Reviews (1)

It’s August 7, 2018, as I’m writing this, and I’ve been an active member of Noom for about a month and a half, having signed up for the two-week free trial on June 20th.

Positives: The psychology of the program really got under my skin and nudged me into changing some behaviors I had been previously very resistant to changing. I enjoyed learning new segments of health information every day on the app - something Weight Watchers did not provide a parallel for. Noom provides enough material to fill a book, in interactive small segments where you type in your own answers, take quizzes, and share with a group.

You also have a coach, who will ask every week about your goals for that week and how you’ll go about reaching them. The coach was kind and helpful, if a bit too "cheerleadery" for my own preference - I felt like I was dealing with a persona rather than a person. But that was still a positive overall.

Negatives: I don’t like Noom’s billing model, lack of account self-service options, and lack of telephone-based customer service. When you sign up for the two-week free trial, you’re on track to be billed $99 for two months when it ends, even though other options - like $120 for four months - are available within the app. The availability of the long-term options is not well explained. Customer service takes days to respond to inquiries. And you cannot change which credit card you use for your payment yourself. All this, plus you have to directly ask your coach in order to cancel. They are trying way too hard, in a fairly coercive model, to get $99 out of people signing up for free trials, at the expense of people liking the company and sticking with it voluntarily.

Better choices - don’t make the trial free. Just charge some amount that people could afford, like $9.99. And then don’t auto bill when it ends, instead, let people choose their payment package. Have people choose you, not feel like you’re trying to trick them. I would have signed up for the four-month membership or longer if this had been handled differently.