TherapyNotes vs SimplePractice: which one fits a behavioral health practice
TherapyNotes at $69 solo and $50 per extra clinician against SimplePractice at $49 to $99 and $74 per clinician. The math at one, three and six clinicians.
October 28, 2026 · 9 min read
Here is the answer up front. TherapyNotes lists Solo at $69 a month, Group at $79 for the first clinician and $50 for each additional clinician, with the TherapyFuel AI add-on at $40 per clinician and phone and email support included 24/7 on every subscription. SimplePractice lists Starter at $49, Essential at $79 and Plus at $99, with each additional clinician at $74 on the Plus plan only, AI Note Taker at $35 per clinician, ePrescribe at $49 plus an $89 setup fee, and card processing at 3.15% plus $0.30. Prices read on the TherapyNotes pricing page and the SimplePractice pricing page on October 28, 2026.
So SimplePractice is cheaper to start and TherapyNotes is cheaper to grow. The crossover is at two clinicians, and by six clinicians the gap is over a hundred dollars a month on the subscription alone. Everything else in this comparison comes down to three questions: how much of your revenue comes from insurance, whether you need e-prescribing in the same system, and how often you need a human on the phone.
The price list, side by side
| Item | TherapyNotes | SimplePractice |
|---|---|---|
| Solo plan | $69 | $49 Starter, $79 Essential, $99 Plus |
| Group plan, first clinician | $79 | $99 (Plus only) |
| Each additional clinician | $50 | $74 |
| AI scribe add-on | TherapyFuel, $40 per clinician | Note Taker, $35 per clinician |
| AI bundle | not published as a bundle | Care Aide, $59 owner and $49 per extra clinician |
| e-prescribing | in the product | $49 a month plus $89 one time setup |
| Support | phone and email, 24/7, all subscriptions | included on all plans, preferred phone line on Plus |
| Card processing | not published on the pricing page | 3.15% + $0.30 |
| Introductory offer | none published | 50% off for 3 months |
Two structural details matter more than any single price. On SimplePractice, additional clinicians exist only on the Plus plan, so a two person practice cannot sit on Essential at $79: its floor is $99 plus $74, which is $173. And SimplePractice's 50% off three months means your fourth invoice is double your first. Build the budget from month four or you will be short.
The bill at one, three and six clinicians
AI scribe switched on for everyone, list prices, no promotions.
| Clinicians | TherapyNotes with TherapyFuel | SimplePractice with Note Taker |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | $109 ($69 + $40) | $84 (Starter $49 + $35) |
| 3 | $299 ($79 + $50 x 2 + $40 x 3) | $352 (Plus $99 + $74 x 2 + $35 x 3) |
| 6 | $569 ($79 + $50 x 5 + $40 x 6) | $679 at list ($99 + $74 x 5 + $35 x 6) |
At one clinician SimplePractice is $25 a month cheaper. At three, TherapyNotes is $53 cheaper. At six, TherapyNotes is $110 cheaper, which is $1,320 a year, and SimplePractice sends groups of six or more to its sales team for custom pricing anyway, so treat that $679 as a ceiling rather than a quote.
Then there are cards. SimplePractice publishes 3.15% plus $0.30. On a six clinician practice taking $60,000 a month at $150 a visit, that is $1,890 a month in processing, or $22,680 a year. The subscription is a quarter of what you pay the vendor. TherapyNotes does not publish its rate on the pricing page, so ask for it in writing before you sign, and compare it against what you pay now. Processing is the line that quietly decides whether a software decision saved you money.
Where TherapyNotes wins
Support. Phone and email, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, on every subscription, not just the top tier. In a behavioral health practice where a clinician is trying to lock a note at 9pm, that is not a feature on a grid, it is the difference between a solved problem and a lost evening.
Price per clinician as you grow. $50 against $74 is a 32% difference on every seat you add, forever.
Notes built for this specialty. The note types and templates are written for behavioral health documentation and insurance scrutiny, not adapted from a general purpose EHR. Practices that get audited tend to like it for exactly that reason.
It is a complete insurance system. Claims, ERAs, patient statements, and e-prescribing inside the product rather than as a separately priced add-on.
Where SimplePractice wins
The cheapest sensible solo entry point. Starter at $49, and $84 with the scribe.
The ecosystem. It is one of the largest platforms in US behavioral health. Template libraries, community knowledge, billers who already know the screens, and a decent chance your next hire has used it. That is an operational saving that never appears on a price page.
The client experience. Portal, intake forms, scheduling and telehealth are polished, and patients get through them without calling you.
Breadth beyond therapy. If your practice includes dietitians, speech therapy or coaching alongside counseling, the generalist build fits better.
Cheaper AI. $35 per clinician against $40, and Care Aide bundles the scribe with its other AI tools at $59 for the account owner and $49 per additional clinician.
If you landed here searching for the best EHR for therapists, the honest answer is that both of these are good and the deciding factor is not the software. It is your insurance mix, your clinician count, and how much you value a 24/7 phone line.
Where a direct pay practice fits, and where it does not
Both products are built around insurance. If you have gone fully self-pay, you are buying a claims engine and a payer network you will never log into, and you should know what that costs.
A self-pay therapy practice needs five things: a calendar with reminders, notes, a card on file, a clean superbill when the patient asks, and a good faith estimate because federal law requires one. That last one catches people. Under the No Surprises Act, a patient with insurance who chooses not to submit a claim counts as a self-pay individual and is owed a good faith estimate, which is the single most common compliance gap I see in cash-pay practices.
The numbers that drive a self-pay practice are not software numbers. A weekly therapy client at $150 is worth around $7,800 a year, so one retained client pays for any of this software several times over. Studies put no-shows at roughly 5% to 7% of appointments with reminders in place and 15% to 20% without, and a lost 50 minute slot costs $150 to $250. Reminders and a deposit at booking are worth more to your margin than the difference between a $69 plan and a $99 plan. We wrote the pricing side of that up in how to price cash-pay services.
For reference on cost, our Clinic plan covers one to three users at $119 a month with the AI scribe at $20 per clinician, so three clinicians is $179 against $299 and $352. Six users moves you to our Medical Center plan at $287, which is $407 with six scribes, against $569 and $679. Those are annual rates billed monthly and they are all on our price list, alongside the straight comparison against the rest of the field. At one clinician we are not the cheapest option available and I am not going to pretend otherwise: Noterro is $33, Carepatron $39, Practice Better $35 on Launch.
[CAPTURA: la tabla de precios de DrinCloud con CLINIC (1-3 usuarios, $119) y el escriba de IA a $20 por médico]
What we do not do, and why it is the whole point
Our software does not bill insurance. No clearinghouse, no eligibility verification, no denial management, no payer network. It is not ONC certified, which matters only for Medicare and MIPS reporting. It has no e-prescribing, so in states with an e-prescribing mandate, including California, Florida, New York, Michigan, Minnesota and Delaware, you need a separate e-Rx platform. And it ships no built in CPT database, because the AMA licenses that code set, so your practice types its own codes.
If you bill payers, buy TherapyNotes or SimplePractice and stop comparing. That is not false modesty, it is arithmetic: a practice collecting 60% of revenue from insurance cannot run on software with no claims module.
What we did build is the self-pay half, properly. Superbill PDFs with NPI, EIN, CPT and ICD-10 codes and the patient balance, generated from the visit you just charted, at no extra cost. Charting with memory fields that carry history forward. Reminders by SMS and email. Sliding scale rates per patient. Remote e-signature on the patient's own phone, included on every plan. The feature detail for counseling practices is on our page for therapists and for assessment heavy practices on our page for psychologists. If superbills are new to you, start with the therapy superbill guide.
[CAPTURA: superbill de una sesión de 60 minutos con CPT 90837, ICD-10, NPI, EIN y saldo a cero]
Frequently asked questions
How much does TherapyNotes cost compared to SimplePractice?
TherapyNotes lists Solo at $69 and Group at $79 for the first clinician plus $50 for each additional one. SimplePractice lists $49, $79 and $99, with $74 for each additional clinician on the Plus plan. SimplePractice is cheaper for one clinician and TherapyNotes is cheaper from two clinicians up.
What is the cheapest way to run a three clinician behavioral health practice?
On these two, TherapyNotes Group with TherapyFuel for all three is $299 a month against SimplePractice Plus with Note Taker at $352. If the practice does not bill insurance at all, cash-pay tools run lower: our Clinic plan with three AI scribes is $179 a month.
Does TherapyNotes include telehealth and e-prescribing?
TherapyNotes includes e-prescribing in the product and sells telehealth as part of its platform, so check the current plan grid for which plan carries what. SimplePractice charges $49 a month for ePrescribe plus an $89 one time setup fee, which is the clearer price but a separate line on the invoice.
Is 24/7 support worth paying extra for?
TherapyNotes does not charge extra for it, which is the point. Phone and email support is included around the clock on every subscription. Support is included everywhere in this market now, including by us, so it only matters when you compare the hours and the channel: 24/7 phone is genuinely unusual.
Can I use either one for a cash-pay practice?
Yes, both work fine, you are just paying for claims infrastructure you will not touch. If you handed a patient a receipt this year and never filed a claim, compare the all in cost against tools built for direct pay, which is the comparison we make on our page for counseling practices.
What should I check before I migrate charts?
Three things, in writing. The card processing rate, because it will cost more than the subscription. The per clinician price at the headcount you expect in eighteen months. And how data export works if you leave: full CSV and PDF export with no fee and no hold is the standard you should insist on, from any vendor.
The bottom line
TherapyNotes is the better buy for a group practice billing insurance, mostly because of $50 per clinician and 24/7 phone support. SimplePractice is the better buy for a solo clinician starting out, because of Starter at $49 and the size of the ecosystem around it. Neither is wrong.
If you never file a claim, both are more software than you need, and the money is better spent on reminders and deposits that stop empty slots.
DrinCloud is practice management software for clinics that charge the patient directly: AI charting, scheduling, reminders, payments and superbills, one to three users for $119 a month. We do not bill insurance, and that is why it costs what it does. See the comparison.
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