Questions, Answered.

Anchr is a mental wellbeing app that brings evidence-informed self-help into one place: 286 self-care modules and 1,251 lessons drawing on six frameworks (CBT, DBT, ACT, Psychodynamic, Interpersonal and a General evidence-based synthesis), Anchr Guide (an AI self-help guide), mood check-ins with the Anchr Score, a Toolkit of short practical skills, and Real Life for turning what you learn into real-world steps. Use it on your own, or alongside the clinician you already see. Anchr lives in the space between “I’m fine” and “I need help.”

No. Anchr is a self-help app. It does not diagnose, treat or give medical advice, and Anchr Guide is an AI, not a clinician. Many people use Anchr alongside professional care, between sessions, or while they wait to see someone. If you live with a serious or worsening mental health condition, please use Anchr alongside professional care rather than instead of it.

Anyone 16 or older who wants structured, evidence-informed support for their mental wellbeing. That might mean you’re curious about getting support, on a waitlist, between practitioners, keeping up your progress after treatment, or already seeing a clinician who uses Anchr. Anchr meets you where you are.

The anchor metaphor is at the heart of what we do. Most suffering lives in the past or the future, and rarely right here. Like an anchor keeps a vessel steady in rough water, Anchr helps you stay grounded in the present using evidence-based techniques.

Anchr Guide is Anchr’s AI self-help guide. It listens first, asks one thoughtful question at a time, and doesn’t rush you towards a solution. It draws on your pathway, your lessons and your recent check-ins so its support fits where you are, and it remembers what resonated in earlier conversations.

Explore & Discover - The Guide takes time to understand what you’re going through, reflects back what it heard, then recommends a personalised pathway of self-care modules.

Talk It Through - An open conversation about whatever is on your mind, with techniques from CBT, DBT, ACT, Psychodynamic and Interpersonal approaches woven in naturally. You can also start Talk It Through straight after a lesson or a Toolkit skill to work through what came up.

Anchr is designed for practice, not endless chatting. Guide sessions have daily and monthly limits and a maximum length, so each conversation leads back to the skills and to your real life. With the Anchr Subscription you get up to 2 Talk It Through sessions a day and 2 Explore & Discover sessions a month. Your current limits are always shown in Profile > Subscription. If a clinician manages your plan, they set the pacing.

Anchr Guide will never diagnose you or apply diagnostic labels, prescribe medication or advise you to change prescribed treatment, claim to be a person or a qualified clinician, or replace your relationship with a qualified health professional. When a need looks bigger than self-help, it will gently suggest professional support.

Yes. The Guide carries forward summaries, themes and takeaways from earlier conversations (stored securely as numerical “embeddings”), so each conversation builds on the last instead of starting from scratch. It’s still a self-help tool: a qualified professional can offer care that an AI cannot.

Anchr Guide is powered by Claude, made by Anthropic, PBC. To generate a response, Anchr sends Anthropic your messages and conversation history, plus relevant context such as your pathway and lessons, your clinician’s plan if you have one, and summaries of your check-ins, Thought Defusion and Living Compass entries. Anything you type is part of what is sent, so leave out details you don’t want processed. We never send your email address, date of birth, payment details or Vulnerability Vault content. Under our commercial agreement, Anthropic does not use your information to train its models.

AI processing needs your separate, explicit consent, which Anchr asks for after you accept the Terms. You can withdraw it at any time in Settings. Withdrawing stops new AI requests, but it can’t undo processing that has already happened, and it doesn’t cancel a subscription.

Anchr offers structured self-care content drawing on six evidence-based frameworks:

• CBT - Thought records, cognitive restructuring, behavioural activation
• DBT - TIPP skills, STOP skill, emotion regulation, distress tolerance
• ACT - Defusion techniques, values clarification, committed action
• Psychodynamic - Pattern recognition, attachment styles, mentalization
• Interpersonal - Communication analysis, grief processing, role disputes
• General - Evidence-based synthesis drawing from all five frameworks

After Explore & Discover, Anchr builds a pathway: a sequence of modules matched to what you shared. Modules respect prerequisites, so you never land on a concept that needs learning you haven’t done yet. Each module is made of short lessons with exercises and reflections, and you can keep notes as you go. As you progress you can reassess, and the Guide refers to what has actually helped you. If a clinician manages your plan, they set your pathway and reassessment happens with them.

No. The modules are educational, evidence-based self-care content. The framework names describe the research the content draws on, not therapy being delivered. Only a qualified professional can provide therapy.

Anchr may ask you to complete standard wellbeing questionnaires (such as the PHQ-9 and GAD-7), and the AI can estimate these measures from your conversations. They’re used in the background to tailor your support, recognise when professional help may be useful, and support safety. Scores are not shown to you in the app and are never a diagnosis. If you’re linked to a clinician, they can see them only if you allow “Wellbeing screening” in your sharing settings.

The Toolkit tab is a library of more than 40 short, practical skills, grouped by what you need: Calm Your Body, Work With Thoughts, Strong Emotions, Do What Matters, Connect Better, Rest and Sleep, and Understand Yourself. Each skill explains why it works, and you can rate how you feel before and after, so over time Anchr shows you which skills actually help. Pin your favourites to Your Kit for quick access.

Paced Breathing, Anchr Moments, Thought Defusion, Living Compass, Human Challenge, Digital Sunset, the AI Relationship Audit, the Vulnerability Vault, A Letter to Yourself and your Safety Plan are free. The rest of the Toolkit comes with the Anchr Subscription.

A personal plan for your hardest moments, organised around the Stanley-Brown safety-planning steps: your warning signs, coping steps that work for you, people and services to contact, and ways to make your surroundings safer. It’s free, and if you see a clinician who uses Anchr, you can work on it together. It doesn’t replace emergency help.

Real Life helps you turn what you’re learning into small real-world steps. Choose a focus (for example, speaking up in a meeting or making a start on a task you’ve been putting off), plan a manageable step with a smaller backup option, try it whenever it fits, then reflect on how it went. There’s no deadline. Anchr Guide can help you prepare, and if you’re linked to a clinician you can choose to share a focus with them.

Anchr check-ins track 44 emotions across 8 wellness dimensions, including mood, sleep, energy, stress and physical symptoms. The Anchr Score is a rolling 7-day composite of that data that shows your overall trend, even on days when it feels like nothing is changing. More personalised insights appear the longer you keep checking in.

Anchr Moments are 14 grounding exercises, each about 60 seconds, designed to bring you back to the present. They include 5-4-3-2-1 Grounding, Box Breathing, the Physiological Sigh and more, many with gentle haptic feedback to guide you.

Living Compass is a values-based tool spanning 10 life domains: Relationships, Family, Health & Body, Work & Career, Education & Growth, Recreation & Play, Spirituality & Meaning, Community, Creativity and Self-Care. You set intentions that fit your values and see which areas of life lift your mood most.

Based on Acceptance & Commitment Therapy, the Thought Defusion Journal offers 9 techniques (including Leaf on a Stream, Name the Story and Silly Voice) to help you create distance from unhelpful thoughts. It tracks intensity before and after, so you can see which techniques work best for you.

A private, encrypted journal for text entries, unsent letters, voice memos and photos. It’s visible only to you and is never shared with anyone, including a clinician you link with.

An evening wind-down ritual in four phases: reflection, a mood-adaptive activity suggestion, guided breathing, and a restful close to your day. It’s designed to help you step away from screens before sleep.

A 10-question monthly check-in on whether your relationship with AI tools (including Anchr) is staying healthy. It looks at dependence, creativity, judgement, autonomy and boundaries, and gives you an AI Balance Score out of 100.

A daily offline micro-mission across categories like social, mindful, creative and movement, from a phone-free meal to a handwritten note. It’s designed to be done away from your phone, because the real world needs you.

Anchr Someone is anonymous peer encouragement. On a good day you can write a short message of support for someone who’s struggling, and on a hard day you can receive one. Matching is anonymous, every message is screened before delivery, and unmatched requests expire after 24 hours. Peers are other Anchr users, so their messages are encouragement, not advice. Anchr Someone comes with the Anchr Subscription.

Yes. If your clinician uses Anchr, link your account with the invite code or link they give you, or request a connection through Find a Clinician. Your clinician can assign modules and Toolkit skills, set a weekly focus, work on a safety plan with you and hold video sessions in the app. Anchr Guide uses their plan when it talks with you and leaves some topics for your sessions.

Only what you allow. Before anything is shared, you choose from categories such as mood check-ins, Anchr Guide conversations, lesson notes, thought defusions, Living Compass, wellbeing screening, safety flags, your My Journey snapshot, pathway progress, Moments practice and Real Life. You can switch any category off at any time.

Your Vulnerability Vault, Toolkit practice records, Digital Sunset reflections, Human Challenge and AI Relationship Audit results are never shared with your clinician.

No. While you’re linked to a clinician whose practice uses Anchr, Anchr Subscription features are included at no cost to you. Talk it Through is included once your clinician switches it on for you. Included access ends when the link ends, and the free tier then applies unless you subscribe yourself.

Your clinician can hold video sessions with you inside Anchr. Before each session you’ll confirm which state you’re in, so your clinician can contact emergency services if needed. You also choose, per session, whether to allow AI note drafting. If you allow it, the audio is recorded and transcribed to help your clinician draft their notes, and it’s deleted once they sign the note (within 7 days at most). If you join without AI, the call isn’t recorded. Telehealth is not for emergencies.

Yes. Find a Clinician (in your Profile) lets you search for practitioners who use Anchr, as well as local practitioners listed by Healthdirect Australia and Google. Only the state or postcode you search is sent, never your identity or health information. You can also create a summary in Share with My Clinician and send it to any practitioner yourself; it includes only the sections and dates you choose.

You or your clinician can end the link at any time from your Profile. Once it ends, your clinician can no longer see new information from your account. Information already shared, and records your clinician has made, may be kept by them where the law requires practitioners to keep clinical records.

No. Your personal information is never sold or rented, never used for advertising, and never shared with employers, insurers or data brokers. Period.

No. Anchr uses no third-party analytics, advertising or tracking tools, no cookies, and no cross-app tracking, which is why the app never shows Apple’s tracking prompt. To fix problems and improve the app, we keep a small set of crash diagnostics and product milestones (such as finishing onboarding) in our own database. They never include what you type and are never sent to an analytics company.

• Supabase - Database, sign-in and file storage, on Amazon Web Services in Tokyo, Japan
• Anthropic - The Claude AI model, for Anchr Guide, summaries, safety checks and moderation
• Daily.co and Deepgram - Telehealth video, and transcription only for sessions where you allow AI note drafting
• Stripe - Card payments, only if your clinician bills you through Anchr
• RevenueCat, Apple and Google - Subscriptions, purchases and optional sign-in
• Expo - Push notifications (no health details in notifications)
• Postmark - Service emails such as appointment confirmations
• Healthdirect and Google Places - Practitioner search in Find a Clinician (only the location you search is sent)

Each provider may use your information only to provide its service to us. See section 8 of our Privacy Policy for details.

No. We don’t use your information to train AI models, and we don’t allow our providers to. Under our commercial agreement, Anthropic does not train on your Anchr Guide conversations, and we instruct Deepgram not to train on session audio.

Your information is stored in Japan (the Tokyo region of Amazon Web Services, via Supabase) and processed in the United States and Australia by the providers listed above. We put written agreements in place so overseas providers protect it in line with the Australian Privacy Principles, and we remain accountable for how they handle it.

Anchr collects what it needs to run the app: account details, check-ins and wellbeing data, screening responses, Anchr Guide conversations, your progress through pathways and lessons, Toolkit and Real Life records, journal entries, subscription status, and limited device and diagnostic data. If you link with a clinician, it also holds your sharing settings, appointments and what your clinician records about your care. For a complete breakdown, see our Privacy Policy.

Anchr does not collect your precise location, contacts, browsing history, data from other apps, advertising identifiers or biometric data. If you protect the app with Face ID or a fingerprint, that’s handled entirely by your device.

Yes. You can download an export of your data from Settings, delete individual entries at any time, and delete your whole account in Settings. Deletion is permanent: your information is removed from our database and storage, and encrypted backups clear within 30 days. Security audit logs are kept in anonymised form. If you’re linked to a clinician when you delete your account, the records held in Anchr for that link are also deleted, though your clinician may be required by law to keep their own clinical records.

All data is encrypted in transit (TLS 1.2 or higher) and at rest (AES-256). Database rules limit access to your own account, and to a linked clinician only for the categories you allow. Vault media is held in private, access-controlled storage, sign-in tokens live in your device’s secure storage, and you can protect the app with Face ID or a fingerprint. Append-only audit logs record access to health information, and sensitive screens are protected from screen capture.

Anchr looks for signs of crisis in what you write and shows support resources straight away. This is automated, and it can miss or misread things, so please don’t rely on it to keep you safe. Anchr staff do not monitor your activity and cannot send help. If you’re linked to a clinician, they may see safety flags depending on your sharing settings, but they aren’t monitoring the app in real time. If you are in immediate danger, call your local emergency number (000 in Australia).

Tap the CRISIS button, available on every screen, or open Crisis Resources in the Toolkit. Anchr shows helplines for your country, with local services for more than 40 countries, plus international directories if yours isn’t listed. These services are run by independent organisations.

Every peer message is screened automatically before it’s delivered. You can report any message you receive and block anyone, and you can review blocked users in Settings. Sharing identifying details, harassment, and giving clinical advice are not allowed, and breaches can lead to content removal or account restrictions.

You must be at least 16. If you’re 16 or 17, a parent or guardian should read the Terms with you and agree to your use of Anchr, including any purchase.

Anchr has a free tier that’s yours to keep, and one paid plan.

Free - One Explore & Discover session, one Talk It Through session each month (plus a one-time bonus session when you complete a lesson), foundation modules and the first module of your pathway, mood check-ins and the Anchr Score, and the free Toolkit skills.

Anchr Subscription ($14.99 AUD/month) - All 286 modules and 1,251 lessons, up to 2 Talk It Through sessions a day, 2 Explore & Discover sessions a month, reassessment, the full Toolkit and Anchr Someone.

There are no tiers and no annual contract. If your clinician’s practice uses Anchr, the subscription is included while you’re linked.

Subscriptions are billed through the App Store or Google Play, so you cancel in your Apple or Google account settings. Your subscription stays active until the end of the period you’ve paid for, and your progress is kept if you come back. Refund requests are handled by Apple or Google, and nothing limits your rights under the Australian Consumer Law.

Delete your account in Settings, or email privacy@anchr.health. Deletion is permanent, and encrypted backups clear within 30 days. Deleting your account does not cancel an Apple or Google subscription, so please cancel that separately.

Anchr is available on iPhone (App Store) and Android (Google Play).

Anchr is made by Anchr Digital Health Pty Ltd (ACN 696 944 537), an Australian company. You can reach us at privacy@anchr.health.

We handle personal information under the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) and the Australian Privacy Principles, and health information under state health records laws, including the Health Records and Information Privacy Act 2002 (NSW). If you live outside Australia, we also respect the laws that apply to you, such as the GDPR and UK GDPR, US state privacy laws, and Canada’s PIPEDA.

You can access, export, correct and delete your information, withdraw consent for AI processing or clinician sharing, and ask for a person to review any automated decision. Most of this can be done in Settings. For anything else, email privacy@anchr.health: we acknowledge requests within 5 business days and respond in full within 30 days. If you’re not satisfied, you can complain to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (oaic.gov.au).

Contact us first at privacy@anchr.health. We’ll acknowledge your complaint within 5 business days and aim to resolve it within 30 days. If you’re not satisfied, you can go to NSW Fair Trading or the consumer protection agency in your state, the OAIC for privacy matters, or Ahpra or your state’s health complaints body about a practitioner. Our Terms are governed by the laws of New South Wales, and nothing in them stops you from going to a court or tribunal. See our Terms & Conditions.

For changes to the Terms that materially affect you, we give at least 30 days’ notice in the app or by email. For material changes to the Privacy Policy (such as new kinds of information, or a new provider handling health information), we give at least 14 days’ notice in the app. If you don’t agree, you can stop using Anchr, delete your account and cancel your subscription before the change takes effect.