Is the Chirp At-Home Massager Really Worth $600? Here’s My Honest Review

I love getting a massage, but the costs add up quickly, and it’s an expense I can’t justify every month (even though I want to!). As a writer, I spend a lot of time at my desk, hunched up over my keyboard, so while a monthly massage is certainly not in the budget, I needed to find a more affordable alternative. That’s why I decided to splurge on the Chirp Contour, an at-home massager that I can lay flat on every night. It delivers a professional-level massage that helps me relax and decompress in between trips to the actual masseuse, which ultimately minimizes my back pain and actually helps me sleep better. Here’s why it was worth the splurge.

The Chirp Contour Decompression & Massage Table is an automatic massage table that you lay your back on. It decompresses your spine, has massage presets, and has a heat setting to help relax your muscles. There are two versions of the Chirp to choose from: the Contour Basic Relief, which comes with three roller options — Soft, Contour, and Deep Tissue — and the Contour Ultimate Relief (which I went with) that comes with the three basic rollers, as well as the Contour Plus Roller and the Contour Intense Relief Roller. 

The rollers are stored inside the Chirp itself. There’s an access hatch on the bottom portion that lifts open, so you can access and change the rollers when you want a different experience or intensity of massage.

There are three preset massages that run for 10 minutes — Wake Up, Recovery, and Relax — as well as the option to customize your massage in the following ways:

• Three types of massage: Roll, decompress, and target (which you can move up and down to the right spot)
• Pressure: Low and high settings
• Heat: Low and high settings
• Neck massage: Control the location of the neck massagers as well as the direction

Perhaps the smartest feature on the Chirp is that it adjusts itself to the user height and weight, and it has two programmable user profiles. It only weighs 22 lbs, and there’s a carry handle on one side, so it’s really easy to move to wherever you want to use it. The Contour measures 43 inches long (from the seat to the headrest), 22 inches wide, and 7 inches high (from the floor to the top of the neck rollers), so it’s small enough to fit under a bench, couch, or bed, too. 

The benefits of having my muscles rolled out, massaged, and kneaded while a heat pad warms up my body from what feels like the inside cannot be understated. The decompression feels amazing on my spine, and I love the two-level heat setting — it’s my favorite feature as it helps lull me into a deep relaxation. The Chirp incorporates heat therapy into the massage, and there are two warmth levels. I always choose the highest heat, as it helps me relax and feel ready for sleep at the end of the day. My favorite roller to use is the Contour Roller as it has four contact points that follow the spine’s shape and I love the feeling of it working my spine. 

Most of the time, I’ll listen to a podcast or short mediation when I lay on the Contour, but I’ve also set it up with a phone holder above me, so I could watch a show. I’ll also hold my phone and scroll, but I don’t recommend that since holding your arms in the air to support the phone isn’t very relaxing, and scrolling on your phone before bed is a big no-no, obviously.

My bed frame is too low for it to slide under, so when I’m not using it, I keep it propped up along the wall in my room. My bonus tip is to place it somewhere you can put your legs up on a bed or wall. You’ll not only get the benefits of the massage, but you’ll also allow fluid to drain from your legs, and it makes the lower back massage a little more intense. 

The cost efficacy of it all makes the Chirp Contour worth it. There’s almost nothing that makes me feel as relaxed as a good massage, but they’re expensive. An hour-long massage, for instance, can cost $150 or even closer to $300, depending on where you live. Plus, it’s not like I can get even a 10-minute back massage every night before I go to sleep, and definitely not from the comfort of my living room floor. So while the Chirp Basic Relief costs about $600 and the Chirp Ultimate Relief costs about $660, when not on sale, (plus, additional rollers cost $50 for a set of two) if you even use the machine 10 times, you’ve recouped the cost of a real massage done by a real person. 

Plus, the Chirp is HSA/FSA eligible, and if you want to look elsewhere, note that Costco sells the roller table with the roller set included for about $430.

Buy: Chirp Contour Ultimate Relief Decompression & Massage Table, $609.98