I used Owl Practice again as part of our 2026 mental health EHR review updates, using it in comparison with other leading therapy EHR platforms to see how it performs in real-world clinical workflows. Owl Practice continues to stand out as all-in-one practice management software designed specifically for therapy practices, with a strong balance between usability, structure, and flexibility.
Owl Practice is best suited to private-pay or out-of-network therapy practices that want built-in scheduling, intake, documentation, billing, and telehealth without the complexity of larger systems. Features like benefits checks, cost estimates, courtesy claims, and Zencare integration support client acquisition and out-of-network billing, but the platform is less suited to insurance-heavy practices. Pricing starts at $25 per month, and based on hands-on use, Owl Practice earns 4 out of 5 stars overall.
Owl Practice is a well-rounded and practical option, but clinicians who rely on insurance billing tools, advanced reporting, or AI-assisted documentation may be better suited with other options. Visit our full list of the best mental health EHRs for more options.
Owl Practice At a Glance
Cost: $25–$49+ monthly
Best For: Therapy practices that value affordability, simplicity, and built-in out-of-network billing tools
Pros & Cons of Owl Practice
Pros - Clean, intuitive interface that keeps clinical workflows organized
- Built-in client acquisition via Zencare integration
- Strong out-of-network tools, including benefits checks, cost estimates, and courtesy claims
- Flexible forms, note templates, and dynamic client fields
- Group-practice ready with roles, permissions, supervision, and multi-location scheduling
Cons - Clinical measures library is not customizable
- No built-in AI documentation or transcription tools
- Reporting tools are solid but not especially deep
- Not useful for prescribers or physicians
Preview Owl Practice
Owl Practice Suite is a modern piece of practice management software for therapists. It offers enough structure to support consistent clinical work without becoming rigid or overwhelming. Scheduling, intake, charting, billing, and telehealth are all tightly integrated, making it easy to move from first contact to ongoing care without juggling systems.
While I was using it, Owl Practice felt especially well-suited to solo clinicians and small teams who value efficiency and clean design. Tools like saved filters, naming conventions, and dynamic templates make it easy to stay organized over time, while optional add-ons, such as private-pay cost estimates, courtesy claims, and Zencare integration, can help practices support out-of-network clients or attract new referrals.
While Owl Practice can be a great choice for some, it isn’t the best fit for every practice. Clinicians who rely heavily on insurance billing, advanced reporting, or AI-assisted documentation may prefer platforms like SimplePractice, Carepatron, or Practice Better. But for practices that want a thoughtfully designed, therapy-first EHR that scales without unnecessary complexity, Owl Practice remains a strong and reliable option.
SimplePractice’s EHR for therapists has everything you need to run your practice easily and efficiently. From booking and scheduling to insurance billing, SimplePractice does it all.
My Best Practice is an EHR designed by therapists to support therapists using evidence-based treatments. From online booking to note taking to insurance billing, My Best Practice makes running your practice easy. Starting at just $39 per month.
Detailed Review
Owl Practice is a therapy EHR that emphasizes clean workflows, thoughtful organization, and tools that reduce time spent on administrative tasks. In use, it consistently felt efficient and well-designed. Pricing starts at $25 per month, with features and add-ons scaling as needs grow.
Review our scoring criteria for EHRs, EMRs, and PMS for therapists.
Review our complete editorial policies here.
Client Records & Intake Management
Owl Practice’s Clients view does a lot of heavy lifting. Your caseload stays centralized in a single list, and the filtering is genuinely useful, including tags like active vs. inactive, prospects, waitlist, portal status, balances, invoice state, and custom tags. What I like most is how many “daily driver” actions are available right from the list—inviting someone to the portal, sending forms or measures, creating an invoice, or recording a payment—without having to open a full chart every time.
Inside a client chart, Owl Practice keeps the experience clinical-first. You land in Sessions & Notes, with key context (contact info, attendance percentage, tags) pinned at the top. Tabs for demographics, diagnosis, referrals, payment methods, medication tracking, and documents are easy to find and don’t feel buried. Documents can be organized into folders, which keeps releases, worksheets, and uploaded files from turning into a mess.
For family and systems work, Owl Practice’s Circle of Care tools help you connect related clients and outside contacts (schools, PCPs, collateral providers), which is a practical advantage over many platforms. Overall, Owl’s records experience is strong and intuitive to use. It earned 4 out of 5 stars on this section of our scoring criteria.
Intake & Assessment
Owl Practice handles intake through its client portal and Clients view, and the workflow feels straightforward. You can invite a client to the portal and send your standard intake packet quickly, and you can also trigger forms and measures directly from the chart while keeping status visible at a glance. This is the kind of setup that works equally well whether you’re solo or delegating intake tasks to admin staff.
There’s a solid base of ready-made templates for typical practice intake? paperwork (consents, disclosures, etc.), and Owl Practice’s clinical measures library includes common screeners like PHQ-9, GAD-7, and PCL-5. The key limitation is that the measures library is curated—you can’t build a brand-new “measure” inside the Measures module the way you can in some platforms. If you use niche assessments, you’ll likely have to recreate them as forms.
The form builder itself is clean and practical. In real-world setup, it’s quick to customize a clinic-standard intake flow and keep it consistent. Owl Practice earned 4 out of 5 stars on this section of our scoring criteria.
Scheduling & Calendar Management
Owl Practice’s calendar is simple, familiar, and efficient. You get daily, weekly, and monthly views, adjustable appointment time intervals (15–60 minutes), and configurable start times. Creating an appointment is quick: enter the client, service, duration, attendance type, and you’re done. You can also block personal time or “unavailable” slots to protect admin time and breaks, which matters more than clinicians anticipate once their caseload fills up.
Recurring appointments are supported and scheduled sessions connect cleanly to notes and billing. You can jump from an appointment into documentation or transactions without hunting. Drag-and-drop rescheduling is easy, and the whole calendar experience feels low-friction.
Owl Practice’s calendar system earned 4 out of 5 stars based on our scoring criteria. It’s a strong option that would suit most practices well.
Telehealth & Client Engagement Tools
Owl Practice’s telehealth is intentionally clean and no-fuss. You mark an appointment as telehealth, launch the call from the calendar, and clients can join through the portal (or via a shareable link when needed). The in-session experience includes the basics, such as device/bandwidth checks before calls, background options, optional noise filtering, screen share, and chat. In use, it felt stable and quick.
The main tradeoff is that Owl Practice doesn’t try to be an “all-in-one engagement platform.” There’s no built-in note overlay, whiteboard, or deeper between-session engagement layer like courses/programs, journaling, or structured homework modules.
You can absolutely run telehealth-first care here, but if your practice depends on advanced video features or rich between-session engagement, other platforms like Practice Better will feel more tailored to you.
Owl Practice Suite offers a Zencare directory integration, which functions like a built-in client acquisition channel. Owl Practice integrates with Zencare’s therapist directory and matching flow, allowing practices to route referral leads into Owl Practice more directly; a prospective client can move from discovery to intake without as much manual follow-up or data entry. For clinicians who already get meaningful referral volume through directories, that pipeline convenience can matter.
It’s also worth noting that the Zencare add-on pricing is the same as with purchasing Zencare directly (including the one-time setup fee), so the value here isn’t necessarily “cheaper marketing.” However, it is handy to have it directly integrated with the EHR. Visit our review of Zencare to see if it could be useful for your practice.
Taken together, Owl Practice’s telehealth and client engagement tools are solid but simple. That combination earns Owl Practice 3.5 out of 5 stars in the Telehealth & Client Engagement Tools category.
Clinical Documentation & Treatment Planning
Owl Practice’s documentation system is template-driven and well designed for therapists who want a structured workflow without feeling boxed in. You get a sensible set of built-in templates (Intake Assessment, Treatment Plan, Progress Note formats like SOAP/DAP, Discharge/Termination), and you can customize or build your own using content blocks and dynamic fields (pulling in client data like demographics, diagnoses, or meds).
Notes can be signed and locked, and supervisor review/co-signing capabilities support practices with trainees or formal oversight. Attachments sit alongside session and non-session notes, keeping worksheets, releases, and supporting documents easy to find during chart review.
At this time, Owl Practice doesn’t include native AI drafting or transcription. Overall, the documentation system is practical, but not quite in the top tier of platforms that combine deep customization with built-in AI, advanced outcomes dashboards, or extremely robust treatment-planning libraries.
Based on our scoring criteria, Owl Practice earned 4 out of 5 stars in our Clinical Documentation & Treatment Planning category.
Billing & Payments
Owl Practice offers a clean, approachable billing experience that works well for solo clinicians and small practices, particularly those that are private-pay or primarily out-of-network. Client payments are tightly integrated into the platform: you can invoice, collect copays or self-pay, manage cards on file, and track balances directly from the calendar event or client chart. This reduces context switching and makes day-to-day billing tasks feel fast and intuitive.
For insurance-related workflows, Owl Practice supports electronic claim submission, eligibility checks, and superbills, with per-claim fees applied. It also includes helpful tools for out-of-network practices, such as benefits checks, cost estimates, and courtesy claims, which can be valuable for clinicians who want to support reimbursement without running a fully insurance-driven practice. For low to moderate insurance volume, these tools are generally sufficient and easy to manage.
Where Owl begins to show its limits is at scale. Insurance workflows lack some of the deeper automation and oversight features that larger or insurance-heavy practices tend to rely on, such as advanced claim scrubbing, robust denial management tools, detailed ERA reconciliation workflows, or centralized billing dashboards designed for high claim volume.
Owl Practice’s billing tools are well-designed for simplicity and clarity, but they prioritize ease of use over depth. For solo clinicians, private-pay practices, or small groups with lighter insurance needs, this is often a strength. For larger practices or those managing complex, high-volume insurance billing, the system may feel limiting compared to more billing-centric EHRs. Ow Practice earned 4 out of 5 stars on the Billing & Payments section of our scoring criteria.
Reporting & Administrative Tools
Owl Practice’s admin toolset covers the essentials and will feel adequate for many practices.
You get the expected operational reporting features such as client demographics, service/session activity, balances, payment summaries, and exportable transaction histories. The Clients view also functions like a lightweight operational dashboard—filtering for “who hasn’t completed forms,” “who has a balance,” or “who’s inactive” and giving you actionable lists you can work from. Exporting to CSV is also available when you need to do deeper analysis elsewhere.
For group practices, Owl Practice includes role permissions and access controls that make delegation possible, and the Zencare connection can support intake operations when used as a referral pipeline. Still, reporting depth is where Owl Practice shows its limits. For owners who want robust, highly configurable analytics on things like practice productivity, wait times, or marketing, Owl Practice may feel less than ideal. It earned 3 out of 5 stars on our scoring criteria.
Support, Onboarding, & Training
Owl Practice generally delivers a strong support experience, especially for the size and price tier it competes in. The platform is intuitive enough that many clinicians can self-serve setup, and Owl Practice’s help resources (articles, guides, walkthroughs) do a good job covering core workflows like scheduling, documentation, billing, and portal setup.
Live support is available during business hours (typically chat/email), and onboarding support is a meaningful benefit for small practices that need help configuring a system. For practices migrating from another platform, Owl Practice may offer migration help depending on the scenario, though the scope can vary.
User sentiment around responsiveness can be mixed depending on issue complexity and timing, and phone support isn’t usually offered. But overall, for solo and small group practices, Owl Practice’s support and onboarding approach is strong and aligns with the product’s practical, clinician-first vibe. It earned 4 out of 5 stars in this section of our scoring criteria.
Cost & Pricing
Owl Practice uses transparent, month-to-month pricing that scales cleanly from solo clinicians to group practices. All plans include access to Owl Practice’s core clinical and practice management tools, with optional add-ons for insurance billing and referral marketing. There are no long-term contracts, and administrative staff can be added at no additional cost.
For most solo clinicians, realistic monthly costs fall between $39 and $49 monthly, depending on caseload size and whether measurement-based care tools are needed.
Base Pricing
- Owl Starter – $25 monthly
- Designed for small caseloads (up to 20 sessions per month). Includes scheduling, client records, progress notes, invoicing, payment processing, reminders, and basic reporting.
- Owl Core – $39 monthly
- The best entry point for most full-time solo cash-pay practices. Removes session limits and adds digital intake forms, online booking, and integrated telehealth.
- Owl Pro – $49 monthly
- Unlocks Owl Practice’s full feature set, including insurance billing, secure client messaging, measurement-based care tools, and medication tracking.
Group Practices with Owl Practice cost $49 monthly for the first clinician, and $39 for each additional clinician. This includes all features on the Owl Pro plan.
Insurance Billing & Optional Fees
Some additional costs to keep in mind include:
- Insurance claims: $0.25 per claim (only on Pro plan)
- Eligibility checks: $0.15 per report (only on Pro plan)
- Session video recording up to 5GB: $12.99 monthly
- Payment processing: 2.9% + $0.30 per successful transaction
- Zencare Therapist Matching: $59 monthly + $80 one-time fee
What Owl Practice Costs in Real-World Scenarios
A solo, cash-pay only clinician with a full caseload will likely be able to get by on the Owl Core plan at $39 monthly. If you added Zencare Client Acquisition, that price would climb to $98 monthly, with a one-time $80 fee for setting up your directory listing. Payment processing fees would add to this cost, depending on how much you charge for sessions.
If that same practice wanted to bill about 40 insurance sessions per month, the cost would rise to roughly $55 monthly without considering any other add-ons or payment processing costs.
SimplePractice’s EHR for therapists has everything you need to run your practice easily and efficiently. From booking and scheduling to insurance billing, SimplePractice does it all.
My Best Practice is an EHR designed by therapists to support therapists using evidence-based treatments. From online booking to note taking to insurance billing, My Best Practice makes running your practice easy. Starting at just $39 per month.
User Reviews
Across review platforms, Owl Practice receives mostly positive feedback, with users frequently pointing to its clean interface, straightforward scheduling and invoicing tools, and a support team that many solo clinicians describe as helpful both during setup and day-to-day use. While Owl Practice’s overall review volume is still smaller than some of the most widely adopted U.S. EHRs, the positive sentiment is generally consistent.
Capterra/SoftwareAdvice/GetApp | 4.4 out of 5 stars | ~70 reviews
Positive reviews on Capterra commonly emphasize ease of use and a “clean” interface, with many clinicians describing Owl Practice as a practical, streamlined alternative to more complex systems. Reviewers frequently mention time savings from having scheduling, invoicing/receipts, forms, and client records in one place. Customer support is also a major bright spot in many reviews—particularly for onboarding, troubleshooting, and helping clinicians get configured without needing extra administrative help.
Critical reviews tend to focus on billing/clearinghouse friction, reporting depth, and responsiveness when something breaks. A number of reviewers describe frustrations with insurance workflow reliability (including claim issues, unexpected process changes, and added manual work), and some report that financial and caseload reporting feels too limited for a group practice environment. A smaller but recurring theme is that some workflows take too many clicks for basic tasks. However, negative reviews tended to be from several years ago, so many of these issues may have been remedied.
Alternatives & Competitors
While Owl Practice is a strong option for solo and small group practices that want a clean, therapy-first system at a relatively low monthly cost, it won’t be the best fit for everyone. Practices that need deeper customization, better client engagement, or heavier-duty reporting and insurance workflows may prefer a more established or more flexible platform.
SimplePractice
Cost: $49–$99 monthly
Compared to Owl Practice: More customizable and automation-friendly, with stronger mobile and integration options, but typically costs more.
SimplePractice remains one of the most widely used EHRs for mental health providers. Compared to Owl Practice, SimplePractice typically offers more in-depth customization and scalability, though many clinicians find Owl’s experience more focused and streamlined for some workflows. Both platforms offer a directory listing option or help with marketing to some degree, though Owl Practice’s Zencare listing is more modern and client-friendly.
Pros & Cons
Pros - Helpful automation features
- Intuitive calendar and scheduling tools
- Mobile apps for practitioners and clients
- Website builder and marketing tools
- Broad feature set that scales well
Cons - Generally more expensive than Owl Practice
- Can feel more complex than necessary for smaller practices
- Support experience is more variable than smaller platforms
Carepatron
Cost: $29-49+ monthly
Compared to Owl Practice: More flexible and budget-friendly, but slightly less therapy-specific and less “guided” in its mental health workflows.
Carepatron supports core therapy workflows effectively, while offering more flexibility and automation than Owl Practice. Carepatron also leans more heavily into AI-assisted features, which may appeal to clinicians who want help with notes, summaries, or workflow optimization. For clinicians who want help filling their caseload, Owl Practice has a clear advantage with its Zencare integration. Carepatron, by contrast, doesn’t offer any help with marketing.
Pros & Cons
Pros - Free plan available with strong core features
- Modern, intuitive design
- Built-in telehealth with group session support
- Good automation tools even at lower tiers
- Scales affordably as your practice grows
Cons - Limited storage without paid upgrades
- Some customization options are basic
Practice Better
Cost: $35–$155+ monthly
Compared to Owl Practice: Stronger for client engagement tools, and automation-heavy workflows—but typically costs more and doesn’t have any marketing or client acquisition features.
Practice Better is a great fit for wellness-oriented or integrative practices that rely on courses/programs, messaging-based engagement, wellness tracking tools, and flexible workflows. Compared to Owl Practice, it’s typically more powerful for client engagement and automation, but also more complex—and costs can climb quickly as you scale or add features. Practice Better doesn’t offer any options for directory listings or client acquisition like Owl Practice does.
Pros & Cons
Pros - Modern, intuitive design that's easy to navigate
- Powerful client engagement tools (journals, programs, tracking)
- Strong automation and integration options
- Robust telehealth built-in
- Scales easily for solo or group practices
Cons - Pricing can climb quickly with add-ons
- More focused on holistic and integrative practices
- No built-in recurring scheduling for sessions
- Free trial requires a credit card
Why You Should Trust My Review
This review is based on my direct, hands-on use of Owl Practice in various scenarios designed to reflect how therapists actually work. I tested core features like scheduling, intake, charting, billing, and telehealth from both the clinician and client sides, simulating solo practice workflows and small team setups to see how the system performs day to day.
Beyond Owl itself, we evaluated its features against other top mental health EHRs like SimplePractice, Carepatron, Practice Better, and My Best Practice. Our team has reviewed nearly every major mental health EHR system out there, which helps us identify what sets each one apart, and where they fall short.
History & News
- Year Founded: 2013
- Founders: Andrew Sloss
- Headquarters: Toronto, Ontario, Canada
According to the company website, Owl Practice was founded in 2014 in Toronto, with the goal of creating a secure, user-friendly platform tailored specifically to the needs of mental health professionals. From the beginning, the company positioned itself as a privacy-first solution, placing heavy emphasis on Canadian data residency, PHIPA compliance, and end-to-end encryption—an approach that continues to appeal to privacy-conscious users in both Canada and the U.S.
In its early years, Owl Practice focused on solo practitioners, offering a streamlined set of tools for scheduling, notes, and payments. Over time, it expanded its feature set to support group practices, including secure messaging, clinical measures, medication tracking, and more robust administrative tools. In 2022, Owl Practice launched a long-awaited insurance billing add-on, giving U.S. users access to claim filing and eligibility verification (for an additional fee).
One of Owl’s biggest recent moves was its partnership with Zencare, a popular therapist directory. This optional integration allows practices to boost visibility and get listed on Zencare while streamlining profile management through the EHR. As of 2025, Owl Practice continues to roll out quality-of-life improvements and integrations, while maintaining its reputation as a clean, stable, privacy-forward platform focused squarely on therapy and behavioral health practices.
ChoosingTherapy.com strives to provide our readers with mental health content that is accurate and actionable. We have high standards for what can be cited within our articles. Acceptable sources include government agencies, universities and colleges, scholarly journals, industry and professional associations, and other high-integrity sources of mental health journalism. Learn more by reviewing our full editorial policy.
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Owl Practice Suite. (n.d.). About us. Retrieved from: https://owlpracticesuite.com/aboutus/
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Owl Practice Suite. (n.d.). Pricing. Retrieved from: https://owlpracticesuite.com/pricing/
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Church, M. (2026). SimplePractice Review: Is It Right for Your Practice? Retrieved from: https://www.choosingtherapy.com/simplepractice-review/
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Church, M. (2026) Carepatron Review: Is It Right For Your Practice? Retrieved from: https://www.choosingtherapy.com/carepatron-review/
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Church, M. (2026). Practice Better Review: Pros & Cons, Cost, & Who It’s Right For. Retrieved from: https://www.choosingtherapy.com/practice-better-review/
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Boudin, M. (2026). The Best Mental Health EHR of 2025. Retrieved from: https://www.choosingtherapy.com/best-mental-health-ehr/
We regularly update the articles on ChoosingTherapy.com to ensure we continue to reflect scientific consensus on the topics we cover, to incorporate new research into our articles, and to better answer our audience’s questions. When our content undergoes a significant revision, we summarize the changes that were made and the date on which they occurred. We also record the authors and medical reviewers who contributed to previous versions of the article. Read more about our editorial policies here.
Author: Matthew Church, MS (No change)
Medical Reviewer: Melissa Boudin, PsyD (No change)
Primary Changes: Re-scored on new set of scoring criteria. Entire article updated with fresh hands-on testing, revised pricing and insurance cost analysis, and structural improvements for clarity and readability. Refreshed user review insights, updated comparisons to alternatives, and refined the article to better reflect real-world practice workflows.
Author: Matthew Church, MS
Medical Reviewer: Melissa Boudin, PsyD
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