Digital health · Peer emotional support
7 Cups
A free chat service that has paired people in distress with volunteer listeners since 2013, with paid therapy sold alongside it. The idea has a published literature. It also has a public record: a terminated state contract, a confidential settlement and four years of reporting.
The first listener was the founder
The origin story has been told the same way for a decade. Glen Moriarty, a licensed psychologist, was at his kitchen table complaining to his wife about a work problem. She is a licensed counselor. She listened, and he felt better.
“She’s a therapist and I of course felt better,” he told The Virginian-Pilot in January 2014. “If you talk to someone and they listen, you feel relieved.”
The company launched in June 2013 and went through Y Combinator that summer. It is named for a poem by the ninth-century Chinese poet Lu Tong, in which each cup of tea brings a further stage of relief. Moriarty was the first listener. His wife was the second.
Recruiting the rest was the hard part. By August 2013 TechCrunch counted just over 100 listeners handling about 1,000 call requests a week. The fix, by the company’s account, was a banner over the chat queue telling people that the best way to help yourself is to help someone else. People who came for support signed up to give it.
The gap it is aimed at
The market logic is not in dispute. Therapy is expensive, scheduled and scarce. A free, anonymous, always-open chat window is none of those. 7 Cups says it has more than 500,000 trained volunteer listeners in 189 countries and 140 languages, and that 99.8 percent of what it does costs nothing.
The role is defined narrowly. Listeners are not licensed therapists or counselors, and the company is explicit that they offer emotional support rather than clinical treatment. Training is an online active listening course, a quiz, a mock chat with a bot, and an oath.
That places the product in a regulatory gap. Mashable reported in 2024 that neither the Food and Drug Administration nor the Federal Trade Commission would comment on 7 Cups, and that peer-to-peer platforms are not necessarily regulated by the FDA or required to comply with HIPAA for those services.
The founder and the advisers
Moriarty has also run the digital learning company Edvance360. He told Mashable that Y Combinator still owns 7 percent of 7 Cups. The most consequential adviser was Thomas Insel, who ran the National Institute of Mental Health from 2002 to 2015. Mashable reported that Insel sat on the 7 Cups advisory board when California awarded the company its contract, and that his daughter was then the company’s director of clinical initiatives. Insel said he was never part of 7 Cups beyond agreeing to advise.
What California bought, and gave back
In spring 2018 California picked 7 Cups and Mindstrong as the only two vendors for the Innovation Technology Suite, a $35 million program funded by the state’s millionaire tax for mental health. It was later renamed Help@Hand and grew to $101 million.
It did not last. By April 2019 Kern County had dropped 7 Cups, calling it a “poor fit” and citing unmoderated chat rooms and difficulty screening out dangerous applicants. County testers reported unwanted sexual messages and abusive behavior. On August 31, 2019, 7 Cups got a 30-day termination notice, having been paid an estimated $6.7 million over 13 months.
A settlement took effect that November: 7 Cups paid the California Mental Health Services Authority $460,382 and the agency paid 7 Cups $309,277. It carried a confidentiality clause. Mashable obtained it by public records request in 2024. Neither the agency nor the University of California, Irvine evaluation reports had explained publicly why the vendor vanished.
The period left a second paper trail. The 7 Cups Foundation took in $500,500 in fiscal 2019 against $1,499 of expenses, then booked $450,015 of expenses in fiscal 2020. Moriarty told Mashable the foundation returned $450,000 to Sutter Health at the request of its former mental health chief, who had sat on the state commission that approved the funding.
The directory
In April 2025 a second dispute arrived. Forensic psychologist Kathryn Ambeau posted on LinkedIn that 7 Cups had published a profile of her without consent. An analysis by software engineer Jon Sustar, cited by Mashable, found more than 130,000 therapist names in the directory and only 67 that appeared verified. The Clinical Social Work Association and the Psychotherapy Action Network told members to check their own names and file complaints with state attorneys general and the FTC. Moriarty told Behavioral Health Business that therapists are one part of a local resource guide that also covers shelters, food pantries and treatment centers, and that profiles are deleted on request.
What is proven, and what is still claimed
| Evidence | What the record shows | Source type |
|---|---|---|
| Federal filings | No FDA 510(k) or PMA. No NIH or NSF award. No Form D or other SEC filing under either company name, checked Sep 23, 2026. | Not found |
| Peer-reviewed literature | Seven PubMed-indexed papers name the platform, 2015 to 2025. The four earliest, by Amit Baumel and colleagues, are small: a satisfaction survey and studies of nine, ten and nineteen patients. | Public record |
| Best efficacy signal | Baumel 2018: 19 mothers with postpartum depression, matched against treatment as usual. Scores fell within the group (P<.001). Between groups, no significant difference (P=.05, d=0.58). The authors wrote: “A fully powered trial has to be conducted to examine this effect.” | Public record |
| Largest randomized test | NCT04536935, University of Washington, 838 adults across four free apps, 2020 to 2021. No differences on depression, anxiety, emotion regulation or suicide risk. On usability 7 Cups ranked last, mean 65.2 against 72.9. | Public record |
| Trial on the platform | NCT06017414, sponsored by Gunther Meinlschmidt of the International Psychoanalytic University Berlin, not by 7 Cups. Completed Mar 2024, 222 participants. Only the protocol is published. | Public record |
| Matching and equity | Liu et al, Oct 2024, co-authored by two 7 Cups staff on platform data, found that “underaged and gender minority groups had lower average chat ratings and higher blocking rates on the site”. Simulated topic matching cut blocking from 5.86% to 4.26%. | Public record |
| Criminal case | In April 2019 a Butler County, Pennsylvania man pleaded guilty to one count of corrupting a minor and four counts of coercing a child into creating child sexual abuse material. Mashable reviewed the court file and confirmed with the prosecutor that he met the victim on the 7 Cups teen community. | Public record |
| Therapist directory | More than 130,000 names listed, 67 apparently verified. 7 Cups calls it a local resource guide. The APA, CSWA and PsiAN call it a ghost network that routes inquiries to unlicensed listeners. | Disputed |
| Scale claims | The company FAQ says more than 500,000 listeners. The About page on the same site says “hundreds of listeners.” PCMag reported 300,000 listeners in 2018. No independent audit found. | Figures differ |
Read plainly: people who use 7 Cups report feeling helped. What has not been shown is that it beats an alternative. The one adequately powered randomized comparison found no difference against three other free apps and ranked it last on usability. Everything stronger is underpowered, uncontrolled, or co-authored by the company.
What to watch
- Results from NCT06017414. The trial finished in March 2024 and only the protocol has appeared.
- Whether any state attorney general or the FTC acts on the directory complaints filed from April 2025. The precedent CSWA cites, CareDash, shut down in 2022.
- Whether 7 Cups publishes license numbers on therapist profiles, which several state boards require in advertising.
- Any audited figure for listeners, users or conversations.
- Whether the 7 Cups Foundation, which reported $250,000 of revenue for 2024 after three near-dormant years, resumes activity.
In their words
“Our goal is to build the emotional support system for the Internet.”
Glen Moriarty, founder and CEO, MHIN profile · Company
“We deliberately designed the platform with a volunteer emphasis from the very beginning because that appears to be one of the only ways to scale emotional support,”
Glen Moriarty to Mashable, 2024 · Independent
“You get no money, you get no protection, you get nothing,”
Former 7 Cups volunteer, to Mashable, 2024 · Independent
“If there is not consistent enforcement of the rules, it creates a permission structure for anything to happen,”
Whitney Phillips, Univ. of Oregon, to Mashable, 2024 · Independent
“I regret that we were not able to serve the counties in the way we had envisioned,”
Glen Moriarty to Mashable on California, 2024 · Independent
“There’s a perception of availability and depth that is not backed up by reality.”
Marnie Shanbhag, APA, to Mashable, 2025 · Independent
“We disagree because we think we should be able to have therapists in the local support section.”
7 Cups, LinkedIn post quoted by Mashable, 2025 · Company
Related companies
Sources
- Public recordClinicalTrials.gov NCT06017414
- Public recordPMID 29439944, Baumel et al
- Public recordPMID 36191176, Comtois et al
- Public recordPMID 39352736, Liu et al
- Public recordPMID 40329383, Erasmus et al
- Public recordIRS Form 990s, 7 Cups Foundation, EIN 83-0727255
- Public recordSEC EDGAR search, no filings
- IndependentTeens who talk about their mental health on this app may be taking a big risk
- IndependentCalifornia paid millions to access a mental health app
- IndependentEmotional support platform 7 Cups beset by trolls
- Independent7 Cups started a therapist directory
- IndependentTherapists criticize 7 Cups over profiles
- IndependentAlert on clinician information
- InterviewY Combinator startup 7 Cups of Tea
- InterviewTea and sympathy, via the web
- InterviewHow 7 Cups digitized the comfort of strangers
- Company7 Cups FAQ and about page
- Company7 Cups of Tea innovation profile
Profile researched and written by Healthcare Discovery. Last updated September 29, 2026.
