Ours Online Therapy Review

Relationships are a fabric made up of multiple viewpoints, backgrounds, childhood experiences, and values, woven by you and someone else. Sixty-nine percent of the issues people in relationships face are perpetual—they have to do with fundamental differences between you and the other person. The rest are solvable.

Online therapy services, like Ours, help couples determine which relationship issues they’re facing are solvable and which are bound to repeat, then address them accordingly. Since relationships are the number one predictor of how we fare through life, influencing our mental, physical, and emotional health, they’re worth taking care of. By making relationship support accessible from home, often at a fraction of the cost of in-person sessions, online therapy can be quite appealing.

As a new addition to the relationship wellness space, we wanted to see how Ours did compared to other online therapy services. To find out, we surveyed 105 users of Ours, sent the company a questionnaire, and interviewed its Lead Guide. I also signed up for the namesake program with my partner in order to test the service. 

What Is Ours?

Ours was founded in 2020 by Jessica Holton, Adam Putterman, and Elizabeth Earnshaw and was designed to push the current standard for couples therapy after their own personal frustrating experiences searching for services. The company’s goal is to “water the therapy desert” for couples searching for ways to strengthen their relationship before major issues arise. This involves making couples therapy more easily accessible to those seeking care.

The Ours “experience,” or program, is a hybrid model of live therapy and online modules, made to make couples therapy affordable and easy to do. Over the course of four weeks, you get access to two live sessions and four self-guided sessions to be completed in Loveware, Ours’ proprietary software that houses all 10 (and counting) online modules. 

After going through the Ours experience myself, I was delighted by Ours’ approach to therapy. After meeting the “guide” (the therapist I was matched with), I took comfort in the unconventional experience I was diving into with my partner. 

What Services Does Ours Offer?

Ours offers personalized couples therapy from a licensed practitioner that includes both talk therapy and self-guided lessons for couples to complete. A distinction between Ours and traditional premarital or couples counseling is that Ours explicitly states that it is for couples who want to proactively invest in their relationship. 

You don’t need to be engaged or married to go through the Ours experience. Its website boasts of its inclusivity of “relationships of all kinds—new connections, serious relationships, recently engaged, the married crowd and everything in between.” This inclusivity extends to sexual orientation, religious beliefs, and cultural background.

The self-guided sessions housed in Loveware are created based on the Gottman Method, which is a gold standard resource in couples therapy. As a Gottman-certified couples counselor, Elizabeth Earnshaw brought her knowledge to Ours as its co-founder and Head of Relationship Health. There are also cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) techniques found throughout the self-guided sessions.

How Much Does Ours Cost?

Therapy costs with Ours are very transparent. From the homepage, you can see that there is one set price of $500 for the Ours experience, with some options in terms of rendering payment. Considering the fact that therapy can cost hundreds of dollars per session, this amount seems reasonable. This sentiment is backed by the users we surveyed: 52% said they found the services they received through Ours to be affordable.

If you choose to pay upfront, the total decreases to $400. If you choose to pay $50 to get started, the remaining $450 will automatically be taken out of your account one week after your first live session.

Does Ours Take Insurance?

No, Ours does not accept health insurance. However, it is worth noting that health insurance often does not cover couples therapy or premarital counseling, so this isn’t necessarily a fault of the company. 

Does Ours Offer Discounts?

Ours doesn’t offer a free trial; rather, you pay $50 up front for the first week. That’s what the second payment option is—a percentage of the full price for part of the program experience. If you cancel before your first week is over, you won't be charged for the remaining 3 weeks of your program. Forget, and you'll end up paying the remaining $450. 

There’s a promo code hidden in the FAQ section, under the “Does anyone actually read these FAQs?” question. And when I took a few days to think through which payment method I would do, I was offered a different promo code (for a greater percentage) from the growth liaison at Ours. It was a generous offer and completely unexpected.

Navigating the Ours Website

The first thing you see on the Ours homepage are the words “A new way to invest in your relationship” surrounded by pops of pink, yellow, blue, and burgundy. 

The Ours website is easy to navigate and immediately gives you the option to sign up for the services offered with large “get started” buttons right below the headline and in the right hand corner above the scroll.

The Ours home page is thorough, transparent, and clearly states who the company helps, how it helps, and what couples have to say about their experience with Ours. 

Scroll further down and you can get an idea of the therapy process and what therapist you could be matched with at Ours. If you still have a question after reading the first two-thirds of the home page, the FAQ section (located towards the bottom of the home page) has 16 questions that practically read your mind. 

If you would like to investigate further still, scroll back up to the navigation bar at the top of the page to read more about Ours’ history, the Ours experience, blog posts, and research on relationships conducted by Arch Insights.

Does Ours Have an App?

No. There is no app available at this time.

How Do You Sign Up for Ours?

The sign-up process with Ours starts with a user-friendly application that takes roughly five minutes to complete and ends with an email inviting you to your private portal.

In the application, you’re first asked for your name and then for your email to consent to Ours’ privacy terms and disclosures.

This is the point that it becomes a more personal experience because, going forward in the application, you’re addressed by name. The first question asks you where you heard about Ours, followed by several questions about your relationship.

After that, Ours tells you that it doesn’t provide clinical (i.e. therapy and medication management services) services; it’s a wellness program first and foremost in a couples therapy package.

After this disclaimer, you’ll encounter one last question that asks about the kind of relationship you have with your partner. It appears to be a question designed to filter out couples in crisis, as Ours isn’t able to address such serious issues.  

If you're not a couple in crisis, however, Ours gives you the choice to go to a payment page or to email with more questions. If you decide to have someone email you, then you can get your lingering questions answered by a member of the Ours team before moving forward. (When I reached out, Elizabeth Earnshaw, one of the founders, was the one who replied, but I am not sure if this is always the case.) 

If you decide to purchase at that moment, then that's it. You're signed up, taken to a page of next steps, and receive an email providing a link to access the Ours private portal that acts as the hub for communication and scheduling during your time with Ours. 

Once I activated my private portal via email, I was prompted to schedule my first live session in order to be matched with my guide. It was a basic Calendly scheduler, which made it easy for me to find a date and time that I could make. The earliest date available was one week out.

Within minutes of scheduling my “welcome session” (the first session), I received an email introducing me to my guide, who was trauma-informed and a licensed mental health counselor, among other accolades. 

It makes sense that 84% of the users we surveyed rated their therapists’ qualifications as good, very good, or excellent. 

The email included a detailed bio for my assigned guide as well as what to expect during the welcome session, a note on how to involve my partner, and rescheduling details. After the initial email, my guide emailed me again on a more personal note to welcome me and remind me to add my partner to the private portal so that we could both complete our individual welcome surveys before the first session. Completing the welcome surveys 24 hours in advance of your welcome session is mandatory and failure of either person to do so results in a forfeited session.

How Do Sessions Work at Ours?

The Ours experience involves two live therapy sessions over Zoom that bookend four self-guided Loveware sessions or modules. 

Outside of the two live sessions, the only way you can communicate with your guide is over email. The feedback and answers you provide during the interactive Loveware sessions will be sent to your guide, but your guide will not be present during the session itself. 

The Video Welcome Session

I was sent at least three reminders for my upcoming welcome session, including one two hours before the session. This is the email that provided me with a Zoom link and a brief explanation of what to expect during the session.

The flow of the first session was a mixture of housekeeping, mindful discussion, personal storytelling, and CBT. After the welcome session, you receive four self-guided Loveware sessions to complete over the course of the next four weeks before ending your experience with a live exit session. 

Your guide selects four Loveware sessions for you from the 10 available based on the welcome survey you completed and what they gathered from you and your partner during the welcome session.

The welcome session was set to run for 45 minutes, but ours only lasted 15 minutes. We received homework, but I’m not sure it’s customary for every guide to end a session in this way. By the end of our time together, my partner and I had a personalized roadmap of Loveware sessions to complete. Our guide had us consciously choose a weekly date to schedule those self-guided sessions.

The Self-Guided Sessions

Self-guided sessions are done as a couple on one device. The format of the sessions are part video, part presentation, and part text box. The text box is meant for reflections and answering questions, all of which go to your guide. You go through games and exercises with your partner and a status bar marks your progress. One Loveware session can take upwards of an hour. 

We received a worksheet to complement the Loveware session we completed. When you reach the end, you’re asked to take a picture to commemorate the experience. We weren’t huge fans of this since we were in our pajamas on a Sunday morning, but we complied because we couldn’t find a way around it. 

Once you’ve finished the session, you’re taken back to your private portal dashboard, where you have the option of going through the session again. 

What Happens If I Miss a Session?

With only two live sessions, it would do you a disservice to miss either of them. Ours gives you ample time to reschedule a live session, so long as it’s requested more than 24 hours before your originally scheduled session. 

Otherwise, you forfeit that session.

Switching Therapists at Ours

I didn’t switch guides throughout the program, but it is possible. 

When asked about switching guides, Nora Nova, MEd, premarital counselor and Ours’ Lead Guide, says, “Although we have not experienced this before, we would ask the couple to share about their experience and their hopes so that we could match them with a guide that feels right for them.”

Each program is personalized by the couple’s designated guide and is meant to be a congruent process that flows with said guide. 

Canceling Therapy at Ours

If you would like to cancel your time with Ours, you need to email customer service. I signed up for the trial and received confirmation of my cancellation from someone on their team within a few hours. Nova also says that “after completing the experience, if the couple is unhappy, we can provide a full refund.” 

After the Ours Experience

If you’re interested in continuing online counseling with Ours after the four-week program ends, you can do so via Ours Membership, a monthly membership to continue the Loveware sessions. 

Currently the only membership through Ours involves one Loveware session per month plus a live session with your guide every three months.

Quality of Care and User Satisfaction

From the simple intake form that thoughtfully inquired into my relationship to meeting my guide to completing the Loveware session, I felt seen by this company and confident that my guide would still be at Ours if we decided to continue after the four-week program. 

I’m not surprised that 61% of the users we surveyed said they were likely and very likely to recommend Ours to a friend, and 79% rated the overall service as good, very good, or excellent.

We also asked a subject matter expert about the efficacy of the Ours program. 

“Premarital counseling is different from traditional therapy because it does not involve diagnosing a specific mental health condition but focuses instead on making sure the couple is ready to take the step of entering a marriage,” says Amy Marschall, PsyD, a clinical psychologist. “I haven't used their service, but I think they could offer marriage preparation in a way that is more accessible to a wider range of people.”

There are currently nine licensed providers working with couples through Ours. They have a variety of specializations, interests, and techniques they bring into the counseling they provide. The guide my partner and I were matched with was attentive, curious, and supportive. The conversation ebbed and flowed naturally. After our session, my partner and I agreed that our guide was meant for us. She made us both feel heard. I would absolutely recommend her as a guide.

Privacy Policies at Ours

Ours is transparent about its role in collecting and protecting its clients’ privacy and data. Its privacy disclosure is straightforward, designed with bolded headlines that tell you the personal information it collects, how it shares that information, and your options to protect certain aspects of your data. 

“We view privacy and the trust couples put in us very seriously,” says Nova. “Information shared by the couple is only reviewed by their Guide and their supervisor.” 

Being a new company, there isn’t much information from third parties about Ours’ privacy policies. According to its policy, it “employ[s] a number of technical, organizational and physical safeguards designed to protect the personal information [it] collect[s].”

Ours vs. Its Competitors

ReGain and Queer Couples Center are both similar online therapy services that also offer couples therapy, but differ in who they serve. ReGain offers individual and couples therapy to people in relationships facing relationship or marital challenges. Queer Couples Center offers individual and couples therapy specifically to folks in the LGBTQIA+ community. In contrast, Ours offers couples counseling to people who want to learn new ways of communicating with their partner and skills to strengthen their relationship, outside of a diagnostic or clinical environment.

In addition to the communities they serve, these three companies differ in the way the services they offer were received by the users we surveyed. 

While 42% of users understood what to expect from Ours before signing up, 69% of users felt they knew what they were getting into before signing up for live therapy sessions with Queer Couples Center, and 66% felt this way before signing up for the live session and messaging combination offered by ReGain. This reflects Ours’ unusual approach to couples counseling. 

Transparency and accessibility also differ between the three companies. Ours provides clear pricing and a way to sign up by filling out a form. ReGain does something similar in terms of signing up, but only provides its pricing in the FAQ section. Queer Couples Center gives you the choice to schedule a free consultation but, other than that, requires you to call in order to find out about pricing, payment, and signing up.

Final Verdict

Overall, I found Ours a delightful addition to the online relationship wellness space. It has a modern, colorful, and personalized tone that invites you to explore its services and where they can benefit your own relationship. Since we are a newlywed couple and have tried proactive exercises before due to curiosity and interest, the Ours experience felt like an extension of that initial investment. 

“I think it's great they are offering a service many people are looking for in a different way in order to meet more needs,” says Dr. Marschall. Forty-two percent of the users surveyed said the services they received through Ours met all of their needs, and 80% positively rated their experience with the company altogether.

Without insurance, and with the average therapy session costing between $100 and $200 each, there are limited options in terms of affordable therapy. For this reason alone, I would recommend Ours to anyone looking for ways to nourish their existing relationship. As someone who has tried therapy before, it’s not easy to find a therapist you resonate with. For this reason, I would use Ours again, particularly to match with my previous guide. 

Methodology

To fairly and accurately review the best online therapy programs, we sent questionnaires to 55 companies and surveyed 105 current users of each. This allowed us to directly compare services offered by gathering qualitative and quantitative data about each company and its users’ experiences.

Specifically, we evaluated each company on the following factors: website usability, the sign-up and therapist matching processes, therapist qualifications, types of therapy offered, the service's quality of care, client-therapist communication options, session length, subscription offerings, client privacy protections, average cost and value for money, whether it accepts insurance, how easy it is to change therapists, overall user satisfaction, and the likelihood that clients would recommend them.

We also signed up for the companies in order to get a sense of how this process worked, how easy to use the platform is, and how therapy takes place at the company. Then, we worked with three subject matter experts to get their expert analysis on how suited this company is to provide quality care to therapy seekers.