Comparison

Joy Lab vs Choose Better Thoughts

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

Head to head
About

Joy Lab

This wellbeing program helps you cope with stress, anxiety, and low moods by building on your inner strengths. It offers a science-backed approach with 12 Elements of Joy to develop mental and emotional skills for a more resilient and meaningful life.

Highlights
  • Science-backed Elements of Joy
  • Identify stress and anxiety patterns
  • Practice acceptance and letting go
  • Develop new empowering pathways
  • Create lifelong joyful practices
  • Track progress on experiments
Read full description

Looking for ways to cope better with stress, anxiousness, or low mood? Meet Joy Lab - a wellbeing program designed to help you feel better and live brighter, all by building on the strengths you already have. Through our 12 science-backed Elements of Joy, you'll develop the mental and emotional skills needed to reduce chronic stress, lift your mood, and tap into the joy that is within you. What is Joy Lab? Joy Lab is a self-guided program that helps you: *Identify unconscious patterns and common obstacles that might be contributing to chronic stress, anxiety, or depression *Practice acceptance and letting go of what might be keeping you stuck. *Take empowering actions to create new patterns and pathways to help you not only “feel better,” but to tap into your joy. *Create lifelong practices that build on your strengths and that work to deepen your sense of connection and meaning in life. *Each month, we focus on one of our 12 Elements of Joy, weaving them into your everyday life in not just realistic ways, but in deeply meaningful ways. Importantly, these Elements aren’t quick fixes. Quick fixes don’t work for our complex lives. Instead, these Elements are the building blocks for a more joyful, resilient life. What You'll Gain: *A practical, empowering way to manage stress, anxiousness, and low moods *A deeper understanding of your thoughts, emotions, and patterns *Daily actions that feel manageable and meaningful *Tools to connect to your "joy grid"—that inner current of resilience and vitality that’s always been there With the Joy Lab app, you can: *Access the Joy Lab Program in one easy to use app *Track your progress on your Experiments and mark them as complete *Receive push notifications with the latest news and updates *Access to all of your videos without having to remember your password END USER LICENSE AGREEMENT https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/

About

Choose Better Thoughts

Read full description

Feel less overwhelmed. Think more clearly. Create a life that actually feels easy to live. The Choose Better Thoughts app is your personal coaching companion, designed for high-achieving women who are ready to stop running on empty and start leading with calm, clarity, and self-trust. Led by certified coach and podcast host Amanda Doyle, this app helps you identify and rewrite the limiting beliefs that keep ambitious women stuck in cycles of burnout, perfectionism, and guilt. Inside, you'll find: Weekly Live Coaching: Join Amanda for live calls to get coached or listen and learn from others Self-Coaching Course: Follow a 5-module journey with video lessons, journal prompts, and mindset strategies Daily Motivation: Access short, soul-nudging videos based on each week’s theme Interactive Workbook: Reflect, grow, and track your thinking with powerful questions and prompts Community Connection: Share insights, wins, and shifts with women on the same path Podcast Library: Listen to powerful, bite-sized episodes that challenge limiting beliefs Whether you’re working full time, parenting, leading, caregiving...or doing all of the above...this app gives you the research-based tools and fun support to create emotional clarity and personal power. You don’t need to change your entire life. You just need to choose better thoughts. Start your journey today. END USER LICENSE AGREEMENT https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/

Screenshots

Joy Lab4 screens
Choose Better Thoughts3 screens

Verdict

The call

Joy Lab and Choose Better Thoughts are too close to call on the numbers: across 6 compared parameters — price, update cadence, ads and in-app purchases among them — neither pulls far enough ahead to decide it. What separates them is feature set and interface, not measurable difference.

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.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Joy Lab ships an update every 2 weeks, Choose Better Thoughts every 3 weeks. The most recent releases landed on September 16, 2026 and September 5, 2026 respectively.

ScorecardNo meaningful differences
Joy Lab versus Choose Better Thoughts: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterJoy LabChoose Better Thoughts
PriceFreeFree
Rating5.0 (1 ratings) — better—
Number of ratings1 — better—
Update frequencyEvery 2 weeks — betterEvery 3 weeks
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
MonetizationFree—
DevicesiPhone, iPadiPhone, iPad
Requires iOS16.616.6
Further details — not scored
Size49 MB37 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperNatural Mental HealthAmanda Doyle

In-app purchases

None

Joy Lab

No in-app purchases

None

Choose Better Thoughts

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Joy Lab free?
Joy Lab is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is Choose Better Thoughts free?
Choose Better Thoughts is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Do Joy Lab or Choose Better Thoughts have ads?
Neither Joy Lab nor Choose Better Thoughts shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Joy Lab or Choose Better Thoughts?
Joy Lab ships an update every 2 weeks, and Choose Better Thoughts every 3 weeks. Most recently, Joy Lab was updated on September 16, 2026 and Choose Better Thoughts on September 5, 2026.

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