Yuna
Yuna is an AI mental well-being coach available 24/7 by voice or chat, sold to employers as an EAP alternative and to individuals through mobile apps. It escalates to licensed therapists and crisis lines when coaching is not enough.
What is Yuna?
Yuna is an AI mental health coach available around the clock by voice or text, published by Mindframe, Inc. under the Yuna Health brand. It is sold on two fronts: to employers as The Modern EAP Alternative, and to the general public as an emotional well-being app on iOS and Android. There is no intake form, no scheduling and no waiting room, and the publisher claims a response in under two seconds. The conversation carries over: Yuna is described as holding each employee's story rather than starting over between conversations, on the strength of a proprietary memory architecture and agentic AI systems.
The content is curated by a named clinical team. Dr Tara Deliberto, PhD, cited in more than 2,000 clinical research papers and a former lab director at Cornell and Harvard, curates the material by hand; Dr Jennifer Huberty, PhD, formerly Medical Director at Calm, co-leads the clinical and research team. The techniques are cognitive behavioural therapy, dialectical behaviour therapy and mindfulness. A built-in safety protocol de-escalates within the conversation and surfaces the 988 Lifeline and emergency services when language signals risk, and the product escalates to a matched network of licensed therapists who take insurance, 35,000 of them across 50 states according to the site.
Five building blocks make up the offer: 24/7 coaching, clinical therapy referral, EAP replacement, the Pulse Dashboard for employers, and benefits navigation.
The usage and outcome figures are those claimed by the publisher and come from internal studies: 60,000+ people supported, 155 countries, 2.5M+ conversations, 36% average utilisation at employers, six or more logins a month, stress down 38% and mood doubled after a single session. An internal study of 5,549 users and 19,079 sessions across 155 countries reports a Cohen's d of 0.41 to 0.42 with p-values under .001, using linear mixed models; a randomised controlled trial is announced on a 24-month clinical roadmap but is not published. Over 30 days, 78% of conversations resolve in session, 14% lead to skills and meditations, 6% to a therapist referral and 2% to the 988 crisis protocol. The publisher claims SOC 2 Type II and HIPAA alignment, without being a HIPAA covered entity. There is no public API.
What it does
- Talk to an AI coach by voice or in writing, 24/7, with no appointment
- Practise CBT, DBT and mindfulness techniques guided in real time
- Get matched with a licensed therapist who accepts insurance
- Trigger a safety protocol, with de-escalation and access to the 988 Lifeline and emergency services, when risky language appears
- Listen to meditations and breathing exercises generated for the time available
- Keep a daily journal guided by a prompt question
- Track adoption and outcomes, on the employer side, through an aggregated and de-identified dashboard
When to use Yuna / When not to
A quick filter to help you decide if Yuna is the right fit.
When to use Yuna
- Employers whose EAP sits unused: Yuna claims 35 to 47% utilisation, against the 3 to 5% typical of a traditional EAP
- Brokers, PEOs and TPAs adding a mental health component to the packages they resell to client companies
- Non-profits and associations supporting frontline staff, addressed directly by the 'support for the people who support others' offer
- Adults over 18 dealing with burnout, work stress, life transitions or poor sleep who want help outside office hours, around 70% of sessions happening after work
- People already in therapy who want structured support between two appointments
When not to use Yuna
- Anyone in crisis: the terms of service state that Yuna is an AI coaching tool and NOT a crisis response service, and it is not monitored by humans in real time
- People looking for a diagnosis, a prescription or treatment: it is not a medical device and does not replace a healthcare professional
- Users under 18: the service is reserved for adults, with 13 to 17 year-olds admitted only under the supervision of a parent or guardian, and it is not intended for children under 13
- People wanting an AI companion, a friend or a romantic or intimate relationship: the terms of service explicitly forbid that use, as they do any sexual purpose
- Developers, integrators and anyone needing formal paperwork: Yuna publishes no API and no developer documentation, and its sessions cannot serve as official records such as court-ordered therapy verification or emotional support animal certification
How to use Yuna
A typical end-to-end flow, from setup to results.
- As an individual, download the app from the Yuna download page, on the App Store or on Google Play
- Create an account with an email address, a date of birth, a password and the first name you want to be called
- Answer the short questionnaire that sets the starting point and what you want to work on
- Open the app and tap 'Chat Now' to start the first session, which is free
- Speak or type, switching between voice and text at any time, including short formats such as a five-minute meditation
- Practise the guided skill Yuna suggests, then subscribe to continue beyond the free session
- As an employer, book a demo through the Yuna business booking page
- Send an eligibility file: Yuna activates the population and supplies a personalised download site
- Roll out to employees, a deployment typically completed in under 48 hours, with no implementation fee and no extra HR headcount
- Cancel a personal subscription through the purchase channel, App Store or Google Play, with effect at the end of the current period
Pros & Cons
Pros
- Available 24/7 with no appointment and no waiting list, with a claimed response in under two seconds
- No session cap and no per-use fee
- Explicit safety chain: in-conversation de-escalation, 988 Lifeline, emergency services and referral to a licensed clinician
- Named and publicly identifiable clinical team, with Dr Tara Deliberto and Dr Jennifer Huberty
- Strong privacy stance: conversations encrypted, stated never to be used to train the model, and never visible to the employer
- Compliance signals on display: SOC 2 Type II, HIPAA alignment, a 2025 penetration test in the trust centre, subprocessors named one by one (Gemini, OpenAI, Anthropic, Google Cloud Platform) and an Article 27 representative for the EU and the UK
- Very low employer cost, at USD 3.00 PEPM as standard and as low as USD 2.00 PEPM at volume, with deployment in under 48 hours, and effectiveness data published with a stated method (linear mixed models, Cohen's d, sample size)
Cons
- No pricing page: the amounts appear only inside FAQ blocks, at USD 29.00 per month for individuals and USD 3.00 PEPM for employers
- GDPR compliance is shown as in progress in the trust centre, with an announced target of September 2026
- The site contradicts itself on certification: the therapy page announces SOC 2 Type I certified with Type II in progress, while the terms of service, the privacy page and the trust centre all announce SOC 2 Type II
- Outside the EU, EEA, United Kingdom and Switzerland, the marketing site's analytics cookies are set by default, with no banner and no way to object on the site
- Thin legal transparency: no DPA published or named, no DPO designated, and a privacy contact on a neighbouring domain (support@mindframes.ai) rather than on yuna.io
- Most effectiveness figures come from the publisher's own internal studies, the randomised controlled trial is announced rather than published, and no data hosting country is stated
- No API and no developer documentation, no published list of interface languages (site and app documented in English only), and use restricted to adults, with a supervised exception for 13 to 17 year-olds
Pricing & Plans
The first session is free and free trials are mentioned in the terms of service, but no permanent free plan is claimed. The lowest paid entry point is the employer offer, at USD 3.00 per member per month as standard, falling to USD 2.00 PEPM at volume, with no implementation fee; the publisher claims a cost per active user of USD 8 to 12, against USD 40 to 80 for a traditional EAP. The consumer subscription is USD 29.00 per month. Subscriptions renew automatically, are cancelled through the purchase channel with effect at the end of the current period, are not refunded pro rata, and free trials convert automatically into paid subscriptions. No dedicated pricing page exists on the site: every amount is published inside an FAQ block.
- USD 29.00 per month
- with the first session free
- USD 3.00 per member per month as standard
- from USD 2.00 PEPM at volume
- with no session cap and no per-use fee
- Distribution through brokers
- PEOs and TPAs
- who add Yuna to the packages they offer their own clients
- A dedicated offer for non-profits
- presented on the enterprise page
- No commercial tier name is published other than Digital Assistance Program
Data, GDPR & hosting
A consolidated view of how Yuna handles your data.
GDPR overview
GDPR is addressed but not settled. The Vanta-hosted trust centre lists GDPR among its frameworks while stating: GDPR compliance is in progress (expected completion Sep. 2026). Prighter Group is appointed as the Article 27 representative for the European Union and the United Kingdom, with a public portal for exercising rights. The privacy policy gives a legal basis field by field and grants access, rectification, erasure, restriction and objection, and portability to all users whatever their country, plus the right to lodge a complaint with the competent supervisory authority in the EEA, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. Standard Contractual Clauses are cited as the transfer safeguard. The cookie consent banner is shown only to visitors from the EU, EEA, United Kingdom and Switzerland. Requests go to support@mindframes.ai. No DPO and no data processing agreement are named, and the terms are governed by Delaware law.
Who owns the data?
Yuna Health (Mindframe, Inc.) is the declared data controller, but the privacy and safety page states plainly that you own your data and have full control over it. Users can export their data and request deletion at any time, and account deletion can be initiated from within the app, subject to legal retention obligations. Employers who pay for the service never see transcripts or individual records: they receive only aggregated, de-identified trends. The privacy policy adds that transcripts are never shared with Yuna Health without the user's consent, even de-identified. No data processing agreement and no data protection officer are named anywhere on the site.
Reuse rights
Yuna collects account details, communications, conversational data, flagged concerning language and escalations, device and connection diagnostics, survey and assessment results, and usage data. The stated legal bases are performance of a contract, legitimate interest and consent; the stated purposes are running and improving the service, authentication, support, invitations to user research and clinical partner programmes. Amazon Web Services is named as a provider in the privacy policy, while the trust centre lists Gemini, OpenAI, Anthropic and Google Cloud Platform as subprocessors. The publisher states that conversations are never used to train the product, improvement relying instead on independent research, licensed clinical datasets and aggregated product metrics; aggregated, de-identified data may nonetheless be shared, including with academic partners. Transfers outside the user's country of residence are contemplated, with the EU Standard Contractual Clauses as the safeguard for the EEA, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. The marketing site runs Google Analytics and PostHog, with session recording where analytics is active, whereas the mobile apps set no cookies; there is no advertising or targeting cookie, the business model being subscription-based. On the user side, nothing restricts what a person does with an export of their own data.
Data retention & training
Hosting summary
No hosting country and no hosting region is explicitly named for the application's data. Amazon Web Services is named as a provider in the privacy policy, and the Vanta-hosted trust centre lists Gemini, OpenAI, Anthropic and Google Cloud Platform as subprocessors, none of them with a stated location. The terms of service say only that The Service is operated from the United States, and they are governed by Delaware law. International transfers outside the user's country of residence are contemplated, with the EU Standard Contractual Clauses cited as the safeguard for the EEA, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. On the marketing site, analytics run on Google Analytics and on PostHog's European endpoint (eu.i.posthog.com), which concerns website analytics only and says nothing about where application data is stored. On the security side, the publisher states that all personal data is encrypted at rest and in transit, and that sensitive data is isolated in a dedicated environment. Anyone with a data residency requirement will have to obtain the hosting jurisdiction directly from the publisher: the site does not answer that question.
Where Yuna works
Country-level availability.
Not available in
Things to keep in mind
Risks and trade-offs to weigh before adopting Yuna.
- Not a crisis service: there is no real-time human monitoring, and the safety protocol depends on the AI detecting risky language in the conversation
- Not a medical device: Yuna neither diagnoses nor treats, and using it in place of licensed care can delay a needed clinical assessment
- Risk of emotional dependency on an always-available and endlessly patient interlocutor: the terms of service themselves forbid using Yuna as a companion, a friend or a romantic or intimate partner, which suggests the drift is a real one
- Age limits: adults aged 18 and over only, with 13 to 17 year-olds admitted solely under the supervision of a parent or guardian
- Contract terms: mandatory arbitration and class action waiver (terms of service, article 12), with a 30-day opt-out window by email to support@yuna.io, Delaware law, venue in the federal or state courts of San Francisco County, California, automatic renewal and no pro rata refund
- Outside the EU, EEA, United Kingdom and Switzerland, the marketing site's analytics cookies are set without consent and with no way to object on the site, and GDPR compliance is stated as in progress with a September 2026 target
- The app may transmit data to a clinical partner programme if the user consents, a consent worth reading closely before granting
Setup & Integrations
Technical difficulty
Very low on both sides. For an individual, setup means downloading the app, creating an account and answering a short questionnaire, with no technical configuration at all. For an employer, Yuna handles activation: the company sends an eligibility file, Yuna activates the population and supplies a personalised download site, with deployment typically completed in under 48 hours, no implementation fee and no extra HR headcount. SSO is mentioned for partner programmes. There is nothing to build or integrate, since no API is published, which also means no customisation beyond what the product already offers.
Deployment
Apps stores
Integrations
Behind Yuna
Social
Resources
All the official URLs gathered for verification and reference.
Alternatives
Tools that compete with or complement Yuna.
Frequently asked questions
Does Yuna replace therapy?
What exactly is Yuna?
When does a human step in?
Can my employer see my conversations?
Are my conversations used to train the model?
How much does it cost?
Is there a minimum age?
Which devices does it run on?
Can I delete my data?
What certifications does Yuna hold?
Should you pick Yuna?
Yuna is a clinically serious product. The clinical team is named and identifiable, the methods are stated (CBT, DBT, mindfulness), the safety chain is documented from in-conversation de-escalation to the 988 Lifeline and referral to licensed therapists, and the outcome figures come with a method: linear mixed models, a Cohen's d of 0.41 to 0.42, a sample of 5,549 users and 19,079 sessions. Those figures are the publisher's own, produced by internal studies, and the randomised controlled trial is announced on a 24-month roadmap rather than published. They should be read as claimed, not established.
Transparency is where the product falls short. There is no pricing page: every amount lives inside an FAQ. The trust centre still shows GDPR compliance as in progress, with a target of September 2026. And the site contradicts itself on certification, the therapy page announcing SOC 2 Type I with Type II in progress while the terms of service, the privacy page and the trust centre all announce SOC 2 Type II.
For employers, the economics are aggressive: USD 3.00 per member per month, no implementation fee and deployment in under 48 hours, against a traditional EAP whose cost per active user is several times higher. For individuals, USD 29.00 per month buys unlimited sessions, with a first session free.
The positioning is clear and worth taking at face value: Yuna is an entry point and a complement, never a substitute for licensed care. It is not a crisis service, not a medical device, is not monitored by humans in real time, and is reserved for adults. Two things are worth verifying with the publisher before buying: the actual state of GDPR compliance, and the exact scope of the DPA and contractual commitments, neither of which the site names.
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