An honest feature-by-feature comparison covering pricing, scheduling, documentation, intake forms, outcome tracking, and who each platform is actually built for.
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Start your free trialSimplePractice is the most widely used practice management platform in mental health — over 225,000 clinicians use it, and for many therapists it was the first piece of software that made running a private practice feel manageable. That reputation is earned. SimplePractice did a lot to professionalize the administrative side of therapy, and its interface remains one of the most polished in the space.
But "most widely used" and "best for your practice" are different questions. In March 2025, SimplePractice restructured its pricing — raising the Starter plan 69% overnight, from $29 to $49 per month — and since then, a significant number of solo therapists have been asking whether the value still holds up for a one-person, private-pay practice.
This comparison is written by the Psy Planner team, so we have a stake in the outcome. We've tried to be fair about it. Where SimplePractice does something better than we do, we say so. Where we think Psy Planner is the stronger choice for a specific type of practice, we explain why. The goal is to help you make the right decision for your practice — not to win a marketing argument.
Understanding the original design intent of each platform explains a lot about where they diverge.
SimplePractice was founded in 2012 by Howard Spector, who was training to become a Marriage and Family Therapist. It started as a scheduling and documentation tool for solo practitioners, then expanded to include insurance billing (2018), telehealth, group practice support, and eventually a full suite of business tools including a website builder and a therapist directory (Monarch). In January 2024, SimplePractice was acquired by Vista Equity Partners as part of a ~$4 billion deal. Today it serves a broad range of health and wellness professionals — therapists, social workers, counselors, OTs, speech-language pathologists, dietitians — across solo and group practice settings.
Psy Planner is built specifically for psychologists and therapists in private practice. Its design focuses on the clinical workflow: client onboarding (intake forms embedded in the booking flow), session notes with outcome tracking, and the scheduling infrastructure that makes a solo practice run without administrative overhead. It is not a general-purpose health and wellness platform, and it is not designed to scale to group practices. It is designed to do one job well — support a solo therapist from the moment a client discovers them to the moment they complete treatment.
That context shapes every comparison that follows.
This is where the conversation starts for most therapists evaluating platforms after SimplePractice's 2025 restructure.
SimplePractice offers three plans:
| Plan | Monthly price | What's included |
|---|---|---|
| Starter | $49/month | Scheduling, telehealth, client portal, basic documentation, billing |
| Essential | $79/month | Everything in Starter + appointment reminders, client messaging, custom treatment plans, analytics dashboard, Monarch directory listing |
| Plus | $99/month | Everything in Essential + group telehealth, client announcements, out-of-office scheduling, team member access |
On top of the base subscription, add:
For a solo therapist collecting $3,000–$4,000/month in session fees on the Starter plan, payment processing fees alone add $90–$120/month. All-in, most solo therapists on the Starter plan pay $140–$170/month. On the Essential plan (which is what most full-time therapists need for appointment reminders and client messaging), the realistic total runs $180–$220/month.
A note on price history: SimplePractice has raised prices multiple times since 2022. Several users report being required to upgrade to higher plans to retain features that were previously available on cheaper tiers. If budget stability matters to your practice, factor in a history of price increases.
Psy Planner offers a free plan for up to 5 active clients — useful while building a caseload — and a paid plan for full practice use. Appointment reminders, intake forms, outcome tracking, and session notes are all included at every paid tier. Payment processing fees apply to card transactions, consistent with industry standard.
For a direct cost comparison: a solo therapist using Psy Planner for a full private-pay practice pays meaningfully less per month than the equivalent SimplePractice Essential plan, with no add-on fees for reminder automation or outcome tools.
Both platforms offer online scheduling with a client-facing booking page.
SimplePractice allows clients to request appointments through the client portal, but the default behavior requires you to approve or decline each request before it's confirmed. This is not fully automated self-booking — it's a request queue. You can configure it to auto-approve, but that requires navigating settings that aren't immediately obvious. The booking experience is polished and the client portal app is well-reviewed; clients can manage their own appointments, documents, and payments from a single interface.
Appointment reminders (email, text, voice) are available on the Essential plan and above — not on Starter. Buffer time between sessions is configurable. Calendar sync with Google Calendar and Outlook is available on Essential and Plus.
Psy Planner offers direct self-booking — clients select a time, complete the intake form, and receive an automated confirmation without any action required from you. Intake forms are embedded in the booking flow rather than sent separately, which means by the time an appointment lands on your calendar, the client has already completed consent documents and baseline assessments. Buffer time is configurable per service type. Automated reminders (72-hour email + 24-hour SMS) are included by default on all paid plans.
Verdict: For therapists who want a truly automated intake pipeline — booking, intake forms, and reminders all handled without manual steps — Psy Planner's booking flow is more seamless. SimplePractice's booking is more flexible for practices that want therapist approval before confirming appointments, or that serve clients who prefer managing everything through a dedicated portal app.
Both platforms support SOAP and DAP note formats with customizable templates.
SimplePractice has a strong documentation system. Its drag-and-drop template builder is one of the most flexible in the space, and the Essential and Plus plans include integration with Wiley Treatment Planners — a library of over 1,000 pre-written treatment goals and interventions. For therapists who want extensive template customization and prefer building their documentation infrastructure from scratch, SimplePractice gives you more raw material to work with.
The AI Note Taker add-on ($35/month) generates draft progress notes based on telehealth sessions. Reviews are mixed — it works well for structured sessions and less well for emotionally complex or less directive therapeutic approaches. It's a useful add-on for therapists who do a high volume of telehealth and want a starting point for documentation, but it's a meaningful additional cost on top of an already elevated base subscription.
Psy Planner includes built-in SOAP, DAP, and BIRP note templates customizable per service type. Notes are completed directly alongside the client record — with intake scores, treatment plan goals, and session history visible in the same view, without switching screens. The design principle is that documentation should be contextual: when you're writing a note, everything you need to reference (prior notes, PHQ-9 scores, treatment plan) is already visible.
Verdict: SimplePractice has more documentation flexibility and a larger template ecosystem, especially for practices that need Wiley Treatment Planner integration. Psy Planner's documentation is more tightly integrated with clinical context — the note, the record, and the outcome data are visible together rather than requiring navigation between modules.
SimplePractice has a robust intake form system with a library of pre-built forms. Forms are sent to clients via the portal and completed digitally. They are not, by default, embedded in the booking flow — they're sent separately after booking, which means clients can and do forget to complete them before the first session. Some therapists work around this with automated messaging workflows, but this requires the Essential plan and manual configuration.
Psy Planner embeds the intake form directly in the booking process. A client cannot complete their booking without completing the intake form. This is a deliberate design decision: by the time an appointment is confirmed, the intake is already done. Baseline assessments (PHQ-9, GAD-7, and any custom questions) are completed as part of booking and automatically attached to the client record.
Verdict: If getting intake forms completed before the first session is important to your workflow — and for most therapists it should be — Psy Planner's embedded intake flow has a structural advantage. SimplePractice's intake system is more flexible and customizable, but it requires more manual orchestration to achieve the same result.
This is the clearest feature differentiation between the two platforms.
SimplePractice does not include built-in outcome tracking. It has assessment templates and you can add validated measures as intake or session forms, but there is no automatic scoring, no longitudinal tracking, and no visual representation of client progress over time. Outcome measurement in SimplePractice requires building your own workflow on top of the documentation system — which is doable, but it's not native.
Psy Planner includes built-in PHQ-9 and GAD-7 tracking with automatic scoring and longitudinal charting. Assessment scores administered at intake and at regular intervals are automatically plotted over time in the client's record. The score history is visible alongside session notes, so clinical decisions and documentation are informed by actual measurement data rather than recall.
For therapists practicing measurement-based care — increasingly the standard of care in outpatient therapy — this is a meaningful capability gap. SimplePractice is a documentation platform that can be configured for outcome tracking. Psy Planner treats outcome tracking as a native clinical feature.
Verdict: If measurement-based care is part of your clinical approach, Psy Planner has a clear advantage. If outcome tracking isn't a priority and you primarily need documentation and billing infrastructure, this distinction matters less.
SimplePractice includes built-in HIPAA-compliant telehealth across all plans. Clients join through a browser or the Telehealth by SimplePractice app — no account required. The platform has facilitated over 132 million telehealth appointments and supports screen sharing, a virtual whiteboard, and a virtual waiting room. On the Plus plan, group telehealth (up to the group size limit) is available.
User reviews on telehealth reliability are mixed. Some report consistent quality; others describe connection issues and audio problems significant enough to drive platform switches. One clinician reported frequently getting disconnected and experiencing bad call quality, which impacted both patient satisfaction and operational efficiency, with patients frustrated by the call experience and the need to add more time between appointments to allow for technical difficulties.
Psy Planner does not currently include native telehealth. For therapists who conduct video sessions, you'll need a separate HIPAA-compliant platform (most commonly a secure version of Zoom, Google Meet, or a dedicated telehealth tool). This is a real limitation compared to SimplePractice's all-in-one approach.
Verdict: SimplePractice wins on telehealth — it's built in, it's included, and when it works well it eliminates the need for a separate video platform. If you conduct significant telehealth volume, this is a meaningful factor in the comparison.
SimplePractice has comprehensive insurance billing support: electronic claims, ERA/EOB processing, benefit checks, superbills, and a large payer network. Per-claim costs vary by plan ($0.50/claim on Starter, lower on Essential and Plus). For therapists who see insurance clients, SimplePractice's billing infrastructure is mature and well-supported.
Psy Planner is designed for private-pay practices. It generates invoices and superbills for self-pay and out-of-network reimbursement, but does not currently support direct insurance billing or electronic claims submission.
Verdict: If you bill insurance — particularly if you're paneled with multiple payers and process a significant volume of claims — SimplePractice has substantially stronger billing infrastructure. If you're a private-pay or out-of-network practice that generates superbills for clients to submit, either platform handles this; the billing overhead difference largely disappears.
After working through the features, the decision usually comes down to three questions:
1. Do you bill insurance directly? If yes: SimplePractice's billing infrastructure is more complete, and the cost difference becomes more justified by the claims management features. If you process 20+ insurance claims per month, the per-claim cost and the workflow integration may be worth the higher subscription.
If no (private-pay or superbill-only): You're paying for insurance infrastructure you don't use on SimplePractice. This is the group most affected by the 2025 price increase — private-pay solo therapists who need scheduling, notes, intake forms, and outcome tracking but not claims management.
2. Do you conduct primarily telehealth? If yes: SimplePractice's built-in telehealth is a genuine convenience, especially if your current setup involves a separate video platform. The value of consolidating to one tool increases with telehealth volume.
If no (in-person or hybrid): The telehealth advantage matters less, and the cost-per-feature calculus shifts toward platforms that don't charge you for infrastructure you're not using.
3. Is measurement-based care part of your clinical practice? If yes: Psy Planner's built-in outcome tracking is a meaningful functional advantage over SimplePractice's manually configured approach.
If no: This distinction is less relevant, though outcome tracking is increasingly expected as a standard of care in outpatient therapy.
| Feature | PsyPlanner | SimplePractice |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price (solo) | Free up to 5 clients; paid plans below SimplePractice rates | $49/month (Starter) |
| All-in monthly cost (solo, private-pay) | $20/month | ~$140–220/month realistic total |
| Online booking (direct self-book) | ✅ Yes — no approval step required | ⚠️ Request-based by default |
| Intake forms in booking flow | ✅ Embedded — completed before booking confirms | ⚠️ Sent separately after booking |
| Automated reminders included | ✅ All paid plans | ⚠️ Essential plan and above only |
| Session notes (SOAP, DAP, BIRP) | ✅ | ✅ |
| Custom note templates | ✅ Per service type and Drag-and-drop builder | ✅ Drag-and-drop builder |
| Wiley Treatment Planner | ❌ | ✅ Essential and Plus |
| Built-in outcome tracking (PHQ-9, GAD-7) | ✅ Automatic scoring + longitudinal charts | ❌ Manual configuration required |
| Built-in telehealth | ❌ | ✅ All plans |
| Insurance billing / claims | ❌ Superbills only | ✅ Full claims management |
| Mobile app | ❌ In progress | ✅ |
| Google Calendar sync | ✅ | ✅ Essential and above |
| Price history stability | Stable | Multiple increases since 2022 |
| Designed specifically for therapy | ✅ | ⚠️ Multi-discipline platform |
Choose SimplePractice if:
Choose Psy Planner if:
Both platforms offer free trials. The most useful thing you can do before committing is run your actual workflow through each one — not just watch a demo, but book a test client, complete an intake form, write a note, and check what it feels like to use for 30 minutes. The platform that makes your specific workflow faster and clearer is the right one, regardless of what any comparison article says.
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Written by the Psy Planner team. We've tried to represent SimplePractice fairly and accurately based on publicly available information as of mid-2026. Features and pricing change — verify current details at simplepractice.com before making a final decision.