How can we help?

Two things. When something already happened, you pick what kind of incident it was, answer about thirty honest questions, and get a verdict. When it’s happening right now, live mode helps you calm down, understand what’s really going on, and fix it the smart way, with the exact words to use.

It scores two things separately, because being right and behaving well are different questions:

• Complaint strength: was it worth complaining about? What it cost you, whether they owed it to you, how others reacted.
• The Karen Meter: was your reaction proportionate? Who you took it up with, how you opened, what you did, how loud it got.

Together they give one of four verdicts: Fair Complaint, Right, But You Karen’d It, Honest Misunderstanding or Full Karen. Near the line, the verdict says “Leaning towards” so it never overstates a close call.

In Karen Counselor, Karen describes a behaviour, not a person. Anyone can have a Karen moment, whatever their name, gender or age. The app never asks for your gender and judges only what you did in one moment, never who you are.

The name is there because everyone instantly knows the behaviour it means. The point is to catch yourself before you become the clip.

It asks for facts that are hard to spin, like what it really cost you and what you actually did, rather than opinions about the other person. It also compares your answers with each other and with how you described yourself when you started, and it says so when they don’t match.

Still, it’s a mirror, not a judge. It can only ever reflect the story you tell it, so the more honest you are, the more useful it gets.

Speaking up about that is never a Karen move. If someone’s safety was at risk, if you were hurt, threatened or harassed, or if you were treated differently because of who you are and have something concrete to show it, the app counts your complaint as fully justified. How you raised it is still scored, because that part is always yours.

If it’s happening right now, live mode’s first question is whether you’re safe. If you’re not, it tells you to get somewhere safe, ask for help and call the police, with a button to call. That part is free for everyone.

For when it’s happening right now, or when you’re about to send that email or post that review. After the safety check, you tap eight quick answers and the app:

1. Gives you a breathing pause, using what you said works for you.
2. Names what’s really going on, like hunger, lateness, or talking to someone who can’t fix it.
3. Tells you whether to say it, pause first, or walk away for now, with the words to use and what to avoid.

Afterwards it asks how it went, and can turn the moment into a full incident audit with your answers already filled in. If you’re driving, it tells you to put the phone down. It never coaches anyone behind the wheel.

The kind of incident (“The Restaurant Incident…”), your verdict, your Karen Meter, your complaint strength and your viral risk. Never the place, the people involved or what happened. Nothing is shared unless you tap Share yourself.

Yes, completely. Everything you enter stays on your device, protected by Apple’s on-device encryption. There is no account, no cloud sync and no server, and the app never asks for names, places or free-text descriptions of what happened. We collect nothing, so there is nothing for us to sell, leak or hand over.

See our Privacy Policy for the full detail.

Karen Counselor is free to download. Your first incident verdict is free, and so is live mode’s safety check. A single one-time purchase unlocks every incident audit, all of live mode, and your patterns across incidents. There is no subscription and there are no ads.

The price is shown in the app and on the App Store, because Apple sets it for each country in the local currency.

No. Your purchase belongs to your Apple Account, not to a device.

1. Install Karen Counselor on the new device, signed in with the same Apple Account.
2. Tap Unlock in Settings, or any locked feature.
3. Tap Restore a previous purchase.

If it says no purchase was found, you’re probably signed in with a different Apple Account. Write to us with the form above if it still gives you trouble.

Yes. Go to Settings and tap About you to change any answer, including your triggers, what calms you down and your own Karen self-rating. Your nickname is in Settings too. Every question about you is optional.

Swipe an incident in History to delete it. To remove everything at once, go to Settings and tap Delete everything.

Deleting the app removes everything it stored too. Because nothing was ever uploaded, deleting it on your device deletes it everywhere.

No. Karen Counselor is a tool for reflecting on one moment, based only on your own answers. It is not legal, medical or psychological advice. If anger is causing you problems often, talking to a doctor or a therapist is a strong move, not a weak one. If a complaint involves the law, talk to a professional in your country.

iPhone and iPad with iOS or iPadOS 17 and later. It works fully offline. The app is in English for now, with more languages planned.