A small private physiotherapy clinic treatment room in a UK high street building, mid-morning light through a sash window, a height-adjustable treatment couch with folded blue towels, a set of resista

Cliniko, Nookal or Semble for a growing UK physiotherapy clinic

3 October 2026 9 min read

Cliniko publishes practitioner-band pricing in US dollars only, while Nookal shows native GBP pricing that steps down per seat, and Semble publishes no subscription price. At the 28 September 2026 exchange rate, Cliniko undercuts both Nookal plans at the practitioner counts compared from three upwards, although its saving narrows at band boundaries; Nookal Essentials is cheaper at one and two practitioners.

Written by Daniel Thomas

Cliniko prices every clinic in US dollars, while Nookal publishes native GBP pricing that steps down per seat as the clinic grows. Converted at the 28 September 2026 exchange rate, Cliniko's dollar bands work out cheaper than Nookal at the practitioner counts compared here from three upwards; Nookal Essentials wins for a solo practitioner or a two-practitioner clinic. Semble publishes no subscription price, so budget for a quote.

Key pointers

A genuine solo practitioner pays least on Nookal's Essentials plan, £29 a month; add a second practitioner and it is still the cheapest option at £58.
From three practitioners upward in the comparison below, Cliniko works out cheaper at the 28 September 2026 exchange rate, although its saving narrows when the clinic enters a higher price band.
Nookal's own pricing page caps Essentials at 12 practitioners; a clinic that will outgrow that needs Professional (from £39 a head) or a custom Enterprise quote.
If Healthcode insurance claims matter, price the claim fee, not just the subscription: Nookal charges a sliding scale from 0.70% down to 0.30% of claims value, while Cliniko users can choose an optional billing integration or submit insurer invoices separately through ePractice.
Cliniko's price list is in US dollars only; check at signup whether your card is charged in dollars and whether your card issuer charges a foreign transaction fee.
Ask Semble for a fully itemised quote (base fee, Heidi AI, OnBrand branding, SMS, Semble Pay) before assuming it is comparable to Cliniko or Nookal on price.
Neither Cliniko's nor Nookal's published price includes VAT; both vendors' own terms state fees are charged exclusive of tax.

Choosing between Cliniko, Nookal and Semble — Practitioner headcount and the choice of integrated or separate insurer billing both affect the cost comparison.

Why a straight price comparison needs converting first

A small UK physio, osteopathy or allied health clinic choosing a diary system usually starts by lining up headline prices. That only works cleanly when every vendor quotes the same currency, and here they do not. Cliniko's pricing page shows practitioner bands in US dollars only, with the note "Prices are in United States dollars (USD)" and no sterling option anywhere on the page. Nookal, by contrast, detects a UK visitor and shows native GBP pricing, with a per-seat rate that gets cheaper as the practitioner count climbs.

That difference means Cliniko and Nookal are genuinely hard to compare on price without doing a currency conversion yourself, because Nookal's total moves with headcount alone while Cliniko's sterling-equivalent cost also moves with the exchange rate on the day you are billed.

Semble sits outside this comparison in a different way. It has no published subscription price. Its own site offers demo bookings rather than a subscription price list, and it positions allied health as one of five specialities it serves, alongside primary care, secondary care, mental health and pharmacy; its published customer stories feature a GP founder, a GP co-founder and a consultant cardiologist rather than a physiotherapist, which is worth knowing before requesting a quote.

How the monthly cost moves as you add practitioners

Cliniko's every-feature-included pricing runs in bands, so an extra practitioner costs nothing more only while the clinic remains within its current band. Adding a sixth practitioner moves the monthly subscription from $95 to $145. Converted to sterling at the 28 September 2026 market rate of £1 to $1.3256, and rounded to the nearest pound, those bands come out as follows. Treat the Cliniko column as an estimate: Cliniko's own price is fixed in dollars, and your actual sterling cost depends on your card issuer's exchange rate and any foreign transaction fee on the day you are billed.

Practitioners	Nookal Essentials	Nookal Professional	Cliniko (GBP equivalent)
1	£29	£39	≈£34
2	£58	£78	≈£72
3	£80	£100	≈£72
5	£122	£142	≈£72
6	£142	£162	≈£109
8	£182	£202	≈£109
12	£250	£274	≈£147
16	not sold past 12 seats	£338	≈£223
25	not sold past 12 seats	£463	≈£223

Read across a row and the pattern is consistent. At one and two practitioners, Nookal Essentials is the cheapest line on the page. By three practitioners, Cliniko's £72 equivalent has already dropped below Nookal Essentials' £80, but the saving does not grow continuously: it falls from approximately £50 at five practitioners to £33 at six as Cliniko enters its next band. At twelve practitioners, Cliniko's £147 equivalent is roughly £103 a month below Nookal Essentials and £127 below Nookal Professional. Nookal's own bands are graduated too, so its per-seat rate falls as the clinic grows, while Cliniko's wider bands produce periods of flat subscription cost between price steps.

What you get for the money

Cliniko	Nookal Essentials	Nookal Professional	Semble
Subscription price shown in	US dollars only	GBP	GBP	Not published
Admin and reception users	Unlimited, free	Unlimited, free	Unlimited, free	Not confirmed
Native telehealth	Included, every plan	Via integrations	Via integrations	Built-in video consultations powered by Whereby
API access	Included, every plan	No	Included	Open GraphQL API
Insurer claims	No native integration; optional billing add-on or separate submission	No	Yes, sliding % fee	Direct submission of private medical insurance invoices
SMS reminders	10 US cents each	UK advertised starting rate £0.04 per outbound SMS; confirm Essentials rate	UK advertised starting rate £0.04 per outbound SMS; confirm Professional rate	5p per segment
Free trial	30 days, no card	Yes	Yes	Not shown on site; demo route
Published subscription price list	Yes	Yes	Yes	No

Nookal's UK pricing page says SMS rates vary by plan; its £0.04 starting rate is not established as the rate for both Essentials and Professional.

Price alone does not settle the choice, because the three platforms are not selling the same thing at every tier.

Cliniko keeps one feature set at every practitioner band: every clinician gets the same clinical notes, invoicing, online booking, native telehealth and open API, and admin or reception staff cost nothing extra. Its main UK gap is integrated insurer billing. There is no native claims route; an optional connected app provides integrated billing under its own commercial terms. Clinics can treat insured patients without that app and submit insurer invoices separately.

Nookal splits its feature set by tier. Essentials covers diary, client records, clinical notes, basic invoicing and online booking, but has no patient portal, no custom forms, no recalls, no API and no insurer claiming integration. Neither Nookal tier includes native video calling; Nookal's own telehealth page lists third-party integrated solutions rather than a built-in call feature. Professional adds custom forms, recalls, API access and integrated insurer claiming billed as a percentage of the value claimed each period rather than a flat monthly fee; the patient portal remains a paid add-on. That makes Professional the fairer like-for-like comparison against Cliniko's all-inclusive plan for a clinic that wants automation and insurer billing, and the pricing table above shows Cliniko ahead of Professional at every practitioner count from two upward.

Semble is different again. Rather than a fixed feature list per band, it markets a single connected platform, electronic health record and workflow automation, aimed as much at GP practices, consultants and corporate occupational health as at allied health clinics. It confirms built-in video consultations powered by Whereby, launched from its calendar, an open GraphQL API and direct insurer invoice submission. Because subscription prices are not published, comparing it fairly means asking for the same things every time: the base per-user rate, whether Heidi AI ambient scribing and OnBrand white-label branding are included or billed separately, a distinction one rival vendor's published cost comparison spells out, plus how card payments through Semble Pay are charged, and whether the quote changes if the practice adds a location or specialism later. SMS costs 5p per segment, so longer messages increase the charge.

Editorial analysis

For a small UK allied health clinic that expects to stay at one or two practitioners for the foreseeable future, Nookal's Essentials plan is the cheapest sensible starting point, and its 12-seat cap is unlikely to bind for a while. The moment a third chair is filled, or automation and insurer claiming become a priority, it is worth running the actual numbers again rather than assuming the vendor you started with is still the cheaper one. On the published figures here, converted at the 28 September 2026 exchange rate, Cliniko is the more likely winner for most growing UK physiotherapy, osteopathy and allied health practices, provided the clinic is comfortable with a subscription priced in US dollars and either doesn't need insurer claiming or is happy to use an optional billing integration or separate insurer invoicing.

Clinics with heavy private medical insurance volume should weight claims integration ahead of the headline software price. Nookal's sliding claim fee (0.70% falling to 0.30% as claimed value rises) is transparent and scales with claims value, which suits a clinic that is still building its insurer book. A high-volume clinic should model that percentage against the optional connected app's own fees and the costs and administrative work of separate submission before deciding which route is cheaper.

Semble is the outlier worth a phone call rather than a spreadsheet line. Its own marketing puts allied health alongside four other specialities rather than at the centre of the product, and with no published subscription price, a fair comparison only starts once a written quote is in hand covering the base fee and every add-on a physiotherapy clinic would actually use.

Sources

Data & Insights

Monthly software cost by practitioner count

At the 28 September 2026 exchange rate, Cliniko undercuts both Nookal plans at the counts shown from three practitioners upwards, but its saving narrows from five to six.

View the data

Monthly software cost by practitioner count
Category	Nookal Essentials (GBP)	Nookal Professional (GBP)	Cliniko, indicative GBP equivalent
1	£29.00	£39.00	£34.00
2	£58.00	£78.00	£72.00
3	£80.00	£100.00	£72.00
5	£122.00	£142.00	£72.00
6	£142.00	£162.00	£109.00
8	£182.00	£202.00	£109.00
12	£250.00	£274.00	£147.00

Source: Cliniko and Nookal pricing pages, GBP/USD rate 28 September 2026

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Cliniko or Nookal cheaper for a two-practitioner UK physiotherapy clinic?

Nookal Essentials is cheaper at two practitioners: it comes to £58 a month against roughly £72 for Cliniko's two-to-five practitioner band, converted at the 28 September 2026 exchange rate. The gap reverses once a third practitioner joins, when Cliniko's flat band price starts to beat Nookal's per-seat total.

Does Cliniko charge UK clinics in pounds sterling?

Not as a published price. Cliniko's pricing page states prices are in US dollars, with no GBP option shown. Check at signup which currency your card is charged in and whether your card issuer applies a foreign transaction fee.

Can a UK clinic bill insurance claims directly from Cliniko?

Not natively. The optional connected app reads invoices from Cliniko and submits claims to insurers such as Bupa, AXA and Aviva under its own commercial agreement. Clinics can also submit insurer invoices separately, so the app is not a requirement for treating insured patients.

How much does Nookal charge for insurer claims?

Sections 6.2 and 8 of Nookal's UK claims agreement publish claim-value bands of 0.70% up to £3,500, 0.55% from £3,500.01 to £12,000, 0.40% from £12,000.01 to £50,000 and 0.30% from £50,000.01 upwards, with payments collected fortnightly by direct debit. This sits on top of the Professional or Enterprise subscription, since the claims integration is not available on Essentials.

Why doesn't Semble publish its pricing?

Semble does not state why it has no public subscription price list. Its own website offers demo bookings, so ask for a written quote. One competitor's pricing guide estimates a starting cost of around £119 a user a month, but that figure comes from a third party, not Semble itself.

Can a growing clinic stay on Nookal's Essentials plan indefinitely?

No. Nookal's own pricing calculator caps Essentials at 12 practitioners; a clinic that grows past that has to move to Professional, starting at £39 a practitioner with graduated pricing and no seat cap, or negotiate a custom Enterprise agreement for a larger, multi-site group.

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Cliniko's live pricing page shows only US dollar bands: $45 for one practitioner, $95 for two to five, $145 for six to eight, $195 for nine to twelve, $295 for thirteen to twenty five, $395 for twenty six to two hundred. There is no GBP toggle.
Converted at the 28 September 2026 GBP/USD market rate of 1.3256, those bands work out at roughly £34, £72, £109, £147, £223 and £298 a month, before any card foreign transaction fee.
Nookal's Essentials plan starts at £29 a practitioner and its per-seat rate steps down as the clinic grows; the plan is capped at 12 practitioners, enforced by Nookal's own pricing calculator.
Nookal's Professional plan starts at £39 a practitioner, has no seat cap, and adds custom forms, recalls, invoice automation, API access and insurer claiming; the patient portal costs extra.
Every Cliniko plan, from one practitioner to two hundred, includes the same feature set: unlimited admin and reception users, unlimited locations and storage, and native telehealth.
Cliniko has no built-in insurer claims integration; Effra is an optional connected app under its own commercial terms, and clinics can instead submit insurer invoices separately.
Sections 6.2 and 8 of Nookal's UK claims agreement publish claim-value bands of 0.70% up to £3,500, 0.55% from £3,500.01 to £12,000, 0.40% from £12,000.01 to £50,000 and 0.30% from £50,000.01 upwards, with payments collected fortnightly by direct debit.
Both vendors charge per SMS reminder on top of the subscription: Cliniko's rate is 10 US cents a message; Nookal's UK pricing advertises outbound SMS from £0.04, with rates varying by plan rather than a confirmed £0.04 rate for both Essentials and Professional. AI + Voice is a paid add-on for UK Professional and Enterprise customers; Secure Messaging is region-restricted and omitted from the UK offering.
Neither vendor's published price includes VAT. Cliniko's terms state fees are "exclusive of taxes, levies or duties"; Nookal's UK terms say fees "exclude any taxes or duties payable in the jurisdiction".
Cliniko gives one free month a year on annual billing, roughly an 8.3% saving; Nookal's pricing page does not publish an equivalent annual discount.
Semble's own website has no published subscription price list and lists allied health as one of five specialities alongside primary care, secondary care, mental health and pharmacy.
Semble's SMS pricing is 5p per segment; longer messages incur multiple segment charges.