Short answer: choose Brain.fm if you want focus music made for specific activities, with adjustable modulation and published research behind it, and you are happy with $14.99 a month or $99.99 a year. Choose Endel if you want soundscapes that adapt to your day across phone, watch, TV and smart speaker, a Free Edition, or a one-off lifetime purchase. If you mainly want structured focus sessions at a computer and do not want to pay, try a free timer such as Nova Focus first.
Prices and features checked on the official websites and US App Store listings on 2026-09-30. Nova Focus is made by Nova Sounds, a Stockholm focus-music label; we are not affiliated with either company.
Brain.fm vs Endel at a glance
| Brain.fm | Endel | |
|---|---|---|
| Approach | Music made for activities (Deep Work, Creativity, Learning, Motivation and more) with adjustable “neural effect” levels | Soundscapes generated in real time that adapt to time of day, weather, heart rate and location |
| Price | $14.99/month or $99.99/year (pricing) | No prices on endel.io; US App Store: $2.99–$19.99/month, $34.99–$119.99/year, $124.99 lifetime |
| Free option | Trial only: 14 days (App Store), 30 days on a web landing page | Free Edition in the app (contents not listed); trial offered on some plans |
| Student price | 20% off on request | Not stated on its website |
| Modes | Focus, Relax, Sleep, Meditate | Focus, Sleep, Relax, Move, plus Premium soundscapes |
| Timers | Count-up, countdown, interval | Focus Timer (Premium) |
| Devices | Web, iOS, Android, desktop app | iOS, Android, Mac, Apple Watch, Apple TV, Fire TV, Alexa, web player |
| Offline | Downloads in the app | All soundscapes (App Store listing) |
| Evidence the company points to | Peer-reviewed paper, Woods et al. 2024, with Brain.fm-affiliated authors (disclosed) | A whitepaper on bioRxiv, a preprint server |
Sound: composed for a task vs generated for a moment
Brain.fm gives you a stream of tracks for the activity you choose. You set how strong the modulation is, and there is a highest setting it markets to people with ADHD. You do not pick songs; you pick a goal.
Endel generates sound as you listen. Its soundscapes change with inputs such as the time of day and, on a watch, your heart rate. Premium adds colored noise, study and nature soundscapes and artist collaborations. It feels more like a sound environment than a playlist.
Which suits you is a matter of taste. Some people want recognisable musical structure; others want sound with no hooks at all.
Price in practice
Brain.fm has one public price list: $14.99 a month or $99.99 a year, and its web checkout defaults to the yearly plan after the trial. Endel’s price depends on where and when you buy: the same App Store listing shows several monthly and yearly offers, plus a lifetime option at $124.99. If you plan to use one for years, Endel’s lifetime purchase costs about the same as 15 months of Brain.fm’s yearly plan. If you want to spend nothing, Endel’s Free Edition is the only free tier of the two, though its timer is a Premium feature.
Evidence
Both companies make science-based claims, and both point to their own work. Brain.fm’s 2024 paper in Communications Biology is peer reviewed; it compared music with and without added modulation over four experiments and discloses Brain.fm-affiliated authors. Endel links a whitepaper posted on bioRxiv, a preprint server where, in its own words, articles “are not peer-reviewed, edited, or typeset before being posted online” (bioRxiv). A preprint can still be good science; it just has not been through that check yet. We do not rate either claim here. If published, peer-reviewed research is your deciding factor, Brain.fm has more of it.
Who should pick which
- Brain.fm: you want focus music by activity, like dialling the intensity, study or work on a laptop or phone, and value its research.
- Endel: you want sound that adapts through the day, use an Apple Watch, TV or Alexa, care about sleep and relaxation as much as focus, or prefer a lifetime purchase.
- Neither, yet: you are not sure paid focus audio will help you. Try a week with a free timer and ordinary instrumental music or noise first, then trial the paid app that fits.
The free third option
| Nova Focus | |
|---|---|
| Price | Free, no ads, no account |
| Sound | Rain, café and brown noise under every timer, pink and white noise on the Music page; Nova Sounds playlists on Spotify |
| Timer | Pomodoro 25/5, 50/10, 52/17, 90-minute blocks, Flowtime, Animedoro, countdowns from 1 minute to 3 hours, classroom mode |
| Not included | Adaptive or modulated audio, sleep modes, apps, offline listening |
| Claims | None about your brain |
Start with the 50/10 timer and brown noise. More detail: Nova Focus vs Brain.fm and our Endel alternative page.