Blueprint AI for Therapists: Notes, Cost and Alternatives to Check

Blueprint does not appear to have a permanent free plan: its pricing page offers a short free allowance (5 free sessions, or a 30-day trial of its all-in-one record system), then session credits from $0.99 a session. A solo therapist who wants free notes should compare Heidi Free and Carepatron Free, then check privacy terms on all three.

That first sentence rests on the Blueprint pricing page as it read on 4 November 2026, and promotions move quickly, so treat the numbers as a snapshot. The more durable question is not "which is free" but "which tool produces notes I will actually sign, under terms I can explain to a client". The rest of this tutorial is built around that question, using sums for a typical solo caseload and a short trial design you can run yourself.

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What Blueprint's pricing page says, and what it leaves open

Blueprint sells in two shapes, and the AI features are described as the same in both.

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• Alongside your EHR (EHR means electronic health record, the system where client files live): you keep your current record system and use Blueprint for drafting. The page shows $0.99 per session, with 5 free sessions to start, and elsewhere describes a flat $69 per seat per month for unlimited sessions. The page presents both, so confirm which one applies to your sign-up before you pay.
• All-in-one EHR: Blueprint becomes your record system with scheduling, intake forms, telehealth, a client portal and insurance billing. The price shown is $1.49 per session, with a 30-day free trial.
• The FAQ wording: further down, the same page says every new sign-up starts with 30 days of free sessions and full access. That sits a little awkwardly beside the "5 free sessions" on the alongside card, so ask support which allowance your account actually has before you plan a trial around it.
• Enterprise: custom plans.

The page also states that session credits never expire, there is no monthly minimum or contract, there is a 60-day money-back guarantee, and no credit card is needed for the trial. It mentions a time-limited 50% offer on a first purchase and, for the all-in-one route, payment-processing fees that are waived for now and due to start in February 2027 at 3.15% plus $0.30 per transaction.

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What the page does not say is that any tier stays free after the trial. So the answer to the usual search, "is the free version of Blueprint enough?", is that there is a free start, not a free version. That is not a criticism: a trial lets you test your own notes. It just changes the comparison, because what you are weighing against Heidi Free and Carepatron Free is an eventual per-session price.

What the privacy page says

Blueprint's privacy and security page states that client information is never sold, shared or used to train AI models. It says recording is optional, that when used audio is deleted immediately after processing and no recordings, copies or backups are kept, and that drafts remain editable until you approve them. It lists two health-privacy compliance badges and a SOC 2 Type II certification, says data is encrypted in transit and at rest, and says a business associate agreement (BAA) is included automatically when you sign up, with a signable copy available if you want one for your files. A BAA is the contract that makes a vendor responsible for handling protected health information on your behalf.

Those are the vendor's own statements. Your job is to confirm the BAA is in force for your account before the first real session, and to ask what "deleted immediately" covers if a note generation fails halfway. The checklist at AI note-taking tools for therapists: a confidentiality checklist gives the wording.

The three alternatives, as their own pages describe them

Two cautions on that table. First, Carepatron's token allowance is described in tokens, which a solo therapist cannot easily convert into sessions; the sensible test is to run a normal week and see whether you hit the cap. Second, SimplePractice prices are add-ons on top of the EHR subscription, so the true monthly cost for a solo clinician is the Starter plan plus Note Taker: $49 plus $35, or $84 a month at list price, before any introductory discount.

Break-even sums for three caseloads

Illustrative caseloads, using only the Blueprint figures above. A month is taken as 4.3 weeks.

• Part-time, 12 sessions a week: about 52 sessions a month. At $0.99 each, about $51. A flat $69 seat would cost more.
• Full-time, 25 sessions a week: about 108 sessions a month. At $0.99, about $107. The flat $69 seat is cheaper.
• Break-even: $69 divided by $0.99 is roughly 70 sessions a month, or about 16 a week. Below that, per-session pricing wins; above it, the seat wins, if the seat price turns out to be the one you are offered.

Put those next to the alternatives and the cash picture is simple: Heidi Free and Carepatron Free cost $0 in subscription, Blueprint costs from about $50 to $110 a month for most solo caseloads, and a paid Heidi seat at $110 a month is the same order as Blueprint at full-time volume. Cash is rarely the deciding factor, because ten minutes saved a session is worth far more than $50 a month to a therapist charging a normal fee. The deciding factors are the next three sections.

Four checks that decide the choice

1. Does the note format match yours?

Blueprint's page lists custom note templates, treatment plans, discharge summaries and after-visit summaries. Heidi lists standard templates on the free tier and custom templates on the paid tier. Carepatron lists note templates inside its practice system. If your notes follow a specific structure (say, a goal-intervention-response format), the question is whether the free tier lets you save that structure or only offers the standard ones. Heidi's comparison table shows custom templates as a Clinician feature, so a free user may be limited to standard ones.

2. What happens to audio and transcripts?

This is where tools differ most, and where defaults change. Blueprint says audio is deleted immediately after processing. Heidi's data privacy and security FAQs say it does not store audio recordings of consultations, but that transcripts and notes are kept until you delete them unless you set a retention period: accounts default to "never delete", and you can choose anything from one day upwards. SimplePractice began keeping de-identified, de-coupled Note Taker transcripts on 17 June 2026, and anyone who switches Note Taker on after that date is opted in by default (earlier users stayed opted out); you can opt out per clinician, per client or per session. That is a good example of why you re-read terms each quarter. Ask each vendor: what is kept, for how long, de-identified how, and can I switch it off. See which vendors sign a BAA for therapists for the contract side.

3. Can you get your records out?

If the tool is only a drafting layer, your records stay where they are and the risk is small. If it becomes your record system (Carepatron, SimplePractice, Blueprint all-in-one), export rights matter. Before moving real clients, export a test file and open it. Check that notes, treatment plans and dates come out in a form another system or a clinical audit could read.

4. What does editing cost you?

The most useful measurement is editing time per note. A tool that drafts in seconds but needs five minutes of fixing is not better than one that needs one minute. The trial design below measures it.

A two-week trial you can run alone

Illustrative plan for a solo therapist with consenting clients. Pick two tools, not four, otherwise you will not finish.

1. Get consent. Tell clients which tool you are testing and what it does. Offer a no-recording option for anyone who prefers it. Wording ideas are in should therapists tell clients they use AI.
2. Pick ten sessions per tool across your normal mix: an assessment, a routine follow-up, a difficult session.
3. Time each note from end of session to signed note, and write the number on a sticky note.
4. Mark each draft for three things: facts wrong, facts invented, and tone off.
5. Compare to your own baseline, measured over five sessions where you write the note by hand.

Trial log (illustrative)
Tool A, 10 sessions:  avg 3 min 10 s to sign. Wrong facts: 4. Invented facts: 1. Tone off: 2.
Tool B, 10 sessions:  avg 5 min 40 s to sign. Wrong facts: 1. Invented facts: 0. Tone off: 5.
Own baseline, 5 sessions: avg 11 min.

In that illustration Tool A is faster, but its one invented fact is a real concern, since a signed note with a claim the client never made is a clinical and professional problem. Tool B is slower but safer. The log lets you make that trade-off on evidence rather than on which brochure was nicer. If you want a deeper recording versus dictation comparison, recording or dictation style covers it.

A sample draft and what to fix in it

Below is an invented example of the kind of output a scribe might produce from a session, with edits marked. No real client is involved.

Draft: "Client reported significant improvement in anxiety since last session and has resumed full-time work. Client agreed to practise breathing exercises daily."

Review:
- "significant improvement" - client said "a bit calmer on Tuesdays". Change to "reported feeling calmer on some days".
- "resumed full-time work" - client said they had one full day. Change.
- "daily" - client agreed to try "when I remember". Change.

All three edits tone the draft down to what was said. That is the pattern to watch for: scribes tend to smooth hedged speech into confident statements, and the confident version ends up in the file. Build the habit of checking every quantity, frequency and change-over-time claim, because those are where drafts drift.

One solo practice, walked through

Illustrative, with invented figures. A solo counsellor sees 18 clients a week for 46 weeks a year, keeps records in a separate system, and spends about 10 minutes writing each note, mostly in the evening. That is 18 notes a week, or 3 hours of evening writing. She wants that gone, and has a small budget.

Her sums for the year: 18 sessions times 46 weeks is 828 sessions. At $0.99 a session that is about $820 a year on Blueprint's per-session route, or $828 on the flat $69-a-month alternative (12 times $69), so the two come out almost level at her volume. A free tool costs $0 in subscription. If a free tool saves 6 of the 10 minutes per note, that is 828 times 6 minutes, roughly 83 hours back each year. If Blueprint saves 7 minutes, the extra hour per year is not worth $820 on its own. What would justify the cost is a difference in draft quality that she can measure, or a privacy term she cannot get elsewhere.

So she starts with Heidi Free for ten sessions and Carepatron Free for ten, logs times and errors as in the trial above, and keeps Blueprint's five free sessions for a final comparison. After two weeks she has numbers: one tool needs fewer fixes, the other has the template she prefers. She then reads the terms, signs the agreement where one is offered, and decides. Nothing about that process cost her anything.

A consent paragraph you can adapt

Whichever tool you pick, clients should hear about it before the first session that uses it. A plain paragraph for your intake paperwork might read as follows. Adapt it to your practice and ask your professional body whether your area requires specific wording.

"I use a software tool to help me write my session notes. If you agree, it will turn a recording or my own dictation into a draft note, which I read, correct and sign. The tool's provider has agreed in writing to protect your information, and [does / does not] keep the recording after the note is made. The tool does not make clinical decisions. You can say no at any time, and I will write your notes myself. Your choice does not affect your care."

Notice that the paragraph states what the tool does, who reads the output, what happens to the recording, and that refusal costs the client nothing. Replace the bracketed phrase with the actual answer from the vendor's current terms, and revisit it whenever the vendor changes its policy.

Where a change of tool tripped someone up

An illustrative failure, drawn from the kind of thing that happens when a practice moves tools. A therapist moves from a free scribe to a paid one in the middle of a quarter. The new tool's templates use different headings, so her notes from the first half of the quarter and the second half look inconsistent, and a records review notes that the format changed with no explanation. Nothing was clinically wrong, but she had no record of why. The fix is a one-line note in her practice policy: the date the tool changed, the reason, and the template version in use. Keep a short change log of this kind for any tool that touches records.

The questions to put to each vendor

Keep the answers, with the date, in a folder. If a regulator or an insurer ever asks why you chose a tool, that folder is your evidence. The privacy side of this decision goes further in the confidentiality checklist.

When each option wins

• Heidi Free fits a therapist who already has a records system and wants a no-cash trial of ambient notes. Check template limits and set a short retention period for transcripts, since the default keeps them.
• Carepatron Free fits someone starting a practice who wants scheduling, a portal and notes in one place and can live with 1GB of storage and the token cap. Expect to upgrade as volume grows.
• SimplePractice Note Taker fits a practice already on SimplePractice that wants one vendor and one login, and that has opted out of transcript retention or decided, in writing, why it is staying in.
• Blueprint fits a clinician who wants a pay-as-you-go model with no subscription, who values the privacy statements and templates, and who has run the trial.

If you are not sure, start with a free option for two weeks and keep Blueprint's free sessions in reserve as a second test. Do not sign up for annual billing until you have used a tool on at least 20 sessions.

What to read in the contract before the first client session

Everything above can look fine on a pricing page and still be wrong for your practice. Before real client data goes in, read the following in each tool's terms and write one line per item in your own records.

1. Is a BAA or equivalent data-processing agreement available and signed for your account?
2. Where is data stored, and which sub-processors handle audio or text?
3. Is any content used to improve the vendor's models, even de-identified?
4. How long are transcripts and drafts kept, and can you delete them?
5. What happens to your data if you cancel, and how long do you have to export?
6. What is the vendor's breach notification promise?

The fuller guidance, with sample wording for a consent form, is in can therapists use ChatGPT for session notes, which also explains why a general chat assistant is a different risk from a purpose-built tool. If you need to take the decision to a clinical supervisor or a professional body, the sums, the trial log and the contract checklist above are what to bring.

Blueprint and its alternatives: what therapists ask

Does Blueprint have a permanent free plan?

Not on the pricing page I read on 4 November 2026. New accounts get a short free allowance, shown as 5 free sessions for the add-on route and a 30-day trial for the all-in-one record system, then you buy session credits. Check the page again before you sign up, because offers change.

Can I use a free AI note tool with real client sessions?

Only if the vendor will sign a business associate agreement or the equivalent data-processing contract for your situation, and its terms on audio and training suit you. Free does not mean unregulated, and free does not mean private. Read the terms, then tell clients what you use.

Is it safe to switch note tools mid-caseload?

Yes if you keep your own records in a system you control. Trial the new tool with two or three consenting clients, compare drafts against your usual notes, and run both for two weeks. Do not move your only copy of client records into a tool you have not exported from.

Which option is cheapest for a part-time therapist?

For fewer than about 70 sessions a month, per-session pricing such as Blueprint's can beat a flat seat price, and Heidi Free or Carepatron Free cost nothing in cash. Cash price is only one input: weigh data terms, template fit and how much editing each draft needs.

Further reads

• Best AI Software for Therapists in a Group Practice: Seat Costs — Seat costs once you have several clinicians.
• AI Scribe Costs Compared: What Small Clinics Pay in 2026 — What small clinics pay across scribe tools.
• AI Scribe for Occupational Therapists: A Buyer's Checklist — A buyer's checklist for another therapy profession.
• How to Roll Out an AI Scribe Without Losing Patient Trust — Introduce a scribe without losing client trust.
• What Is an AI Scribe and How Does It Work in a Consultation? — How a scribe works in the room.
• Automated Booking Systems for Therapists: Which Ones Automate What? — Booking tools that pair with a notes tool.
• How to Use AI on SimplePractice: Note Taker or Care Aide? — A decision rule for solo therapists: when SimplePractice Note Taker is enough, when Care Aide earns its extra $24, and how to trial each safely.
• What Does an AI Scribe for Therapists Cost a Solo Practice? — List prices for five AI scribe routes for a solo therapist, with cost per note, annual totals and the privacy defaults to check.
• BACP AI Guidance: A Checklist for UK Counsellors Before Using AI — BACP's published ethics resources turned into a practice-owner checklist with dated actions, from consent wording to what to do if a tool fails.
• Can AI Draft Mental Health Treatment Plans? The Review Steps — A clinician review checklist for AI-drafted treatment plans: who owns the goals, what the AI may format, and what to check before sign-off.
• AI Tools and AI Development: The Complete 2026 Guide — the AI hub, including every tutorial in the AI-for-business series.

Sources: Blueprint pricing, privacy and security and BAA pages; Heidi Health pricing page; Carepatron pricing page; Heidi data privacy and security FAQs; SimplePractice pricing page and transcript retention FAQs (all read 4 November 2026).