Meditation Timer | Samsara

• Samsara Premium Monthly — $2.99/month
• Samsara Premium Monthly — $3.99/week
• Samsara Premium Monthly — $9.99/year ($0.83/mo)
• Samsara Premium Monthly — $19.99/year ($1.66/mo)
• Samsara Premium Monthly — $29.99/year ($2.49/mo)
• Samsara Premium Lifetime — $59.99

Last verified 6 Aug 2026

4.7 428 ratings · App Store

1. 5/5Great app for meditation

   I use this app every day! It has a warmup period you can set and a closing period you can set, each each with its own unique time and chime. It allows you to easily adjust the time of your meditation too. It also allows you to set reminder intervals throughout the meditation to keep you on track when the mind starts to wander. For example, I'll do a 20 minute meditation with the reminder chime each two minutes. This is one way to follow the directives for short meditations that are focused, especially for us beginners. It also keeps track of the number of sessions you have completed without missing one, and keeps track of the most sessions you have ever done without missing one. It's a good help to keep you on track and challenge you to continue and be faithful to your meditation practice. Most of us are doing individual practice most of the time it seems so this is a good help and encouragement. The chimes are also a very good quality of sound. This is a great app at just about any price and what's more astounding is it's for free! Thanks for creating it! Should be a ton of good karma coming from this app for the creators of it!

   Bob Lingvall · 6 Aug 2026

2. 5/5Simple, elegant, and to the point

   I've tried many meditation timers on my iPhone over several years, and Samsara is by far the one I most prefer. It is feature-rich while remaining simple to use, with a beautiful interface that is easy see without any unnecessary clutter. The many bell sounds for starting and ending a session are very much to my tastes, and the ability to set the number of chimes and the interval between each allows me to customize the experience to my exact liking - with even the ability to make each chime in a set get gradually louder (which is how I like to end my sessions). Warm-up and cool-down times can be included as well as arbitrary chimes mid-session - along with many other thoughtful features. One can save any number of presets and these are very easy to set up. My only feature request (at the time of this review) would be to be able to copy an existing preset so I can use it as the basis for a new one. But this is only a small concern since the presets are easy to establish, and I only make new ones occasionally. While this app is more costly than many of the others that are similar, it is well worth the price for its elegance and practical use. There are no in-app purchases or social media components, and for that I am very thankful. When I sit (zazen is my practice), I want a tool that serves to time my session with simplicity and beauty and without the phone getting in the way. Samsara does this for me with excellence. I can't recommend it more highly.

   Spartanicus55 · 6 Aug 2026

3. 5/5My favorite zazen app.

   The things that I like about this app are: 1. Timer has a black background which reduces energy consumption and is not distracting in a darkened room. 2. Time left is displayed both in numbers as well as a circle being completed large enough that a quick glance will inform how much time is left. 3. There are multiple options for starting and ending the period to suits the users preference. What I don't like is the thumbnail of the app will have a red number alert staying how many days have gone by since last using the timer which can be easily confused with other such alerts in other apps in which something of an urgent nature needs to be addressed.

   Paustinik · 6 Aug 2026

4. 3/5A fine meditation timer

   The app works great for my meditation-timer needs. I give it three stars because I’d purchased the app outright several years ago, then the developer switched to a subscription model. This meant taking away features that I’d already supposedly paid for, without getting any new features. I understand that the developer needed more of an income stream to continue updating Samsara, but users who purchase an app initially are often grandfathered in when it moves to subscription. Sometimes, the timer doesn’t start when Samsara hasn’t been shut down completely from the previous session. Other than that, it works well and tracks perfectly. The bell sounds have a nice ring to them. The circular countdown clock and change of colors when warming up or cooling down are soothing and reassuring.

   Chapped-Flips · 6 Aug 2026

5. 1/5letting down old users

   i previously had a glowing review of this app. after using it for years the developer decided to change the app without any notice switching to a subscription model that completely locks previous users out of years of their stats and restricting all modes of use, citing a price of “cup of coffee” for continued use. i understand the need to make it sustainable but not at the expense and disadvantage of people that were your original supporters. also, $20 a year is not a cup of cofee, and for the next 10 years that makes it $200. i would have gladly paid a one time fee for the new version of the app but asking a subscription fee for a simple app that went years without updates is not a good move. the developer states “building it from the ground up” while it only received a cosmetic update, all the options are the same. the app is still missing some key features present in most other apps, like icloud sync for people with multiple devices. this is a fairly simple app that worked just fine for years without any updates and the least you could do is let old users keep the old app, even if without future updates. this is not fair treatment, it feels like being bullied into keeping the stats you accumulated over many years. without any warning too. really disappointed.

   Elektrius · 6 Aug 2026

Privacy

• Data Not Collected Developer declared

Accessibility

No accessibility labels collected yet.