Guide

How to choose practice management software

A buying checklist that names other products, including the situations where you should pick them instead.

Updated 4 October 2026.

Information, not legal advice. This page is a practical overview for practices. It is not a substitute for advice on your own contracts, insurance or registration.

Choosing practice software is a buying decision and a clinical one. The system will hold health information, shape how enquiries are answered, and decide whether your PA can invoice without reading the notes. A checklist beats a slogan. This page names other products on purpose. A practice that fits them better should buy them. Prices below were read from each vendor’s public pricing page on 4 October 2026, except where the page did not show a figure. Our own UK price is £60 a month per clinician. Admin, finance and management users are free. Rehab and treatment centre pricing is quoted, not listed.

Start from the work, not the feature grid

Write down a normal week. How do new clients arrive? Who books? Who writes the note? Who gets paid? Who must never see the note? If you are a solo counsellor, a heavy multi-site product can be the wrong tool even if it is famous. If you run a group practice, a notes app with no shared diary will cost you the evening you spend reconciling two systems. If you run residential and outpatient programmes, ask about admissions, nursing, families and audit before you ask about colour themes.

Then ask five questions of any vendor, including us.

1. Where is client data hosted, and what transfer ground do you rely on for UK GDPR?
2. Can admin staff invoice without opening the clinical record?
3. If you record sessions, what is stored, who transcribes it, and who signs the note?
4. Can you export the record if you leave?
5. What is the price for a clinician, what is free, and what is still a quote?

What is on the market

WriteUpp publishes practice management pricing at writeupp.com/pricing. On 4 October 2026 that page showed Flex from $34.95 a month, Solo at $49 a month ($59 if Stripe is not connected), a plan at $80 a month, and Group from $79 a month for two or more clinicians. The same page also showed pound and euro amounts, including £49.95 a month for one clinician user, so the currency depends on what the page serves you. WriteUpp is a reasonable place to look if you want a long-standing therapy and allied-health system and you are comfortable comparing a per-user price with ours. Our comparison is Reach + Within and WriteUpp.

Cliniko prices by clinic headcount in US dollars at cliniko.com/pricing. On 4 October 2026 a single practitioner was $45 a month, two to five practitioners $95, and the bands rose from there to $395 a month for 26 to 200 practitioners. Admin users are unlimited on their account of the plans. Cliniko is a strong fit if you want one price for the practice, polished booking, and you do not need a record built around rehabs and treatment centres. See Reach + Within and Cliniko.

Zanda (formerly Power Diary) publishes UK prices in pounds at zandahealth.com/uk/pricing. On 4 October 2026 the Starter plan for one practitioner was £15 a month, shown at £7.50 for the first six months in an October promotion, then £15. Growth added practitioners at £15 a month each, also shown at half price for the promotional period. Telehealth Pro was £7 a month per practitioner. That is a lower published solo price than £60. If price for a solo clinician is your main constraint, say so and look at Zanda seriously. See Reach + Within and Zanda.

Carepatron lists a free plan and paid plans at carepatron.com/pricing. On 4 October 2026 Plus was shown at $31 a user a month and Advanced at $39, with those figures also displayed at half price for six months ($15.50 and $19.50). The free plan included an AI scribe among other limits. A free tier is a genuine advantage if you are testing whether you will use any system. See Reach + Within and Carepatron.

Heidi is an AI medical scribe, not a full practice suite in the way the products above describe themselves. Its pricing page at heidihealth.com/en-us/pricing listed Free, Evidence, Clinician and Enterprise on 4 October 2026, but the amounts were not in the page text we could read. A Heidi article stated a Clinician plan at USD $110 per user a month. If you already have notes and bookings elsewhere and you only want a scribe, Heidi may be the better fit. See Reach + Within and Heidi.

South African practices comparing local booking and clinical tools should read Reach + Within and Bookem on the South Africa site. This UK page does not repeat that price list.

What Reach + Within is for

Reach is the front office: enquiries, onboarding, bookings and invoicing. Within is the clinical record. Assist drafts a note from a recording the client has agreed to. You review and sign. Families can receive an approved report through a secure family report link, not the whole file. A PA can book and bill without clinical notes. Role-based access and an audit trail are part of the product. Sign-in with a second factor is coming soon. Outcome scales are coming soon. We do not claim live accounting integrations such as Sage or Xero, and we do not claim two-way calendar sync as a finished integration. Client data is hosted in the EU (Netherlands).

That set is a poor buy if you want the cheapest solo plan on the market, or a free AI scribe next to a system you already like. It is a coherent buy if you are tired of typing the client into a diary, a notes app and an invoice tool, or if you also run residential and outpatient programmes and want one record rather than a therapy app plus a spreadsheet for admissions.

A fair way to trial

Use a trial with demo clients before you move a real record. Thirty days, no card, is what we offer therapists and group practices. Ask the other vendor for the same courtesy. During the trial, do one enquiry, one booking, one note, one invoice, and one export. If any of those needs a second product, write that down. The features page and the demos show the path. The GDPR guide is the list of questions to ask before you put a real client in.

Price matters. So does whether you can leave. A low monthly fee with no export is not cheap.