Depression is one of the most common mental illnesses, impacting more than 14 million Americans each year. A study conducted by the CDC also showed that during COVID-19, almost a third of the population experienced either anxiety or depression. No wonder many Americans are seeking the best online therapy for depression.
There are many types of depression, which are often combined with other mental health issues such as anxiety or stress, making the condition harder to diagnose or treat effectively. The good news are, that according to the American Psychiatry Association, 80% to 90% of people eventually respond well to treatment. The below list of online therapy providers for depression, offering specific online depression counseling, can help you too.
The list above is a compilation of some of the online therapy platforms we review, organized in the specific order we believe is best for online depression treatments. Our team of experts thoroughly reviews and examines each company, and we update all our pages with any new, relevant information as soon as it comes out.
As with all our recommendations, we used the following metrics to determine the best therapy sites to help with depression:
With more than 25,000 licensed therapists and 3 million registered users, BetterHelp is the largest online therapy site in the world. Combine that with the fact they have excellent software and top notch customer service, and it is no wonder why we chose it as our overall best online therapy site.
BetterHelp offers its users a weekly live session with a therapist, as well as the option to chat or mail them at any time. From our experience as well as feedback we got from our readers, therapists usually reply within the day – although sometimes it may take a bit too long to get a response. If that happens, and you feel like you need better support, you can easily choose a different counselor instead.
Even though the overall package of services offered by BetterHelp is superb, when it comes to treating depression there are a few things they lack. The platform doesn’t offer any psychiatric treatments or medical prescriptions, so in some cases you might have to combine talk therapy on BetterHelp with face-to-face meetings with a psychiatrist who can prescribe antidepressants.
BetterHelp also doesn’t work with any insurance company. If your provider covers online therapy sessions, you can file for coverage independently, and BetterHelp will help by sending any relevant document you might need. Read our full BetterHelp review to see why we think it’s the best choice for anyone who’s looking to start with online therapy for depression.
Talkspace is another extremely popular therapy platform, and our choice for the best therapy site that accepts insurance. Even though it’s also a large platform with many therapists to choose from, the experience feels more personal when compared to BetterHelp. This is due to several reasons, but mainly because you get a free chat consultation as soon as you sign up, with the aim of helping you choose the best therapist for your specific needs.
Without insurance, Talkspace is more expensive than BetterHelp, and is also slightly behind when it comes to the overall quality of the platform. However, since they do work with quite a large list of insurance providers, you should be able to find a way to reduce costs significantly.
Read our Talkspace review for all the details, or this comparison between BetterHelp and Talkspace if you want to know all the small differences between these 2 industry leaders.
Brightside is a well known teletherapy company, operating in the U.S for over 5 years now. Unlike our previous 2 recommendations, Brightside is a smaller company – with its entire focus being treating depression and anxiety disorders.
Being a smaller platform means there are much less therapists to choose from, and we have also encountered availability issues more than once. Counselors are sometimes late to respond, and you might have to wait several days before you even get to have your first session. On the plus side, Brightside’s users get much more personal treatment and attention from the site’s representatives.
The biggest reason to use Brightside is the fact they offer a psychiatric evaluation alongside talk therapy. Their therapy + meds package isn’t cheap, but it’s ideal if you want to get medical prescriptions for OTC antidepressants (SSRIs or SNRIs). Brightside also works with several insurance providers, but significantly fewer than Talkspace.
Read our full Brightside review, or a detailed comparison between Brightside and Talkspace to learn more about the platform and what it is to offer for people who are dealing with depression.
Online-therapy.com is a fairly small online therapy site, but has one of the best reputations in the industry. The fact they have been around since 2009 and maintain an impeccable reputation speaks volume of the quality of service they provide.
What sets Online-Therapy.com apart from competitors when it comes to treating depression, is the fact the entire platform is geared towards CBT treatments. With CBT being so popular nowadays, naturally you can find therapists who practice it on every therapy site – but Online-Therapy.com is the only one which requires psychologists to focus solely on it.
This is combined with a plethora of tools embedded in the platform and design to help you on your journey to better wellbeing – such as worksheets, journals, meditation videos, activity plans and other features that help you track and assess your progress. Your therapist will comment on your “homework” and help you throughout the process – which is extremely gratifying and lets you take a more active role in treatment.
Studies have shown CBT is one of the most effective ways to combat depression. This is because the whole technique focuses on finding and changing negative thought patterns – which is both a key symptom and cause of depression. Patients usually report improvement within 10 to 15 sessions of treatment.
Read our full Online-Therapy.com review and find out why we like it so much for people who prefer a CBT-focused treatment for their depression.
Unlike the sites above, HealthSapiens is a general telehealth service and isn’t solely focused on therapy. What we like about it though, is that when compared to other similar platforms (such as Amwell or MDLive for example) – their therapy section is very well developed and they view it as a much more integral part of their service package.
The counseling package costs $197 a month, and in return you get 6 live sessions with a therapist. This isn’t the cheapest option out there – but it is the best value for money. Read our full HealthSapiens review or our guide for the best affordable online therapy to learn more.