Splose, WriteUpp or Zanda for a Small UK Therapy Practice

A solo or small-team UK counsellor or therapist choosing between these three needs to weigh entry price against fit. Zanda's Starter plan is the cheapest way in at £15 a month but caps you at 1,000 appointments. WriteUpp, from £19.95 a month, sends PHQ-9, GAD-7 and CORE-10 assessment forms to clients ahead of sessions and auto-populates the record. Splose at £18 a practitioner a month is the strongest all-rounder if you also do allied-health-style work. None is a wrong choice for a small practice; the right one depends on what your notes need to capture.

Key pointers

• Zanda Starter is the lowest entry price at £15 a month, but caps a solo practice at 1,000 appointments in total before it converts to the £25-plus Growth plan.
• WriteUpp sends PHQ-9, GAD-7 and CORE-10 assessment forms to clients ahead of a session and auto-populates their record; Zanda's template library also has ready-made scored PHQ-9 and GAD-7 forms, plus PCL-5, DASS and others, that a practice imports and completes itself.
• Splose's £18-a-practitioner plan includes everything except its AI note-writing add-on and card payment processing; non-practitioner staff (a bookkeeper or assistant) are free on all three platforms in some form.
• Zanda's AI drafting tool (BizzyAI: Write and Refine) is free on every plan; its live-session AI Scribe is billed at £1 a transcription hour. Splose AI is £22.50 a user a month and WriteUpp's AI Medical Scribe is £23.95 a user a month, both paid add-ons. Any of these processes special category health data, so UK GDPR requires each client's explicit, documented consent before it is switched on.
• SMS reminder costs differ: 9p a message at Zanda, 10p at Splose, and from 5p a credit in WriteUpp's bundles, with WriteUpp's Solo plan including 100 credits a month free.
• Splose's 14-day trial needs card details upfront and auto-renews into a paid plan unless cancelled; Zanda's 14-day trial and WriteUpp's 30-day trial need no card.
• Ask each supplier about UK support hours before you sign: WriteUpp advertises dedicated UK-based support, Splose's UK support window is 9am to 5pm UTC, and Zanda includes phone support only on its Growth plan.
• None of the three is a specialist counselling-body product; check whether your BACP, UKCP, HCPC or NCPS record-keeping requirements are met by the platform's note templates before committing.

What a Talking-Therapy Practice Actually Needs From This Software

A physiotherapy or podiatry clinic mostly needs a diary and a SOAP note. A counsellor or psychotherapist needs that plus a note that can hold session content, risk and safeguarding observations, and, often, a standard outcome measure such as PHQ-9 (depression), GAD-7 (anxiety) or CORE-10, sent to the client before a session and pulled straight into their record. Not every practice management system treats that as a named feature.

The other differences that matter at this scale are the free trial length, the SMS reminder cost (a private practice with a full diary sends dozens a week), whether an admin assistant or bookkeeper seat is free, and what happens if a course of therapy generates more sessions than a starter plan's appointment cap allows.

The Three Platforms at a Glance

Zanda, formerly Power Diary, has a dedicated counsellor practice management page describing booking, notes, billing, a client portal for online booking, and an integrated AI tool that drafts counselling notes, emails, letters, templates and policies from session content. It connects with Zoom, Google Calendar and Xero, states ISO 27001 certification, and offers a 12-month money-back guarantee with no lock-in contract.

WriteUpp is built across a wide range of allied-health and talking-therapy professions, explicitly including counsellors, psychotherapists and CBT therapists. Its psychotherapy profession page names PHQ-9, GAD-7 and CORE-10 as built-in assessment forms that auto-populate the client record, alongside built-in video consultations, Healthcode insurer invoicing and two-factor authentication. WriteUpp states it is ISO 27001 certified, supports 50,000-plus practitioners, and offers dedicated UK-based support.

Splose is an Australian platform that has expanded into the UK and markets itself primarily at allied health and rehab practices, though psychology and counselling practices use it too. Its single plan covers progress notes, a CRM, online forms, telehealth, batch invoicing, payment processing and an open API on one price, with splose AI (note drafting, powered by OpenAI) sold as an add-on. Splose's own UK data guide is unusually clear that AI-assisted note-writing needs a client's documented, opt-in consent under UK GDPR, because therapy notes are special category health data; the same consent point applies whichever platform's AI add-on you switch on.

Price Compared for a Solo Practitioner

Splose bills annually by default at the £18 rate shown here; paying monthly instead brings it to £20 a practitioner. WriteUpp states its prices exclude VAT where applicable, so a solo practitioner should check the VAT treatment of their own subscription. Zanda states that no UK tax is added to its subscription or add-on prices, so the listed figure is what a UK practice actually pays.

For a solo counsellor doing straightforward one-to-one talking therapy with modest SMS volumes, Zanda's £15 Starter plan and WriteUpp's Solo plan at £27.95 (with SMS bundled in) sit at opposite ends of what "entry level" means here: one is the cheapest number on the page, the other bundles in the SMS allowance a busy diary will otherwise pay for separately.

AI Notes, SMS and the Costs That Change the Real Bill

All three now sell an AI note-writing add-on: splose AI at £22.50 a user a month, WriteUpp's AI Medical Scribe at £23.95 a user a month, and Zanda's AI counselling notes bundled into its own plans. None of these are optional extras you can switch on quietly. Splose's own guidance for UK practices is explicit: because a therapy note is special category health data under UK GDPR, using an AI feature to help write it requires informing the client, explaining what the tool does, and recording their explicit consent before it processes a single session, with the ability to withdraw that consent later. That obligation sits with the practice, not the software vendor, and it applies equally if you choose WriteUpp's or Zanda's AI tools instead.

SMS reminders are the other line item worth pricing against your own diary before choosing. Zanda charges 9p a message, Splose charges 10p, and WriteUpp sells credits in bundles from as low as 5p, with its Solo plan including 100 credits a month at no extra cost. A solo practice sending 150 reminders a month would pay roughly £13.50 at Zanda, £15 at Splose, and nothing extra on WriteUpp Solo until the 100-credit allowance runs out.

Which Platform Fits Which Practice

A brand-new solo counsellor building a caseload slowly, watching costs and unlikely to hit 1,000 appointments in the first year, is well served by Zanda's £15 Starter plan; the cap is a feature at that stage, not a problem, and the AI notes and counsellor-specific page mean the product is not a generic afterthought.

A practice that wants outcome-measure forms sent to clients automatically ahead of a session, video sessions built into the diary rather than bolted on, and invoices submitted to insurers through Healthcode, fits WriteUpp best; its Solo plan at £27.95 with SMS included is priced for exactly this shape of practice, and its counsellor and psychotherapist profession pages describe that clinical workflow directly, even though WriteUpp also serves physiotherapists, podiatrists and other allied-health professions.

A counsellor or psychologist who also runs group work, rehab-style caseloads, or wants an open API to feed reporting into Power BI or a similar tool sits better on Splose, provided the £18-a-practitioner base plan plus optional AI at £22.50 fits the budget; it is the most feature-complete single plan of the three, but it is not built with therapy-specific templates the way WriteUpp is.

None of these three should be chosen on price alone. A practice switching software later, once client records are established, pays in migration time and re-training what it would have saved by trialling properly first.

Questions to Ask Before You Sign

• Does the note template support risk and safeguarding entries the way your supervision or professional body expects, not just a generic progress note?
• What happens to your data, and your clients' consent status, if you cancel or downgrade a plan?
• Is the AI note-writing add-on opt-in per client, and can you produce a consent record if asked by a client or a regulator?
• What UK support hours does the supplier actually offer, and is phone support included or a paid extra?
• If you outgrow a starter or flex plan, what is the exact next-tier price, and does it apply per practitioner or per user?

Sources

• Splose UK pricing - Splose
• splose AI & Your Clients' Data: A Guide for UK Practices - Splose support centre
• How to get in touch with support - Splose support centre
• WriteUpp pricing - WriteUpp
• WriteUpp homepage - WriteUpp
• Practice Management Software for Psychotherapists - WriteUpp
• Zanda UK pricing - Zanda
• Counsellor Practice Management Software - Zanda
• BizzyAI: AI Scribe for All Allied Health Practitioners - Zanda
• Understanding Zanda Subscription Plans - Zanda
• Create your splose workspace and invite your team - Splose support centre
• How much does the trial cost and what do I get? - WriteUpp knowledge base
• Using Scored Forms - Zanda
• Cheap Practice Management Software: Best Options for UK Clinics - BookedSolid