A private therapy practice is two jobs wearing one coat. One is the clinical work — the listening that took years to learn. The other is the paperwork nobody trained for: progress notes, treatment plans and insurance summaries that grow with every client.
That second job is where clinicians lose their evenings. Notes get pushed to Sunday, blur by the tenth client of the day, and end up thinner than the session they describe.
AI has moved into this gap quickly, mostly in one direction: scribing that listens to a session and drafts the note, plus a layer for treatment plans, progress tracking and compliance. Here are eight tools built for that — prices read off each vendor's own site.
What AI actually does in a therapy practice
Most tools below do the same core thing: capture a session — recorded, uploaded or dictated — and turn it into a structured note in SOAP, DAP, BIRP or your own template. What differs is how well the model learns your style, and how much of the practice stack it covers.
One thing to be clear about: these tools draft. They do not diagnose. Every platform keeps the clinician as approver — you review and sign before anything enters the record.
1. SimplePractice — the all-in-one with AI on top
SimplePractice is the practice-management platform most US solo clinicians already run. Note Taker generates progress notes; Session Sidekick gives live support during telehealth sessions; Client Summaries produces client-ready recaps. Treatment Planner is still labelled Beta. Care Aide is the ambient layer, drafting notes from a recording or dictation.
Pricing on simplepractice.com is $49 Starter, $79 Essential and $99 Plus monthly, with a 50%-off-for-three-months promotion running. Care Aide is free for 30 days, then $59/month for the account owner.
Why it made the list: the shortest path to AI notes without another subscription.
2. Upheal — per-session pricing and a compliance checker
Upheal positions itself as a clinical co-pilot. It drafts notes in your own writing style, and generates treatment plans that keep the "golden thread" between diagnosis, plan and progress. The standout feature is a Compliance Checker that audits notes for the wording insurers look for.
Upheal's pricing page charges $1 per session with no monthly minimum, and $39/month extra for AI Assistant Pro unlimited usage. Group and enterprise tiers are quote-based, and a 30-day trial covers everything.
Why it made the list: per-session pricing suits part-time caseloads, where a flat fee is wasted.
3. Mentalyc — notes, plans and a therapy-alliance tracker
Mentalyc is built only for therapists and spreads AI across four jobs: note-taking, treatment planning, progress tracking, and Alliance Genie — which measures therapeutic alliance across sessions from what was actually said. Supervisees are free on any plan, and it auto-computes CPT codes.
Prices on mentalyc.com are billed monthly at USD 19.99 (40 notes), 39.99 (100), 69.99 (160) and 119.99 (330), or annually at USD 14.99, 29.99, 59.99 and 99.99. Group seats run 119.99/month, discounted to 59.99 monthly or 49.99 annually for new teams.
Why it made the list: alliance tracking and CPT coding are things a generic scribe will never do here.
4. Blueprint — an AI scribe for the EHR you already run
Blueprint is the specialist scribe here: the AI Scribe covers notes, treatment plans and session prep, alongside AI for billing and admin. The useful part is the deployment choice — bring it into the EHR you already use, or move the practice into its all-in-one.
That is also the pricing choice on blueprint.ai: $0.99 per session alongside your existing EHR, $69 per seat per month for unlimited sessions, or $1.49 per session for the all-in-one. No monthly fee on the per-session plans.
Why it made the list: add AI scribing without ripping out working practice software.
5. Practice Better — AI across the workflow, not just the note
Practice Better treats AI as a layer across the admin it already handles for therapists and coaches. AI Session Prep summarises a client's history, forms and recent activity beforehand. AI Session Insights surfaces themes and suggested next steps afterwards. AI Fax Classification labels incoming faxes by type — evidence the team thought about practice admin, not only transcription.
Plan structure on practicebetter.io is $35/month billed monthly ($25 annually) for Starter, $69 ($59) Professional, $99 ($89) Plus and $155 ($145) Team. AI Charting Assistant is a separate add-on from $10/month per practitioner, scaled by session volume.
Why it made the list: AI is priced separately, so you pay for charting only if you use it.
6. Carepatron — an AI scribe on a free tier
Carepatron is the budget entry point and unusually includes an AI scribe rather than charging extra for one. The note drafts itself as the session goes, with clients, appointments, telehealth and billing around it. For someone building a caseload from zero, a free tier with AI scribing beats a $49-plus commitment.
The plan structure on carepatron.com is Free at $0, Plus listed at $31/month and Advanced at $39/month — both currently discounted to $15.50 and $19.50 in a six-month promotion. Claim filing and insurance checks are charged per use, from $0.25 a claim.
Why it made the list: the only genuinely free AI scribe here, which matters while a caseload grows.
7. Autonotes — unlimited AI notes on a flat fee
Autonotes is a focused product: unlimited AI progress notes, recording for in-person and virtual sessions, AI-assisted treatment plans, and continuity between sessions. Dictation is there for clinicians who would rather speak a note than record one. The pitch is volume, not breadth — and the page is honest that scheduling and native AI telehealth are still coming soon.
Its pricing page lists Economy at $24/month and First Class at $58/month on annual billing, or $29 and $69 billed monthly. Enterprise is custom. Everything is HIPAA and PHIPA compliant.
Why it made the list: unlimited notes for less than one session — the clearest cost-per-note maths here.
8. Jane App — the clinic option, with AI sold per practitioner
Jane is widely used by therapy and allied-health clinics in the UK and Canada. Its AI Scribe is a single well-scoped feature: record live or dictate after the session, with unlimited AI templates, prompts and notes. For a group practice where only some practitioners want AI, that structure is the point.
On jane.app AI Scribe costs £15 per month per opted-in practitioner for unlimited notes, or five free notes to try it. Base plans run £29 Balance, £44 Practice and £55 Thrive monthly, with extra modules charged per practitioner.
Why it made the list: the fairest model for a clinic where half the team still prefers a keyboard.
What is not priced publicly
Two names come up so often that their absence needs explaining. Eleos Health is built for community-based and behavioural-health organisations, not solo practices — its Polaris AI engine handles documentation, real-time session suggestions, and guardrails that catch billing errors before a claim is created. It publishes no pricing, so it is quote-based and enterprise-sold.
TherapyNotes is the other. It is a major behavioural-health EHR, but its site served no dollar figures or readable AI feature copy to a plain fetch, so no price is reported here rather than guessed from third-party roundups. Ask both vendors what the AI layer costs.
How to choose without overpaying
Start with your caseload shape, not the feature list. Under roughly 20 clients a week, per-session pricing from Upheal or Blueprint will usually cost less than a flat plan — and nothing in a quiet month. At 25 sessions or more, the flat-fee tools are cheaper per note.
Then ask where the note ends up. Anyone who has written a note into the wrong client record will want one that drafts inside their existing EHR: SimplePractice, Practice Better, Jane and Carepatron keep the note in the record, while Blueprint and Upheal are plug-ins.
Finally, check the compliance story before the trial ends. All eight are built to HIPAA expectations in the US, with PHIPA and PIPEDA handling from Jane and Autonotes in Canada — but your obligation to review and sign every note does not transfer to the software. Ask how recordings are stored and deleted.
The Honest Takeaway
AI scribing works here when it is treated as a note-taking assistant, not a clinician. These tools are good at the structured, repetitive parts — the SOAP or DAP skeleton, treatment-plan boilerplate, the summary a client can read — which is exactly why they help.
The realistic gain is an hour or two of an evening back each week, plus notes written while the session is fresh rather than reconstructed on Sunday. For a solo therapist that is the difference between a sustainable caseload and one that isn't. Start with a per-session tool on a handful of clients, then move to a flat plan once the drafts are good enough to sign.