How Much Should Therapists Actually Spend on Practice Management Software?

The practice management software market has settled into a narrow price band: $49–$99/month for the major platforms. SimplePractice charges $29–$99. TherapyNotes runs $69–$79. Jane App starts at CAD $54. CounSol ranges from $70–$90.

If every major option costs roughly the same, it's easy to assume that's what practice management software should cost. But price clustering isn't evidence of fair pricing — it's evidence of a market where everyone's solving the same problem for the same customer profile and benchmarking against each other.

The question worth asking is: what should it cost for your practice?

Why the big platforms cost what they cost

Cloud-based EHR platforms have significant infrastructure costs. They run servers 24/7 to host your data. They maintain HIPAA-compliant cloud environments with encryption, access controls, and audit logging. They build and support telehealth video infrastructure. They integrate with insurance clearinghouses for claims processing. They staff customer support teams. And many of them have taken venture capital, which means they need to hit revenue targets that justify their valuations.

These are real costs, and for the practices that use all of these features — group practices billing insurance with multiple providers and integrated telehealth — the pricing makes sense. You're paying for infrastructure you actively use.

The problem for solo therapists

If you're a solo private-pay therapist, you're subsidizing infrastructure you don't use. You're not using the telehealth servers, the insurance clearinghouse integrations, the multi-provider scheduling, or the client portal. But you're paying the same rate as someone who is.

Think of it this way: the features you actually use — client tracking, session notes, scheduling, invoicing — don't require cloud servers, telehealth infrastructure, or insurance integrations. They can run entirely on your phone. The incremental cost to serve your use case is near zero.

A framework for what you should spend on practice management software

Here's a simple way to think about it. List the features you use daily. If the list is short — clients, notes, calendar, invoices — your software should cost proportionally less than a platform offering 10x more features. A reasonable benchmark: practice management software should cost less than 1% of your monthly revenue.

If you see 20 clients a week at $150/session, your monthly revenue is roughly $12,000. One percent is $120 — and even that feels generous for four basic features. At $50–$100/month, the major platforms take 0.4–0.8% of that revenue. Not catastrophic, but also not calibrated to what you're getting.

At $9.99/month, you're spending $60 a year. That's 0.04% of revenue — a rounding error — for the four features you actually use.

What are the real costs of the major platforms in 2026?

The 69% price hike: what happened with SimplePractice?

In March 2025, SimplePractice raised prices substantially — their Essential plan went from approximately $49/month to $79/month, a 69% increase. Solo therapists were hit hardest: they saw the biggest percentage jump while continuing to use only a fraction of the platform's features. Therapist communities lit up with frustration. Many started looking for alternatives for the first time.

SimplePractice remains a capable product for group practices and insurance-billing clinics. But the price hike made the value mismatch undeniable for solo private-pay therapists who need only four features at a price built for twenty.

What to ask before you buy

Before committing to any practice management software, ask yourself: How many of this platform's features will I use in a typical week? Am I paying for cloud infrastructure I don't need? Is there a simpler tool that covers my actual daily workflow? What's my annual cost, and does it feel proportional to what I'm getting?

The right answer is different for every practice. If you bill insurance, need telehealth, or run a group practice, a full EHR at $60–$100/month may be the right investment. If you're a solo private-pay practitioner, you have simpler options.

What your practice management software should cost depends entirely on what your practice actually needs. Don't let market pricing convince you that your simple practice requires a complex solution.