Cliniko Pricing in the UK: Practitioner Plans and Text Costs

For a practice with two practitioners, Cliniko costs $95 a month (the 2 to 5 practitioner band), plus pre-paid text credits at 10 cents each. Reception and admin users are free. At 200 to 600 one-credit texts a month, texts add $20 to $60, for a total of about $115 to $155.

The single most useful fact is that the plan is priced by practitioner band, not by individual seat. Going from one practitioner ($45) to two moves you to $95, and going from two to five does not change the price at all. The part of the bill that moves from month to month is the texts, and that is where a small clinic has real control.

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The plan bands, and what two practitioners actually pay

Cliniko's pricing page lists monthly prices in dollars (USD) by number of practitioners. As of November 2026 they read as follows.

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Two practitioners at $95 is a poor deal per head ($47.50 each) compared with a full band of five. That is worth knowing if you are tempted to wait before adding a colleague: the second practitioner adds $50 a month, and the third, fourth and fifth add nothing. If you are on a tight budget and the second person is part-time, the question is whether they count. Cliniko's FAQ says the subscription is based on "the number of practitioners who will be using your account", so ask Cliniko support how it counts a locum or a part-timer before you sign up, and get the answer by email.

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What the plan includes

Every plan includes every feature, with no tiers. The pricing page lists unlimited admin and reception users, locations, file storage and patients, plus free support, backups and a minimum of 2 per cent donated to charity. There is a 30-day free trial that does not require card details, though some features such as telehealth only become available once a card is entered. A subscription can be cancelled at any time without a minimum term.

A few smaller details change the real cost:

• Annual billing: paying annually gives one month free each year on top of the trial. On $95, that is $1,045 for the year instead of $1,140, a saving of $95.
• Plan changes: if you change plans mid-month you are credited and charged pro rata, so adding a second practitioner on the 20th does not cost a full $50 for that month.
• No discounts: Cliniko states it does not offer discounts, other than free use for registered charities and educational institutions.
• Third-party apps: apps connected to Cliniko, such as AI scribes or receptionists, may have their own fees. That is outside the $95.
• Currency: prices are quoted in dollars (USD). If your bank converts, a foreign-transaction fee of a percentage may apply; ask your card provider. If your accounts software or the checkout adds a local sales tax, budget for it too.

How text messages are charged

This is where bills drift. The pricing page and FAQ state that SMS credits are pre-paid and cost 10 cents per message, and the help centre explains how a message maps to credits.

• One credit covers up to 160 characters, spaces and symbols included. A 300-character message costs two credits, and the count steps up for every further 160 characters or part of it.
• Every SMS sent from Cliniko uses credits: reminders, follow-ups, forms, group messages, practitioner notifications and forwarded patient replies.
• Practitioner notifications and forwarded replies are capped at one credit each because Cliniko truncates them to 160 characters.
• The template editor shows an estimate of credits, but the real cost depends on what the placeholders fill in, such as a long patient name or address.
• Credits are bought in advance, in lots of 200 or more, from the SMS settings page once a card is on file, and drawn down as messages go out. The help articles I read did not describe an automatic top-up, so check your own account before relying on one.

The help centre notes that the cost of a credit varies by country and tells you to check the pricing page for your own. The pricing page and FAQ I read quoted 10 cents in dollars, so check what your own account shows before you budget.

Reminder timing, and why it affects the bill

Cliniko's reminders are built from templates linked to appointment types. According to its help articles:

• Confirmations are email only and go a couple of minutes after booking.
• Reminders can be email or SMS. You choose a reminder period of 1 to 9 days before the appointment and a time window, such as between 10:00 and 11:00.
• Follow-up messages can go from 1 day to 2 years after an appointment, with a time window and a skip-weekends option. You can send to everyone, only people who arrived, only those who did not arrive, or everyone except no-shows, and skip patients who already have a later appointment.
• Recalls are a separate tool. You create recall types (from 1 to 100 days, weeks or months), apply them to patients and run a recalls report to see who is due.

Every extra message is a credit. One reminder a day before is the baseline. A second reminder on the morning of the appointment doubles that line of spend. Whether the second message earns its keep depends on your no-show rate, and you can find out by running a month with one and a month with two. The principle behind timing is covered in how to reduce no-shows with reminders, which applies whatever software you use.

The main worked example: a two-practitioner clinic

Illustration only, using round numbers. A clinic has two practitioners, one receptionist working part-time, and 50 appointments a week between them. A month is about 4.3 weeks, so call it 215 appointments.

The clinic sets up these messages:

• An SMS reminder one day before, kept under 160 characters: 215 credits.
• An SMS follow-up to patients who arrived, a week later, for roughly half of appointments: about 108 credits.
• Practitioner notifications and forwarded replies: say 40 a month, one credit each.
• One group message to everyone about a holiday closure, to 300 active patients: 300 credits, once a quarter, which averages 100 a month.

Over a year that is about $1,696 on those assumptions, or roughly $1,600 if the clinic pays annually and takes the free month on the plan part. Texts are about a third of the total, so a small change in message length matters more than it looks.

A longer message that costs double: before and after

Cliniko's own help centre shows how a 300-character reminder uses two credits. Here is an illustrative version of the same problem and fix, with placeholders as Cliniko-style templates would fill them.

Before (about 290 characters after the placeholders fill in = 2 credits)
Hi [first name], this is a reminder of your appointment on [date] at [time] with [practitioner]. Please remember we are on the first floor, parking is limited on the street, and please arrive 10 minutes early to complete your forms. If you need to cancel please give us 24 hours' notice. Thank you, [clinic name]

After (about 150 characters = 1 credit)
Hi [first name], reminder: [date] at [time] with [practitioner]. Please arrive 5 mins early. Need to change? Reply or call [number]. [clinic name]

On 215 reminders a month, that saves 215 credits, or $21.50 a month, about $258 a year. The details removed are not lost. Move the parking and floor information into the confirmation email, which costs nothing, and keep the text for time, person and how to change.

Cliniko's help centre suggests two more savings that need no rewriting. Use the short placeholders: Patient.FirstName instead of Patient.FullName, and Appointment.DateShort, which prints 27/08/26 instead of 27 Aug 2026. And if patient replies are forwarded to a practitioner's mobile, each forward costs a credit, so switch mobile forwarding off under Settings, Communication, SMS settings and keep email forwarding, since emails from Cliniko are free. A patient with a long double-barrelled name on a full-name, long-date template can tip a borderline reminder into a second credit on her own, which is exactly the case the short placeholders prevent.

Three other clinic shapes, priced the same way

A solo practitioner. $45 for the plan. With 25 appointments a week (about 108 a month) and one 150-character reminder each, texts are $10.80, so the bill is $55.80. At this size, deciding whether to text at all is a $10 decision. Most would keep it.

A busy four-practitioner clinic. $95 for the plan, and 4 x 28 = 112 appointments a week, about 480 a month. Reminders alone are $48. With a follow-up on three quarters of visits ($36) and a few group messages, texts reach $100 or more. The plan is still $95. In a clinic this size, texts can cost more than the software, so message length is a real lever.

A six-person group. The jump to $145 begins at six practitioners. If you have five and are weighing a sixth, the sixth costs $50 a month more and is worth hiring only if they bring in far more than that, which a half-day of billable work would. The price band should not influence hiring, but it is useful to know it exists.

Where the real costs sit outside the price list

A subscription page never lists the things that decide whether a system is cheap. For a small clinic these are the ones I would count.

• Setup time. Signing up takes moments, but building templates, appointment types, reminders and follow-ups for each practitioner takes longer, and each SMS template has to be linked to the right appointment types before anything sends. Budget a few hours of your own time.
• Moving data. Cliniko says it will help migrate data from many systems at no cost. Patient demographics import from spreadsheet files; notes and invoices often have to be attached as files or retyped.
• Connected apps. Phone assistants, scribes, forms and payments often come from third parties with their own monthly fees, so a clinic that adds three can double its software spend.
• Time on reminders. If reception phones patients who do not reply, that labour is more expensive than any text.

Checking where your credits go

You do not have to guess. Cliniko's help centre explains how: in Settings, open Our clinic and then Cliniko subscription to see credits purchased, and under Settings, Data & docs, Data exports run a Communications export for any date range. Filter the spreadsheet by type SMS and direction Sent and you have a rough count. It will not show exact credits per message, because that varies by length, but you can see which template drives the volume.

Here is a filled-in review you could do on the first of each month.

Month: [month]     Credits bought: ___     Credits left: ___
Messages sent by type
Reminders: ___   Follow-ups: ___   Forms: ___   Group: ___   Other: ___
Biggest template by volume: ____________
Estimated credits per message for it: ___ (1 = under 160 characters)
Action: shorten / move detail to email / stop sending / keep
No-show rate this month: ___%   Last month: ___%

If the no-show rate has not moved after you doubled the messages, stop doubling them. If it fell, you have your answer on a $20 line item.

Pricing the follow-up and recall messages you have not built yet

Most clinics start with a reminder and stop. The messages that earn money are the ones that bring someone back, and they are where text spend grows, so cost them before you build them. Here are four illustrative message types for the two-practitioner clinic above, with the credits each would use.

Two points follow. A short check-in costs a dime, so a campaign to 300 lapsed patients costs about $30 if each message fits in one credit. And the closure notice is the same price as three reminders, so put the detail on your website or in an email and send a one-line text with a link.

Deciding between monthly and annual billing

The pricing page says annual payment gives one month free each year, and you can switch the billing cycle in Settings. For a two-practitioner clinic that means paying 11 months of $95 for 12 months of use. The arithmetic is simple: $1,045 against $1,140, a saving of $95, or about 8 per cent of the plan fee. The trade-off is cash flow and flexibility. Because there is no minimum term, a monthly payer can stop at any time, whereas an annual payer has paid for the year ahead. The page does not say whether the annual fee is refundable if you leave early, so ask support before choosing annual if there is any chance you will move systems.

My rule of thumb: pay monthly through the 30-day trial and the first three or four months while you settle templates and confirm the workflow, then switch to annual once you are sure. Do not buy credits in bulk before you know your volume. Buy for a month or two, check the usage review above, then settle on a top-up size that covers about a month of messages.

A short script for the questions to ask Cliniko support

If any figure in your own sum depends on how Cliniko counts something, ask in writing so there is a record. A message you could send:

Subject: Practitioner count and SMS credits before we subscribe

Hello,

We are a clinic with two practitioners, one of whom works two days a week, and three admin staff.
1. Which band would we be on, and does a part-time practitioner count as one?
2. Is a locum covering a month counted while they are active?
3. What is the SMS credit price on our account, and in which currency do we pay?
4. If we pay annually and leave after six months, is any of the fee refundable?
5. Is there an automatic top-up for SMS credits, and can we cap monthly SMS spend?

Many thanks,
[your name]

Keep the replies with your accounts. If an answer contradicts the pricing page, quote the page back and ask which applies. Cliniko's pricing page says everyone pays what they see on the website, which is the point of asking.

What the sum looks like if one thing goes wrong

Run one stress test before committing. Suppose a template change accidentally makes every reminder 330 characters, so each one takes three credits. On 215 reminders a month, credits jump from 215 to 645, an extra 430 credits and $43 a month. The same mistake on a four-practitioner clinic doubles that. The defence is the communications export from the previous section and a habit of looking at the estimate shown in the template editor each time you edit a message. Treat the estimate as a floor, because longer names and addresses push the real count higher.

Using the 30-day trial to test your own numbers

The trial is the cheapest way to replace every assumption above with a measured figure. Cliniko says you can use it for 30 days without payment details, and the account closes itself if you never add a card. Because telehealth and some other features only become available after a card is entered, add one only when you are ready to test those, and remember it will be charged automatically at the end unless you cancel; the pricing page says a reminder email arrives five days beforehand.

A good trial plan has three steps. First, build one reminder template and one follow-up template and look at the credit estimate for each. Second, book ten dummy appointments with your own phone number and see exactly what arrives and when. Third, export the communications log and count. If the ten dummy patients each received what you meant them to, and the credit estimate matches your sum, you can sign up with real confidence in the figure, not just the plan price.

What Cliniko does not include, and how that changes the sum

Cliniko is a practice management system, and the pricing page does not list a built-in AI scribe or phone assistant. Its connected-apps directory lists third-party tools, including AI receptionists and scribes, that integrate with it. Those carry their own fees. A fair comparison with an all-in-one competitor therefore has to add the apps you actually plan to use. I compare costs across alternatives in cost by number of practitioners and Cliniko against Halaxy, and the question of what AI adds on top is in price per practitioner and what AI adds.

If you are choosing between systems, ask each one to price your clinic in a single message: practitioners, appointments a month, messages per appointment, and any apps. Cliniko's published pricing makes that easy. Not every competitor does.

Cliniko cost questions from small practices

Do receptionists and admin staff cost extra on Cliniko?

No. Cliniko's pricing page and FAQ say administrator and reception users are unlimited and free. You pay by the number of practitioners using the account, so a two-practitioner clinic with three admin staff still sits in the 2 to 5 band.

Is there a contract or a setup fee?

Cliniko states there is no minimum term and no upfront cost, and you can cancel at any time. There is a 30-day free trial. Paying annually gives one month free each year, according to its pricing page. Data transfer from another system is free.

Why is my text bill higher than I expected?

Every reminder, follow-up, form link, group message and forwarded reply uses credits, and a message over 160 characters uses an extra credit per 160. Long clinic addresses and parking notes are the usual cause. Shorten the template and check the Communications export.

Which currency will I be billed in?

Cliniko's pricing page states that prices are in dollars (USD). Check your own account's billing page and ask your card provider whether foreign-currency fees apply, since that can add a small percentage to every payment.

Further reads

• Physiotherapy Clinic Software Compared: Which Has Built-In AI? — Which clinic software has AI built in.
• Cliniko for Doctors: Fit, Cost and the AI Tools That Sit Around It — Whether Cliniko suits a doctor's practice.
• AI Tools for Physiotherapy Clinics: What Each One Actually Does — What AI tools for clinics actually do.
• AI Receptionist for Physiotherapy Clinics: Cost and Booking Setup — Phone-answering costs to add to your Cliniko total.
• AI Tools and AI Development: The Complete 2026 Guide — the AI hub, including every tutorial in the AI-for-business series.

Sources: Cliniko pricing page, FAQ, features pages and help-centre articles on SMS credits, reminders, follow-up messages and recalls (viewed 4 November 2026).