuals and families impacted by trauma or stressful life events. It helps track well-being, provides coping strategies for stress, anxiety, and mood, and connects users to support resources.

Highlights
  • Emotional well-being assessment and tracking
  • Understanding trauma symptoms
  • Coping tools for stress, anxiety, and mood
  • Mindfulness and relaxation techniques
  • Sleep monitoring and improvement
  • Parenting tips for young children
  • Connection to crisis support helplines
Read full description

Bounce Back Now (BBN) is a free app to support the emotional recovery of individuals and families affected by a traumatic event, privately and at their own pace. Most content in the app is also highly relevant to people who have experienced other stressful life events. BBN was developed by healthcare professionals at the Medical University of South Carolina, Boston University, and University of Nebraska and was rigorously tested in research funded by the National Institute of Mental Health to provide an effective recovery tool for trauma survivors worldwide. Many people experience stress, anxiety, low mood, or sleep problems after a traumatic event, but don’t know where to turn for help. This app will help you track your emotional recovery and will provide you with coping tools to help you manage stress, anxiety, mood, and sleep problems based on best practice guidelines. If you want to talk to or text a disaster crisis counseling and support specialist via the Disaster Distress Helpline (which is administered by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration), the BBN app will help connect you to them. Download BBN today to support your and your family’s recovery after a traumatic event. What you will get: - Ability to assess your emotional well-being and track your recovery over time. - Gain an understanding of symptoms that commonly occur after a traumatic event. - Easy access to best-practice mobile tools that support emotional recovery and health across a range of domains, including stress, anxiety, depression, and sleep. - Effective coping tools that include relaxation skills, mindfulness, scheduling pleasurable activities, monitoring and improving sleep, writing about your experience, and tools to manage stress and anxiety. - Apply coping tools to improve mood and rate your experiences. - Coping tips for adults and helpful parenting tips for young children and adolescents. - Resources for additional help, such as Disaster Distress Helpline, American Red Cross, and National Institutes of Health, all in one place. - By practicing these skills over time, you may become less distressed and more quickly able to return to your daily activities. This mobile app is intended for information, education, and self-help purposes only. It is not a substitute for medical advice from a doctor or health care provider. Use of this application does not establish a doctor-patient relationship between you and the Medical University of South Carolina, Boston University School of Public Health, University of Nebraska, the National Institutes of Health, or any affiliated institutions. Persons using this application assume full responsibility for the use of this application and agree that the Medical University of South Carolina, Boston University School of Public Health, University of Nebraska, or any affiliated institutions are not responsible or liable for any claims, losses, or harms arising from use of the application. If you have any questions about the app, please contact the BBN Team at bbn@musc.edu or visit bouncebacknow.org.

About

Safety Plan

This app guides users through creating a personalized safety plan to manage suicidal thoughts and self-harm urges. It offers tools for crisis moments, mood tracking, and access to support resources for individuals and their loved ones.

Highlights
  • Step-by-step safety plan creation
  • Shareable safety plans
  • Crisis intervention tools
  • Mood tracking
  • Access to crisis support
  • Informational resources
Features
Read full description

Safety Plan is here to help you make a plan for dealing with thoughts of suicide and self-harm. The app will walk you through filling out the 6 steps of a safety plan, share your safety plan with your loved ones, and use your safety plan in a moment of crisis. The app also includes audio and interactive tools to help you calm down, information for you and your loved ones about safety plans and suicide, mood tracking, and ready access to crisis support. Safety Plan is a U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs app, developed by the National Center for PTSD Dissemination and Training Division and the Office of Mental Health and Suicide Prevention.

Screenshots

Bounce Back Now3 screens
Safety Plan4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is update cadence: Bounce Back Now at fortnightly against Safety Plan's every 22 months. Safety Plan's advantage is ratings volume (23 vs 4) and iOS requirement (13.0 vs 15.0). On price, rating, review sentiment and ads 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

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 5.0 for Bounce Back Now against 5.0 for Safety Plan. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Safety Plan has 23 ratings behind it against 4, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews split almost evenly too, at 100% and 100% positive.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Bounce Back Now ships an update fortnightly, Safety Plan every 22 months. The most recent releases landed on October 20, 2026 and October 28, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard3 real differences · 7 level
Bounce Back Now versus Safety Plan: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterBounce Back NowSafety Plan
PriceFreeFree
Rating5.0 (4 ratings) — better5.0 (23 ratings)
Positive reviews100.0% of reviews100.0% of reviews
Number of ratings423 — better
Update frequencyFortnightly — betterEvery 22 months
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
MonetizationFreeFree
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPodiPhone, iPad, iPod
Requires iOS15.013.0 — better
Further details — not scored
Size52 MB90 MB
Age rating12+4+
DeveloperThe Medical University of South CarolinaUS Department of Veterans Affairs (VA)

Customer experience

Bounce Back Now

All ratings4 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%
Written reviews1 reviews
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

Safety Plan

All ratings23 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%
Written reviews6 reviews
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

In-app purchases

None

Bounce Back Now

No in-app purchases

None

Safety Plan

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Bounce Back Now free?
Bounce Back Now is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is Safety Plan free?
Safety Plan is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Which has better reviews, Bounce Back Now or Safety Plan?
Bounce Back Now is rated higher. Bounce Back Now averages 5.0 out of 5 from 4 ratings, while Safety Plan averages 5.0 from 23 ratings.
Do Bounce Back Now or Safety Plan have ads?
Neither Bounce Back Now nor Safety Plan shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Bounce Back Now or Safety Plan?
Bounce Back Now ships an update fortnightly, and Safety Plan every 22 months. Most recently, Bounce Back Now was updated on October 20, 2026 and Safety Plan on October 28, 2026.

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