Why Therapists Are Leaving TherapyNotes in 2026

TherapyNotes spent years as the reliable workhorse of practice management software — solid billing, decent notes, trusted by group practices. But for solo private-pay therapists, 2025 and early 2026 brought a reckoning: a 17% price hike with no new features to show for it, still no mobile app after years of requests, and a product roadmap clearly built for multi-clinician groups, not solo practitioners.

If you're searching for TherapyNotes alternatives, you're not alone. This post breaks down what changed, how TherapyNotes compares to its main competitors, and what solo therapists actually need from a practice management tool in 2026.

What Changed at TherapyNotes (And What Never Did)

In December 2025, TherapyNotes raised its solo clinician price from $59/mo to $69/mo — a 17% increase with no accompanying product improvements announced for solo users. Over a year, that's $828 just for one therapist to manage their own practice.

What's striking is what didn't change alongside the price increase:

• No mobile app. In 2026, TherapyNotes remains desktop-only. There is no native iPhone or Android app. If you want to check your schedule or write a quick note between sessions on your phone, you're opening a browser and hoping for the best.
• Locked reminder timing. TherapyNotes sends appointment reminders, but you can't customize the timing. If your clients need a reminder 48 hours before their session instead of 24, you're out of luck.
• Zero graphical reporting. TherapyNotes has no visual dashboards. There are no charts showing session volume trends, revenue over time, or client retention. You're working from raw data exports.
• AI features cost extra. TherapyNotes now offers AI-assisted note-taking — but it's an add-on at $40/mo extra, bringing your total to $109/mo for a solo practice.

For a therapist running a lean, private-pay solo practice, this is a product built for a different customer. TherapyNotes is optimized for group practices with complex billing needs. Solo therapists are paying group-practice prices for features they don't use, while missing the mobile-first tools they actually need.

TherapyNotes vs SimplePractice vs SteadyPractice

TherapyNotes isn't the only platform that raised prices recently. SimplePractice raised its Starter plan 69% in March 2025, from $29/mo to $49/mo. Therapists who moved from TherapyNotes to SimplePractice a year ago may now be re-evaluating that decision too. For a full comparison of SimplePractice, see our SimplePractice alternatives for solo therapists.

Here's how the three platforms stack up on the features that matter most to a solo private-pay therapist:

The trade-off is clear: SteadyPractice is purpose-built for solo, private-pay therapists. It doesn't do insurance billing — if you're billing insurance for a full panel, TherapyNotes or SimplePractice are still your options. But if you're private-pay, you're paying for a billing infrastructure you don't need at TherapyNotes, and paying $69/mo for the privilege.

What Solo Private-Pay Therapists Actually Need

A solo therapist in private pay sees 15 to 25 clients a week. The administrative work is real, but it's not the complexity of a multi-clinician group billing dozens of insurance plans. What you actually need is a short list:

• A way to schedule sessions and send reminders without chasing down no-shows
• A place to write and retrieve session notes quickly — ideally from your phone between appointments
• Invoicing that lets you send a clean, professional bill and track what's been paid
• The confidence that your client data is private and secure
• Something you can actually afford without it eating into your take-home pay

Notice what's not on that list: complex clearinghouse integrations, insurance eligibility checks, group billing, and enterprise reporting dashboards. TherapyNotes charges you for all of that whether or not you use it.

There's also the mobile question, which matters more than it might seem. Therapists work from offices, from home, between sessions. The ability to quickly pull up a client's history or log a note on your iPhone isn't a luxury feature — it's how modern professionals work. TherapyNotes' decision to remain desktop-only in 2026 isn't a technical limitation; it's a product choice that signals who their real customer is.

Why SteadyPractice Exists

SteadyPractice was built on a simple premise: a solo therapist is not a small group practice. The workflows are different, the privacy needs are different, and the right price is very different.

At $9.99/mo (or $79.99/yr), SteadyPractice covers everything a solo private-pay therapist needs — scheduling, session notes, invoicing, and client management — without charging you for a billing infrastructure built for insurance-based group practices.

But the bigger philosophical difference is about data. Every major practice management platform is a cloud business. Your client records live on their servers. You sign a Business Associate Agreement and trust that their security, their employees, and their privacy policies will protect your clients' most sensitive information. SimplePractice's terms of service even grant them a perpetual, irrevocable license to your client data.

SteadyPractice takes a different approach: your data never leaves your iPhone. There's no server to breach. No vendor with access to your clients' records. No privacy policy changes that affect your data. Your therapy records are stored locally on your device, the same way your personal photos are. This isn't a premium tier feature — it's the foundation of how SteadyPractice works.

For more on how on-device storage changes the HIPAA compliance picture, see our post on what "HIPAA compliant" actually means for a therapist app on your iPhone.

If you're spending $69/mo (or more) on TherapyNotes and you're a solo private-pay therapist, you're subsidizing a product built for someone else. SteadyPractice is built for you, priced for you, and designed to stay on your phone — because that's where your work actually happens. You can also explore our broader list of practice management alternatives for solo therapists or visit steadypractice.app to learn more.

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