SimplePractice is the dominant platform for solo practitioners in health and wellness — therapists, counsellors, nutritionists, and allied health. Clinical documentation, telehealth, insurance workflows, and a client portal that patients navigate without help. Mako is a different category: the business platform underneath a service company, with no clinical records layer. Being clear about that boundary is more useful than pretending the two overlap completely.
SimplePractice: Published. Starter at $49/month, Essential at $79/month, and Plus at $99/month for the first practitioner. Group practices add roughly $74/month per additional practitioner. Promotional first-months discounts are frequently displayed — check what the rate becomes afterwards.
Mako: Pulse is free. Basic at $139/month — the complete platform with three team members. Team at $249/month — fifteen team members, advanced reporting, QuickBooks sync. Enterprise at $999/month — unlimited members. Roughly 20% off annually, no contract.
The per-practitioner line is the comparison. Solo, SimplePractice at $49–$99 is well under Mako's $139. A three-person group practice on Plus is $99 plus two at $74, about $247/month — level with Mako Team at $249, which covers fifteen. A six-person practice is roughly $469 against the same $249.
SimplePractice is built for regulated practice. If you need clinical notes, treatment plans, telehealth with compliance obligations, or insurance claim submission, that is a requirement Mako does not meet and you should choose accordingly. Verify specifics against your own licensing body rather than any vendor's marketing.
If your practice is wellness rather than clinical — coaching, bodywork on a cash basis, nutrition without insurance, a studio with treatment rooms — then the compliance layer you would be paying for is not the thing you need, and business operations become the deciding factor.
Notes, treatment plans, and compliant video in one system. Deep, mature, and not something a general platform replicates.
Claim submission, tracking, and superbills. Essential where insurance is a revenue channel.
At $49 to start, it is significantly cheaper than Mako for one practitioner.
Genuinely good, and patients use it without needing to be walked through it.
$74 per additional practitioner compounds fast. Six practitioners is roughly $890 a month more per year than a flat tier. Mako's Team covers fifteen at $249 with nothing added per head.
Profit per service after practitioner pay, cash-flow forecasting, unit economics, LTV. SimplePractice reports billings and appointments well but is not built to answer whether a service line is profitable.
Percentage splits varying by service and seniority, tips, timesheets, payouts — native, and historically accurate against the rate that applied on the day.
Supplements, products, packages, memberships, classes alongside one-to-one work — one platform, with margin visible.
Pick SimplePractice if:
Pick Mako if:
Your practice is a business. Not a hobby, not a side project, not a calendar with a cash register. It deserves software that treats it accordingly. If your platform cannot tell you whether you are financially healthy, it is not doing its job. And in 2026, you have better options.
See Mako in action — no sales call required
Mako is built for independent practice owners who would rather spend their time on clients than on demo calls. Open the live demo, poke around, and see exactly how booking, payments, and financial intelligence come together in one place.
Try the demo: https://app.makocrm.so/demo
Self-serve. Instant access. No forms, no calendars, no "talk to sales."
