SimplePractice vs TherapyNotes, with us out of it
These are the two products most behavioral health practices are genuinely choosing between, and the comparison usually comes down to a single question: is your problem getting paid, or is it everything else? They are unusually well differentiated on exactly that axis.
Published pricing side by side
Both checked 29 July 2026 against the vendors' own published materials. SimplePractice was displaying a promotional rate; regular figures are shown.
| SimplePractice | TherapyNotes | |
|---|---|---|
| Entry plan | $49/mo (Starter) | $69/mo (Solo) |
| Mid plan | $79/mo (Essential) | — |
| Top plan | $99/mo (Plus) | — |
| Group, first clinician | Plan price | $79/mo |
| Group, additional clinician | Varies by plan | $50/mo |
| AI documentation | $35/mo (Note Taker) | $40/clinician/mo (TherapyFuel) |
| AI bundle | $59/mo owner, $49 additional (Care Aide) | — |
| ePrescribe | $49/mo + $89 setup | Separately priced |
| Telehealth | Included in plans | Basic included; Premium +$15/clinician/mo |
Worked comparisons
Solo clinician, insurance, AI documentation, no prescribing. SimplePractice Essential $79 + Note Taker $35 = $114. TherapyNotes Solo $69 + TherapyFuel $40 = $109. Close enough that price should not decide it.
Three-clinician group, AI for all. TherapyNotes: $79 + $50 + $50 = $179, plus $40 × 3 = $120, totalling $299. SimplePractice depends on plan and whether Care Aide or Note Taker is used; with Care Aide at $59 for the owner and $49 each for two more, the AI layer alone is $157 on top of plan costs. Both land in similar territory and the configuration details matter more than the headline.
Price is not the differentiator here. Within roughly $10 a month for a solo practice, price is noise. The decision should turn on the capability differences below, which are substantial and durable in a way the pricing is not.
Where TherapyNotes is stronger
Claim scrubbing and revenue cycle. This is the clearest differentiator in the comparison. TherapyNotes has spent well over a decade accumulating payer-specific claim rules, and practices with complex payer mixes consistently report fewer first-pass denials. If your primary pain is getting paid, this is the product built for it.
Stability and predictability. A long-established product that changes slowly. Clinicians who dislike having their workflow rearranged tend to prefer it, and that is a legitimate preference rather than resistance to progress.
Prescriber workflows. Mature support for psychiatric documentation, including the E/M plus psychotherapy add-on patterns described in CPT 90833.
Where SimplePractice is stronger
Mobile. Mature, well-reviewed apps on both iOS and Android. If you run your practice from a phone, this is not close.
Client experience. The portal, booking flow and client-facing surfaces are more modern, which matters for practices where the client's first impression of your admin is part of your offering.
Breadth and ecosystem. More features, more integrations, more third-party knowledge. The odds that a specific unusual thing you need already exists are higher.
Interface. Subjective, but broadly: newer users tend to find SimplePractice easier to learn. Long-time TherapyNotes users frequently prefer theirs precisely because it is dense and unchanging.
The question that actually decides it
Sort your last quarter's denials by reason.
If they cluster on claim-level problems — formatting, eligibility, authorisation, coordination of benefits — TherapyNotes' scrubbing addresses your problem directly and the mobile app is a consolation prize you can live without.
If your billing is basically fine and your friction is scheduling, client communication, working from a phone, or how the practice feels to clients, SimplePractice is solving what you actually have.
If your denials cluster on medical necessity, neither is squarely addressing it, because that is a documentation problem rather than a billing one. See working denials and the golden thread — and that is the gap we built Weft for, which you should weigh accordingly given where you are reading this.
Things that are similar
Worth stating so the comparison stays honest. Both are established, both are HIPAA-compliant with BAAs available, both handle scheduling, notes, telehealth, client portals and billing competently, both price AI documentation as an add-on rather than including it, and both export client data in usable form while historical notes generally arrive as PDFs.
For a large share of practices, either would work fine, and the decision matters less than the research effort suggests.
Switching between them
A common enough move that it is worth addressing directly. Practices migrate in both directions, and the reasons are usually predictable: from SimplePractice to TherapyNotes because billing became the dominant pain, and from TherapyNotes to SimplePractice because the practice grew a client-facing identity and the older interface started to matter.
Neither migration is exotic. Both vendors export client demographics, appointments and financial records in usable form, and in both cases historical notes generally arrive as PDFs. Plan a parallel run, verify the export before cancelling anything, and expect a fortnight of double entry rather than a clean weekend cutover.
Support, compared
Both have solid reputations and they differ in character rather than quality. TherapyNotes is consistently described as having responsive, knowledgeable human support with deep billing expertise — the kind of help that resolves a payer problem rather than escalating it. SimplePractice, operating at larger scale, leans more on documentation, community resources and tiered channels, which suits self-service and is less personal.
Which you prefer depends on whether your hard problems are billing problems. A payer rejection you do not understand is better served by someone who knows that payer; a question about how a feature works is well served by a good help centre.
If you are brand new to practice
A common situation and one where the general advice inverts slightly.
A new practice does not yet know where its friction will be, has no denial history to diagnose, and is unusually sensitive to whether the software is pleasant to learn. On those criteria SimplePractice is the easier starting point — faster to learn, better client-facing surfaces, and a more forgiving first month.
The counterargument is that migrating later is painful, so choosing for where you will be in three years has value. If you know you will be insurance-heavy with a complex payer mix, starting on TherapyNotes avoids a migration you can already predict.
Neither is wrong. The one genuinely bad option is choosing on price, because the difference is roughly five dollars a month and it will not be what you care about in a year.
What neither of them does
Worth stating plainly, and it is the reason this page exists on our site rather than someone else's.
Both price AI documentation as an add-on layered on the chart. Neither, as far as we can determine from public information, writes notes against the active treatment plan such that the note cites the goal it advanced. That is the specific gap we built Weft around, and if your denials cluster on medical necessity it is the gap that is costing you.
If they do not, this comparison is the right one to be making and we are not the answer to it. We would rather tell you that here than have you find out after a migration.
The short version
Billing is your problem: TherapyNotes. Everything else is your problem: SimplePractice. Price is not your problem: they are within five dollars. And if your denials say medical necessity rather than formatting, neither is aimed at what you have.
Pricing verified 29 July 2026 against the vendors' own published pages: SimplePractice pricing; TherapyNotes pricing; TherapyNotes pricing documentation. Prices change, promotional rates are frequently displayed, and quoted figures may exclude add-ons, payment processing and per-transaction fees. Confirm current pricing directly before making a decision. Capability descriptions reflect publicly available information and are not an audit of either product. Weft pricing is our own published rate.