· Independent
Three vendors, three entry tiers, and one of them quietly caps you at 20 appointments a month and refuses to sell you insurance billing at all. Here is what each cheapest plan costs in year one and year two.
Loistrofi Editorial — Sep 2, 2026 — 8 min read
Cliniko is the cheapest at $45 a month for one practitioner, all features included. SimplePractice Starter is $49 a month, discounted to $24.50 for the first three months. Jane's $54 Balance plan is close on paper but limits you to 20 appointments a month and cannot take the Insurance Billing add-on at all. If you file claims, your real floor is higher.
All three price on the practitioner, not the login — but they draw the line differently, and that matters even when you're the only clinician. Cliniko's $45 covers one practitioner and states that unlimited admin users and unlimited reception users are included in every subscription, so a virtual assistant or a biller with their own login doesn't move the number. Jane sells practitioner licences and separates full-time from part-time practitioners when pricing add-ons ($5 versus $2.50 per extra practitioner on Insurance Billing). SimplePractice prices additional practitioners at $74 each on its group Plus plan. Before you compare anything, write down whether anyone other than you will need to sit in the chart.
Then count sessions. Jane's Balance plan is capped at one practitioner licence and 20 appointments a month — Jane frames it as up to 20 invoices, covering 1:1 and group appointments or classes with up to 20 attendees. A solo therapist with a half-full caseload of 15 clients a week clears 20 sessions inside the first fortnight. So the honest question isn't "what's the cheapest plan" but "what's the cheapest plan that survives my actual calendar," and for most people in private practice Balance is out on that test alone.
| Plan | Advertised monthly | Year one | Year two | The catch for a solo therapist |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cliniko, 1 practitioner | $45 | $540 | $540 | SMS is 10¢ per message on top; feature list not shown on the pricing page |
| SimplePractice Starter | $49 ($24.50 for 3 months) | $514.50 | $588 | Pricing page shows no feature breakdown for the tier |
| Jane Balance | $54 | $648 | $648 | 20 appointments/month; Insurance Billing cannot be added |
| SimplePractice Essential | $79 ($39.50 for 3 months) | $829.50 | $948 | Whether claim filing sits here is not stated on the page |
| Jane Practice | $79 | $948 | $948 | Insurance Billing is a separate $20/month |
| SimplePractice Plus | $99 ($49.50 for 3 months) | $1,039.50 | $1,188 | Note Taker AI notes are $35/month extra |
| Jane Thrive | $99 | $1,188 | $1,188 | Group Telehealth is $15/month extra |
SimplePractice's headline looks cheapest in year one only because of the discount, and the discount has a condition: you have to begin a paid account within 7 days to claim it, even though the free trial runs to 30 days. Starter costs $24.50 × 3 = $73.50, then $49 × 9 = $441, so $514.50 across twelve months. Cliniko charges $45 × 12 = $540 flat. Over two years the order flips — Cliniko is $1,080 against SimplePractice's $1,102.50. A $25 gap in year one is not a reason to choose software you'll be fighting in month fourteen.
Cliniko publishes one price per practitioner band and says every subscription includes every Cliniko feature, 100% free support, unlimited admin users, unlimited reception users, constant backups and frequent updates. There is no Starter, no Pro, nothing above you to be upsold into — the next number on the page, $95 a month, only appears when you hire a second practitioner and move into the 2-to-5 band. The trial is 30 days. The only metered extra shown is SMS at 10¢ per message, so a hundred appointment reminders a month is $10 on top of the $45. What the pricing page does not do is list those features by name, so "every feature" is a claim you should test in the trial rather than take on faith — specifically for video sessions and, if you're in the US, for claim submission.
You cannot tell from the pricing page, and that's the finding. SimplePractice shows three solo tiers — Starter $49, Essential $79, Plus $99 — with a "See all features" link under each and no feature comparison on the page itself. Something separates a $49 plan from a $99 plan, and for a therapist the two candidates are always telehealth video and insurance claim filing. Open that link and search it for both words before you pay, because the difference between Starter and Plus is $50 a month, or $600 a year, and buying the wrong end of that range is the expensive mistake here.
Budget for add-ons separately, because SimplePractice sells them per feature. Note Taker, which transcribes and drafts progress notes, is $35 a month ($17.50 during the promo) on top of whatever tier you're on — Plus plus Note Taker is $134 a month, $1,608 a year. Insurance Navigator, the billing-support product, is marked coming soon at $1.79 per claim after a 30-day free window, so if that's your billing path it's metered by volume: 60 claims a month is $107.40. Price your own claim count against a flat-fee alternative before you commit.
Balance at $54 a month is a one-practitioner, 20-appointment plan. At the cap that's $2.70 an appointment, which is fine — until session 21, which you simply cannot book. Jane's own page describes it as a fit for people seeing fewer than 20 appointments a month. Worse for anyone taking insurance: the Insurance Billing add-on, at $20 a month, can only be added to the Practice and Thrive plans. There is no path from $54 to eligibility checks and claim filing without changing plans first, so if you bill insurance, treat Balance as though it doesn't exist.
The realistic Jane number for an insurance-taking solo therapist is Practice at $79 plus Insurance Billing at $20 — $99 a month, $1,188 a year, which is the same monthly figure as Thrive without billing. Add-ons stack from there: AI Scribe is $15 per opted-in practitioner per month for unlimited notes (5 notes free), and Group Telehealth is $15 per opted-in practitioner for sessions with up to 15 participants, which is what you'd need for couples and family work on video. Jane also publishes its card rates — 2.85% + $0.25 online, 2.6% + $0.10 in person — which the other two pricing pages don't.
- If you're cash-pay or superbill-only, take Cliniko at $45 a month, $540 a year, because it's the only one of the three with no tier above you to be upsold into and no per-seat charge for the assistant who books your clients — then confirm telehealth is in the feature set during the 30-day trial.
- If you file claims yourself and want a price you can verify today, the number to beat is Jane Practice plus Insurance Billing: $79 + $20 = $99 a month, $1,188 a year. Then open SimplePractice's Essential feature list — if claim filing is in there, $79 a month is $948 a year and it wins by $240.
- If you're two months into practice and genuinely under 20 sessions a month, Jane Balance at $54 is defensible — but put the date you expect to hit 20 appointments in your calendar now, because that's the day you move to Practice at $79 and your software cost jumps 46%.
- If AI progress notes are the reason you're buying software at all, compare Jane Thrive plus AI Scribe at $99 + $15 = $114 a month against SimplePractice Plus plus Note Taker at $99 + $35 = $134 a month. Same headline price, $240 a year apart once the notes tool is on.
- Open SimplePractice's "See all features" link on the Starter column and search the page for "telehealth" and "claims" — the pricing page alone will not tell you whether $49 does the two jobs you need.
- Ask Cliniko support in writing whether video telehealth and US insurance claim submission are inside "every Cliniko feature" at the $45 tier, since the page asserts completeness without enumerating it.
- Ask Jane whether one-to-one telehealth is included in Balance, Practice and Thrive, or whether video sessions require the $15 Group Telehealth add-on — the pricing page only prices the group version.
- Get the card processing rate for whichever vendor you choose in writing. Jane publishes 2.85% + $0.25 online and 2.6% + $0.10 in person; at 60 sessions a month billed at $150, that's roughly $271 a month in fees, which dwarfs the subscription.
- Confirm a signed HIPAA business associate agreement is available on the entry tier you're buying, not only on the top plan, and diary the date SimplePractice's three-month discount ends so the jump to $49, $79 or $99 isn't a surprise.
Start the Cliniko trial and a SimplePractice trial on the same day — both are free for 30 days, and both cost you nothing but an afternoon. If you're cash-pay, we'd sign with Cliniko at $45 and stop shopping: $540 a year, unlimited admin logins, one price with nothing withheld for a higher tier. If you bill insurance, we would not buy on headline price at all — we'd confirm which SimplePractice tier includes claim filing, and if that answer is Essential at $79, take it over Jane Practice plus Insurance Billing at $99 and bank the $240 a year. Skip Jane Balance unless your caseload is genuinely under 20 sessions a month and always will be.
Loistrofi does not take vendor briefings or speak to sales teams. Every figure here comes from a page the vendor publishes itself, checked on Sep 2, 2026. Where a number could not be confirmed at source, it is marked rather than smoothed over.
