Best AI tools for mental health professionals in 2026

TL;DR

• The best tool depends on what you want it to do. Seven of the eleven here only write notes. Four are EHRs, two with AI built in per session and two selling it as an add-on. One never records a session at all.

• Every price is the standard monthly rate from the vendor's own pricing page, verified 7 September 2026.

• Most cheapest tiers cannot run a real caseload. Three cap at 40 notes a month, one cannot record a session live. The usable price is normally one tier up.

• The privacy positions differ more than the features do. Berries and TherapyNotes commit to never training on client data. Heidi's commitment depends on your country. Freed's is a settings toggle. Read that section before the pricing one.

• Upheal costs $1 per session, with AI clinical notes included.

Two years ago "AI for therapists" meant one thing: a scribe that listened and drafted a note. In 2026 it means at least four. Scribes that draft the note. Assistants that answer questions about your caseload and draft the follow-up. EHRs built around AI, where the note, the plan, the schedule and the billing read from one record. And, from one vendor, a deliberate refusal to record anything.

This guide covers eleven tools, ours included. Where a competitor is better, it says so. Where a tool's cheapest tier cannot do the job, it says that too, because that is the number most roundups quote.

How we evaluated

Every fact here comes from that vendor's own pricing page, help centre or legal documents, opened and read on the date given in each section. Nothing comes from review sites, and nothing from one vendor's comparison of another.

Six things matter, roughly in order:

1. Does it do the job you need? Notes only, notes plus assistant, or a full EHR.
2. What does the tier you would actually use cost? Not the entry price.
3. What can the AI see? One session's audio, or the client's plan and history.
4. Where does client data go? Recordings, training, and whether that is in the legal documents or only the marketing page.
5. Is there a BAA, and can you read it before signing?
6. Who reviews before anything is signed? In every tool here, the therapist.

The eleven at a glance

Upheal and Blueprint are full EHRs with AI priced per session. TherapyNotes and SimplePractice are established EHRs selling AI as an add-on. Everything else is a scribe sitting beside whatever EHR you already have. If you are choosing an EHR rather than a scribe, the best EHR for private practice compares the platforms on billing, telehealth and total monthly cost.

The tools

Upheal

An AI-native EHR for solo and small-group practices. Notes, treatment plans, scheduling, telehealth, billing and an assistant, all reading from one client record.

Price. Upheal costs $1 per session. AI clinical notes are included. Assistant Pro, which adds agentic actions and pre-built workflows, is $39 a month. Plans are on the pricing page.

What it does. Upheal drafts notes using the client's treatment plan and previous sessions, so the note reflects the arc of the therapy rather than one isolated session. Upheal generates treatment plans. Upheal's compliance checker audits a note against Aetna and Optum standards before you sign it. See how Upheal's AI clinical notes work in practice. The Upheal Assistant surfaces case questions and insights across your caseload, prepares you for the next session, drafts documents and letters, supports billing, works from documents you upload, and runs pre-built agents that take whole workflows off your plate. Assistant Pro makes all of that unlimited. The Upheal Assistant runs the migration, using AI to rebuild the practice rather than import a client list. Upheal supports 35 languages, and you can dictate or type a session summary instead of recording, including on the free plan.

If you only want notes, the free plan includes unlimited AI notes, and Smart Fill populates any browser-based EHR with a formatted note in a few clicks.

Where it's limited. Session analytics, including speaking balance and periods of silence, are currently available for individual sessions held in English. Upheal supports sessions with more than one participant, such as couples and family sessions, and runs group telehealth. Group therapy as a documentation modality, where each member of a therapy group needs their own progress note alongside documentation of group dynamics, is not yet supported.

Data. Upheal is HIPAA compliant. Upheal is SOC 2 Type II certified. Upheal signs a BAA with every practice. Session audio is deleted by default once your notes are generated. Upheal does not use session data to train AI unless you and your client both choose it. Control status is published at trust.upheal.io.

Best for: a practice that wants everything in one place, and an AI that helps run it rather than just write the notes.

Blueprint

A free EHR with AI charged per session. On a feature list it reads close to a full AI-native platform; the difference is what the assistant does today versus what is marked coming soon.

Price. The EHR is free with no session limit. AI is $0.99 per session alongside an EHR you already have, or $1.49 with Blueprint as your EHR. Prepaid credits that never expire, no monthly cap, 30-day trial.

What it does. AI notes, treatment plans linked to progress notes, discharge summaries, automatic session prep, and suggested interventions from a clinical library of more than 600 assessments and worksheets. The chat assistant reschedules appointments, drafts clinical letters and answers questions from the client record. Measurement-based care is where Blueprint started, and outcome tracking is genuinely core to it.

Where the assistant stops. On Blueprint's own plan comparison grid, the assistant's billing actions and its practice insights and analytics are marked coming soon. It does not read documents you upload, does not take reusable instructions you write once and reuse, and regenerates a note rather than editing the line you asked about. Templates are customisable, but Blueprint publishes nothing equivalent to section-level instructions you set once and have applied to every note. No compliance checker. No secure in-app messaging; client communication is email and text. The mobile app captures sessions rather than running the practice.

Data. Read the Platform Services Agreement rather than the marketing page. It permits de-identified data derived from clinic data to be used developing models used within the services, describes no opt-in or opt-out, and states that it supersedes the privacy policy where the two conflict. Read 4 September 2026.

Best for: a practice where a free EHR changes the maths, or one built around standardized assessments.

Mentalyc

A scribe with more clinical analysis than most, priced by note volume.

Price. Mini $19.99 (40 notes, individual adults only), Basic $39.99 (100 notes), Pro $69.99 (160 notes), Super $119.99 (330 notes), Team $59.99 per seat (unlimited). Billed yearly those are $14.99, $29.99, $59.99, $99.99 and $49.99. A working solo caseload fits Basic or Pro; Mini's limits make its headline price misleading.

What it does. Notes reference prior sessions and treatment plan goals from Basic up. Session analytics on every tier. Alliance Genie scores each session across dimensions of the therapeutic alliance and gives supervisor-style feedback, limited on Basic and full on Pro. Couples, family and child work from Pro; group notes on Super and Team. A Chrome extension inserts notes into browser-based EHRs. If alliance feedback matters to you, Mentalyc has it and we do not.

Where it's limited. Notes only. Scheduling, billing and telehealth live elsewhere.

Data. HIPAA and PHIPA, plus Australia's APP, with SOC 2 Type 2 compliance listed on their plan grid. Audio deleted within three days, audio only, never video. No AI training on any plan, though opting out of data use for product improvement is gated to Super and Team. Subpoena notification is not stated; their policy allows disclosure under legal requirements without further notice unless the law requires it. Read 5 September 2026.

Best for: a therapist who wants a scored alliance report after every session.

Berries

A scribe with an assistant, and unusually complete privacy documentation.

Price. Pro $99 a month, or $79 billed yearly, unlimited sessions. A free tier covers your first 20 sessions and then 10 a month. Group practice pricing is custom.

What it does. More than 20 customisable templates, treatment plans linked to notes, pre-session summaries, patient instructions, ICD-10 codes, and an assistant chat that answers with context from past sessions. All of that is on the free tier too; the only free-tier limit is session volume.

Where it's limited. Notes and assistant only, no practice management. Their terms scope the platform to the United States and Canada.

Data. Every clinician is automatically covered by a Business Associate Agreement on signup, and the BAA is published at a public URL. "Berries never uses protected health information or personal data to train its models," with no regional variation and no tier gating. Their sub-processors are named publicly. Audio is not retained after processing, "except as required for technical troubleshooting or legal compliance." Notes can be deleted manually or set to auto-delete after 30 days. HIPAA, HITECH and PHIPA compliant, SOC 2 certified. Read 7 September 2026.

Best for: a therapist who wants a scribe and an assistant, with the data terms written down plainly.

Supanote

A scribe built for therapy, with EHR push on the middle tier.

Price. Starter $29.99 (40 notes), Pro $49.99 (unlimited, EHR integration, style personalisation, automatic note deletion), XL $89.99 (adds group sessions). Billed yearly those are $19.99, $39.99 and $69.99. Fourteen-day free trial. A full caseload needs Pro.

What it does. Treatment-plan-aware notes and automatic treatment plans from Starter up. Couples sessions on every paid tier. One-click push into browser-based EHRs on Pro. The company is also launching automated billing agents.

Where it's limited. Automatic note deletion is a Pro feature, not a default. Notes only.

Data. A BAA with every practice, and no sale of PHI. The training clause is narrower than it first sounds: they "do not use PHI to train models that benefit other customers without explicit, written permission from the practice that owns the data." Permitted use is defined by contract, and training that benefits your own practice is not excluded. Data is stored only in the United States with no regional residency, which is worth knowing if you are a Canadian or European buyer. A SOC 2 Type II report is available under NDA. Read 7 September 2026.

Best for: a therapist on another EHR who wants notes pushed straight into the chart.

Freed

A general-medicine scribe that lists mental health as one of eight specialties.

Price. Starter $39 (40 notes), Core $79 (unlimited notes, template builder, clinical evidence answers), Premier $119, or $104 billed annually (visit summaries, letters and referrals, EHR push, dictation, ICD-10 and CPT coding). Their pricing page defaults to the annual rate, so check the toggle. Seven-day free trial. Residents and trainees get Core free.

What it does. Strong on medical terminology and multi-disciplinary documentation. Clinical Evidence answers clinical questions with citations from medical sources. A separate Front Desk product handles admin.

Where it's limited. Built for medicine rather than therapy, so intervention language and the thread to a treatment plan are not what it was designed to capture. Their terms state the platform is not designed for 42 CFR Part 2 substance-use records.

Data. Freed publishes its full BAA inside its terms, which is better practice than most. The customer owns their data and output. Recordings can be set to delete immediately after processing, and other data can be set to 30 days. AI training on your data is permitted "with your consent provided via Platform settings," so check where that toggle sits and what it defaults to. One thing to know before installing their browser extension: the terms grant Freed a licence to read, scan and store PHI from your EHR, "as though you and your Authorized Users were accessing it themselves." Read 7 September 2026.

Best for: a clinician in a multi-specialty setting who needs one scribe across medical and behavioral work.

Heidi

A general-medicine scribe with a genuinely useful free tier and one thing to check before you sign.

Price. The free tier includes unlimited transcription and standard templates. Clinician is $150 a month, or $110 billed yearly. Teams is custom. On the free tier, Ask Heidi, advanced templates and patient-session linking are marked "Limited," and Heidi does not publish the cap.

What it does. Ambient documentation, clinical evidence with citations, an assistant on every tier including free, and Teams features like template sharing and EHR integration.

Where it's limited. General medicine, and the pricing structure differs depending on which country's site you land on.

Data. So do the legal terms. Heidi's EU privacy policy commits that platform improvement "does not include the use of any sensitive health information." The US policy does not contain that sentence, and permits Heidi to de-identify your health information and use it "to improve the Platform and other services." Their help centre states the stronger EU position globally. That does not mean Heidi trains on American clinicians' sessions. It means a therapist in Dublin and a therapist in Denver are agreeing to materially different terms, and only one of them has the commitment in writing. If you are in the US and this matters to you, ask Heidi to confirm it directly. Heidi does operate regional servers. Read 5 September 2026.

Best for: a clinician who wants a strong free tier and has checked which version of the privacy policy applies to them.

AutoNotes

An inexpensive scribe whose cheapest tier cannot record.

Price. Economy $29, First Class $69, Enterprise custom. Billed yearly, First Class is $58. The $8 Economy price shown on their site is a new-customer annual promotion, not a standard rate.

What it does. Unlimited notes, dictation, uploaded recordings, treatment plans, screening tools and AI summaries on every tier. Live in-person and browser recording, and the custom template builder, start at First Class.

Where it's limited. Economy cannot record a session live; you dictate or upload. Scheduling and native telehealth are ticked on every tier and labelled "coming soon."

Data. HIPAA and PHIPA compliance stated on every plan, with full note approval control. Read 7 September 2026, pricing page only.

Best for: a therapist who already records elsewhere or dictates, and wants unlimited notes at $29.

Quill

The one tool here that never records a session, and the lowest flat monthly price for unlimited notes.

Price. $20 a month for unlimited notes, treatment plans and custom templates. Teams are $20 plus $16 per additional user. Free trial, no card.

What it does. After the session you speak or type a summary. Quill turns it into a note in your format. You copy it into your EHR. That is the whole product, deliberately. Custom templates cover intake assessments, supervision notes and other documentation types.

Where it's limited. No recording means no transcript, no session analytics, and nothing captured that you did not summarise. Everything is copy-paste.

Data. Quill's commitments are specific: no recording, summaries and notes not stored, BAAs with all technology partners, and a customer BAA available in the account. They sit on the HIPAA and marketing pages rather than in the governing documents. The privacy policy is a general website policy adapted from an open-source template that never mentions notes or PHI, and the terms, in the name of the operating entity Zapstar Solutions, contemplate customer data existing in the service and being deleted on cancellation. Nothing we found contradicts their claims. It does mean the BAA is the document to get in writing. Read 7 September 2026.

Best for: a therapist who will not record sessions on principle, or whose clients will not consent to it.

TherapyNotes with TherapyFuel

An established EHR with an AI add-on that does more than draft notes.

Price. $69 a month solo, or $79 for the first clinician plus $50 each additional in a group. TherapyFuel is $40 per clinician on top. Premium telehealth is another $15. Thirty-day trial, and free data import from another EMR.

What it does. TherapyFuel covers progress notes, Session Assist, ReFuel, client history summaries, contact notes, insurance card OCR and treatment plans generated from prior client history. TherapyNotes also has ePrescribe at $65 per prescriber and MIPS reporting at $359 a year, neither of which Upheal offers.

Where it's limited. The AI runs at fixed points rather than as an assistant you can query across your caseload. No session analytics.

Data. HITRUST certified, and does not use client data to train AI models. Read 5 September 2026.

Best for: a TherapyNotes practice that wants AI without changing EHR, especially one that bills insurance heavily.

SimplePractice with Note Taker or Care Aide

The most widely used EHR in US private practice, selling AI two ways.

Price. Starter $49, Essential $79, Plus $99. AI comes either as Note Taker at $35 a month, or Care Aide at $59, which bundles Note Taker with SimplePractice's other AI features. Care Aide is priced per account owner, with each additional clinician $49. SimplePractice was running 50% off for three months when we checked; the rates above are the standard ones.

What it does. Note Taker captures telehealth sessions and, on iOS and Android, in-person sessions. Draft notes land in the client's record. Insurance claim pricing moves to $0.39 per claim on every plan from 1 October 2026.

Where it's limited. Starter excludes appointment reminders, calendar sync and secure messaging, so most solo therapists land on Essential. Note Taker's governing AI Addendum is not publicly readable without a paid account, so the data terms cannot be reviewed before you buy.

Data. See above. Verified 5 September 2026.

Best for: a committed SimplePractice user who wants AI notes without leaving.

Where your client's data goes

This is the section therapists ask about most, so it should be exact. Every line comes from the vendor's own legal documents, not their homepage.

Three things to take from that. The positions are genuinely different, and several are narrower than the marketing page suggests. One vendor's answer depends on which country you are in. And two cannot be checked at all without buying first.

One practical rule: read the terms of service, not just the privacy policy. Freed's training consent, Blueprint's de-identified data clause and Quill's deletion clause all sit in the terms. None of them appears in the privacy policy.

Which one should you choose

Everything in one place, with an assistant that helps run it. Upheal. Blueprint if a free EHR changes what you can afford and you can wait on the billing automation.

You will not record sessions. Quill, or Upheal's dictation on the free plan. Nothing else here is built around working without a recording.

The data terms decide it. Berries and TherapyNotes both commit to never training on client data, in plain language, on their own pages.

Alliance feedback after every session. Mentalyc.

You run therapy groups. Mentalyc is the only tool here that publishes the detail: on Super and Team it produces both a collective note documenting group dynamics and an individual progress note for each member. Supanote lists group sessions on XL without describing how they are documented. Berries, Blueprint and Upheal all run group telehealth, which is the session itself rather than the write-up. Per-member documentation of a therapy group is the one thing Upheal does not do yet.

You are on SimplePractice or TherapyNotes and staying. Their own add-on, or a standalone scribe that pushes into the chart: Supanote does this on Pro, and Upheal's Smart Fill populates any browser-based EHR with a formatted note.

Across medical and behavioral settings. Freed or Heidi, with Heidi's regional terms checked first.

You dictate rather than record. AutoNotes Economy at $29, or Quill at $20 for unlimited notes.

Frequently asked questions

Which AI tool is best for mental health professionals?

It depends on the job. For a full practice on one record with an assistant that acts across it: Upheal. For a free EHR with AI per session: Blueprint. For notes with alliance feedback: Mentalyc. For notes without any recording: Quill. For a scribe with plainly written data terms: Berries. For a scribe inside an EHR you are keeping: TherapyFuel or Care Aide. The section above walks through each by scenario. For practice management specifically, see the best practice management software for therapists.

What are the top AI assistants for mental health professionals?

An assistant is different from a scribe: you can ask it things and hand it work, rather than just have it draft a note. On this list, Upheal's Assistant surfaces case insights, prepares sessions, drafts letters, supports billing and runs pre-built agents. Blueprint's chat reschedules, drafts letters and answers clinical questions, with its billing actions marked coming soon. Berries' assistant answers with context from past sessions. Heidi has Ask Heidi on every tier, and Freed has Clinical Evidence for cited clinical answers. Mentalyc has no assistant; its strength is session analysis. TherapyFuel and Care Aide run at fixed points rather than on request.

What is the difference between an AI scribe and an AI-native EHR?

A scribe drafts the note, which you then move into whatever holds the record. An AI-native EHR is the record: the note, the treatment plan, the schedule and the billing read from the same client file, and the AI works across them. Upheal and Blueprint are EHRs here; the rest are scribes, or EHRs with an AI add-on.

Is it safe to use an AI tool for therapy sessions?

Safety is a set of checkable facts: a signed BAA before any client data is shared, a published position on whether session data trains models, a default for what happens to recordings, and encryption in transit and at rest. Every tool here clears the basic bar. They differ on whether the commitments sit in the legal documents or only on the marketing page. The table above says which. For how AI notes work, what happens to recordings and what a client consent form should cover, see our guide to AI therapy notes.

Do these tools work for couples or group therapy?

Couples and family sessions are widely supported, including by Upheal. Group therapy as a documentation modality is different: each member needs their own progress note alongside a note on group dynamics, and that is a premium-tier feature almost everywhere. Mentalyc gates it to Super and Team, and Supanote to XL. Upheal runs group telehealth but does not yet produce per-member group documentation. Check the tier, not the homepage.

How much does an AI tool for therapists cost?

From $20 a month flat (Quill) to $150 (Heidi Clinician, billed monthly, or $110 billed yearly), or $0.99 to $1.49 per session (Blueprint) and $1 per session (Upheal). The entry price is often not the usable price: Mentalyc, Freed and Supanote all cap their cheapest tier at 40 notes, and AutoNotes' cheapest tier cannot record.

Can I switch tools without losing my notes?

Most scribes leave your notes in your EHR anyway. If you are switching EHRs, ask what migration actually involves. TherapyNotes and Blueprint both offer a data import. The Upheal Assistant runs the migration, using AI to rebuild the practice rather than import a client list.

Do I have to record sessions to use AI notes?

No. Quill works entirely from a summary you give afterwards. Upheal, AutoNotes Economy and Freed all accept dictation, and on Upheal it is available on the free plan. Every recording tool here also supports uploading audio you captured elsewhere.

Where do I find the BAA?

Berries and Freed publish theirs at a public URL. Upheal signs a BAA with every practice. Mentalyc, Supanote, Blueprint, Heidi and TherapyNotes sign one at signup. Quill's is in the account. SimplePractice's AI Addendum requires a paid account to read.

Every price and policy on this page was read on the vendor's own site on the date shown against each tool. Prices change, and several vendors on this list changed theirs within days of an earlier check. If a number here does not match what you see, trust the vendor's page and tell us.