Grow Therapy vs ClinikEHR 2027: Insurance Network vs Your Own Practice System (You May Need Both)

Quick Answer: ClinikEHR vs Grow Therapy

Both give you clinical tools, but they do different jobs. Grow Therapy is an insurance network for therapists and prescribers: it credentials you, bills insurance, sends you clients and pays you weekly per session, and its provider page lists "EHR, scheduling, and secure telehealth" and "AI scribe and documentation tools" among what it provides. ClinikEHR is the system for your own practice: private-pay and any-payer clients, your own booking page and brand, CRM, clinic email, email marketing, AI agents and plans for several staff.

Choose Grow Therapy if you want:

• Insurance clients without credentialing and billing them yourself ("125+ insurance partners", "Medicare + Medicaid included")
• Referrals, a directory profile and marketing support
• EHR, telehealth and AI documentation tools for the clients you see through Grow
• Clinical consultation, free CE and a peer community

Choose ClinikEHR if you want:

• ✅ Your own booking page, deposits, packages, memberships and online store
• ✅ CRM, clinic email (ClinikMail), email marketing (ClinikReach) and AI agents in one account
• ✅ AI clinical notes (included for 3 clinicians on Essential, 5 on Team)
• ✅ A practice with several staff (3 included on Essential, 5 on Team)
• ✅ E-prescribing and lab orders as paid add-ons
• ✅ A Free plan that needs no card

Often the answer is both: insurance clients through Grow, private-pay clients in ClinikEHR under your own name.

Understanding the Difference

What is Grow Therapy?

Grow Therapy is an insurance network for therapists and prescribers, who join "as independent 1099 contractors". Its provider page (checked September 2026) lists:

• "Credentialing and payor enrollment". Grow says credentialing "takes 5–7 days" on average, "though in some cases it can take longer"
• "EHR, scheduling, and secure telehealth", "AI scribe and documentation tools" and "Billing, claims, and payments in one place"
• "Marketing support, directory visibility, and employer/EAP pathways". Grow says it will "feature you in our directory" and market your practice "with other directory partners, like Zocdoc"
• "Clinical consultation included", "Free CE + learning" and a peer community

Grow's help center adds: "Grow Therapy telehealth is available to all providers and their clients at no additional cost."

Grow's fee model: "Providers are paid per session on a weekly basis," and "Grow handles all billing and insurance claims on your behalf." It also says "Pay rates vary by payor, state, session type, and license type." Grow's provider pages don't state a membership or subscription fee, or how much of each insurance payment Grow keeps. For cash-pay appointments, Grow's help center says providers are paid what the client pays "minus a 5% processing fee."

What is ClinikEHR?

ClinikEHR is the practice management and EHR system for your own practice:

• AI clinical notes (SOAP, DAP, BIRP), included for your first 3 clinicians on Essential and 5 on Team (not on the Free plan)
• Scheduling, an online booking page, reminders, waitlists and group sessions
• Telehealth: 5 links a month on Free, 100 a month on Essential
• Client portal, intake forms, e-signatures and treatment planners
• Insurance claims to payers you're contracted with: 35 free electronic claims a month on Essential, then $0.35 each (Team: 50 free, then $0.25)
• Card payments (1.9% platform fee + Stripe's 2.9% + $0.30), deposits, packages, memberships and an online store
• CRM, ClinikMail, ClinikReach and AI Agent Studio
• E-prescribing ($49/month per clinician + $99 setup) and E-Lab ($6 per request + $500 setup) as paid add-ons

What ClinikEHR is NOT:

• Not an insurance network: it doesn't credential you or bill on your behalf
• Not a referral service or a directory
• Not a therapist community

Side-by-Side Comparison

Grow's column quotes growtherapy.com/providers and Grow's provider help center, checked September 2026.

Detailed Feature Comparison

Clinical Documentation

ClinikEHR:

• AI Note Taker drafts SOAP, DAP and BIRP notes from the session
• Included for 3 clinicians on Essential and 5 on Team; $20/month for each extra clinician
• Custom note templates, treatment planners and measurement-based care
• HIPAA-compliant storage

Grow Therapy:

• "AI scribe and documentation tools" as part of the Grow platform
• Note formats and templates aren't described on the provider page

Winner: Neither on the basics. Both include AI documentation. Use the system that holds the client's record: Grow for clients you see through Grow, ClinikEHR for your own clients.

Appointment Scheduling and Booking

ClinikEHR:

• Full calendar and an online booking page under your practice's name
• Deposits, late-cancellation fees, packages, gift cards and promo codes on online bookings
• Reminders by email (text and voice need a US/Canada number, $15/month)
• Group sessions with waitlists
• Calendar sync with Google and Outlook (Essential and Team)

Grow Therapy:

• Scheduling is part of the platform ("EHR, scheduling, and secure telehealth")
• "You set the schedule. We help fill it."

Winner: ClinikEHR if you want a branded booking page that takes private-pay bookings and deposits. For Grow clients, Grow's scheduling does the job.

Telehealth

ClinikEHR:

• Built-in video visits, linked to scheduling and notes
• Screen sharing and session recording
• 5 telehealth links a month on Free, 100 a month on Essential

Grow Therapy:

• "Grow Therapy telehealth is available to all providers and their clients at no additional cost."

Winner: Tie. Both include telehealth.

Client Acquisition

ClinikEHR:

• No referral network or directory
• Your own booking page, CRM, ClinikReach email campaigns and AI agents that follow up on enquiries

Grow Therapy:

• Directory listing and profile help ("We'll feature you in our directory")
• Insurance and employer-based clients, and other directory partners "like Zocdoc"
• "Marketing support, directory visibility, and employer/EAP pathways"

Winner: Grow Therapy, if you want someone else to send you clients. ClinikEHR if you want to build your own pipeline under your own name.

Insurance Billing and Credentialing

ClinikEHR:

• Eligibility checks and electronic claims to payers you're contracted with
• 35 free claims a month on Essential, then $0.35 each; 50 free on Team, then $0.25
• Eligibility checks at $0.20 each on Essential, included on Team
• You handle credentialing yourself

Grow Therapy:

• "Credentialing and payor enrollment", 5–7 days on average
• Grow handles billing and claims, and your pay "is protected from insurance payor clawbacks"
• Paid per session, weekly

Winner: Grow Therapy, if you want someone else to credential you and handle insurance. ClinikEHR only helps if you're already contracted with payers.

E-Prescribing and Labs

ClinikEHR:

• E-prescribing as a paid add-on ($49/month per clinician + $99 setup)
• E-Lab ordering as a paid add-on ($6 per request + $500 setup)

Grow Therapy:

• Grow supports prescribers, but its provider page doesn't say whether e-prescribing is included

Winner: ClinikEHR offers e-prescribing as a paid add-on; for Grow, ask. Most talk therapists won't need either.

Pricing Comparison

ClinikEHR Pricing

• Free: $0. Up to 50 clients and 2 staff, 5 telehealth links a month, no AI notes. No card needed.
• Essential: $99.90/month, or $960/year billed annually. 3 staff included, AI notes for 3 clinicians, 100 telehealth links a month, 35 free e-claims a month.
• Team: $250/month, or $2,400/year billed annually. 5 staff included, AI notes for 5 clinicians, 50 free e-claims a month.
• Paid add-ons: e-prescribing, PDMP, E-Lab, and a US/Canada number for text and voice.
• Card payments: a 1.9% ClinikEHR platform fee plus Stripe's 2.9% + $0.30.

Grow Therapy Pricing

• Membership or subscription fee: none stated on Grow's provider pages
• Insurance sessions: "Providers are paid per session on a weekly basis." "Pay rates vary by payor, state, session type, and license type." Ask Grow for the rates for your license, state and payers.
• Cash-pay sessions: paid "minus a 5% processing fee" (Grow help center)
• Telehealth: "at no additional cost"

Checked September 2026. We couldn't find a published figure for how much of each insurance payment Grow keeps, so we don't estimate one here.

What This Means

Grow doesn't publish a fee for providers, and ClinikEHR's paid plans cost money, so on stated price Grow is the cheaper way to see insurance clients. If every client comes through Grow, you may not need ClinikEHR. ClinikEHR earns its place when you also see your own clients (private-pay, or payers you're contracted with directly) and want your own booking page, CRM, email and marketing for them. For that, ClinikEHR's Free plan costs $0, and Essential costs $960 a year billed annually.

Can You Use Both Together?

Yes. Grow providers are independent contractors who "set your own schedule and maintain full clinical autonomy", so many run their own private-pay practice alongside their Grow caseload.

How It Works:

1. Use Grow Therapy for:

   • Insurance credentialing, billing and weekly pay
   • Clients who come to you through Grow, including their notes and telehealth sessions
   • Referrals, directory visibility and clinical consultation

2. Use ClinikEHR for:

   • Private-pay clients, booked through your own booking page
   • Deposits, packages, memberships and your store
   • CRM, ClinikMail, ClinikReach and AI agents
   • Other staff in your practice

Workflow:

• Keep each client's record in one system: the one that bills for them
• Sync calendars through Google Calendar or Outlook, so a booking in one blocks the time in the other (calendar sync is on Essential and Team)
• Grow your private-pay list with your booking page and ClinikReach campaigns

Total cost: Grow states no membership fee, so you pay for your ClinikEHR plan ($0 on Free, or $960 a year on Essential billed annually), plus whatever share of each session Grow keeps, which Grow doesn't publish.

Beyond the EHR: AI Agents, ClinikMail and ClinikReach

A practice runs on more than charts. It needs an inbox, a way to bring patients back, and someone to chase the follow-ups nobody has time for. Most practices buy those separately — an email host, an email-marketing tool, an automation service — and connect them by hand. In ClinikEHR they're part of the same account, on the same patient record, under the same access rules.

AI Agent Studio: automation you build without code

• What agents do: appointment reminders, confirmations, reschedules, no-show follow-ups and waitlist fills across email, SMS and voice, plus intake, consent, CRM follow-ups, patient summaries and claims preparation
• How you build them: a drag-and-drop canvas (Start, Agent, Tool, Logic, Data, Human approval, End) with templates to start from — test a draft, then publish a versioned agent, no engineers needed
• Safe with patient data: patient data is de-identified before any model sees it, requests go only to BAA-covered, zero-retention model endpoints, every run is audited, and risky actions (sending PHI, submitting a claim, charging a card) wait for a human approval
• Your choice of model: Claude, GPT or Gemini, chosen per agent
• What it costs: each successful run uses credits, and every plan includes monthly credits — 50 on Free, 2,500 on Essential, 5,000 on Team — with per-agent budgets so there's no surprise bill (text and voice need a dedicated number, US/Canada, $15/month)

Explore AI Agent Studio →

ClinikMail: clinic email on your own domain, linked to the chart

• Real mailboxes on your clinic's domain, set up with a guided DNS wizard — or a clinikmail.com address that's ready immediately
• Shared inboxes like reception@ with thread assignment, so two people never answer the same patient
• Link a thread to a patient and it lands on their timeline, next to the chart it belongs to
• Mail is private to your clinic, behind two-factor sign-in, with every read written to the audit trail
• A spam filter that shows its reasons; uncertain mail is delivered with a caution label instead of hidden
• Works with Gmail, Apple Mail or Outlook over IMAP, with a separate, revocable app password per device
• Included: 3 mailboxes and 5 GB on Free; 25 mailboxes, 50 GB and 3 custom domains on Essential; 50 mailboxes, 120 GB and 10 custom domains on Team

Explore ClinikMail →

ClinikReach: email marketing measured in booked appointments

• Recall campaigns, newsletters and welcome journeys built from your own patient and contact list — for example, everyone not seen in 18 months
• Consent handled the way clinics need: you choose whether a send is a newsletter, a patient recall or a promotion, it's recorded on the campaign, and unsubscribes are honoured at the moment of sending
• Send stays locked until a checklist is complete — audience, sender, subject, unsubscribe link, working links, filled merge tags and a test to your own inbox
• Reports lead with how many people booked an appointment afterwards, not with opens
• Contacts are unlimited on every plan; you're metered only on sends — 500 a month on Free, 12,000 on Essential, 60,000 on Team

Explore ClinikReach →

What this means for your comparison

Grow Therapy is a network that fills your caseload and bills insurance for you; it isn't built to run your own clinic's inbox, recall campaigns or automations. If you build a private-pay practice alongside Grow Therapy, these are the tools you'll need — and in ClinikEHR they come with the plan.

Who Should Choose Each?

Choose ClinikEHR If You:

• See private-pay clients, or bill payers you're contracted with directly
• Have your own client acquisition strategy, or want to build one under your own name
• Run a practice with several staff
• Want AI agents, clinic email (ClinikMail) and email marketing (ClinikReach) in the same account as your EHR
• Sell memberships, packages or products
• Prescribe and need e-prescribing (paid add-on)
• Want to start on a free plan

Choose Grow Therapy If You:

• Need referrals to fill your caseload
• Want to take insurance, including Medicare and Medicaid, without doing credentialing and billing yourself
• Want EHR, telehealth and AI documentation tools for those clients
• Want clinical consultation, free CE and a peer community
• Are just starting your practice

Use Both If You:

• Take insurance clients through Grow and private-pay clients on your own
• Want Grow's referrals while building your own brand
• Plan to move towards a private-pay practice over time
• Can keep each client's record in one system

Alternative: ClinikEHR Only

If you're private-pay only, or already contracted directly with the payers you bill, and you have your own way of finding clients, you may not need a network at all. ClinikEHR covers:

• AI clinical notes (Essential and Team)
• Scheduling, online booking and reminders
• Telehealth
• Client portal and intake forms
• Electronic claims (35 free a month on Essential, then $0.35 each)
• Card payments, memberships and a store
• CRM, ClinikMail, ClinikReach and AI agents
• E-prescribing and E-Lab as paid add-ons

Cost: $0 on Free, or $960 a year on Essential billed annually. We can't set that against Grow's cost, because Grow doesn't publish how much of each insurance payment it keeps. You'd give up Grow's credentialing, insurance billing and referrals in exchange for a practice under your own name.

Learn More: How to Get Therapy Clients Online

Frequently Asked Questions

1. Is Grow Therapy really free?

Grow's provider pages don't state a membership or subscription fee. Grow pays providers "per session on a weekly basis", at rates that "vary by payor, state, session type, and license type", and doesn't publish how much of each insurance payment it keeps. For cash-pay appointments, its help center says providers are paid "minus a 5% processing fee."

2. Can ClinikEHR help with client referrals?

ClinikEHR doesn't have a referral network. It gives you the tools to bring in your own clients: a booking page, a CRM, ClinikReach email campaigns and AI agents that follow up on enquiries. See our marketing strategy guide.

3. Does ClinikEHR integrate with Grow Therapy?

There's no direct integration. You can sync both calendars through Google Calendar or Outlook, so a booking in one blocks the time in the other (calendar sync is on Essential and Team). Keep each client's clinical record in the system that bills for them.

4. Which is better for new therapists?

If you need referrals and insurance clients quickly, Grow gives you credentialing, billing, referrals and clinical tools. If you're starting a private-pay practice, ClinikEHR's Free plan (up to 50 clients and 2 staff) costs nothing. Many therapists start with both.

5. Can I use ClinikEHR without Grow?

Absolutely. Many ClinikEHR users do private pay only or bill the payers they're contracted with directly.

6. Does Grow provide an EHR?

Yes. Grow's provider page lists "EHR, scheduling, and secure telehealth" and "AI scribe and documentation tools" as part of the Grow platform, for the clients you see through Grow. It doesn't describe the business tools ClinikEHR adds: your own booking page, CRM, clinic email, email marketing, AI agents, memberships and a store.

7. What if I want to leave Grow later?

Grow's provider page doesn't describe what happens to payer contracts when you leave. Before you rely on billing insurance yourself, ask Grow whether the payer enrollments it arranged stay with you. If you move clients into ClinikEHR, you can import them by CSV on Essential and Team.

8. How does Grow help with marketing?

Grow says it will help set up your profile, "feature you in our directory, surface your profile to insurance and employer-based clients, and market your practice with other directory partners, like Zocdoc."

9. Is ClinikEHR HIPAA-compliant?

Yes. ClinikEHR is fully HIPAA-compliant with BAA agreements, encryption, and regular security audits. Learn more about our HIPAA compliance.

10. Can I try ClinikEHR before committing?

Yes. ClinikEHR's Free plan needs no credit card and has no time limit. A 30-day trial of the Essential plan is also available for $29.90, card required.

Related Reading

EHR Comparisons:

• ClinikEHR vs SimplePractice 2026
• ClinikEHR vs Headway 2026
• ClinikEHR vs Alma 2026
• Headway, Alma, Grow: Do You Need Your Own EHR?
• Best EHR for Solo Practitioners 2027
• Best EHR for Therapists and Counselors 2027

Practice Management:

• How to Get Therapy Clients Online
• How to Market Private Pay Therapy Practice
• Private Pay vs Insurance: Which Model Fits Your Practice
• Insurance Credentialing Made Simple 2026

AI & Documentation:

• AI Clinical Notes for Therapists
• Best AI Note Taking for Psychiatry 2026
• Reduce Documentation Time Without Cutting Corners

External Resources:

• Grow Therapy for Providers
• HIPAA Compliance Guide
• Insurance Credentialing Guide