Free Alternative to Wysa in India: 6 Honest Options (2026)

The honest answer first: Wysa's AI chat is already free, so you may not need to replace it at all. What costs money is the full library of tools, the coaching and the therapy. If those are why you're looking, good free alternatives in India are Sereno With You (free breathwork, mood tracking, journaling and a limited daily AI companion), a pen-and-paper CBT thought record (Wysa's core exercise, which you can do yourself for free), Medito or Insight Timer for guided audio, and, if you want a human rather than a bot, Tele-MANAS at 14416 or iCall, both of which offer free counselling. The right pick depends on which part of Wysa you actually used.

Is Wysa actually free in India?

Partly, and it's worth being precise about which part.

Wysa is made by Touchkin, a company founded in Bengaluru. In its own blog post about its services in India, Wysa says every user gets "unlimited chat with the AI chatbot, which is completely free," along with some exercises. That's generous, and it's the part most people know: the friendly penguin that asks how you're feeling and walks you through reframing a thought.

The rest is paid. When we checked Wysa's Indian App Store listing this month, it showed Wysa Premium at ₹599 a month or ₹3,749 a year, which unlocks the complete library of tools and exercises. Coaching and therapy are separate purchases: the listing showed one-to-one life coaching sessions at around ₹2,400, and video-therapy and therapist-access packs from ₹1,499 upward. Prices change by platform, plan and promotion, so check the current figure in your own app store before you decide anything.

So if you're searching for a free alternative to Wysa, you're probably in one of these situations:

• You hit a locked tool pack mid-exercise and felt the door close.
• You liked the coach idea but the price doesn't fit a student or early-career budget.
• The chat started to feel scripted, and you want something different, not more of the same.
• You realised what you actually need is a person, not a bot.

Each of those has a different free answer.

What were you actually using Wysa for?

Before you download anything, name the job. Wysa users tend to rely on one or two of these:

1. Talking something through at odd hours. It's 1 AM, a thought is looping, and you want somewhere to put the words.
2. CBT-style reframing. Spotting a thinking trap ("I always mess up"), questioning it, and finding a fairer version.
3. Quick calming exercises. Breathing, grounding or a short relaxation when anxiety spikes.
4. Tracking how you feel over time. Noticing that the bad days cluster around certain things.
5. A route to a real professional. You wanted the coaching or therapy, not the bot.

Write down your one or two. That's your shopping list, and it stops you from swapping one all-in-one app for another you'll also half-use.

Which free options actually replace Wysa?

We checked each of these against its own site or app store listing this month. Where we couldn't confirm something, we've left it out.

1. Wysa's own free tier: best if the chat is all you used

This sounds strange in a post about alternatives, but it's the most useful thing we can tell you. If what you valued was the late-night chat, Wysa's free tier already gives you that without limits. Before you go looking for a replacement, check whether you were really using the paid parts. Many people weren't.

Best for jobs: talking things through (1) and basic reframing (2). Honest limit: the full exercise library, coaching and therapy all cost extra.

2. Sereno With You: best for calming tools, mood patterns and Indian context

Disclosure: this is our app, so weigh this entry with that in mind. Sereno's free plan includes Studio (guided breathwork like box breathing and 4-7-8, calming sounds, guided audio and simple CBT-style tools), Orbit (a daily mood check-in that shows patterns over weeks), unlimited journaling, and 10 messages a day with Buddy, an AI wellness companion that points you to iCall or the Vandrevala Foundation when a conversation needs a human. It runs in the browser, so you can try it once without installing anything. An optional Elite plan (₹499/month) gives 10× the Buddy time, weekly pattern reports and live sessions, but the core tools stay free.

Best for jobs: quick calming exercises (3) and tracking how you feel (4). Honest limit: if long, unlimited chats are what you want, Wysa's free chat gives you more conversation per day than Sereno's free Buddy does. We'd rather tell you that than have you find out at message eleven.

3. A paper CBT thought record: best free replacement for the reframing exercises

The heart of Wysa's CBT work is an old, well-tested exercise: write down the situation, the thought, the feeling, then look for evidence and a more balanced thought. You don't need an app for it. A notebook or your phone's notes app does the same job, works offline, and never locks a step behind a paywall. We've included the full five-minute version below.

Best for job: CBT-style reframing (2). Honest limit: no one prompts you. You have to remember to do it, so attach it to something you already do, like your evening chai.

4. Medito or Insight Timer: best if you mostly used the relaxation audio

If the part of Wysa you returned to was its guided relaxation and sleep exercises, a dedicated meditation app will give you far more of that for free. Medito is run by a non-profit and has no paid tier at all. Insight Timer calls itself the world's largest library of free guided meditations. Our guide to the free alternative to Headspace in India compares both in detail.

Best for job: quick calming exercises (3), especially at night. Honest limit: neither one is a chat companion or a CBT tool.

5. Amaha: best if you want an Indian app with a path to therapists

Amaha, formerly InnerHour, is a Mumbai-based company. Its app lists hundreds of self-help tools drawn from CBT, positive psychology and mindfulness, a mood tracker, an AI chatbot, and access to its own therapists. The app is free to download with in-app purchases, but we couldn't confirm exactly how much of the self-help library stays free, so check before you commit. It makes the most sense if you think you'll eventually want therapy and would like the tools and the therapist in one place.

Best for job: a route to a professional (5), with self-help tools alongside. Honest limit: therapy is paid, and the free tier's extent isn't clearly stated.

6. Tele-MANAS and iCall: best free option if you need a person, not a bot

If you were eyeing Wysa's coaching because you wanted a human, start with the free ones. Tele-MANAS is the Government of India's free, 24/7 tele-mental-health line: dial 14416. iCall, run by the School of Human Ecology at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, offers free counselling by phone and email; call 9152987821. Neither replaces long-term therapy, but both are real, trained people, and both cost nothing.

Best for job: a route to a real professional (5). Honest limit: these are listening and guidance services, not weekly sessions with one therapist. For ongoing therapy, our guide to affordable therapy in India covers lower-cost routes.

How do the free options compare, job by job?

Most people end up with two tools at most: one for in-the-moment calm and tracking, and one place to put their thoughts. Five apps means you open none of them.

A worked example: Rohan, 1 AM, a performance review on Friday

Say you're Rohan, 27, a product analyst in Pune. Your review is on Friday, and every night this week you've lain awake running the same thought: "My manager thinks I'm not good enough, and I'm going to get a bad rating." You started using Wysa's free chat on Monday. It helped. On Wednesday you opened an exercise pack that was locked, saw the premium price, and closed the app.

Here's how that maps:

• The reframing becomes a thought record in his notes app. Situation: a short reply from his manager on Slack. Thought: "She's annoyed with me." Evidence for: the reply was one line. Evidence against: she sends one-line replies to everyone, and she praised his dashboard two weeks ago. Balanced thought: "I don't know what the review will say. Some of my work has been noticed." That takes five minutes and costs nothing.
• The 1 AM spike becomes a four-minute breathing session in Sereno Studio, so his body comes down before he tries to reason with his mind. Our guide to how to stop overthinking at night explains why that order matters.
• The pattern becomes Orbit. After two weeks of ten-second check-ins, Rohan can see that his worst nights are always the two before a scheduled one-on-one, not random. That's something he can plan around, and something to bring up if he ever does see a therapist.
• The chat stays with Wysa's free tier on the nights he just wants to talk.

Total cost: ₹0. What he gives up: the locked exercise packs. What he gains: a setup built around the three things he actually needed, plus a pattern he couldn't see before.

How do you do a CBT thought record in five minutes?

This is the free version of the exercise most CBT apps are built around. You can do it on paper, in your notes app, or in Sereno's journal. Do it when a thought is bothering you, not at a random time.

1. Write the situation in one line. Just the facts, as a camera would see them: "Manager replied 'ok' to my update."
2. Write the automatic thought, word for word. The exact sentence your mind said: "She thinks my work is bad."
3. Name the feeling and rate it from 0 to 100. "Anxious, 75."
4. List the evidence for and against the thought. Two columns, facts only. Look for things a friend would point out.
5. Write a balanced thought. Not a forced positive one, but a fairer one that fits all the evidence: "I don't know what she meant. She's usually brief."
6. Re-rate the feeling. "Anxious, 45." It rarely drops to zero, and it doesn't need to. A drop is the skill working.

If you want more structure, our guide to CBT techniques for anxiety at home covers the common thinking traps to look for in step 4, and how to journal for anxiety helps when you can't find the words at all.

What should you check before trusting any mental health app?

Switching apps is a good moment to ask a few questions you might have skipped the first time.

• Where does your writing go? Read the privacy policy's section on what's stored and whether it's shared. Your late-night thoughts are some of the most personal data you'll ever type.
• Can you take your notes with you? Woebot, another well-known CBT chatbot, closed its consumer app in June 2025 and gave users a deadline to download their conversation history. Apps close. Keep anything important somewhere you control.
• Does the app say what it isn't? Wysa's own store listing says it doesn't offer diagnosis or treatment advice. A trustworthy app is clear about that line, and so should you be. Our post on whether AI can help with anxiety goes into where chatbots help and where they don't.
• Is it nudging you to pay at your lowest moment? A prompt to upgrade in the middle of an anxious spiral is a design choice. Notice how a tool treats you when you're struggling.

When is an app not enough?

Apps, ours included, are daily upkeep, not treatment. If low mood, panic or sleeplessness has lasted more than a couple of weeks, or it's getting in the way of work, study or relationships, the next step is a trained professional, not a better app.

And if tonight feels much heavier than stress, if you feel hopeless, or you're thinking about not being here, please talk to a person now. In India you can call Tele-MANAS at 14416 (Government of India, free, 24/7), the Vandrevala Foundation at 1860-2662-345 (free and confidential, 24/7), or iCall at 9152987821 (TISS, Mon–Sat). You don't have to carry this alone.

Where does Sereno fit?

We didn't build Sereno to be a better chatbot than Wysa. We built it because people kept telling us that the hard moments weren't really conversations. They were a tight chest before a call, a Sunday night that always went the same way, a month of feeling flat that they couldn't explain. So the parts that help with those moments are free: Studio for a two-minute reset, Orbit for seeing your patterns, journaling for your own thought records, and Buddy for a few messages a day when you want to put a feeling into words. Use it alongside Wysa's free chat if that's what works for you. You can see exactly what stays free on our Free Forever page.

If you're comparing more widely, our guides to the free alternative to Calm in India, the best free mental health app for students in India and free mental health resources in India cover other options by use case.

Want to try a two-minute reset right now? Start free at Sereno With You

The best app isn't the one with the most features. It's the one you'll actually open on a hard Wednesday night, and that leaves you a little steadier when you close it.