What users hate. Clustered.

1- and 2-star reviews fed into NVIDIA NIM gpt-oss-120b, grouped into themes with verbatim examples. Each cluster is a wedge a competitor could exploit.

56 reviews·8 themes

Unfair or deceptive subscription and billing practices
Users report being charged unexpectedly during or before the end of free trials, with no clear opt-out options, misleading pricing, and difficulty canceling subscriptions.
18
reviews
- “I signed up and installed this app to use the trail version and they deducted $9.99 from my account. Bad experience”
- “Charged before trial ended! I had only just started exploring your app (less than three full days) but realised I have been charged the full subscription! This is rediculous!”
- “Cancelled free trial within 2 hours, still charged $60 — I tried this out as I bought a pair of Sony earbuds that work with this app. I didn’t like the app after 5 minutes and directly went and cancelled the free trial as the subscription is expensive. Today I found out they charged me anyway, $6”
Excessive and intrusive upselling and notifications
Users are bombarded with promotional messages, pop-ups, and reminders to upgrade to premium, even during sleep sessions or after declining offers.
12
reviews
- “Woke me up to upsell premium [updated] — Update: Endel just woke me up at 5.30am to upsell me from premium to a lifetime membership. Stop sound, disconnected and reconnect Bluetooth sleep mask, then repeat. Why? So they can upsell me with a pop up ad. Seriously. Psychopaths.”
- “Stop Pushing Lifetime — Am so sick of this App constantly pushing for lifetime upgrade purchase. I am a relatively new user and have already signed up for a year. Whether it is “Year of The Horse”, “Wellbeing Month”, “Get a Free Tote Bag”, or *insert another BS pr”
- “Be careful, they taking money without a subscription — I wanted to try this app but i made sure to remove the trial before the period ends but they still took my money (80AUD) from my account. I tried to contact the business few times but i did not receive any response from them. Very poor cust”
Poor free version experience and paywall overreach
The free tier is severely limited, with core features locked behind paywalls, making it nearly unusable for non-paying users.
10
reviews
- “Free Version Is A Scam — You know what’s NOT relaxing? Getting a notification 10 minutes into an 8 hour sleep session that you have to upgrade to the paid version in order to unlock the entire night of uninterrupted sleep. It literally is exactly like a Black Mirro”
- “Great app- if u can pay for it — While Endel Premium has all features unlocked and endless sessions, the free version is extremely limited, with barely any features and soundscapes available to it.”
- “There’s no point to this app unless you have a subscription. You can’t even browse the app to see anything. You must subscribe.”
App instability, crashes, and technical bugs
Frequent crashes, especially when using premium features or background playback, and persistent technical issues across devices.
7
reviews
- “Crashing — Gave up. Spent most of the year crashing every time I opened it”
- “Super buggy app. Use for free, don’t give them money — First, the app tried to make me pay for premium to be able to use it in the background Which I did pay for, so I’m able to use it with the screen off But when background playing connected to an airplay speaker every so often (multiple time”
- “I’m using the paid version of this app but unfortunately can’t see any value, as every time I try to access the paid area (my guide) the app crashes.”
Overpriced and unjustifiable pricing models
Users find the subscription and lifetime purchase prices excessive, especially given the perceived value and feature set.
9
reviews
- “Outrageous pricing — $399 for a lifetime purchase. Absolute lunacy”
- “Too expensive and confusing. — $200 for an app that is so confusing and complicated that after half an hour I still have no idea what it actually does. No thanks.”
- “Wildly over priced — I can’t quite figure out how this app is so expensive. I thought it was ok but the music gets very repetitive and has an almost infuriating to use UI.”
Confusing and poorly designed user interface
Users report convoluted navigation, unintuitive controls, and a bloated or cluttered design that undermines the app's calming purpose.
6
reviews
- “Hard to use — You can’t set an alarm and a count down at same time. Once you set the alarm, you can touch nowhere else but’ cancel’. That’s stupid.”
- “Bloated — Endel is ruined by an increasingly bloated UI that is antithetical to the products intended mission.”
- “Confused — I have absolutely no idea how this app works. Very confusing!”
Broken or degraded core features (e.g., Spatial Audio)
Key audio features like spatial audio or personalized soundscapes no longer function as expected or were broken for extended periods.
4
reviews
- “Pls fix Spatial Audio — It used to play in multichannel and produced a great spatial effect. It’s been broken for years…”
- “Deluding descriptions. — I don’t get in what way this is “personalised”. The app claims that it uses weather, timezone (location), and heartbeat rate. Well, don’t a lot of people have the same data then, except for the heartbeat rate?”
- “Annoying set-up — Downloaded and decided to try the 7 day trial but it still took the $10 anyway?! Made sure to click the right option and everything and it still took the payment.”
Lack of customer support and refund issues
Users report unresponsive or nonexistent customer service, inability to get refunds, and Apple refusing to process refund requests.
5
reviews
- “Poor customer feedback — I spent $80 on an annual subscription. Yet after an update my app is stuck in preview mode. I contacted customer support three times and never heard back. And the window of time has passed to get a refund from Apple.”
- “Beware. You will be charged twice — Apple and Endel both charged me for an annual subscription. No customer service response for 2 weeks.”
- “I paid $9 AUD wasted. Apple company won’t refund”

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