What changed on October 1, 2026
Until this autumn, SimplePractice’s Essential plan included 10 insurance claims a month and Plus included 35. From October 1, 2026 every claim costs $0.39 on every plan, and the free allowance is gone. For a practice that files a few hundred claims a month through SimplePractice, that is a new line on the bill; for one whose biller files from their own system, it changes nothing.
The rest of the rate card is unchanged: Starter $49, Essential $79 and Plus $99 a month for one clinician, with each added clinician from $74. Adding team members at all requires Plus, where non-clinician staff such as schedulers and billers are free and practice managers are $39 a month. A 30-day trial needs no card.
Who should stay
A solo therapist filing their own in-network claims is SimplePractice’s best customer. Our $99 monthly minimum is the same as its Plus rate, so there is no saving to chase, and you would give up in-app claim filing for an export your biller has to submit. Stay.
The case for looking elsewhere is a group of two or more whose claims already go through a biller: you pay $74 a head for clinicians, plus Plus, to keep a claims pipeline you do not use.
Plus, priced as a group grows
SimplePractice publishes the per-clinician rate up to five; six or more go to its sales team, so the table stops there. Claim fees, the AI tools and the AMA fee are left out of both columns.
| Practice | Clinicians | SimplePractice Plus | MegAligna |
|---|---|---|---|
| Solo | 1 | $99 | $99 |
| Small group | 3 | $247 | $99 |
| Group | 5 | $395 | $100 |
Our minimum covers up to 4 clinical seats, so a practice adding its second, third or fourth clinician pays nothing more here; at SimplePractice each one is $74.
Three costs sit outside the table. SimplePractice charges a compulsory $20 a year per clinician for AMA CPT codes ($18.50 royalty, $1.50 processing). Its AI documentation tools are add-ons: Care Aide at $59 for the account owner and $49 per added clinician, or Note Taker alone at $35. And the 39-cent claim fee has no counterpart here, because this product hands finished charges to your biller rather than filing them.
Where SimplePractice is ahead, and where it is not
SimplePractice's column comes from its pricing page, its October 2026 insurance update and its support articles, checked October 14, 2026. Rows where SimplePractice is ahead are included.
| MegAligna | SimplePractice Plus plan | |
|---|---|---|
| In-app claim filing to payers 1 | No | Yes |
| Clients ask for appointments online 2 | No | Yes |
| Free logins for schedulers and billers 3 | Yes | Yes |
| Authorization tracking 4 | Yes | Yes |
| SOAP, DAP and BIRP formats ready to use 5 | Partial | Ask the vendor |
- 1 $0.39 a claim from October 1, 2026. MegAligna exports superbill and CMS-1500 data for your biller to submit, a different workflow, not an equivalent one.
- 2 SimplePractice lets clients request appointments online on every plan.
- 3 Not a difference on Plus, where non-clinician team members are free. On Starter and Essential, team members cannot be added at all.
- 4 SimplePractice records the authorization number, number of uses and valid dates per client. Here, units are drawn down against the authorization and checked at booking.
- 5 SimplePractice lists a template library; which named formats it presets is not stated on the pages we checked. Here you build the note layout from your own fields: the signing, co-signing and addendum lifecycle is shipped, but the named formats are not preset for you yet.
For the move itself, switching from SimplePractice covers what the importer accepts, what arrives as attached documents rather than structured data, and the order to cut over in.
Common questions
Does the October 2026 claim fee apply to every plan?
Claims are mid-adjudication in SimplePractice. Can we still switch?
How do telehealth sessions work here?
Set up a test group practice and a free biller seat
14 days, no card required. Use made-up patients while you evaluate: real patient information waits until a business associate agreement is in place.
Sources
- SimplePractice pricing: Starter $49, Essential $79, Plus $99 a month; $74/month per additional practitioner; 6+ practitioners via sales; 30-day trial, no card; Care Aide $59 plus $49 per added clinician, Note Taker $35 (checked October 14, 2026)
- SimplePractice insurance update: from October 1, 2026, $0.39 per claim on all plans and no free claims on Essential or Plus (checked October 14, 2026)
- SimplePractice support, features by plan: team members only on Plus, unlimited non-clinician team members at no cost, practice managers $39 a month, clients can request appointments online (checked October 14, 2026)
- SimplePractice support, AMA fee FAQs: $20 a year per clinician, $18.50 AMA CPT royalty plus $1.50 processing (checked October 14, 2026)
- SimplePractice support, authorization tracking: authorization number, number of uses and valid dates entered per client (checked October 14, 2026)