Guide

Best practice management software for therapists in the UK (2026)

A shortlist for UK therapists and counsellors, including the cases where another product is the better buy. No fee table.

Updated 13 October 2026.

This is a buyer’s guide for therapists, counsellors and group practices in the United Kingdom in 2026. It names Reach + Within, which we sell, and it names other products. A practice that fits another product better should buy that product. The guide does not list fees. Each vendor’s own page is the contract. Where we have checked a public page, the dated note is on the comparison linked below. Confirm it again before you pay.

Nothing here is a ranking we were paid to publish. Nothing here is a certification. Client data, consent and retention stay the practice’s duties whatever logo is on the login screen.

Decide the week before you decide the brand

Write down five jobs from a normal week.

1. A new person makes contact. Who owns the next step, and by when?
2. Someone books a session. Can the client do it, or only the practice?
3. The counsellor writes the note. Can anyone else open it?
4. Someone invoices. Can they do that without the note?
5. You leave. Can you export?

Score every product, including ours, against those five. A beautiful notes app that fails the invoice, or a famous diary that lets the receptionist read the session, is a fail for some practices and a perfectly good buy for others. The rest of this guide is that test applied to the products UK therapists actually shortlist.

Also write down the record you do not have. A solo counsellor does not need a ward, an eMAR or an inspection pack. A treatment centre does not fit inside a counselling diary. Rehab software is a quote for that second kind of work. This guide is for the consulting room and the group practice.

Reach + Within

Reach is the front office: enquiries, onboarding, bookings and invoicing. Within is the clinical record: assessments, treatment plans, session notes and outcome scores. The enquiry opens the file, so the client is not typed twice. A PA can book and bill and cannot open the note. Where the client has agreed, Assist drafts a note from the recording. The clinician reviews, edits and signs. Assist does not diagnose and does not sign.

Outcome scales in the product include PHQ-9, GAD-7, AUDIT and others, completed by secure link and charted. The public calculators on this site, PHQ-9, GAD-7 and AUDIT, are a screening tool, not a diagnosis, and they store nothing.

Client data is hosted in the EU (Netherlands). We do not claim a certification. We do not claim a client portal with online rescheduling, two-way calendar sync, or a live link to an accounts package. Sign-in with a second factor is coming soon. The trial is 30 days, with demo clients, and no card.

Buy it if the gap between the enquiry, the note and the invoice is the problem, and if admin must be kept out of the record. Do not buy it if you only want a scribe beside a diary you already like, or if online booking by the client is the step you cannot live without. Start at counselling software or therapy practice management software.

WriteUpp

WriteUpp is a long-standing system for therapy and allied health: notes, scheduling and billing, with a public pricing page that has shown more than one currency. Practices that want a notes-led product with a published therapist workflow, and that do not need a treatment-centre quote path, should read it seriously. Our dated comparison is Reach + Within and WriteUpp. Use their trial as well as ours. Export from both.

WriteUpp is the better fit when you already like their note and you are choosing among therapy products rather than among US insurance tools or residential records. It is the wrong comparison if your main question is nursing, medicines and an inspection pack.

Cliniko

Cliniko is practice management used widely by allied-health clinics: appointments, notes and invoices, with admin users described as unlimited on the plans they publish, and a price list that has stayed public for years. The amounts on their page are in US dollars. We do not convert those amounts into pounds and call the conversion exact. The comparison is Reach + Within and Cliniko.

Choose Cliniko if you want a stable clinic diary, polished booking, and a practice that already thinks in practitioners and appointments. Choose it if a residential treatment record is not the requirement. A physiotherapy or multi-disciplinary clinic that lives in Cliniko has a good reason to stay. A UK counselling practice that needs the enquiry and the note closed to the front desk should test that rule in Cliniko rather than assume it.

Zanda, formerly Power Diary

Zanda is the product many people still search for as Power Diary. The UK site publishes a calendar, online booking, reminders, invoices, telehealth, a client portal and clinical note templates. That is a strong diary-led practice system. We do not claim the same portal or the same calendar sync.

If the client must book and reschedule online, trial Zanda. If you learned Power Diary and the login is now Zanda, staying is rational. Our comparison under the old name is Reach + Within and Power Diary. The dated look at their UK pricing page is Reach + Within and Zanda. Neither page is a substitute for their current offer.

Zanda is the better fit for appointment-first clinics. Reach + Within is the better fit when the enquiry pipeline and a hard split between billing and the note matter more than the portal, or when the practice may include a treatment centre.

Carepatron

Carepatron publishes practice tools for notes, scheduling and billing, and it has published a starting tier with limits beside paid tiers. The figures are on their site, in US dollars, and they change. Our comparison, checked in October 2026, is Reach + Within and Carepatron. Read it for what we saw, then read their page again.

Carepatron belongs on the shortlist if you want a widely used health-practice system and you are willing to compare a per-user offer in dollars with a UK product. It is not a residential treatment record. Test export, test who can see the note, and test whether the diary and the invoice are actually the same client.

SimplePractice

SimplePractice is an electronic record used widely by therapists, especially in the United States. Their public pages describe scheduling, notes, telehealth, a client portal, reminders and insurance claim filing. Their support articles describe HIPAA compliance and HITRUST certification, and hosting with a provider set up for those US frameworks. Those badges are not UK GDPR and they are not POPIA. The hosting article we read did not name a country. Ask.

Choose SimplePractice if you bill US insurers, if you want the portal and telehealth a large US therapist base already knows, or if your contracts ask for that US security frame and you have taken advice on transfers. Do not choose it by default for a UK counselling practice that invoices the client and needs the record hosted in a place you can explain under UK GDPR. The comparison is Reach + Within and SimplePractice.

Heidi, if you only want a scribe

Heidi is a session scribe, not a full practice suite in the way the products above describe themselves. If your diary, your invoices and your notes already live somewhere you like, and you only want help drafting the note, Heidi may be the better fit. Reach + Within is the practice system. Assist drafts only with the client’s consent, and the clinician signs. The comparison is Reach + Within and Heidi. Do not buy a whole practice system to solve a drafting problem, and do not buy a scribe to solve a missing diary.

What we will not pretend

We will not pretend to be the cheapest seat on the UK list. Read the other pricing pages. We will not pretend to have a client portal, calendar sync or an accounts link we have not shipped. We will not pretend a counselling product is a rehab. We will not pretend any logo makes a practice compliant. Security is how we describe hosting, roles and the audit trail. How to choose is the shorter checklist. GDPR and therapy notes is the record question, and it is not legal advice.

South African practices should not use this page. The fees, the regulators and the local products are different. Start at best practice software in South Africa.

A fair way to trial

Use demo clients. Do one enquiry, one booking, one note, one invoice and one export in each product you are still considering. Time the export. Try to open the note as the person who should not see it. If a vendor will not let you try that, treat the gap as information.

Thirty days, demo clients and no card is what we offer. Ask the other vendor what they offer. The demos show the Reach + Within path with fictional clients and captions. The features page is the inventory. If a feature you need is listed as coming soon, believe that, and buy something else if you need it this quarter.

Related reading

• How to choose practice software
• Counselling software
• Power Diary
• SimplePractice