ONLINE COGNITIVE BEHAVIORAL THERAPY, COVERED BY INSURANCE
Online CBT: Change The Patterns, Not Just The Mood
Cognitive behavioral therapy is the most researched form of talk therapy, built on a simple idea: how you think shapes how you feel. Octave offers online treatment with licensed CBT-trained therapists, matched to you in 1 to 3 days, with most members paying $28 or less per session with insurance.
1,200+
Therapists
In-network
with major carriers
3,400+
Licensed Therapists
$28
Typical Out-Of-Pocket Per Session, In Network
1 to 8
Days To A First Appointment
Insurance
We Work With Major Carriers
Clients only pay $28 per session, on average. How is this possible? Octave works with you and your insurance provider to secure the best coverage for therapy and make high-quality care accessible.Did you know?
Got an HSA or FSA? You can also use your pre-tax funds to pay for therapy.
Insurance Coverage
Save time and money
Know the cost of therapy before you start. Discover how much your insurance will cover for therapy with Octave. Simply select your state and insurance provider to see any out-of-pocket costs.
How it works
4 steps to start therapy
Step 01
Answer a few questions
Tell us a little about yourself and what you're looking for. You'll get an idea of your cost (if any) after answering.
Step 02
Find the right therapist
Browse licensed Octave therapists or work 1:1 with our team to find a match for your needs and schedule.
Step 03
Start therapy
Schedule your sessions and build a care plan with your therapist that measures progress.
Step 04
See results
Care is grounded in measurable outcomes, with tailored techniques to support real improvement in anxiety, depression, and other concerns.
Get seen by an Octave therapist within 1-8 days.
Provider credentialing section
Less than 4% of therapists who apply join the Octave network.
Every clinician is independently licensed, masters- or doctorate-trained, and reviewed for clinical fit before they see a single client.
3,400+
Therapists in network
Independently licensed across all 50 states
100%
License verified
Active state licensure confirmed quarterly with the issuing board
3.8%
Acceptance rate
Clinicians pass a multi-stage interview, case review, and reference check
10 yrs
Average experience
Median post-licensure clinical practice in the network
Outcomes and clinical evidence
A clearer alternative to the typical referral grind.
94%
report meaningful improvement within 12 sessions
Octave outcomes report, 2024 (n=18,400)
71%
show clinical reduction in PHQ-9 depression scores
Octave outcomes report, 2024 (n=18,400)
82%
remain in care at 6 months — well above industry average
Octave outcomes report, 2024 (n=18,400)
Published research
Meta-analysis
Andersson, G., et al. (2019).
Internet-delivered psychological treatments: from innovation to implementation.
World Psychiatry, 18(1), 20–28.
RCT
Hofmann, S. G., Asnaani, A., Vonk, I. J. J., Sawyer, A. T., & Fang, A. (2012).
The efficacy of cognitive behavioral therapy: A review of meta-analyses.
Cognitive Therapy and Research, 36(5), 427–440.
Outcomes
Lambert, M. J. (2017).
Maximizing psychotherapy outcome beyond evidence-based medicine.
Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, 86(2), 80–89.
Comprehensive Review
Smith, J., et al. (2021).
Digital mental health interventions: bridging the gap between research and practice.
In our clients’ own words
Our success is measured by the satisfaction of the clients we serve. See what some of them have to say about their experience.
Your unique path
After their first therapist session, 9 in 10 Octave clients say that their therapy experience has been good or better.
Octave Patient
After their first therapist session, 9 in 10 Octave clients say that their therapy experience has been good or better.
Octave Patient
After their first therapist session, 9 in 10 Octave clients say that their therapy experience has been good or better.
Octave Patient
After their first therapist session, 9 in 10 Octave clients say that their therapy experience has been good or better.
Octave Patient
After their first therapist session, 9 in 10 Octave clients say that their therapy experience has been good or better.
Octave Patient
After their first therapist session, 9 in 10 Octave clients say that their therapy experience has been good or better.
Octave Patient
After their first therapist session, 9 in 10 Octave clients say that their therapy experience has been good or better.
Octave Patient
After their first therapist session, 9 in 10 Octave clients say that their therapy experience has been good or better.
Octave Patient
After their first therapist session, 9 in 10 Octave clients say that their therapy experience has been good or better.
Octave Patient
After their first therapist session, 9 in 10 Octave clients say that their therapy experience has been good or better.
Octave Patient
Frequently Asked Questions
Online CBT, Answered
CBT is structured, practical, and time-limited. Here's what sessions look like, how many you'll need, and what you'll pay for them.
Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is a structured, evidence-based form of talk therapy built on the link between thoughts, feelings, and behavior. Instead of focusing mainly on your past, CBT works on the present: identifying the specific thought patterns and habits that keep a problem going, then testing and changing them. It is active and practical, with skills you use between sessions.
CBT has strong evidence for depression, generalized anxiety disorder, panic disorder, social anxiety disorder, OCD, PTSD, and insomnia, and it is a first-line recommendation for most of them in major clinical guidelines. It is also used for stress, anger, and relationship patterns. If you are dealing with one of these, CBT is a reasonable starting point, and your therapist tailors it to your situation.
CBT is designed to be time-limited, commonly 8 to 20 sessions depending on the problem and your goals. You and your therapist set concrete goals early and measure progress against them, so you know whether it is working rather than wondering. 94% of Octave members report meaningful improvement within 12 sessions.
The main differences are structure and between-session practice. A CBT session has an agenda, a skill or experiment to try before the next one, and progress tracked against defined goals. Approaches like psychodynamic therapy spend more time on where patterns come from; CBT spends more time on changing them now. Neither is better in the abstract, and many therapists blend both.
Yes. Online CBT is one of the best-studied forms of teletherapy, with outcomes comparable to in-person treatment across multiple trials. Because CBT is structured and skills-based, it translates well to video sessions, and the between-session practice happens in your real life either way.
Yes, in most cases. Most Octave members pay $28 or less per session using in-network insurance, and you can confirm your cost with the cost estimator before booking. CBT’s defined arc of roughly 8 to 20 sessions makes the overall picture clearer than open-ended therapy.
Ask them, and expect a concrete answer. A CBT-trained therapist can tell you what the structure of your work together will look like, what you will practice between sessions, and how progress gets measured. Octave verifies therapists’ training in the approaches they list, and your Care Navigator can match you specifically to a CBT-trained therapist.
More On Online Cognitive Behavior Therapy
How Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Works
Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) works by changing the thought patterns and behaviors that keep a problem going, on the principle that situations do not create feelings directly. A canceled plan can read as relief, rejection, or freedom depending on the thought between the event and the emotion, and conditions like depression and anxiety bias those thoughts in predictable ways: toward catastrophe, self-blame, and certainty that things will not change. CBT makes the automatic thoughts visible, tests them against evidence, and builds new responses. The behavioral half works the same loop from the other side: changing what you do, like gradually facing an avoided situation, changes what you think and feel.
What a CBT session looks like
A CBT session is collaborative and structured: you and your therapist set an agenda, review what you practiced since last time, work a current problem with a specific technique, and agree on what to try next. The techniques come from a defined toolkit:
Thought records capture automatic negative thoughts and test them against evidence.
Behavioral experiments check a feared prediction against what actually happens.
Exposure hierarchies break an avoided situation into graduated, repeatable steps for anxiety.
Behavioral activation rebuilds momentum through small planned actions for depression.
Expect to be a participant, not a patient: CBT works through what you do with it between sessions.
The conditions CBT treats
CBT is a first-line treatment across most of the conditions Octave treats:
Depression, through cognitive restructuring and behavioral activation
Generalized anxiety disorder, panic disorder, and social anxiety disorder, through exposure and thought testing
OCD and PTSD, through specialized protocols built on the same core methods
Insomnia, through CBT-I, the recommended first-line treatment for chronic sleep problems
The condition side of each of these has its own page with the depth this overview cannot carry.
Who CBT fits best
CBT fits people who want structure, skills, and measurable progress. If you are looking for open-ended exploration of your history, a psychodynamic approach may fit better, and many Octave therapists integrate both. Tell your Care Navigator what you are dealing with and how you like to work, and they will match you with a therapist in 1 to 3 days.
If you need help right now
Crisis resources.
Octave is not an emergency service. If you or someone you love is in immediate danger, call 911 or go to your nearest emergency room.
988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline
24/7, free, confidential — call or text
Crisis Text Line
Text HOME — 24/7 trained counselors
National DV Hotline
24/7 confidential support
Veterans Crisis Line
Press 1 after dialing 988
SAMHSA National Helpline
Treatment referral & info, 24/7
Trevor Project
LGBTQ+ youth crisis support
Skills you keep. Sessions that end.
CBT is built to finish: learn the tools, use them, and graduate. Get matched with a CBT-trained therapist for online therapy in 1 to 3 days.
Find Your Best Therapist