If you’ve been comparing Sessions Health and SimplePractice, you’re probably trying to answer a specific question: is Sessions Health a real alternative to SimplePractice, or is it a budget option that cuts corners on the things that matter?
The honest answer is that Sessions Health is a genuinely capable platform — not a stripped-down version of what SimplePractice offers. The difference is less about what they can do and more about who each one was optimized for.
SimplePractice was built specifically for mental health providers in the US and has spent years developing its insurance billing workflow into one of the most integrated in the space. Sessions Health was built to give solo therapists a clean, affordable, full-featured EHR without the overhead of a more complex system. Both work. The question is which one works for your practice specifically.
I’ve worked with therapy practices using both platforms. This comparison covers real 2026 pricing, the feature differences that actually affect day-to-day practice, and a clear recommendation based on what your practice needs.
Pricing and features change frequently. All figures reflect mid-2026 published information. Verify current plans directly with each platform before purchasing.
Quick Comparison: Sessions Health vs. SimplePractice (2026)
| Feature | SimplePractice | Sessions Health |
| Starting price | $29/mo Starter (most billers need $69/mo Essential) | $39/mo base; $10/mo telehealth add-on |
| All-in cost (insurance + telehealth) | ~$69–$104/mo + $0.25/claim | ~$49/mo + $0.19–0.25/claim |
| Free plan | No (30-day trial only) | Yes — up to 3 active clients |
| Free trial | 30 days | 30 days on paid plan |
| Built for mental health only | ✓ Yes — exclusively | ✓ Yes |
| Insurance billing | Built-in; $0.25/claim; mature workflow | Built-in; $0.19–0.25/claim; solid for moderate volume |
| ERA posting | ✓ Integrated | ✓ Supported |
| Telehealth | Included on Essential+; highly reliable | $10/mo add-on; browser-based; solid |
| Client portal | Excellent; polished and integrated | Very good; clean and functional |
| AI note-taking | $35/mo add-on (AI Note Taker) | Not currently available |
| Psychology Today integration | ✓ Direct integration | No |
| AR reporting depth | Robust; detailed insurance reports | Basic; adequate for lighter billing volume |
| Pricing stability | Has increased periodically; some plan restructuring | Very stable; minimal price increases |
| Best for | Insurance-billing solo and small group practices | Budget-conscious solo practices; private pay; moderate billing |
🔗 Try SimplePractice free for 30 days | Try Sessions Health free
Platform Overviews
SimplePractice
SimplePractice is the most widely used EHR among US-based solo and small group therapy practices. It was built exclusively for mental health and behavioral health providers — no chiropractors, no physiotherapists, no multi-discipline overlap. That focus means every feature was designed around the therapy session lifecycle: intake, documentation, billing, and the client relationship.
Its insurance billing workflow is the platform’s strongest asset for most practices. Claims submission, ERA posting, payment reconciliation, eligibility verification, and AR reporting all live in the same interface where you document and schedule. There’s no third-party clearinghouse subscription to manage. The result is one of the most genuinely integrated billing workflows in the therapy EHR market.
The trade-off is cost. The Starter plan at $29/month is the entry point, but it excludes telehealth, insurance billing, and calendar sync — features most therapists actually need. The realistic minimum for an insurance-billing practice is the Essential plan at $69/month, plus $0.25 per claim. Add the AI Note Taker ($35/month) and you’re at $104+ before claim fees.
Sessions Health
Sessions Health has built a loyal following in a short time by solving a specific problem: giving solo therapists a clean, capable, HIPAA-compliant EHR without the premium pricing of established platforms. The base plan is $39/month; add the $10/month telehealth add-on and you have a complete scheduling, documentation, billing, and telehealth setup for $49/month.
What makes Sessions Health genuinely credible as a SimplePractice alternative — rather than just a cheaper option — is that it doesn’t cut corners on the core functions. Insurance billing is built in. The client portal works well. The documentation tools are clean and adequate for most solo practices. And the platform has maintained unusually stable pricing in a market where annual increases have become routine.
Where it shows its relative youth is in reporting depth and the range of third-party integrations. For practices with complex payer mixes, high claim volumes, or a need for detailed financial analytics, Sessions Health’s reporting may feel limited. For a solo therapist seeing a moderate insurance caseload, it’s typically more than enough.
Feature-by-Feature Comparison
Pricing: What You’ll Actually Pay
This is where the comparison matters most for most readers. Here’s the realistic all-in cost for a solo therapist billing insurance and using telehealth:
- SimplePractice Essential: $69/mo + $0.25/claim. At 25 claims/week, that’s ~$96/mo in plan + claim fees. Add AI Note Taker: $131/mo.
- Sessions Health: $39/mo base + $10/mo telehealth + $0.19–0.25/claim. At 25 claims/week, total is ~$74–80/mo.
The Sessions Health advantage is real and consistent: roughly $15–25/month less for a comparable feature set at moderate insurance volume. That’s $180–$300/year. For a practice watching every dollar, that difference is meaningful.
One thing worth noting: SimplePractice’s per-claim fee ($0.25) is higher than Sessions Health’s ($0.19–0.25 tiered). TherapyNotes is lower still at $0.14/claim, which matters at high volume.
✔ Winner: Sessions Health — Significantly lower all-in monthly cost at every volume level. Sessions Health’s free plan (up to 3 clients) and pricing stability are additional advantages.
Insurance Billing Workflow
This is the most important feature comparison for the majority of therapists reading this, and it’s where the platforms diverge most meaningfully.
SimplePractice’s billing workflow is genuinely integrated. Claims submission, ERA posting, eligibility verification, payment reconciliation, and AR reporting live together in one platform. The aging report is detailed. The insurance claim dashboard shows claim status clearly. Payment posting is clean. In my billing work with multiple therapy practices, SimplePractice is the EHR I encounter most often, and the billing side holds up in real-world use — claims submit cleanly, ERAs post correctly, and the denial follow-up workflow is logical.
Sessions Health handles insurance billing competently. Electronic claims go out, ERAs can be posted, and the basic billing workflow functions. Where it shows limits is in the reporting depth. The AR aging report is less detailed than SimplePractice’s, financial analytics are more limited, and the overall billing infrastructure was designed for a solo therapist with moderate complexity rather than a practice managing high claim volume across multiple payers.
For a practice submitting 10–15 insurance claims per week with a straightforward payer mix, Sessions Health handles billing adequately. For a practice submitting 30+ claims per week, managing multiple payer relationships, and needing to catch subtle patterns in denial rates or payer reimbursement trends, SimplePractice gives you more to work with.
✔ Winner: SimplePractice — More mature and integrated billing workflow; stronger AR reporting; better for high-volume or complex insurance billing.
Documentation and Note Templates
Both platforms include progress notes, treatment plans, intake forms, and assessments built for mental health documentation. Both support electronic signatures and maintain HIPAA-compliant record storage.
SimplePractice’s template library is larger and has had more time to develop. The documentation workflow integrates cleanly with billing — completing a note and moving directly to submitting the claim is a short, logical path. SimplePractice also offers an AI Note Taker ($35/month) that can generate draft notes from session audio, which Sessions Health does not currently offer.
Sessions Health’s documentation is clean and uncluttered. The core note formats are there, and the templates are adequate for most solo practice documentation needs. It doesn’t have the depth of customization that SimplePractice offers, but for therapists who don’t need highly tailored templates, that’s not a meaningful gap.
✔ Winner: SimplePractice — Larger template library, AI note-taking option, and tighter connection between documentation and billing workflow.
Telehealth
Both platforms include HIPAA-compliant, browser-based telehealth that clients can join without downloading an app or creating an account. For the vast majority of standard individual therapy sessions, both work reliably.
SimplePractice’s telehealth is included in the Essential plan and integrates seamlessly with scheduling and the client portal — the session link is automatically included in appointment reminders, and the note is waiting when the session ends. It’s consistently rated among the most reliable in the therapy EHR space.
Sessions Health offers telehealth as a $10/month add-on rather than including it in the base plan. The platform is browser-based and functional; user reviews are generally positive for standard individual sessions. Adding it to the base $39/month plan brings total cost to $49/month, which is still well below SimplePractice Essential.
↔ Tie — Both work reliably for standard individual sessions. SimplePractice’s is slightly more integrated with scheduling and portal; Sessions Health’s $10 add-on model keeps the base plan cheaper for practices that don’t need telehealth.
Client Portal
Both platforms offer a client-facing portal that handles intake paperwork, scheduling, secure messaging, payment, and document access. Both are functional and professional.
SimplePractice’s portal is more polished and more tightly integrated with every other part of the platform. The client experience from first intake through ongoing sessions is cohesive — forms flow into the record, scheduling connects to reminders, telehealth links are in the portal. It’s consistently cited as one of the best client portals in the therapy EHR space.
Sessions Health’s portal works well and clients generally have no trouble navigating it. It’s clean and professional. It doesn’t have the same level of integration polish as SimplePractice, but it handles the core client-facing functions effectively.
✔ Winner: SimplePractice — More polished and cohesive client experience, particularly for practices where the intake-to-session flow matters.
Scheduling
Both platforms handle the scheduling features most solo practices need: online booking, calendar management, appointment reminders, recurring appointments, and automated notifications. Neither will feel limiting for a standard therapy practice workflow.
SimplePractice offers slightly more flexibility for complex scheduling scenarios — multiple provider calendars, group session management, waitlist features. For a solo practice doing individual sessions, the difference is minimal.
↔ Tie — Both cover standard scheduling needs. SimplePractice has more depth for multi-provider or group scheduling scenarios.
Reporting
This is one of the clearer gaps between the two platforms. SimplePractice’s reporting covers revenue reports, appointment reports, claim status, outstanding balances, payment summaries, and insurance-specific reports. The AR aging report is detailed enough to be genuinely useful for monitoring the revenue cycle.
Sessions Health offers more basic reporting. The essential financial information is available, but the depth and configurability don’t match SimplePractice. For practices that use reporting to actively manage their revenue cycle — tracking denial rates by payer, monitoring collection trends month over month, catching underpayments — this is a meaningful limitation.
For practices that primarily want to know “was I paid for this claim?” and don’t need sophisticated financial analytics, Sessions Health’s reporting is adequate.
✔ Winner: SimplePractice — Significantly stronger reporting; essential for practices actively managing insurance billing and revenue cycle metrics.
Customer Support
Both platforms receive positive reviews for customer support. Sessions Health in particular is consistently praised for responsive, personalized support — which is notable for a newer, smaller platform and matters when you’re troubleshooting a billing issue. SimplePractice offers a larger support infrastructure: extensive knowledge base, video tutorials, a large user community, and multiple contact options.
For most routine questions, SimplePractice’s self-service resources are comprehensive. For more complex or practice-specific issues, Sessions Health’s more personalized support response has been an advantage for some users.
↔ Tie — Both are well-regarded. SimplePractice has more self-service resources; Sessions Health has more personalized direct support.
Pricing Stability
This is worth its own callout because it affects long-term planning. SimplePractice has raised prices and restructured plans multiple times over the years, sometimes with less notice than users would like. Sessions Health has maintained unusually stable pricing since launch and has not implemented frequent increases.
If you’re evaluating these platforms over a three-to-five-year horizon, the compounding effect of predictable vs. unpredictable pricing is a real factor. Annual billing on either platform locks in the current rate for a year but doesn’t protect against increases at renewal.
✔ Winner: Sessions Health — Notably more stable pricing history; lower risk of unexpected cost increases.
Which Platform Is Better For Your Practice Type?
Insurance-Billing Practices
If you bill insurance regularly — submitting 15+ claims per week, managing multiple payer relationships, and relying on billing reports to stay on top of your revenue cycle — SimplePractice is the stronger choice. The integrated billing workflow, the detailed AR reporting, and the maturity of the claims management tools are meaningfully better than Sessions Health at this level of complexity.
The price difference ($20–30/month) is real but smaller than it appears once you account for the billing efficiency gains. A biller or therapist who can catch a denial pattern faster, post payments more accurately, or catch an underpayment because the reporting makes it visible is recovering revenue that more than offsets a higher subscription cost.
Private-Pay or Cash-Pay Practices
If you see primarily private-pay clients and don’t need sophisticated insurance billing, Sessions Health is excellent value. The scheduling, documentation, client portal, and telehealth are all solid. At $39–49/month depending on whether you use telehealth, you’re getting a complete, professional practice management platform at a meaningfully lower cost than SimplePractice.
New Practices Just Getting Started
Sessions Health’s free plan (up to 3 active clients) is genuinely useful for therapists who are just starting and want to learn the platform before committing to a monthly subscription. There’s no equivalent at SimplePractice — the 30-day trial gives you time to evaluate but requires a credit card and commitment to a plan.
If you’re new to private practice and primarily private pay, start with Sessions Health. If you’re new to practice and planning to panel with insurance from the start, SimplePractice’s 30-day trial is still worth using to get familiar with the billing workflow before you start submitting claims.
Practices That Bill Moderate Insurance Volume
This is the group where the decision is genuinely close. If you’re billing 10–20 insurance claims per week with a manageable payer mix and don’t need sophisticated AR analytics, Sessions Health handles your billing adequately at a lower cost. If you’re at the higher end of that range or starting to add payers, SimplePractice’s billing depth gives you more room to grow without switching platforms.
Choose Sessions Health If… / Choose SimplePractice If…
| Choose Sessions Health if… | Choose SimplePractice if… |
| Budget is your primary constraint | You bill insurance regularly and need robust AR reporting |
| You’re primarily or entirely private pay | Billing workflow efficiency is a priority |
| You want a free plan to start with | You use or want to use the Psychology Today integration |
| You value pricing stability over time | You want the most polished client portal experience |
| Your insurance caseload is moderate (10–20 claims/week) | You want an AI note-taking option in your EHR ecosystem |
| You want clean, uncluttered documentation without complex features | You expect your practice to grow significantly and want to avoid switching later |
Pros and Cons Summary
SimplePractice
Pros
- Most mature integrated insurance billing of any solo-practice therapy EHR
- Excellent, detailed AR and financial reporting
- Polished client portal and cohesive telehealth experience
- Direct Psychology Today integration
- AI Note Taker add-on available
- Large user community and self-service knowledge base
Cons
- Realistic floor for insurance billing is $69/mo — not the advertised $29 Starter
- AI Note Taker is a separate $35/mo add-on
- Pricing has increased over time with periodic plan restructuring
- Less ideal for private-pay-only practices where billing features go unused
Sessions Health
Pros
- $49/mo all-in for EHR + telehealth — best value on this list
- Free plan (up to 3 active clients)
- Stable pricing — no frequent increases
- Clean, modern interface with fast onboarding
- Genuinely responsive customer support
- Solid for practices with moderate insurance volume
Cons
- AR reporting less detailed than SimplePractice for complex billing
- No AI note-taking currently
- Fewer third-party integrations
- Smaller user community; fewer peer resources
My Recommendation
For most therapists billing insurance in a US private practice, SimplePractice is the stronger choice — and that’s the platform I’d recommend if billing is a significant part of how you operate. The integrated billing workflow, the reporting depth, and the maturity of the platform pay for themselves in a practice that’s actively managing insurance claims.
Sessions Health is a legitimate, capable platform and not a consolation prize. For private-pay practices, budget-conscious solo therapists, and practices with moderate insurance volume, it does the job well at a meaningfully lower cost. The pricing stability alone makes it worth serious consideration if you’re evaluating long-term software costs.
If you’re genuinely unsure, the answer is to try both. Both platforms offer a trial. Test the billing workflow specifically — not just the scheduling calendar. Run a test claim, look at the aging report, go through the client portal as if you were a new patient. That’s the most reliable way to know which one fits how you actually work.
🔗 Try SimplePractice free for 30 days
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Sessions Health as good as SimplePractice?
For most core functions, yes — scheduling, documentation, client portal, and telehealth are all solid in Sessions Health. The meaningful differences show up in billing reporting depth and the range of integrations. For practices with complex insurance billing or high claim volume, SimplePractice’s reporting is materially better. For practices with lighter billing needs, Sessions Health covers the essentials at a lower cost.
Can Sessions Health handle insurance billing?
Yes. Sessions Health supports electronic claim submission, ERA posting, eligibility verification, and basic billing reporting. It’s not as deep as SimplePractice’s billing workflow for high-volume practices, but it handles the core billing functions competently for solo therapists with moderate insurance caseloads.
Does SimplePractice’s $29 Starter plan include insurance billing?
No. The Starter plan at $29/month excludes insurance billing, telehealth, and calendar sync with external apps. The realistic minimum plan for an insurance-billing practice is the Essential plan at $69/month. This is one of the most common points of confusion when therapists compare SimplePractice’s advertised starting price to Sessions Health.
Is there a free version of Sessions Health?
Yes. Sessions Health has a free plan that supports up to 3 active clients and includes scheduling, documentation, and the client portal. No credit card required. SimplePractice does not have a free plan — only a 30-day trial on paid plans.
Which platform has better customer support?
Both receive positive reviews, but in different ways. Sessions Health is frequently praised for personalized, responsive direct support — notable for a newer platform. SimplePractice has a more extensive self-service infrastructure: detailed knowledge base, video tutorials, and a large user community. For complex, practice-specific issues, Sessions Health’s direct support response is often faster. For common questions and how-to guidance, SimplePractice’s self-service resources are more comprehensive.
Can I switch from Sessions Health to SimplePractice later?
Yes, switching EHRs is manageable with planning. Sessions Health allows data export; confirm the format before you start. Clinical notes and billing history may not import perfectly into SimplePractice and some information may need to be re-entered. The cleanest transitions happen when outstanding claims are resolved, the switch is timed to a natural break point, and clients are given adequate notice about any portal changes. The best time to switch is when your caseload is smaller, not after years of records have accumulated.
Which platform is better for group practices?
SimplePractice, for most group practice scenarios. It handles multi-provider scheduling, group supervision workflows, and the billing complexity that comes with multiple clinicians more effectively than Sessions Health. For a two-person practice, either could work. For a practice with three or more providers and active insurance billing, SimplePractice’s infrastructure is better suited.
Final Thoughts
Sessions Health and SimplePractice are both solid platforms — and the right choice between them depends almost entirely on how your practice operates.
Insurance-heavy practice? SimplePractice. The billing workflow is worth the additional cost.
Private pay, budget-conscious, or just getting started? Sessions Health. It does the job at $49/month all-in and does it well.
In the middle? Try both. That’s what free trials are for.
🔗 SimplePractice: 30-day free trial on all plans
🔗 Sessions Health: Free plan (no credit card) + 30-day trial on paid plans
