What does a pelvic floor app actually do?
It coaches pelvic floor muscle training, usually shortened to PFMT. That means learning to contract the muscles that support the bladder, bowel and uterus, learning to fully release them again, and then repeating that work in progressively harder positions over a period of months.
The release half matters as much as the squeeze, and it is the half most apps skip. A pelvic floor that cannot relax is not a strong one, and training it harder can make symptoms worse rather than better.
The reason this lands on a midlife site is that symptoms cluster here. In a cohort study of midlife women in northern California, mean age 48, Jones and colleagues, writing in the Journal of Women’s Health in 2016, reported that 72% experienced nocturia at least once a night and 50% reported urinary incontinence at least once a week.
Half of the women in that sample were leaking weekly. Most of them will never mention it to anyone.
What does the research actually say about training the pelvic floor?
More than you might expect, and it is unusually consistent.
The foundational evidence is a Cochrane systematic review. Dumoulin, Cacciari and Hay-Smith, writing in the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews in 2018, concluded that “we can be confident that PFMT can cure or improve symptoms of stress urinary incontinence and all other types of urinary incontinence”, and that it “could be included in first-line conservative management programmes for women”.
That is a strong statement by Cochrane’s standards, and it is the reason clinical guidelines put this work first rather than last.
The UK’s National Institute for Health and Care Excellence is explicit about the dose. NICE guideline NG123 says clinicians should “offer a trial of supervised pelvic floor muscle training of at least 3 months’ duration as first-line treatment to women with stress or mixed urinary incontinence”. For symptomatic prolapse at POP-Q stage 1 or 2, NICE suggests supervised training for at least 16 weeks.
Three months is the number to hold on to. Nothing on this page will do anything useful in a fortnight.
The question that decides whether an app is a reasonable purchase is whether unsupervised training works at all. On that, Kharaji and colleagues, in a 2023 systematic review and meta-analysis in the International Urogynecology Journal, concluded that “supervised and unsupervised PFMT programs can both be effective in treating women’s UI if training sessions and regular reassessments are provided”.
Read that conditional clause carefully, because it is the whole argument of this page. Unsupervised training works when there is real instruction and someone checks your progress. An app that delivers structured teaching and reassessment is doing the thing the evidence supports. An app that fires a daily notification saying “time for your kegels” is not.
The real caveat, and no app on this page solves it: before recommending supervised training, NICE advises clinicians to “undertake routine digital assessment to confirm pelvic floor muscle contraction”. That is a physical examination, and it exists because a substantial share of women contract incorrectly when told to, often bearing down instead of lifting. No app can check this. If you have prolapse symptoms, pain, or you have been training for three months with no change, see a pelvic health physiotherapist. An app is a good way to do the work; it is not a way to find out whether you are doing it right.
How do the best pelvic floor apps compare?
Five programmes with real pelvic floor content, ranked on how much of it each contains and how good each is to use, weighted 70/30. Pelvic floor and ease of use are the two scores the ranking is built from. Overall is the weighted score across all nine criteria, which is why a programme can rank above another here while scoring lower overall. All three update live from each programme’s own review.
| Rank | Programme | Pelvic floor 70% | Ease of use 30% | Overall | Testing tier | Best for | Not ideal for | Free trial |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Jessica Valant Pilates | 10/10 | 7.5/10 | 7.1/10 | Data profile | Prolapse-aware training built by a licensed physical therapist | Anyone who wants heavy loading, or a long trial before paying | 3 days |
| 2 | MUTU System | 10/10 | 7/10 | 7.1/10 | Fully tested | Leaking and abdominal separation treated as the main event, not a side module | Bone density and maximal strength | 10 days |
| 3 | Connect Pelvic Floor Fitness | 10/10 | 7/10 | 6.0/10 | Data profile | Pelvic floor training and nothing else | Menopause programming or strength progression | 14 days |
| 4 | Pvolve | 9/10 | 8.5/10 | 8.3/10 | Fully tested | Pelvic floor work you will actually keep doing, because it is inside the strength programme | Anyone unwilling to buy equipment | 14 days |
| 5 | Owning Your Menopause | 8/10 | 5/10 | 7.3/10 | Fully tested | Pelvic floor classes alongside the deepest hormone education here | Anyone who needs a polished app to stay consistent | 14 days |
What separates a real pelvic floor programme from a kegel reminder app?
Four things, and they are easy to check before you pay.
It teaches the release, not just the squeeze. If every session is contractions and the word “relax” never appears, the programme is training half a muscle. Overactive pelvic floors are common and they present with the same leaking that weak ones do.
It progresses. The Cochrane evidence rests on trials that increased difficulty over weeks. A library that gives you the same ten-minute session in week twelve as in week one is not delivering the intervention that was tested.
Someone qualified built it. This is the sharpest filter on the whole list. Ask who designed the pelvic floor content and what their credential is. On this page that answer ranges from a licensed physical therapist with 25 years in practice, down to a general instructor with no pelvic health qualification named at all.
It reassesses you. The Kharaji meta-analysis made regular reassessment a condition of unsupervised training working. In an app that means check-ins, symptom tracking, or a structured retest, not just a completion tick.
What none of them can do is confirm you are contracting correctly in the first place. That remains a reason to see a pelvic health physiotherapist at least once, particularly if nothing has changed after three months.
What about kegel trainers, devices and the free apps?
Most searches for a pelvic floor app land on one of two things that are not on this list, so it is worth saying plainly what they are and why they are not ranked here.
| What it is | Examples | Why it is not ranked here |
|---|---|---|
| Biofeedback devices with an app | Elvie Trainer, Perifit, kGoal | A small internal sensor pairs with your phone and shows a live reading of each squeeze. That is a different product from a training programme, and it is hardware I have not assessed. If you cannot tell whether you are contracting correctly, this category is aimed squarely at that problem, and so is a single appointment with a pelvic health physiotherapist. |
| Timer and reminder apps | Squeezy, Kegel Trainer and the free app store listings | These prompt you to squeeze and count the sets. They do not progress the work, teach the release, or adapt when symptoms change, which is what the five below are ranked on. A reminder is useful; it is not a programme. |
| Clinical treatment | Pelvic health physiotherapy | No app can confirm you are contracting the right muscle, and none of these replace an assessment. The pelvic floor exercises guide covers when to stop self-treating and get seen. |
None of the products in that table have been assessed against this page’s scoring, so none of them carry a score here. They are listed because they are what most people find first, not because they are alternatives I am recommending.
Which pelvic floor programmes rank highest?
Jessica Valant Pilates: the strongest clinical credential on the page
Built by a licensed physical therapist, with a prolapse-aware collection most fitness apps will not attempt
Jessica Valant Pilates is led by Jessica Valant, MSPT, a licensed physical therapist with roughly 25 years in practice who also holds a certification as a perimenopause and menopause specialist. It carries a Data profile tier on this list rather than a tested one.
I have not tested this one first hand. What follows comes from the research profile, not from using it. What earns it second place is the credential attached to the pelvic floor content specifically. NICE frames first-line treatment as supervised training, and supervision means a clinician. Among creator-led apps, a dedicated pelvic floor and prolapse-safe collection designed by a practising physical therapist is the closest thing to that standard you will find at subscription prices.
The prolapse point deserves its own line. Most fitness platforms avoid the word entirely, either from caution or from not knowing what to say. A collection designed around it is unusual, and for anyone who has been told to avoid certain movements it is the difference between guessing and following a plan.
What the research profile cannot tell you: whether the teaching actually lands for a beginner who has never located these muscles. That is the thing a credential does not guarantee and only testing reveals. It matters more here than on any other page, because a well-taught contraction is the entire intervention. The 3-day trial is also short for a judgement this specific, and at $59 a month this is the second most expensive option here.
The real limitation: it is Pilates-led, so the loading stays light. It does very little for bone density or maximal strength, and at the top of this page’s price range that matters. It is also a data profile rather than a tested review, so nothing here comes from me using it week to week.
| Measure | Why it matters here | Score |
|---|---|---|
| Pelvic floor | 70% of this page’s ranking | 10 |
| Ease of use | 30% of this page’s ranking, because you have to keep opening it | 7.5 |
| Programme structure | Whether the work progresses over months rather than repeating | 8 |
| Joint friendliness | How much of it you can do with symptoms or in a flare | 9 |
| Overall score | The site-wide score. Not used to rank this page | 7.1 |
Best for: on the research, women managing prolapse or wanting clinically grounded Pilates, who value the credential over the price.
Cost: $59 a month. There is no published annual price, though a 3-month prepaid term is $149. The free trial is 3 days.
Runs on iOS, Android and web, and casts to a TV.
MUTU System: leaking and abdominal separation as the main event
The programme I have come back to across fifteen years, and the only one here built for this problem alone
MUTU System was founded by Wendy Powell, a certified postpartum exercise specialist and personal trainer. She is not a physiotherapist or a clinician, and the programme is upfront about that; it was built in collaboration with women’s health professionals rather than by one. Everything in it is aimed at strengthening and releasing the pelvic floor and closing abdominal separation.
It ranks third rather than higher because the founder credential sits below Pvolve’s clinical board and Jessica Valant’s licence, and because the app itself is the plainest of the three. On pelvic floor content alone it is the equal of either.
Tested by Katy Cole: I first started MUTU after my first pregnancy, ran through it again after my second, and I still use its core and pelvic floor exercises today, in perimenopause, sometimes swapping in a MUTU move for whatever ab exercise a programme has given me. My separation was not massive, about 3 cm wide, but it was enough to make my belly protrude, and I noticed some leaking too. The sessions are breath-led and supported rather than hard, which took some adjusting to, because it does not feel like you have done anything until you notice you have stopped leaking.
That last point is worth sitting with. Nothing about this work feels productive while you are doing it. The feedback arrives weeks later, and it arrives as an absence. That is a difficult thing to stay motivated by, and the reason the built-in guidance telling you when to pause matters more than it appears to.
The real limitation: loading is light throughout, so this does very little for bone density or maximal strength. Most women on this page will want it alongside a strength programme, not instead of one.
| Measure | Why it matters here | Score |
|---|---|---|
| Pelvic floor | 70% of this page’s ranking | 10 |
| Ease of use | 30% of this page’s ranking, because you have to keep opening it | 7 |
| Programme structure | Whether the work progresses over months rather than repeating | 8 |
| Joint friendliness | How much of it you can do with symptoms or in a flare | 9 |
| Overall score | The site-wide score. Not used to rank this page | 7.1 |
Best for: anyone whose actual problem is leaking, heaviness, or abdominal separation, rather than anyone shopping for a general workout app.
Cost: a subscription rather than the one-off purchase it used to be, at roughly $28 a month, with a first month around $22.40 and an annual near $190. There is a 10-day free trial, the longest here.
Runs as a web app on any device, plus iOS and Android.
- Price
- Subscription (not one-time): ~$28/mo (first month ~$22.40)
- Free trial
- 10-day free trial
Connect Pelvic Floor Fitness: the deepest pelvic floor library here, and nothing else
Built by a Doctor of Physical Therapy, with 850 or more workouts in one narrow lane
Connect Pelvic Floor Fitness comes from Caroline Packard, DPT, and is built around 850 or more guided workouts, a phased foundations track running 12 to 19 weeks, and ten or more specialised progressions covering return to running, advanced core work, yoga and mobility. It is the deepest pelvic floor library I have assessed.
It ranks third rather than higher because the platform is narrower than anything else on this page. It scores level with Jessica Valant and MUTU on pelvic floor content, and the order between the three is settled on how good each app is to use.
| Measure | Why it matters here | Score |
|---|---|---|
| Pelvic floor | 70% of this page’s ranking | 10 |
| Ease of use | 30% of this page’s ranking, because you have to keep opening it | 7 |
| Programme structure | Whether the work progresses over months rather than repeating | 8.5 |
| Joint friendliness | How much of it you can do with symptoms or in a flare | 6.5 |
| Overall score | The site-wide score. Not used to rank this page | 6.0 |
What it does not do is menopause. There is no hormone or symptom guidance, no nutrition support and no general strength and conditioning, and the platform makes no attempt to suggest otherwise. The narrow scope that makes it the right answer for one reader makes it the wrong answer for most of the women this site is written for.
The real limitation: it is a single-purpose programme. There is no menopause programming, and with nutrition scoring 1.5 out of 10 it is the thinnest on this page for anything beyond the pelvic floor itself. Most women reading this page will need a second subscription alongside it.
Best for: anyone whose actual problem is pelvic floor symptoms, prolapse or postpartum recovery, and who wants a structured clinician-designed programme rather than a single video.
Cost: $30 a month or $180 a year, with a 14-day free trial. It runs on app, web and Roku, and uses bands and dumbbells.
This one is a data profile rather than a tested review. I have an account and have been through the app’s content structure, but I have not worked through the programme, and its card says so.
- Price
- $30/month
- Free trial
- 14 days, both plans
Pvolve: pelvic floor work built into the strength programme, not bolted on
The only programme here where the pelvic floor work happens inside the strength sessions you were going to do anyway
Pvolve is a low-impact functional training method with a clinical advisory board that includes Dr Amy Hoover, a doctor of physical therapy working in pelvic and women’s health, alongside a muscle physiologist and an OBGYN. Its dedicated pelvic floor series runs through the Menopause Strong programme rather than sitting in a separate library, which is rarer than it sounds.
That structural choice is the reason it scores as well as it does. It carries the highest overall score on this page, and it sits fourth here only because the ranking weights dedicated pelvic floor content above everything else. Pelvic floor training fails on adherence far more often than it fails on technique, and NICE asks for at least three months of it. Work you have to remember to do separately is work you stop doing in week three. Work that is already inside Tuesday’s session is work that still happens in week twelve.
Tested by Katy Cole: The pelvic floor work especially: it is the kind of training that is easy to deprioritise because it does not feel dramatic, but I have noticed a real difference in stability and core connection after two weeks. It is not the sort of change you can point at in a mirror, which is precisely why it needs to be built into the programme rather than left to willpower.
The real limitation: the method leans on its own equipment, and that adds real cost on top of the subscription. Loading also stays light, so this is not the programme to pick if bone density is your main concern.
| Measure | Why it matters here | Score |
|---|---|---|
| Pelvic floor | 70% of this page’s ranking | 9 |
| Ease of use | 30% of this page’s ranking, because you have to keep opening it | 8.5 |
| Programme structure | Whether the work progresses over months rather than repeating | 8.5 |
| Joint friendliness | How much of it you can do with symptoms or in a flare | 9 |
| Overall score | The site-wide score. Not used to rank this page | 8.3 |
Best for: women who want the pelvic floor covered without making it a separate project, and who are happy to buy into the equipment.
Cost: $24.99 a month, or $224.91 a year, which works out at about $18.74 a month. The trial runs 14 days and asks for a card, so set a reminder for day 13 if you are undecided.
Casts to a TV. No offline downloads.
- Price
- $24.99/mo (web)
- Free trial
- 14 days, card required
Owning Your Menopause: pelvic floor classes with the deepest hormone education
The clearest example on this page of good content held back by a dated platform
Owning Your Menopause is led by Kate Rowe-Ham, a Level 3 personal trainer with women’s health and menopause coaching qualifications and pelvic health certification, supported by a GP panel including Dr Katie Armstrong and Dr Eloise Elphinstone. It carries dedicated pelvic floor classes taught by someone qualified to teach them.
This is the programme that explains why this page is ranked the way it is. On pelvic floor content it scores 8, the lowest of the five. On ease of use it scores the lowest here too. In the review I described the video production as basic, with no on-screen timers or countdowns, and said the workouts are held back by it in a way that can wear down your motivation over time. On a page ranked partly on whether you will keep opening the app, that matters. Both scores pull the same way, and it finishes fifth.
That is the correct answer rather than a compromise. NICE asks for three months of consistent training. A platform you find unpleasant to open is a platform you will quietly abandon in week five, and a pelvic floor programme abandoned in week five has done nothing at all.
Tested by Katy Cole: Working with 4 to 9 lb and 13 lb dumbbells, lighter than my usual range because I was recovering from an injury, I maintained my existing muscle tone and noticed some definition returning around my core and belly area. That surprised me, because I had been neglecting abdominal work entirely. The hormone education here is genuinely the best I have found, and the GP access is not a gimmick.
The real limitation: the pelvic floor work is a collection inside a broader platform rather than a programme in its own right, and the video production is the weakest here. If you want pelvic floor training as the main event, three programmes above it do that job better.
| Measure | Why it matters here | Score |
|---|---|---|
| Pelvic floor | 70% of this page’s ranking | 8 |
| Ease of use | 30% of this page’s ranking, because you have to keep opening it | 5 |
| Programme structure | Whether the work progresses over months rather than repeating | 7.5 |
| Joint friendliness | How much of it you can do with symptoms or in a flare | 6.5 |
| Overall score | The site-wide score. Not used to rank this page | 7.3 |
Best for: women who want to understand what is happening to them as well as train, and who will not be put off by a platform that looks a decade older than it is.
Cost: £16.99 a month or £159.99 a year, which gives you two months free. The trial is 14 days; ignore the 7-day figure still listed on some aggregator sites.
Offline downloads and casting to a TV are both supported.
Which pelvic floor programme is right for you?
If leaking when you sneeze, cough, run or jump is the actual problem, start with MUTU System. It is the only programme here built for that alone, the 10-day trial is the longest on the page, and it is the one I have kept coming back to.
If you have prolapse symptoms or want a clinician’s programme, look at Jessica Valant Pilates first, and see a pelvic health physiotherapist alongside it rather than instead of it.
If you want the pelvic floor covered without it becoming a separate project, Pvolve is the one, provided you are willing to buy the equipment.
If you want to understand your hormones as well as train, Owning Your Menopause has the best education here, and you will have to forgive the platform.
Whichever you choose, give it three months. That is what the guideline asks for, and it is longer than almost anyone expects.
If urgency rather than leaking is the main symptom, an app is only part of the answer. Pelvic floor training helps, but urgency usually needs bladder retraining alongside it, and none of these five provides that. Our pelvic floor guide covers what that involves.
If budget is the deciding factor, MUTU System is the cheapest way into dedicated pelvic floor work here. Pvolve is nominally cheaper per month but expects equipment, which its own row above says.
How did we choose these five pelvic floor programmes?
The full scoring method, including every criterion and its weight, is set out in how we score. If you want the exercises themselves rather than an app, start with our guide to pelvic floor exercises in perimenopause and menopause.
Every programme in our library carries a pelvic floor capability score, judged on how much dedicated work it contains, who designed that work, and whether it covers release as well as contraction. This page ranks on that score, weighted 70%, blended with each programme’s ease of use score, weighted 30%.
The blend exists because content and consistency are both necessary. A programme has to qualify on pelvic floor content to appear at all, and five programmes cleared that bar. Ranking them purely on content would have put a platform I found genuinely unpleasant to use in second place, and three months of training does not happen on a platform you avoid.
Three of the five I have subscribed to and used. Two, Jessica Valant Pilates and Connect Pelvic Floor Fitness, are assessed from published information only, and both are labelled as such on their card. No first-hand observation appears in either.
We buy our own subscriptions. Some links on this page earn a commission, which never affects a score or a position; the scores are set in each programme’s own review before any page like this is built.
What research is this page based on?
- Dumoulin C, Cacciari LP, Hay-Smith EJC. Pelvic floor muscle training versus no treatment, or inactive control treatments, for urinary incontinence in women. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, 2018.
- National Institute for Health and Care Excellence. Urinary incontinence and pelvic organ prolapse in women: management (NG123), 2019.
- Kharaji G, ShahAli S, Ebrahimi-Takamjani I, et al. Supervised versus unsupervised pelvic floor muscle training in the treatment of women with urinary incontinence: a systematic review and meta-analysis. International Urogynecology Journal, 2023.
- Jones HJ, Huang AJ, Subak LL, Brown JS, Lee KA. Bladder Symptoms in the Early Menopausal Transition. Journal of Women’s Health, 2016.
Nothing on this page is medical advice. If you have prolapse symptoms, pain, or leaking that is not improving, see a pelvic health physiotherapist or your GP.
Where should you read next?
- Our full Pvolve review, including the pelvic floor series and what the equipment actually costs.
- Our full MUTU System review, covering abdominal separation and what changed when it moved to a subscription.
- How we score, if you want to see how the nine criteria and the capability scores are built.
Frequently asked questions about pelvic floor apps
It can deliver the training, and the training works. A Cochrane systematic review by Dumoulin, Cacciari and Hay-Smith in 2018 concluded we can be confident pelvic floor muscle training can cure or improve symptoms of stress urinary incontinence and all other types, and that it belongs in first-line conservative management. What an app cannot do is confirm you are contracting correctly in the first place.
Plan on three months. NICE guideline NG123 advises offering a trial of supervised pelvic floor muscle training of at least 3 months’ duration as first-line treatment for stress or mixed urinary incontinence, and at least 16 weeks for symptomatic prolapse at POP-Q stage 1 or 2. Nothing on this page will do much in a fortnight.
Usually not, and the distinction is what the evidence rests on. Kharaji and colleagues, in the International Urogynecology Journal in 2023, found supervised and unsupervised training can both work if training sessions and regular reassessments are provided. An app that teaches and re-checks is doing the thing that was tested. An app that fires a daily reminder to squeeze is not.
At least once, ideally before you start. NICE advises clinicians to undertake routine digital assessment to confirm pelvic floor muscle contraction before recommending supervised training, because a substantial share of women bear down instead of lifting when told to contract. No app can check this. See a pelvic health physiotherapist if you have prolapse symptoms, pain, or no change after three months.
It is common and it is not something you have to live with. In a cohort of midlife women with a mean age of 48, Jones and colleagues reported in the Journal of Women’s Health in 2016 that 50% experienced urinary incontinence at least once a week and 72% had nocturia at least once a night. Common is not the same as untreatable, and the evidence for training is strong.
Yes, and it improves the odds you keep doing it. Pelvic floor work fails on adherence far more often than on technique, which is why programmes that build it into their strength sessions rank highest here rather than parking it in a separate library. Work already inside Tuesday’s session still happens in week twelve.
Then squeezing more can make things worse. An overactive or hypertonic pelvic floor causes symptoms that overlap closely with a weak one, including leaking and urgency, and the exercises every programme on this page prescribes are aimed at a weak one. If you have pain, or you have trained consistently for three months with no change at all, stop self-treating and see a pelvic health physiotherapist. Our guide to pelvic floor exercises in menopause covers the difference in more detail.
Both, though not equally. Pelvic floor muscle training is first-line care for stress leaking, the kind that happens when you sneeze, cough, run or jump, and the evidence is strongest there. It also helps urgency and the mixed picture most women over 40 actually have, but urgency usually needs bladder retraining alongside the exercises, which none of these apps provides. If urgency is your main symptom rather than leaking on effort, treat an app as one part of the plan.
