Callie vs SimplePractice: Which EHR Fits Your Therapy Practice?

The decision is not which product has the longer feature list. It is whether a broad, mature EHR or a therapy-centered platform better matches the work your practice repeats every day. SimplePractice serves many health and wellness professionals and has strong user ratings, integrated billing, telehealth, mobile apps, and a client portal. Callie serves SLP, OT, and PT practices from solo clinicians through multi-provider teams. It fits practices that value therapy-aware AI note templates, public per-user pricing, recurring scheduling, real-time eligibility checks, and a claims queue. SimplePractice can suit a solo therapy practice, especially one that values a mature ecosystem. Callie is the closer fit when rehab therapy workflows drive the decision.

SimplePractice is a mature cloud EHR for health and wellness professionals. It combines scheduling, documentation, insurance and client billing, telehealth, a client portal, and mobile apps. The vendor reports more than 250,000 practitioners and 20 million clients on the platform. Capterra shows a 4.6 out of 5 average across 2,827 reviews, with users praising fast documentation and multi-client billing submission. Those are meaningful strengths for a solo or small group practice that wants a proven general-purpose system.

For an SLP, OT, or PT practice, the question is fit below that feature list. SimplePractice publishes SLP and OT resources, SOAP notes, treatment plans, claims, and superbills. However, OT Potential describes its center of gravity as mental health rather than rehabilitation therapy. That review ranks therapy-specific products above it for pediatric, insurance-based practices. Callie starts with SLP, OT, and PT workflows. Its AI writes into evaluation, plan-of-care, progress, SOAP, or custom templates, while its eligibility response identifies the speech therapy copay and prior-authorization requirements. Callie does not claim pediatric-specific tools, longitudinal goal tracking, ERA posting, denial management, or authorization visit-limit tracking. Test those needs directly rather than assuming either product covers them.

SimplePractice is a cloud EHR and practice-management platform for health and wellness professionals. The vendor lists therapists, speech-language pathologists, occupational therapists, and psychiatrists among its specialties. Its SLP resource describes SOAP notes, intake forms, assessments, treatment plans, client and insurance billing, and measurement-based tools for progress toward treatment goals. The OT specialty page adds profession-specific education, although it does not establish pediatric-specific product features.

Its clearest strength is breadth backed by scale. Scheduling, documentation, telehealth, billing, and the client portal sit in one established product. SimplePractice publishes native iOS and Android apps, plus a separate client portal app. The billing system generates insurance claims, superbills, invoices, and statements. Capterra reviewers often praise day-to-day usability, documentation speed, and batch billing. A practice that wants a widely used system with a mature general-practice workflow has a sound reason to choose it.

SimplePractice also has a native AI Note Taker. It drafts SOAP, DAP, or BIRP progress notes from session audio or dictation and provides pre-appointment history summaries. The add-on costs $35 per clinician each month as of August 2026 and includes a 30-day trial. This gives an existing SimplePractice practice an in-product documentation option without changing its main EHR. Callie prices AI note generation differently, but that difference does not erase the value of staying inside a familiar system.

SimplePractice can fit a solo or small therapy practice with a straightforward schedule and familiar documentation needs. It supports SOAP notes, assessments, treatment plans, claims, superbills, telehealth, and client access. Those functions cover much of a cash-pay practice and many insurance-based workflows. A clinician who also provides counseling services may prefer its broader health and wellness orientation. The native apps also matter when mobile access is a firm requirement, because Callie does not claim a native mobile app.

The fit becomes less certain when rehab-specific work determines the day. OT Potential calls SimplePractice primarily a mental-health product and reports that some rehab clinicians find its forms cluttered or build manual template workarounds. The same review recommends therapy-specific options over SimplePractice for pediatric, insurance-based OT, PT, and SLP practices. That is a third-party assessment, not proof that SimplePractice cannot support those practices. It is a reason to test an evaluation, a progress report, and a typical treatment note before signing.

Reviewers on G2 report limited reporting and customization, plus extra steps for denied claims and secondary billing. Reviewers on Capterra report price increases, some telehealth reliability problems, and difficulty getting escalated support. These are review themes, not outcomes every customer experiences. SimplePractice still holds a strong overall Capterra rating. Ask the vendor to demonstrate the exact insurance exception your staff handles most often, then test the support route during the trial.

Callie organizes the product around SLP, OT, and PT practices. Its AI Notetaker accepts a session recording, voice memo, or typed shorthand. It drafts into SOAP, Progress, Evaluation, Plan of Care, General, or custom templates. Articulation, Language, and Fluency templates tune the draft to the treatment. The clinician reviews and edits every word before signing. The authorship ledger records who created, edited, and finalized the note, with timestamps.

The schedule connects the appointment to reminders, video, attendance, payment, and claim status. Callie sends email and text reminders before the session, including a morning reminder and a final message 30 minutes before the start. Google Calendar sync sends sessions out and brings busy blocks in. Appointments can recur, and patients can request appointments or manage rescheduling. Every appointment includes browser-based video. Telehealth recordings appear in the AI Notetaker when the practice obtains explicit written consent.

For insurance work, Callie checks eligibility against more than 3,400 payers through Stedi. The AI Summary translates the payer response into active coverage, the speech-therapy copay, deductible remaining, and whether prior authorization is required. Staff build a claim queue from completed insurance appointments and select claims to submit. Statuses sync from the clearinghouse, and each claim keeps an event timeline. Callie does not claim automated claim scrubbing, ERA posting, denial management, appeals, or an authorization workflow.

Patients and families use a portal for secure messaging, intake forms, saved payment methods, and appointment management. Multi-provider practices can view every provider’s schedule in one grid, share records and templates under organization rules, and export cross-provider reports as CSV files. Callie does not claim a parent-specific portal model or a native mobile app. A pediatric caseload should test who can see and sign each record, because the public product claims do not answer that question.

Choose SimplePractice if broad market maturity carries the most weight. It has a vendor-reported base of more than 250,000 practitioners, a strong Capterra rating, and native mobile apps for clinicians and clients. It also combines billing, telehealth, documentation, and the client portal in one established system. A solo clinician with straightforward therapy workflows may prefer that scale and familiarity. An existing customer may also find the AI Note Taker add-on less disruptive than moving records to a new EHR.

Choose Callie if your daily work centers on SLP, OT, or PT documentation and therapy insurance operations. Its AI can write into evaluation and plan-of-care structures, not only general progress-note formats. Its published insurance workflow includes eligibility checks across 3,400+ payers, speech-therapy copay details, a claim queue, and a status timeline. Public pricing also starts lower, including a free plan and paid plans priced per user. Multi-provider organizations are included on Plus, although practices with five or more providers need a custom Enterprise quote.

Do not choose either product because a comparison table marks every common category as present. If your practice depends on authorization visit counts, longitudinal goal data, outcome graphs, school billing, or a home program builder, Callie does not claim those functions. This research did not verify several of them in SimplePractice either. Put each critical workflow into your trial scorecard and ask for the answer in writing. The therapy practice software evaluation guide explains how to weight those tests against your actual bottlenecks.

Before giving notice, export patient demographics, signed notes, treatment plans, schedules, invoices, claims history, payment records, intake documents, and audit information. Confirm the file formats and open a sample from every export. Keep access to the old system through reconciliation, and define which platform owns new appointments after the cutover date. The therapy EHR migration checklist turns that work into a staged plan.

For a pediatric caseload, schedule the cutover around a school break or another lower-volume week. Build recurring series after the calendar transfer so exceptions do not duplicate. Use invented records for setup until the new vendor’s business associate agreement covers the account. Then audit a sample of minor-client access, guardian permissions, signed notes, open balances, and claims before the old subscription ends.

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“Choose the system that handles your hardest recurring workflow, not the one with the longest feature page.”