Hallow Review
By Sankalp Jonna · Last reviewed 2026-05
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How we tested
Every app here was installed and used personally. We capture raw findings — typed notes, screenshots, screen recordings, voice memos — and the writing is AI-assisted from those raw notes. Scores, rankings, and "best for / skip if" calls reflect our actual experience with each app. Read the full methodology →
Our verdict
We'd recommend Hallow at the annual Plus tier for any practicing Catholic who wants a serious daily prayer rhythm on a phone. The Liturgy of the Hours, Lectio Divina, and Rosary sessions are produced at a level the rest of the faith app world hasn't matched, and the Apple Watch + CarPlay integrations turn the morning office into a habit you can actually keep. For Catholic couples, families, and small groups, the Pray Together features are the cleanest shared-prayer experience we've used on any platform. If you're Catholic and you're still using YouVersion as your primary daily app, Hallow at $69.99/year is the easier pick. Skip Hallow if you're Protestant and uninterested in Catholic-specific prayer forms — you'll pay for a lot of content you won't open. Skip it also if your daily faith time is exegesis or serious Bible study; the in-app Bible is a reading and listening surface, not a research tool, and you'll outgrow it within weeks. Glorify is the closer pick for non-Catholic devotional listeners, and Olive Tree, Logos, or Verbum are the right answers for serious study.
Setup and first run
Installing Hallow is the most consumer-app-feeling onboarding in the Bible category. We installed it on a fresh iPhone and were taken through a series of warm, well-paced questions — your tradition, your prayer goals, the time of day you want a reminder, whether you want morning prayer, evening prayer, or both — and inside two minutes the app had built a daily flow tailored to a Catholic user. Account creation is required to save progress, but Apple Sign-In or Google works in one tap.
The first prayer session is the one that decides whether you keep the app, and Hallow knows it. The default first session in our testing was a guided Examen narrated by Jonathan Roumie, with ambient music underneath, paced for ten minutes. We've used Calm and Headspace for years, and the production quality here is in that range. That's the bar Hallow is competing at, and it's the bar most other Christian apps haven't tried to clear.
Day-to-day use
We used Hallow primarily for three jobs over multiple weeks: morning Liturgy of the Hours, daily Lectio Divina on the Mass readings, and an evening Compline before sleep. All three flows held up under real use.
Liturgy of the Hours
The morning office in Hallow is the single feature that anchored a daily prayer rhythm in our testing. The audio version walks through Lauds with the proper antiphons for the liturgical day, the right psalms, and a brief reflection. We listened to it on a commute via CarPlay and the experience held — no fumbling, no manually navigating the breviary. For Catholics who've tried to keep the Liturgy of the Hours and bounced off the four-volume physical breviary, this is a different category of accessibility.
Lectio Divina
Hallow's Lectio Divina sessions are the best-paced scripture-with-prayer flow we've used on any platform. The four-step structure — read, meditate, pray, contemplate — is built into the audio with deliberate pauses, ambient music underneath, and a single verse held in front of you on screen. After two weeks of daily Lectio on the Mass readings, the practice had become reliably contemplative in a way that just reading a passage in YouVersion never quite achieved.
Audio Bible and Rosary
The audio Bible covers Catholic translations including the deuterocanonical books, narrated at audiobook quality. The Rosary sessions come in multiple narrators (we cycled through Jonathan Roumie, Jeff Cavins, and a women's voice option) — picking the voice that fits your week is genuinely useful for sticking with the practice over months.
Where it surprised us
Production quality is the headline surprise. We expected a competent Catholic prayer app and got something closer to a faith-flavored Calm. The narrators are real talent, the music is composed for the sessions rather than stock-libraried, and the pacing has been edited rather than left raw. After Hallow, the audio inside YouVersion and Bible Gateway feels noticeably flatter.
The CarPlay experience was the second surprise. The morning office on a commute is a use case most prayer apps haven't bothered with, and Hallow's CarPlay surface is clean enough that it works without taking your eyes off the road. We didn't expect to be doing the Liturgy of the Hours from a car seat, and it became a regular pattern.
The Pray Together feature is better than expected too. Sharing a Rosary with a spouse who's traveling, or with a small group across time zones, works the way you'd want — the audio stays in sync, the intentions are visible, and the social layer doesn't feel like a Christian Facebook in the way some app social features do.
Where it disappointed
The in-app Bible is a reading layer, not a study tool. There are no commentaries, no original-language tools, no real notes worth keeping. For users who want to do daily prayer in Hallow and serious study elsewhere, that's fine — pair Hallow with Olive Tree, Logos, or Verbum. For users who hoped Hallow would be one app for everything, the depth isn't there and won't be.
The free tier is intentionally thin. Almost everything past the first daily session is locked behind Hallow Plus, which is honest pricing but means the free experience won't tell you whether the paid tier is worth it. The 14-day free trial is the right way to evaluate; the free tier alone won't.
Some partner content has caused friction with subsets of the user base over the years — political endorsements or guest narrators that not every Catholic agreed with. The core devotional content is unaffected, but if a specific partner is a deal-breaker for you, that's worth knowing before subscribing. We found it easy to skip partner-specific sessions and stay inside the daily prayer rhythm.
The pricing reality
Hallow Plus is $12.99/month or $69.99/year (effective ~$5.83/month annually). The annual plan is the right pick for almost everyone — the monthly tier compounds to ~$156/year, which is more than double. The Friends and Family plan at $119.99/year supports up to six users; if you've got a household with engaged kids and a spouse, that pencils out at roughly $20/user/year, which is a real value. The Lifetime tier at $149.99 is the smart pick after two-plus years of confirmed use, not as a first purchase.
Compared with the rest of the category, $69.99/year sits at the same price point as Glorify Plus, Bible Gateway Plus, and Dwell — fair for the production value if you'll use the Catholic-specific content, expensive if you won't.
All paid plans visible on the Hallow App Store listing. Free trials and intro pricing may vary by region.
Monthly
- Monthly Subscription$9.99
- Monthly Subscription$10.99
Yearly
- Yearly Subscription$69.99
Who else should consider it
Returning Catholics — adults who grew up Catholic, drifted, and want a structured way back — are the second-best fit after current practitioners. The Liturgy of the Hours and Lectio Divina sessions are gentle on-ramps that don't require knowing where you are in the breviary. New Catholic converts and RCIA candidates benefit from the same on-ramp.
Catholic couples and families with kids should look at the Friends and Family plan specifically — the shared-prayer features are the most developed in the Christian app world.
Our final word
Hallow is the most polished faith app we've used, full stop, and for Catholic users it's a category of one. The Liturgy of the Hours, Lectio Divina, and Rosary sessions are produced at a level no other faith app matches, and the daily-rhythm design pulls users into a sustainable prayer life in a way most Christian apps don't manage. The Bible inside Hallow is functional rather than deep, so we'd pair it with a study app for that work. But as a daily prayer-and-scripture rhythm anchor, Hallow at $69.99/year is the easiest recommendation we make to Catholic readers in 2026. Skip it if you're not Catholic; install it if you are.
Best for
Practicing Catholics who want a serious daily prayer rhythm — Liturgy of the Hours, Rosary, Lectio Divina — alongside an audio Bible.
Skip if
Protestants uninterested in Catholic-specific prayer forms, or anyone whose daily faith time is exegesis and serious Bible study.
What real users say
Love this app!!
This app is awesome if you wanna have a better relationship with God and/or Jesus!! My dad had paid for the family plan and I had never started using it until this week actually. I wanted to improve my relationship with God, because I was scared of demonic possession and stuff involving that. I was questioning God’s protection over me and that got me really worrying. I realized that God will always protect me from evil things. So, I have been listening to a little podcast on this app, narrated by Jonathan roumie who played Jesus in The Chosen TV show. I have started with the beginning sessions and I really like them so far, and plan to keep listening to them every single day. I want you all to know that God is there for all of you! A lot of people tell me they need to see things to believe them, but that’s not true for God. Just because you can’t see him doesn’t mean he isn’t there. Same with Jesus . You can’t see him but he’s there just like God is. It’s called faith, and you should have it for God and Jesus. There is this poem about a guy who is walking on a beach and going through a hard time. He feels as if God isn’t there with him, but he quickly sees that’s not true. All of a sudden there is another set of footprints and it’s God carrying him. That’s just an awesome story to show you that God is there for everyone. GOD BLESS YOU ALL. Download this app if you need God and Jesus!
— GODISTHEREFORYOU · October 24, 2025
Always had trouble praying
As a Catholic, prayer is important, but I never really made the time for it. I’m a 26 year old, with a wife and child, job in finance, loves sports (specifically dc sports teams), and am currently half way through earning an MBA. So, I rarely have time on my hands. When I do have free time, I’ll consume it with reading about finance related things, spending time with family, or spending time playing video games. Prayer has always been difficult. I couldn’t really get into the habit of praying daily, or being in silence. I’m always active, so prayer doesn’t come naturally. I’ve tried praying morning prayer using the psalter but find myself bored and lacking the passion to do it sometimes - spiritually dry. Hallow, has changed that. The first couple of sessions were difficult to stay in silence but it helped me to have a peaceful day each time. I always find that when I use hallow, my day becomes more peaceful. It helps me to enjoy my daily successes, knowing they are from god, and understanding and accepting my defeats, which in some way, God allowed. Instead of becoming a justice maker at work, at home, when I’m playing sports, etc. hallow has helped m to accept my failures/injustices from other alittle better through daily prayer. I would encourage any catholic who is serious about finding inner peace and a growing relationship with God to try this app. I would recommend it to anyone and everyone! Also - the app has a very modern feel and isn’t as quirky as other prayer apps I’ve used!
— ThatGuyJulio · January 3, 2020
30,152 minutes
A less significant feature of the Hallow app is that your profile will tell you how much time you’ve spent using it. After a 3-month trial and one year of subscription, I have used Hallow for 30,152 minutes. That’s 502.5 hours, somewhwere just north of an hour a day. Much of that time I spent completing Catechism in a Year and Bible in a Year with Father Mike Schmitz, but I have also learned to pray the rosary, learned about saints and other people who struggle just like me with living a life of faith, listened to daily mass readings, and learned anout the gospel through exegesis. At the annual sunscription rate, this has cost me under 14 cents per hour. That’s the accounting side of it. What I can’t quantify is how much this has helped my spiritual formation. I signed up for a trial because I was in RCIA and found myself wanting more. This app, like many other blessings we receive, was much more than I asked. Little chunks of time here and there - 10 minutes in the car between my daughter’s school and my office, 20 minutes on the drive home, 30 minutes before bed with the Bible or the Catechism - it adds up to 30,152 minutes of time, but so much more - ears that can hear, eyes that can see, and a heart that can feel the Holy Spirit. Hallow has helped me along my journey home, and that is a pearl beyond price.
— Louisville Doc · December 27, 2024
Mommy Finally Gets Quiet Time!
Before Hallow, my spiritual life was unorganized and reactive. I'd attempt to have quiet time with the Lord, but would be interrupted by my children or my own thoughts. 30 minutes would go by and I'd feel so defeated that I couldn't even make it through one prayer without becoming distracted. My husband gifted me a subscription 2 years ago and it's now a recurring Christmas gift from him (I can't imagine anything better). Now, my thoughts and prayers are cohesive because the guidance from the app keeps me on track. I've learned so many new prayers that I never knew before, and I can "whip them out" in the middle of whatever chaos might be going on in our day. If my toddler comes in the room during my quiet time, he doesn't have to leave. He understands quiet time now and loves to listen and pray with me. He even requests Hallow in the mornings now! The "Kids" feature has been such a blessing. If you're a busy mom or a busy anybody, Hallow is an amazing app you won't regret. I've recommended it to everyone I meet who mentions a struggle with their prayer life. It has truly helped change my life for the better. Thank you, Hallow!
— BassoonMama · July 25, 2022
Love it! Would be better with some improvements…
Hallow is great for anyone who wants to dive deeper in their Catholic prayer life, especially once you get past the paywall. You learn and listen to all sorts of prayers and Scriptural analyses. However, there could be a few things that would make it better. One is the ability to share the Hallow subscription with others, like having each person have a different account like Netflix or sharing the subscription through the Apple Family subscription feature. It’s much more convenient for me and my family instead of paying for individual subscriptions for multiple people. Another thing that would make the app great is having more Liturgy of the Hours things, at least outlined clearly. The Compline is something I pray every night, and I want to get more into “the prayer of the Church” by having the morning, afternoon, and evening prayers on the app. A final thing that would make this app better is to have curated playlists of Christian rock and metal music. While pop and praise and worship are popular, some folks, such as myself, can find it almost boring, and find it impossible to find rock and metal music that praise the Lord. I know of exists, but it would be so much better if it was curated on something like Hallow. Again, I adore this app, I just have some improvement ideas for it.
— lovedove59 · November 30, 2025
Alternatives we considered
Compare Hallow to other Bible apps
Warmpeach — coming soon
A Bible chat app — pastor and therapist in one.
Warmpeach is what we wished existed while testing every Bible app on this site. Join the waitlist and we'll email you when it opens up.