Jane App vs SimplePractice: Which Wins for Solo Therapists?
If you're a solo therapist setting up your practice — or thinking about switching — you've almost certainly run into both Jane App and SimplePractice. They're two of the most popular practice management platforms for mental health providers, and on the surface they do the same job: scheduling, notes, telehealth, billing, and a client portal, all in one place.
But they come at the problem from different directions, and the right pick depends less on which one is "better" and more on how you work. This is a focused head-to-head for solo practitioners. For a wider look including TherapyNotes, see our SimplePractice vs TherapyNotes vs Jane comparison.
Quick verdict
Here's the short version, so you don't have to read 1,500 words to get oriented.
SimplePractice is the safer default for a purely mental health solo practice. It's built specifically for behavioral health, the interface is polished, the telehealth is genuinely good, and there's a huge community of therapists using it — which means more guides, more peer support, and more insurance-billing muscle memory baked into the product.
Jane App is the better pick if you run a mixed or multi-disciplinary practice, care about online booking, or simply prefer its cleaner, more flexible scheduling. It started in allied health (physio, massage, chiro) and expanded into therapy, so it's less therapy-specific but more adaptable.
Neither is a bad choice. Both will keep you compliant if you configure them properly. The rest of this guide is about the differences that actually matter when you're the only person running the show.
Pricing
Both companies change their pricing periodically and run tiered plans, so treat these as ranges and check current pricing before you commit.
As of 2026:
- SimplePractice starts around $29/month for its entry tier and climbs to roughly $69–$99/month for the plans most solo therapists actually end up on (the mid and top tiers unlock things like insurance claim filing, unlimited telehealth, and the full client portal). The cheapest plan is genuinely limited — most people don't stay on it.
- Jane App uses a per-practitioner model starting around $54/month (USD) for its Base plan, with higher tiers (roughly $79/month) adding features like insurance/claims tooling and more customization. Jane also charges for some add-ons like SMS reminders separately.
The headline is that SimplePractice looks cheaper at the door, but once you add telehealth and insurance billing the real-world monthly cost of the two lands closer than the starting prices suggest. Don't compare the $29 to the $54 — compare the plans that include the features you'll actually use.
A note on payment processing: both take a cut or a per-transaction fee on card payments through their built-in processors. If you take a lot of card payments, factor that in — it's easy to overlook when comparing sticker prices.
HIPAA and the BAA
This is the part solo therapists worry about most, and the good news is simple: both Jane App and SimplePractice will sign a Business Associate Agreement (BAA) with you, and both use strong, industry-standard security (TLS encryption in transit, AES-256 at rest, MFA, US-available data hosting).
- SimplePractice rolls the BAA into account setup — you accept it as part of onboarding, and a copy lives in your account settings. Frictionless.
- Jane App provides a BAA for US customers as well. Because Jane is Canadian-headquartered, it also complies with PIPEDA (Canada's privacy law); US customer data can be hosted in US data centers.
Here's what a signed BAA does and doesn't do, because this trips people up constantly.
What the BAA does: it makes the vendor legally responsible for protecting the PHI they store and transmit on your behalf, and obligates them to notify you of breaches. It's a required piece of your compliance — under the HIPAA Security Rule you must have one with any vendor that handles client information.
What the BAA does not do: it does not make your practice compliant. A signed BAA with your EHR covers that one vendor. It says nothing about your email, your risk analysis, your written policies, your training, or your other vendors. Choosing a platform that signs a BAA is the floor, not the finish line.
So on HIPAA specifically, this isn't a tiebreaker. Both clear the bar. The decision comes down to the features and the feel.
Feature head-to-head
Here's the practical comparison across the areas a solo therapist touches every day.
| Feature | SimplePractice | Jane App |
|---|---|---|
| Built for | Behavioral health specifically | Multi-discipline (incl. therapy) |
| Scheduling | Solid, therapy-oriented | Excellent, very flexible |
| Online booking | Good | Best-in-class |
| Notes / documentation | Therapy-specific templates, strong | Customizable, less BH-specific out of the box |
| Telehealth | Built-in, polished | Built-in, reliable |
| Insurance / billing | Strong, integrated claim filing | Capable, improving; add-on tiers |
| Client portal | Full-featured, clean | Full-featured, strong forms |
| Mobile app | Strong iOS/Android app | Web-first; mobile experience thinner |
| Ease of use | Very approachable | Clean but a bit more to learn |
| Support | Email/chat, big user community | Well-regarded, responsive support |
| Starting price | ~$29/mo (real-use ~$69+) | ~$54/mo (USD) |
A few of those rows deserve a sentence more.
Scheduling and online booking. This is Jane's home turf. If a big part of your practice depends on clients booking themselves online, Jane's booking flow is widely considered the smoothest in the category. SimplePractice's is perfectly good — it just isn't the thing it's famous for.
Notes and documentation. SimplePractice ships with therapy-native note templates (intake, progress notes, treatment plans) that feel purpose-built. Jane's documentation is highly customizable, which is powerful, but you may spend more time setting up templates to match a therapy workflow because it's designed to serve many disciplines.
Telehealth. Both have HIPAA-eligible video built in, so you're not bolting on a separate Zoom BAA. SimplePractice's telehealth is often singled out as especially polished, with a smooth client-side experience and no separate download for clients.
Insurance and billing. SimplePractice has a long track record with insurance claim filing and integrated clearinghouse features, which matters if you're paneled with insurers. Jane handles billing well and keeps improving its US insurance tooling, but historically SimplePractice has had the edge for insurance-heavy US therapy practices.
Mobile. If you want to check your schedule or write a quick note from your phone, SimplePractice's native mobile app is a real advantage. Jane leans web-first.
Which fits a solo therapist better?
The comparison table tells you what's different. Here's how those differences land when you're a one-person practice with no admin staff and no IT department.
Onboarding effort. SimplePractice is designed to get a solo behavioral-health provider running quickly — the defaults are already therapy-shaped, so there's less to build from scratch. Jane is flexible, which is a strength, but flexibility means more decisions up front. If you want to open the box and start seeing clients this week, SimplePractice usually gets you there faster.
Learning curve. Both are approachable by EHR standards. SimplePractice is a little gentler because it assumes you're a therapist. Jane is clean and logical but has more surface area, since it's built to serve practices that look nothing like yours as well as ones that do.
Price sensitivity. If budget is tight and you're not billing insurance, look closely at what each entry tier actually includes — SimplePractice's cheapest plan may cover you, or it may push you up a tier the moment you want telehealth. Jane's per-practitioner pricing is straightforward for a solo provider but starts higher. Map your must-have features to the specific plan that includes them, then compare those two numbers.
Practice type. This is the cleanest deciding line. Purely psychotherapy, insurance in the mix, want the most therapy-native experience? Lean SimplePractice. Blending modalities, running group or multi-provider services, or leaning hard on online self-booking? Lean Jane.
So which should you choose?
There's no honest universal winner here, and anyone who declares one is selling something. Both platforms sign a BAA, both are secure, both do the whole job.
Choose SimplePractice if you want the most therapy-native, polished, mobile-friendly experience, you bill insurance, and you'd rather have sensible defaults than lots of configuration. For a typical solo psychotherapist, it's the path of least resistance.
Choose Jane App if you value best-in-class online booking and flexible scheduling, run a mixed or multi-disciplinary practice, or simply prefer its cleaner, more customizable feel and don't mind a bit more setup.
The most reliable way to decide is to run a free trial of each with your own real workflow — schedule a fake week, write a sample note, send yourself a test telehealth link — rather than judging from screenshots. Whichever you pick, the platform is one vendor decision among many.
For the fuller picture — including TherapyNotes, which is especially strong on audit logging and compliance documentation — see our SimplePractice vs TherapyNotes vs Jane comparison.
And remember the thing both platforms' marketing quietly leaves out: a HIPAA-compliant EHR does not make your practice HIPAA compliant. You still need a Security Risk Analysis covering your whole practice, written policies, BAAs with your other vendors, security training, and an incident response plan. The EHR is a tool. Compliance is what you do with it — and everything around it.
If you're not sure where your practice stands, take Yundra's free HIPAA Risk Assessment. It takes about 25 minutes, covers every compliance category (not just your EHR choice), and hands you a specific list of gaps to close.