Common questions, honest answers
Everything people usually want to know before they start — what Haven is, what it deliberately is not, and what happens to the things you write.
What Haven is
Yes — that is what Haven is for. You talk or type through what's on your mind with an AI guide that listens, asks thoughtful questions, and reflects your own reasoning back to you. It is a private reflection tool, not therapy, and it works in your browser with a free trial and no credit card. See how Haven works.
No. Haven is a space for guided self-reflection. It does not diagnose, treat, or provide medical or psychological care, and it is not a substitute for a licensed therapist or counsellor. Many people use reflection alongside professional support, or to get their thoughts in order between sessions. The full, honest comparison is on Haven vs. therapy.
Haven is a focused reflection space, not a general assistant. You choose from a set of guide styles built for working through thoughts and feelings, every message passes a safety layer, there is no engagement feed or gamification, and your reflection history is organized around you — not around getting you to stay longer.
A guide is an original AI communication style — not a person. Healing Coach (our recommended style) is for working through what still hurts; Boundary & Word Coach is for hard conversations, conflict, and boundaries; and the Life Design Coach walks you through a life-changing exercise each month and helps you act on it.
No — those are forms of therapy delivered by licensed professionals, and Haven is not therapy. Haven offers guided self-reflection that borrows the journaling-friendly ideas those approaches popularized — see IFS, CBT, DBT and inner child work in plain English and the meeting your younger self guide. If you want the therapy itself, a licensed therapist is the right choice.
Yes. Haven is a web app available in the United States and Canada (and anywhere your browser works, in English). Crisis resources shown in the app include the US 988 line; in Canada, call or text 9-8-8. We also keep a current list of Canadian mental health resources (and a US one).
Privacy and your data
Your reflections are private to your account. Nothing you write is visible to another person unless you choose to share it — nothing is public, nothing is sold, and nothing is used for advertising. There are exactly two ways sharing happens, and both are a deliberate act by you: a Together conversation, where the person you invite reads what you send to the shared thread — but never your private side, which stays between you and the coach; and connecting a therapist, who sees only what you explicitly send them. Message text is sent to the AI provider only to screen for safety and generate the reply. The full plain-English walkthrough is on how private is Haven; the specifics live in the Privacy Policy.
No ads, no ad trackers, no selling data. Haven has a small optional analytics system that records feature-usage events under a pseudonymous key — never the text of your reflections. You can switch it off in Settings, which also deletes the stored events.
Yes. Settings lets you delete individual chats and memories, download an export of your account data, and request full account deletion. Turning analytics off also deletes that account’s analytics events.
Trial, plans, and billing
Yes — every new account starts with a one-time free budget of 315K weighted tokens, with no credit card required. That is enough to have several real conversations and see whether Haven's way of reflecting fits you.
Pro is $25/month (or $250/year) with 4.88M weighted tokens each week. Plus is $50/month (or $500/year) with 9.75M weighted tokens each week. Max is $100/month (or $1000/year) with 24.38M weighted tokens each week. Every plan includes every guide and call mode; what changes is how much you can use them, how quickly replies come back, and access to Together, the two-person conversation. Any paid plan can join a Together conversation at any time. Plus and Max can open one at any time; Pro can open one only during its first 30 days, and this is the part worth knowing before you buy — after those 30 days a Pro account can still join and send in anyone else's conversation, but the ones it opened itself stop accepting new messages until it upgrades. Upgrading to Plus reopens them. You can cancel anytime and keep access until the end of the paid period.
Tokens are the unit AI models use to measure text. Your weekly allowance counts the text you send and the replies you receive, with some cached input counted at a reduced weight. The weekly window resets every Sunday at midnight UTC, shown in your own time zone wherever a reset time appears in the app.
Safety
Every message goes through a safety layer before any guide replies. If it detects a crisis, Haven sets the persona aside and responds with direct crisis information instead, including the 988 lifeline in the US and 9-8-8 in Canada. Haven cannot contact emergency services for you.
Haven is built for adults. Anyone under 18 needs a parent or guardian’s permission first: we ask everyone their age at signup, and an under-18 account stays closed until the parent we email actually says yes. The full explanation is on Is Haven for kids?