Mentalyc Alternatives: 5 Options for 2026 (Honest Fit Guide)

Quick answer (for featured snippet)

The best Mentalyc alternative depends on your caseload and how much you want the tool to do. For low-volume solo work, usage-based tools like Upheal ($1/session, capped at $69/mo) or Blueprint (from $0.99/session) often cost less. For unlimited high-volume scribing, Freed's Core plan ($79/mo) or Mentalyc's own group plan are predictable. For a behavioral-health-specific assistant that pairs an ambient scribe with a drafting and chat surface, trial PsyFi. Confirm a signed BAA before sending real PHI to any of them.

Why clinicians look for a Mentalyc alternative

Mentalyc is a capable AI note tool, and for plenty of practices it's the right answer. People go shopping for an alternative for a handful of practical reasons: per-note caps that don't match their volume, a price that creeps up as they add seats, a documentation style that doesn't match how they actually write, or a desire for a tool built specifically for behavioral health rather than general medicine.

This guide compares five honest options for 2026. For each, you'll get the public pricing, who it's genuinely best for, and where it's likely to frustrate you. No tool wins on every axis — the goal is to match the tool to your practice, not to crown a "best."

A note on compliance before we start: every option below handles protected health information, so a signed Business Associate Agreement (BAA) is non-negotiable. PsyFi's stance is HIPAA-aligned, BAA available — and you should demand the same in writing from any vendor here. For the full vetting checklist, see our guide to HIPAA-safe AI therapy notes.

The 5 Mentalyc alternatives at a glance

First, the baseline. Mentalyc in 2026 runs four individual tiers — Mini $19.99/mo (40 notes), Basic $39.99/mo (100 notes), Pro $69.99/mo (160 notes), and Super $119.99/mo (330 notes) — plus a Group Practice plan at $59.99/seat/mo, or $49.99/seat billed annually, with unlimited notes. There's a 14-day free PRO trial. The note caps are the thing to watch: if you routinely write more than your tier allows, you'll feel it.

Here are five alternatives worth a look.

1. Upheal — best for variable, lower-volume caseloads

Upheal moved to usage-based pricing in 2026: $1 per completed session, capped at $69/mo per provider, with a feature-limited free tier and a custom Enterprise plan. The paid plan bundles AI documentation with scheduling, telehealth, client billing, and forms — it's positioned as a light EHR, not just a scribe.

Best for: clinicians with an uneven schedule. If you have a slow month, you pay for a slow month; if you're slammed, the $69 cap protects you. Watch for: if you want a focused drafting tool rather than a full practice platform, the EHR surface area can feel like more than you need.

2. Freed AI — best for high-volume, unlimited scribing

Freed restructured to four tiers in 2026: Starter $39/mo (40 notes), Core $79/mo (unlimited notes), Premier $104/mo annual or $119/mo monthly (adds EHR push and ICD-10 coding), and a custom Groups quote. Core's unlimited notes at a flat rate is the headline for busy clinicians.

Best for: high-volume practices that want predictable, uncapped pricing and are comfortable with a tool originally built for general medicine. Watch for: Freed's roots are medical, not behavioral-health-specific, so you may do more editing to get your SOAP/DAP voice right.

3. Blueprint — best for a free EHR core with pay-per-use AI

Blueprint offers a free core EHR and charges for AI on a usage basis, starting around $0.99 per session. You only pay when the AI assistant does work for you.

Best for: solo clinicians who want a no-cost charting backbone and are happy to pay incrementally for AI help. Watch for: usage-based AI can be hard to forecast at volume — model your expected monthly session count before assuming it's cheaper.

4. Your EHR's built-in AI — best for single-vendor simplicity

If you already live in an EHR, its native AI add-on is the lowest-friction path. TherapyNotes' TherapyFuel, for example, layers onto TherapyNotes (which starts at $69/mo per clinician) for roughly $40/mo per clinician on top. Notes land directly in the chart with no second login. We compared one of these head-to-head in TherapyFuel vs PsyFiGPT.

Best for: teams that prize a single vendor and want notes inside their existing record. Watch for: you're locked to that EHR's template logic and clinician-level controls, which tend to be thinner than a purpose-built assistant.

5. PsyFi (Scribe + GPT) — best for behavioral-health-specific work across two surfaces

PsyFi is built for behavioral health, and it's two products that work together. PsyFi Scribe captures the session — an ambient scribe tuned for 1–4 speaker sessions (solo, family, interpreter) that produces a structured draft (CC, HPI, MSE, treatment-plan starter). PsyFiGPT is the drafting and chat surface, with behavioral-health SOAP/DAP templates, voice/tone switching, encrypted memory, team and saved prompts, and the ability to pull a completed Scribe transcript straight into a chat. PsyFi is HIPAA-aligned, BAA available, with audit logging and clear data-handling controls. Plans start around $10/mo for solo clinicians and scale to team tiers.

Best for: clinicians who want documentation tooling designed around behavioral-health language and workflows — not a medical scribe adapted after the fact — and who like having the capture surface and the drafting surface speak to each other. Watch for: if you only want a single, do-everything billing-and-scheduling EHR, PsyFi is focused on documentation and assistance rather than replacing your practice-management stack. Start at /products/ or read more about PsyFi Scribe.

A concrete workflow: a 4-clinician group practice switching off note caps

Say you run a four-clinician practice. Two of your clinicians write 25 notes a week; two write 12. On a per-note individual plan, your busy clinicians keep bumping the cap and you're either upgrading tiers or rationing AI help — neither is great.

Here's the migration most practices run:

1. Measure real volume first. Pull last month's session counts per clinician. Your two busy clinicians are at ~100 notes/month — above most "basic" caps.
2. Pick the pricing shape that fits. With that volume, a flat unlimited plan (Freed Core, or a group plan) usually beats per-note tiers; a per-session capped model (Upheal) protects the lighter clinicians. If you want behavioral-health-specific drafting and a shared template library across the team, trial PsyFi's team tier in parallel.
3. Recreate your templates as prompts. Export two or three representative notes, then rebuild your SOAP/DAP structure in the new tool so the voice matches from day one.
4. Run both tools for one week. Have each clinician write in the new tool and spot-check against their old workflow. Compare edit time, not just completeness.
5. Confirm the BAA, then cut over. Get the signed BAA, verify retention and deletion settings, then cancel the old subscription at the billing-cycle boundary.

That five-step pattern works regardless of which tool on this list you land on — the discipline is measuring volume and testing on real (consented) sessions before you commit.

How to choose

• Low or uneven volume? A per-session model (Upheal, Blueprint) usually wins.
• High, steady volume? A flat unlimited plan (Freed Core, a group plan) is the predictable choice.
• Want one vendor and notes in your chart? Your EHR's built-in AI.
• Want a behavioral-health-specific assistant and an ambient scribe that talk to each other? Trial PsyFi.

Whichever you pick, the rules don't change: demand a signed BAA, test with consented real sessions before you trust it, and treat every AI output as a draft until a licensed clinician reviews and signs it.

This post compares publicly listed pricing as of June 2026; confirm current pricing and BAA terms directly with each vendor. Nothing here is legal advice — consult your compliance lead.