Frequently asked questions

Short answers to the questions we get most. If yours isn’t here, email us at support@impela.ai and we’ll get back to you.

1. How is this different from ChatGPT?

ChatGPT is designed to give you a good answer. Impela is designed to make you better at producing answers yourself. The interface looks similar; the goal is the opposite.

ChatGPT will write the email for you. Impela helps you figure out what the conversation underneath the email actually needs to be, what’s been getting in the way of having it, and what you’d say if you were being honest. Then you write the email — sharper than you would have on your own. The work stays yours. We just make it more deliberate.

2. Won’t this make me dependent on AI?

Real concern. Three things keep Impela from being a dependency.

First, the goal is for you to need coaching less over time, not more. One of the steps in our method — Develop — is explicitly about growing your own capacity to do this kind of thinking without us.

Second, the system doesn’t optimize for time spent in the app. Most AI products are built to keep you engaged. Impela is built to help you get clearer, do the work, and go live your life. If your usage decreases as you internalize what we’re doing, that’s a success, not a problem.

Third, you can see, edit, and delete everything we’ve stored about you, and export it all in one click. If you ever want to leave, you leave with everything. There’s no lock-in by design.

We can’t promise nobody will use any tool poorly. We can promise this one isn’t designed to be used poorly.

3. What does a session actually look like?

It looks like a conversation, but a structured one. You bring something — a decision you’re sitting with, a conversation you’re dreading, a habit you can’t seem to start, a pattern you keep falling into. Impela asks questions to figure out what’s actually going on, separates what you can change from what you can’t, and helps you decide what to do next.

Most sessions end with one or two concrete commitments — small, specific, time-bound — that you’ve made to yourself. You’ll hear from us about them later. That’s it. No couch, no scheduling, no homework reading.

4. What if I don’t know what to talk about?

Most people don’t, at first. That’s part of the diagnosis.

The system starts with a few questions about what’s been on your mind, what feels stuck, what you’re trying to figure out. Often the thing you think you want to talk about isn’t actually the thing — and the conversation moves naturally to what is. If you genuinely don’t have anything pressing, Impela can ask about what you’ve been avoiding, what you’ve been telling yourself you’ll get to, or how a recent decision is sitting.

Showing up without an agenda is fine. Showing up at all is the work.

5. How is my data protected? Is it sold? Used to train AI models?

We don’t sell your data. We don’t share it with employers, insurers, advertisers, family members, or anyone outside the small set of vendors required to operate the service (AI provider, email and SMS, billing). We don’t use your conversations to train AI models. Your sessions aren’t in any training set.

The reason we can credibly say “no human at Impela can read your conversations” isn’t because we promise it — it’s because the data is encrypted in a way that makes casual access structurally impossible. The technical version, including the one honest caveat (no cloud system is absolutely uncrackable by a determined administrator with full access), is on our data page. For everyday use, the bar is very high and the architecture is what makes it so.

6. Is this therapy?

No. Therapy treats mental health conditions. A therapist is a licensed clinician and can diagnose and treat things like depression, anxiety disorders, trauma, and crisis. Impela does none of that. It’s a coaching tool — structured thinking with something that asks better questions than you’d ask yourself, points out what you’re missing, and holds you to what you said you’d do.

If you’re seeing a therapist, Impela can sit alongside that work. It can’t replace it. If you’re in crisis or managing a diagnosed condition without clinical support, this isn’t the right tool right now — please get help from a clinician. Crisis resources are at the top of every page.

7. Will it work for me if I’ve never done coaching before?

Yes. Impela was built for people who haven’t necessarily worked with a coach.

The system figures out what kind of help you need from the conversation itself — there’s no jargon to learn, no framework to adopt, no homework to do before the first session. If you can describe what’s on your mind, you can use it.

If you’ve worked with a coach before, you’ll recognize some of the moves. If you haven’t, the moves will still work on you. That’s the point.

8. How much does it cost?

We offer a free Foundations tier with full access to solo coaching, sessions, memory, and our methodology. Paid tiers add ambient features (calendar-aware briefings, follow-up nudges, agentic drafting) and multi-person plans for couples, families, and accountability groups.

We don’t meter your conversations or charge by the hour. Coaching only works if you actually engage, and we don’t put a meter in the way of that.

9. Can I cancel? Can I delete my data?

Yes to both.

You can cancel any paid subscription from your account settings — no phone call, no negotiation. You can delete any individual session, memory, goal, or relationship from your profile at any time. You can delete your entire account in one click, which permanently erases your data from our active systems. You can also export everything you’ve ever produced in Impela in one click before you go, in a standard format you can read or import elsewhere.

We mention all of this here because the existence of an easy exit is part of why you should trust us in the first place.

10. What if I’m in crisis?

Impela is not built to handle a mental health crisis and shouldn’t be used as one. If you’re thinking about hurting yourself or someone else, please get help right now from a person who can help.

• In the US or Canada: Call or text 988. (988lifeline.org)
• In the UK or Ireland: Call 116 123 (Samaritans).
• In Australia: Call 13 11 14 (Lifeline).
• In New Zealand: Call 1737.
• Anywhere else: findahelpline.com.

If it’s a medical emergency, call your local emergency number (911 in the US).

These are also at the top of every page on Impela.