8 Best AI Clinical Notes Software (2027): Prices and HIPAA Compared

AI clinical notes software listens to a visit (or reads a dictation or document) and drafts a structured note for you to review and sign. The best choice for a small or mid-sized clinic in 2027 is usually a note taker that lives inside the EHR, so the draft lands on the right chart without copy and paste. For a clinic that wants to keep its current EHR, a standalone scribe with published per-clinician pricing (Freed or Heidi) is the simplest buy. Large health systems generally go to enterprise vendors (Microsoft Dragon Copilot, Abridge, Suki, DeepScribe, Nabla), which sell on quotes.

ClinikEHR makes the AI Note Taker that sits first on this list. Here's how we judged every option, including ours.

Quick Answer

• Best overall for clinics that want notes and the EHR in one place: ClinikEHR's AI Note Taker. It is included for 3 clinicians on Essential ($99.90/mo) and 5 on Team ($250/mo), then $20/mo for each extra clinician. It is not on the Free plan.
• Best standalone scribe with published prices: Freed (from $39 per clinician per month) and Heidi (a free plan, then $110 per user per month billed yearly).
• Best for large health systems: Microsoft Dragon Copilot, Abridge, Suki, DeepScribe or Nabla. None of them publishes a price, so expect a sales process.
• What matters most: a signed BAA, a clear price per clinician, how the draft reaches the chart, and how much audio you actually get each month.

Note: Prices and BAA statements below come from each vendor's own website, checked in September 2026. Vendors change their terms often, so confirm the current figure before you buy. This article is not legal advice. If you want a broader list that includes non-AI note software, see our clinical notes software comparison, and for therapy practices specifically, the AI note-taking tools for therapists guide.

How We Evaluated

We compared every tool against the same five questions, using only what each vendor publishes:

1. BAA availability. If a tool processes protected health information for a US covered entity, you need a Business Associate Agreement. We only say a vendor offers one when its own site says so.
2. Published price. Can a clinic see what it will pay without a sales call? Quote-only vendors are marked as such, and we don't repeat reseller or "typical" figures.
3. Where the note ends up. A draft that has to be copied into another system costs time and creates room for error. We note whether the tool is part of an EHR, pushes to one, or stands alone.
4. Fit for the buyer. Some products are built for solo clinicians, others for hospital networks. We say which.
5. Limits you will hit. Note caps, audio minutes and seat counts decide the real monthly cost more than the headline price.

We did not measure transcription accuracy. No vendor on this list, including us, publishes an independently audited accuracy figure we could cite, so we don't quote one. Test each tool on your own visits during a trial.

The 8 Best AI Clinical Notes Tools for 2027

1. ClinikEHR AI Note Taker (our pick)

Best for: solo practitioners and clinics that want the note, the chart, scheduling, billing and telehealth in one system.

What it does well. The AI Note Taker works from a live recording or an uploaded file (MP3, MP4, WAV, OGG, M4A, PDF, DOCX, TXT or MD, up to 100 MB), so you can use it for an in-person visit, dictation after the patient leaves, or a referral letter you want folded into the note. You choose a template first, then a tone (professional, empathetic, concise or detailed), a speaker mode (multi-party conversation or single-speaker dictation) and optional instructions such as "focus on medication changes". The draft is filed against the client you selected and does nothing until you apply it to the note form, edit it and sign it. Telehealth calls have their own note taker switch inside the video room, so remote visits are covered too. Details are in the Help Center guide to generating a note with AI.

Templates come from a pre-built library grouped by category (general, progress and session notes, mental health, dental, ophthalmology, physiotherapy, med spa, intake, scored measures and treatment plans), and your practice can build its own as note forms. SOAP is one of the standard note types. If the draft comes back in the wrong format, you can regenerate it from the same recording with a different template, without seeing the patient again.

Limitations. The AI Note Taker is not on the Free plan. The audio allowance is pooled across the clinic: 300 minutes a month on Essential and 900 on Team. A busy five-clinician practice on Essential could use 300 minutes quickly, so check your volume. It drafts inside ClinikEHR; it is not a scribe you bolt onto another vendor's EHR.

Price and BAA. Included for your first 3 clinicians on Essential ($99.90/mo) and your first 5 on Team ($250/mo), then $20/mo for each extra clinician (pricing). A business associate agreement applies to every ClinikEHR account (HIPAA page).

2. Freed

Best for: independent clinicians and small practices that want a scribe and plan to keep their existing EHR.

What it does well. Freed describes itself as built for independent clinics rather than large health systems, and lists nurse practitioners, family medicine, psychiatry and therapy among its users. Its top individual plan adds visit summaries, patient letters, EHR push to browser-based EHRs and ICD-10/CPT coding. Freed's security page says it signs BAAs with healthcare organizations and that audio recordings are deleted automatically once note summaries and quality checks are complete (getfreed.ai/security, checked September 2026).

Limitations. It is a separate subscription from your EHR, so the note still has to reach the chart. Freed's lowest plan caps notes at 40 a month.

Price. Freed's Starter plan is $39 per clinician per month (up to 40 notes), Core is $79 (unlimited notes), and Premier is $119 monthly or $104 on annual billing. Freed offers a 7-day free trial with no credit card, and group pricing is custom (getfreed.ai/pricing, checked September 2026).

3. Heidi Health

Best for: clinicians who want to try an AI scribe on a free plan before paying.

What it does well. Heidi's free plan offers unlimited transcription with standard templates. Paid plans add advanced templates, patient and session linking, document sharing and coding. Heidi's HIPAA page says it is a business associate and makes a BAA available to every covered entity it works with (heidihealth.com HIPAA, checked September 2026).

Limitations. Heidi is a standalone scribe, so you still need an EHR, and EHR integration is listed under its Enterprise tier. The pricing page does not say which plans include the BAA; ask before you put patient data into it.

Price. Free at $0. Heidi's Clinician plan is $110 per user per month billed yearly, or $150 on monthly billing, with a 14-day trial of Heidi's paid plans. Practice and Enterprise are custom (heidihealth.com/pricing, checked September 2026).

4. Microsoft Dragon Copilot

Best for: hospitals and health systems, especially those already working with Microsoft or Nuance.

What it does well. Dragon Copilot (the successor to Dragon Medical One and DAX Copilot) captures multi-party, multilingual conversations and turns them into structured notes. Microsoft offers it for physicians in the US, Canada, the UK, Ireland and several EU countries, for nurses in the US, and in preview for radiologists (microsoft.com Dragon Copilot, checked September 2026).

Limitations. It is sold through a representative, not a sign-up page. Microsoft's HIPAA page lists the services covered by its BAA, and Dragon Copilot is not named there, so confirm coverage in your contract.

Price. Not published. Microsoft asks you to contact a representative.

5. Abridge

Best for: large health systems.

What it does well. Abridge turns clinical conversations into documentation for clinicians, nurses, revenue cycle teams and payers, and says it serves more than 300 health systems (abridge.com, checked September 2026).

Limitations. Abridge sells to enterprise health systems, not individual clinics, and its home page does not state HIPAA or BAA terms. Ask during procurement.

Price. Not published; contact Abridge.

6. Suki

Best for: health systems running Epic, Oracle Health, athenahealth or MEDITECH.

What it does well. Suki offers ambient documentation that drafts notes, patient instructions and orders from the conversation, plus dictation. It advertises real-time integrations with those four EHRs and states that it is SOC 2 Type 2 certified and HIPAA compliant (suki.ai, checked September 2026).

Limitations. No BAA wording on the home page and no self-serve sign-up. A small clinic outside those EHRs may not be the target customer.

Price. Not published; Suki directs buyers to its sales team.

7. DeepScribe

Best for: oncology practices and specialty groups.

What it does well. DeepScribe builds ambient AI for oncology, with coding support, and also lists cardiology, gastroenterology, neurology, orthopedics and urology. Its site displays SOC 2 and HIPAA (deepscribe.ai, checked September 2026).

Limitations. Specialty focus means a general practice or therapy clinic is less of a fit. DeepScribe's terms say fees are set in separate statements of work.

Price. Not published; request a demo.

8. Nabla

Best for: health organizations that want an ambient documentation layer across their existing workflow.

What it does well. Nabla offers ambient documentation, dictation and medical coding, lists HIPAA, SOC 2 Type 2, ISO 27001 and GDPR, and says data retention is configurable. A "Try it for free" option exists (nabla.com, checked September 2026).

Limitations. Nabla does not publish the terms of its free try-out or its paid pricing, and its home page does not describe BAA terms.

Price. Not published; talk to Nabla's team.

What It Really Costs: A Worked Example

Headline prices hide the variables that matter: seats, note caps and audio minutes. Here is a five-clinician practice priced from published figures only.

The ClinikEHR rows include the EHR itself: scheduling, billing, the client portal and telehealth. The Freed and Heidi rows are the scribe alone, so add the cost of whatever EHR you already pay for.

Audio is the other half of the decision. Essential pools 300 minutes a month across the clinic; Team pools 900. For five clinicians, that is roughly 60 minutes each on Essential and 180 each on Team. A practice that records most visits will want Team even though it costs $30.10 more, because it triples the audio.

On time saved, an assumption, not a promise: if a reviewed AI draft saved each clinician 20 minutes a day across 20 clinic days, a five-clinician practice would get back about 33 hours a month. Your number depends on your visit length, note style and how much editing the drafts need. Measure it for two weeks before you rely on it.

How to Choose in Five Steps

1. Decide where the note must live. If you are changing EHRs anyway, a built-in note taker avoids a second system. If you are staying put, shortlist scribes that push to your EHR.
2. Get the BAA in writing before any real patient audio. A vendor's marketing page saying "HIPAA compliant" is not a signed agreement.
3. Count your audio. Multiply visits per week by average visit length. Compare that with each tool's note or minute limits.
4. Run a two-week pilot on real visits, with consent from every participant, and track editing time per note.
5. Check recording consent rules where you practise. Some places require every party's consent, so build the request into your visit script.

Product Insight: Why ClinikEHR's AI Note Taker Leads Our List

We put ClinikEHR first because the draft is created on the client's chart, in the template you chose, and it becomes documentation only when a clinician signs it. That removes the copy-and-paste step every standalone scribe leaves behind.

• Record or upload: live visits, dictation, audio from elsewhere, or a document.
• Your templates: a pre-built library plus your own note forms; regenerate with a different template from the same recording.
• Telehealth included: an AI Note Taker switch inside the video room.
• Clear pricing: included for 3 clinicians on Essential and 5 on Team, then $20/mo per extra clinician.
• BAA on every account, with an audit log of chart access.

The Free plan ($0, 2 staff, 50 clients) lets you set up the EHR before you pay. The AI Note Taker starts on Essential, which you can try for 30 days for $29.90 (card required). See the AI clinical notes feature, telehealth, clinical notes and pricing.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

1. What is AI clinical notes software?

It is software that turns a recorded visit, a dictation or a document into a structured draft note, such as a SOAP note, which a clinician reviews, edits and signs. Some tools sit inside an EHR; others are standalone scribes that push or paste the note into one.

2. What is the best AI clinical notes software in 2027?

For clinics that want notes and the EHR in one system, ClinikEHR's AI Note Taker is our pick. For a standalone scribe with published prices, Freed and Heidi are the clearest options. Large health systems usually evaluate Dragon Copilot, Abridge, Suki, DeepScribe or Nabla, which sell on quotes.

3. How much does ClinikEHR's AI Note Taker cost?

It is included for your first 3 clinicians on Essential ($99.90/mo, 300 minutes of audio pooled across the clinic) and your first 5 on Team ($250/mo, 900 minutes pooled), then $20/mo for each extra clinician. It is not included on the Free plan.

4. Are AI scribes HIPAA compliant?

Only when the vendor signs a Business Associate Agreement and you configure and use the tool properly. Freed and Heidi say on their sites that they offer BAAs, and ClinikEHR applies one to every account. For quote-only vendors, confirm BAA coverage in the contract. This is not legal advice.

5. How accurate are AI clinical notes?

No vendor on this list publishes an independently audited accuracy figure, so we don't quote one. Audio can mishear drug names, doses and negations, so a clinician must read every line before signing. Test each tool on your own visits.

6. Do I need patient consent to record a visit?

Ask every participant before recording and don't record if anyone objects. Recording consent laws differ by state and country, so check the rules where you practise. ClinikEHR shows a consent reminder before recording but does not collect consent for you.

Conclusion

The right AI clinical notes tool depends less on the AI and more on where the note has to end up and what you will actually pay. If you want one system for the chart and the note, start with an EHR that includes a note taker. If you are keeping your EHR, a standalone scribe with a published price and a written BAA is the quickest route. If you run a health system, expect a procurement process with the enterprise vendors.

Key takeaways:

• Get a signed BAA before any real patient audio is recorded
• Compare total monthly cost for your headcount, not the headline price
• Check note caps and audio minutes against your visit volume
• Ignore accuracy claims you can't verify; pilot on your own visits
• ClinikEHR includes its AI Note Taker for 3 clinicians on Essential and 5 on Team

Want to see what an AI draft looks like first? Try the Free Clinical Notes AI Generator, with no signup and no credit card.

Ready to try it in your clinic? Start on ClinikEHR's Free plan, compare our pricing, or book a demo.

Disclaimer: Vendor prices and terms were checked on each vendor's website in September 2026 and can change. This article is educational and not legal advice. ClinikEHR and its authors shall not be held liable for any decisions made based on the information provided herein.

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