Free EHR Software for Private Practice 2027: Is There a Truly Free EHR? (11 Compared)

Quick Answer: Is There a Truly Free EHR, and Which Is Best for a Private Practice?

Yes. As of 24 September 2026, four EHRs used by private practices are free with no end date, and each is free in a different way. ClinikEHR has a free plan for 50 clients and 2 staff that needs no card and includes online booking, notes, intake forms, invoicing, superbills, card payments and 5 telehealth links a month. CharmHealth has a free edition capped at 50 encounters a month, aimed at low-volume medical practices. Practice Better has a free Sprout plan for 3 clients. OpenEMR is free, open-source software that you host, secure and support yourself. Everything else that calls itself "free", including SimplePractice, Practice Fusion, TheraNest, PracticeQ, Healthie, Cliniko and AdvancedMD Now, is a time-limited free trial of a paid product. For a solo clinician, therapist or small clinic that wants to see real clients at no cost and upgrade only when it outgrows the limits, ClinikEHR's Free plan is the best fit on this list. For a low-volume medical practice that needs e-prescribing as a paid add-on, CharmHealth's free edition is the closer match. For a practice with its own technical support, OpenEMR costs nothing in licence fees but everything in time.

Comparison Table: 11 Free EHR Plans and Free Trials

Prices and free-plan limits last verified 24 September 2026 on each vendor's pricing page.

ClinikEHR's figures come from our pricing page, which is the source for every ClinikEHR fact in this guide. Competitor figures are list prices from the linked vendor pages; several vendors run introductory discounts that we have left out because they expire. Jane is a popular option that is not in the table because its pricing page states that it does not have a free trial; it offers a demo account instead (jane.app/pricing, checked September 2026). DrChrono and CareCloud publish no plan prices and no free plan, and we could not read Tebra's or athenahealth's pricing pages in September 2026, so none of them appear as free options here.

The Three Kinds of "Free" EHR

Most disappointment with free EHR software comes from mixing up three different things that share a word.

A free plan is a permanent, smaller version of a paid product. It has no end date, and the vendor earns its money when you outgrow the limits. The limits are the whole story: how many clients or encounters, how many users, how much storage, and which features are held back. A good free plan lets you run a real, small practice. A weak one is a demo with a login.

A free trial is the full paid product for a fixed number of days. It answers a different question: not "can I run my practice on this for free?" but "is this worth paying for?" Trials run from two weeks to a month, some need a card and some convert to a paid subscription automatically, so the end date matters more than the feature list.

Free software is open source. OpenEMR is the best-known example in private practice, and GNU Health is a larger, hospital-oriented project. The licence costs nothing, and you can change anything. In exchange, you install, host, back up, secure and update it, or pay someone to. The bill arrives, just not from the software vendor.

Government-funded systems exist too, such as the records systems the NHS provides to its own practices in the UK, but they are not available to a private practice choosing its own software, so this guide leaves them out.

This guide compares all three kinds because a practice choosing an EHR on a budget usually has to pick between them. If you need a full, unlimited system on day one and can pay from month two, a trial is the honest route. If you are opening a practice, have a small caseload or want to move gradually, a free plan is the better start. If you have technical staff and specific requirements, free software may be the cheapest option over five years, and the most expensive over the first month.

The Free Plans and Free Software, One by One

1. ClinikEHR: Free Forever for 50 Clients and 2 Staff

What's free: a permanent Free plan. No card, no end date, no ads.

Limits: 50 clients, 2 staff or providers, 1 practice location, 10 paperless intakes or consents a month, 5 telehealth links a month.

ClinikEHR's Free plan is built to run a small practice rather than to demonstrate one. On it you get basic notes and progress notes with ICD-10 autocomplete, a professional online booking page where returning clients confirm by email code and book several services in one visit, automated invoicing, online card payments, superbills and CMS-1500 forms, and appointment reminders by email. Insurance claims are filed manually on a pay-per-use basis at $0.50 a claim and $0.25 an eligibility check, with no monthly quota to buy. Every plan, including Free, is built for HIPAA-regulated work with a Business Associate Agreement at no charge, and you can export your data as CSV at any time.

The Free plan also includes starter allowances of the tools a new practice would otherwise buy separately: ClinikMail gives you 3 mailboxes and 5 GB on your own domain, so your practice email is not a personal Gmail address (see ClinikMail); ClinikReach lets you send 500 patient emails a month, such as welcome messages and recalls (see ClinikReach); ClinikForms gives you 10 published forms with 100 responses each and signature questions; the CRM holds 100 contacts; the online store sells up to 100 physical products; and AI Agent Studio gives you 50 credits a month and 1 published agent to automate one job you would otherwise do by hand (see AI Agent Studio). Assigned clients let you restrict a record to the staff looking after that person, with emergency access that records a reason and a time limit.

Not on the Free plan: the client portal, secure client messaging, text reminders, calendar sync, custom note templates, eSignature envelopes, treatment planners, the audit trail view, advanced analytics, electronic claims and the AI Note Taker. Those start on Essential.

When you outgrow it: Essential is $99.90 a month with 3 staff included (up to 5 at $40 a month each). It adds the AI Note Taker for your first 3 clinicians (300 minutes of audio a month, pooled across the clinic), 100 telehealth links a month, 120 intakes a month, eSignatures, AI-powered insurance claims with 35 free electronic claims a month and then $0.35 a claim, the client portal, secure messaging, calendar sync and the audit trail. Team is $250 a month with 5 staff included and then $35 a month per extra clinician, and adds unlimited locations, 50 free claims a month and a dedicated account manager. Paying annually costs $960 a year for Essential and $2,400 for Team, about 20% less than monthly billing. ePrescribe is a paid add-on on Essential and above at $49 a month per clinician plus a $99 setup fee, and E-Lab ordering is $6 a request per clinician plus a $500 setup fee.

The trial, stated plainly: ClinikEHR does not offer a free trial of its paid plans. It offers a paid 30-day trial of Essential for $29.90, card required, which converts to a regular Essential subscription at the end of the 30 days unless you cancel. You are emailed before it converts, and if you cancel during the trial you keep Essential until day 30 and then move back to the Free plan. The trial charge is not refunded. So the route is: start on Free with no deadline, and run the trial when you want to test AI notes, the portal and electronic claims properly.

Best for: solo practitioners and small clinics starting out, therapists, counselors and coaches, nurses and nurse practitioners opening a private practice, and med spas that want online booking (card on file comes with Essential and above). Any provider with fewer than 50 clients who wants to work for real before paying anything.

2. CharmHealth: A Free Edition Measured in Encounters

What's free: a permanent free edition of a medical EHR.

Limits: 50 encounters a month, 1,000 patients, 5 users and 5 GB of document storage, among other monthly caps.

CharmHealth (CharmEHR) is one of the few medical EHRs with a real free tier rather than a trial. It is measured in encounters, not clients, so it fits a practice that is just opening or runs a small panel; a practice seeing a dozen patients a week passes 50 encounters a month quickly. Past the cap you move to an Encounter Plan at $0.50 per encounter with a $25 monthly minimum, or a Provider Plan shown at $200 per provider per month in the main pricing table. The same page also shows a $350 per provider option "with additional credits" that it does not fully explain, so confirm which one you would need before you budget. The pricing page does not mention a free trial of the paid plans (CharmHealth pricing, checked September 2026).

The add-ons are published, which is useful for a practice costing out "free": e-prescribing is $15 per provider per month, EPCS is $250 per provider for one year, telehealth is $20 per provider per month, the AI scribe is $125 per provider per month or $2 per encounter, and text or phone messaging starts at $20 a month.

Best for: primary care and specialty practices seeing fewer than 50 encounters a month, part-time practices that prefer paying per encounter, and medical practices that want e-prescribing on a small budget. Compared with ClinikEHR, the free edition is capped by visits rather than by people and its telehealth is paid, so a practice that sees the same clients repeatedly, or sees them online, gets further on ClinikEHR's Free plan.

3. Practice Better: A Small Free Plan Plus Trials

What's free: the Sprout plan, permanently, with no card.

Limits: 3 clients and 100 MB of storage.

Practice Better's free Sprout plan is enough to learn the software, set up your forms and programmes and see how the client app works, but not to run a practice. Paid plans have a 14-day free trial, or 30 days on the Team plan. Monthly prices are $35 for Practice Better's Starter plan (10 clients), $69 for Professional (300 clients), $99 for Plus (unlimited clients) and $155 for Team, which includes 2 practitioners. The pricing page does not say clearly whether the trials need a card (Practice Better pricing, checked September 2026).

Best for: dietitians, nutritionists, health coaches and wellness practitioners who want to explore at no cost and then trial the plan they would actually buy.

4. OpenEMR: Free Software You Run Yourself

What's free: the software, under an open-source licence.

Limits: none on the software. Hosting, backups, updates and security are your responsibility.

OpenEMR has been developed since 2001 and covers charting, scheduling, e-prescribing, a patient portal, billing and reporting, with an active community and support for many languages. There is no licence fee and no vendor lock-in. The catch is that "free" describes the download, not the running. Someone has to install it on a server, keep it patched, take backups, configure security and restore it when something breaks. The project sells no hosting or support of its own; its support page says independent vendors usually charge $50 to $150 an hour, and some charge monthly (OpenEMR support, checked September 2026). Your total cost therefore depends on how much help you need, so get quotes before you commit rather than trusting anyone's estimate, including ours.

GNU Health is a larger open-source project aimed at hospitals and health systems. It carries the same responsibilities as OpenEMR with more to configure, so it is rarely the right choice for a private practice.

Best for: practices with in-house technical staff or a trusted support partner, practices that need deep customisation, and organisations that want complete control over where their data lives.

Free Plan vs Free Trial: 11 EHRs You Can Try Before You Buy

Every EHR above offers a free plan or free software. The seven below offer a free trial instead: full or near-full access for a fixed number of days, after which you pay or leave. A trial is the right route when you already know roughly what you need and want to see the complete product, including the paid features, before choosing. The cost is time pressure. Two to four weeks goes quickly in a working clinic, and some trials convert to a paid plan automatically, so plan the evaluation and put the end date in your calendar on day one. Where a vendor offers both routes, start on the free plan, learn the basics without a clock running, and switch on the trial only when you are ready to test the advanced features properly.

Every trial fact below was checked on the vendor's own website in September 2026. Where a pricing page does not say whether a card is needed, we say so rather than guess.

5. SimplePractice: A 30-Day Trial for Therapists

SimplePractice's pricing page says the trial "keeps going to 30 days", and when it ends you choose a plan at standard pricing. List prices are $49, $79 and $99 a month for a solo clinician (SimplePractice's Starter, Essential and Plus plans), and group practices pay $74 a month for each additional clinician on Plus. The AI Note Taker is a $35 a month add-on and ePrescribe is $49 a month plus an $89 setup fee. The page advertises a discount for the first three months if you begin a paid account early in the trial, which works against a full 30-day evaluation, and it does not say whether a card is needed to start (SimplePractice pricing, checked September 2026). There is no free plan, so budget from $49 a month once the trial ends. SimplePractice is excellent for therapists who can pay from month two; for those who cannot, ClinikEHR's Free plan is the better starting point, and we compare the two in detail in ClinikEHR vs SimplePractice.

6. Practice Fusion: A No-Card Trial for Medical Practices

Practice Fusion was once famous for its free, ad-supported EHR. It is no longer free. It offers a complimentary 2-week trial, and its pricing page says no credit card is required; after that it costs $199 a month per provider, billed monthly with a required annual commitment, which includes 1 provider licence, 3 signing staff licences and unlimited non-signing staff. E-prescribing with EPCS and lab and imaging integrations are listed as included features, and billing services are priced on a call (Practice Fusion pricing, checked September 2026). Two weeks is short for a medical practice, and the annual commitment makes the decision at the end of the trial a larger one. It suits primary care and family medicine practices that are ready to pay from day one.

7. TheraNest: Full Premier Access for 21 Days

TheraNest, now sold by Ensora Health, gives you 21 days with full access to its Premier plan and no credit card required. Paid plans are $29, $59 and $89 per therapist per month when billed monthly, and a little less on annual billing (TheraNest pricing, checked September 2026). Because the trial shows you the top plan, check which features you would lose on the cheaper plans before you buy. It suits therapists who want to see every feature without entering payment details.

8. PracticeQ: A Quick Two-Week Test

PracticeQ, the IntakeQ team's practice-management product, offers 2 weeks free with no credit card required. PracticeQ's Starter plan is $59.90 a month and includes 25 appointments, 50 text messages and 25 form submissions per practitioner each month; the Pro plan is $84.90 a month with 500 appointments (PracticeQ pricing, checked September 2026). The entry plan's monthly caps are low, so test with the volume you actually expect. It suits practices that care most about intake forms.

9. Healthie: A Trial of the Plus Plan

Healthie invites you to trial its Plus plan for 14 days with no credit card required. On annual billing, plans start at $18 a month for Core, which covers 10 active clients, and $115 a month for Plus, which has no client cap (Healthie pricing, checked September 2026). You trial Plus, but the cheaper plans cap active clients, so check whether your caseload fits the plan you would actually buy. It suits dietitians, coaches and wellness practices that want client programmes and telehealth in one place.

10. Cliniko: 30 Days With No Payment Details

Cliniko says you can use it free for 30 days and do not need to enter any payment details. Pricing is in bands by practitioner count, starting at $45 a month for one practitioner as shown to US visitors, and every band includes every feature (Cliniko pricing, checked September 2026). There is no free plan after the trial, so plan your evaluation to fit the 30 days. It suits allied-health clinics such as physiotherapy, chiropractic and massage practices.

11. AdvancedMD Now: A Trial for Small Mental-Health Practices

AdvancedMD Now is a self-service edition for small mental-health practices with a free 30-day trial. AdvancedMD's mental-health plans range from $130 to $399 per provider per month, its medical-specialty plans from $429 to $1,070, the AI Clinical Assistant is $100 per provider per month and EPCS is $35 a month. The page does not say whether the trial needs a card, and the trial is not offered for its other specialties (AdvancedMD pricing, checked September 2026). It suits small behavioural-health practices testing before a larger platform commitment.

How to get the most from a trial

A trial only helps if you test the things that will decide whether the system works for you, so plan it before you sign up. List your five to ten must-have workflows, such as a new-client intake, a follow-up visit, a telehealth session, an invoice and a claim. Pick two or three products at most; comparing more than that in a few weeks leaves little time to test each one properly. Put the trial end date, and the date a paid plan starts, in your calendar on day one.

Then run a full client journey in each product: booking, intake form, reminder, visit note, invoice, payment and follow-up, all in the same system. Write three or four notes of the kind you write every day, and if the product has AI notes, test them on a typical session and check how much editing the draft needs. Raise an invoice, take a test card payment and, if you bill insurance, create a claim, then work out the real cost per transaction including processing fees. Run a telehealth session with a colleague on the device and connection your clients actually use. Book, complete a form and pay as a client would, on a phone. Add a colleague with a limited role and check what they can and cannot see. Ask support one real question and note how long the answer takes and how useful it is.

Use test clients first. Move real client records only once you have chosen, and only into a system you are prepared to keep. Before you commit, check how data comes out as well as how it goes in: which formats you can export, and whether your notes and documents come with them. Set a decision date at least three days before the trial ends so a paid plan never starts by accident, score each product against your must-have list rather than its feature list, and price the plan you would actually need in a year, with your expected number of staff and add-ons, not the entry plan. For a full switch, follow a written plan; our EHR migration guide walks through it step by step.

What "Free" Costs You: Limits, Data Export and Add-Ons

A free plan is not a trick, but it is a contract with limits, and the limits decide what you will eventually pay. Four costs recur across every free EHR.

The cap you hit first. Each free plan is capped on a different axis, and the axis matters more than the number. ClinikEHR caps clients at 50, so a practice that sees the same 40 people every fortnight can stay on Free for a long time. CharmHealth caps encounters at 50 a month, so the same practice would pass the cap in its first month. Practice Better caps clients at 3, which is a learning allowance rather than a working one. Before you choose, count the thing each plan counts and work out how long you would last.

The features held back. Free plans reserve the features that vendors know a growing practice needs. Across the plans above, the most common ones held for paid tiers are electronic insurance claims, a client portal with secure messaging, text reminders, e-prescribing, calendar sync and AI notes. On ClinikEHR's Free plan you have superbills, CMS-1500 forms and manual claims at $0.50 each, but electronic and AI-powered claims start on Essential; on CharmHealth's free edition you have the medical chart, but telehealth is $20 per provider per month. Decide which of these you need in your first six months, not your first week.

Add-ons that are never free. E-prescribing is the clearest example: it needs a certified network and identity checks, so every vendor charges for it. ClinikEHR's ePrescribe is $49 a month per clinician plus a $99 setup fee on Essential and above; CharmHealth's eRx is $15 per provider per month, with EPCS at $250 per provider for a year; SimplePractice's ePrescribe is $49 a month plus $89 setup; Practice Fusion lists e-prescribing as included at $199 per provider per month. AI notes are the other one to watch: SimplePractice's Note Taker is $35 a month, CharmHealth's AI scribe is $125 per provider per month or $2 an encounter, AdvancedMD's AI Clinical Assistant is $100 per provider per month, and ClinikEHR includes its AI Note Taker for the first 3 clinicians on Essential and 5 on Team, then $20 a month for each extra clinician. Text messaging is usually a paid number plus per-message credits on every platform: on ClinikEHR a dedicated US or Canada number is $15 a month plus a $25 setup fee on Essential, with 200 message credits included each month.

Payment processing. Card payments cost money on every platform, free or paid, and the fee is rarely on the same page as the plan price. ClinikEHR charges a 1.9% platform fee per online payment plus Stripe's standard 2.9% + $0.30, charged separately, with no monthly gateway fee. DrChrono publishes 3.25% + $0.30 plus a $5 program fee. TheraNest publishes 2.99% + $0.30 (both from the vendors' pricing pages, checked September 2026). If you take $50,000 a year by card, a one-point difference in the rate is $500, so read the processing terms before the feature list.

Data export. The cost that matters most is the one you only discover when leaving. Check on day one which formats you can export (ClinikEHR exports CSV on every plan, with import and export on Essential) and whether notes and documents come with the export. A free plan that traps your data is more expensive than a paid one that lets it go. With self-hosted software, export is never a problem because the database is yours, which is the strongest argument for OpenEMR and the reason it still appeals to technically confident practices.

A Three-Year Cost Scenario

Abstract "hidden cost" ranges are easy to publish and hard to check, so here is a concrete scenario instead: one solo clinician who starts free and upgrades in year two, using list prices checked in September 2026 and leaving out payment fees and add-ons.

• ClinikEHR: year one $0 on the Free plan; years two and three $960 each on Essential billed annually ($1,198.80 a year if paid monthly). Three-year total $1,920, with AI notes and 100 telehealth links a month included from year two.
• SimplePractice: year one $588 on SimplePractice's Starter plan ($49 a month); years two and three $948 each on SimplePractice's Essential plan ($79 a month). Three-year total $2,484, plus $35 a month if you want the AI Note Taker.
• CharmHealth: year one $0 on the free edition if you stay under 50 encounters a month; years two and three $2,400 each on the Provider Plan at $200 a month (confirm whether you would need the $350 option). Three-year total $4,800, with telehealth and the AI scribe extra.
• Practice Fusion: $2,388 a year from day one ($199 a month on an annual commitment). Three-year total $7,164.
• OpenEMR: software $0; hosting, setup and maintenance depend on your host and how much paid help you need, at the $50 to $150 an hour the project describes. Get quotes first.

In this scenario ClinikEHR costs $564 less than SimplePractice, $2,880 less than CharmHealth and $5,244 less than Practice Fusion over three years. SimplePractice's entry plan is cheaper month to month in year one if you need more than the Free plan's limits from the start, so compare on the features you will actually use rather than the headline price.

Which Free EHR for Which Practice

Therapists, counselors and mental health practices. Start on ClinikEHR's Free plan: online booking with email reminders, progress notes, 10 paperless intake and consent forms a month, and superbills for out-of-network clients, all at no cost. Treatment planners, the client portal, secure messaging, measurement-based care and the AI Note Taker start on Essential. If you can pay from month two and want a therapy-specific product, SimplePractice (from $49 a month) and TheraNest (from $29 a month) both offer trials long enough for a real evaluation. Our guides to EHR for therapists and EHR for mental health practitioners go deeper.

Primary care and medical practices. Start on ClinikEHR's Free plan or CharmHealth's free edition, depending on whether your practice is better measured in patients (50 on ClinikEHR) or encounters (50 a month on CharmHealth). Expect to pay within three to six months, because e-prescribing and electronic claims are paid on every platform: on ClinikEHR that means Essential ($99.90 a month) plus the ePrescribe add-on ($49 a month per clinician plus $99 setup), and E-Lab ordering as a $6 per request add-on with a $500 setup fee if you need it. Practice Fusion is the right choice if you would rather pay $199 per provider per month from the start for an EHR that lists e-prescribing and lab integrations as included.

Psychiatrists and PMHNPs. ClinikEHR's Free plan handles booking, notes and billing while you build a panel, with ePrescribe and PDMP integration available as add-ons on Essential when you need to prescribe. Our guide to starting a PMHNP private practice covers the rest of the setup.

Nurses and nurse practitioners. ClinikEHR's Free plan gives a new nurse-led practice a booking page, invoicing and card payments on day one, with 2 staff included for a partner or an administrator, and scales to Essential when the panel grows.

Coaches and wellness practitioners. ClinikEHR's Free plan works for a coaching practice that does not need medical features, and Practice Better's Sprout plan and Healthie's Core plan are the alternatives built for nutrition and wellness work; both cap clients tightly (3 and 10), so ClinikEHR's 50 goes further.

Med spas and aesthetic practices. ClinikEHR's Free plan stores photos and documents on the client's chart in a watermarked viewer, takes online bookings, and sends recall and promotion emails through ClinikReach with the consent type recorded on each send. See our medical spa software guide for the paid options.

Compliance on a Free Plan

Free does not lower the bar. Any EHR that holds protected health information in the United States needs the same safeguards on its free tier as on its paid ones: encrypted storage and transmission, access controls and authentication, activity logging, backups, and a Business Associate Agreement. When you evaluate a free plan, ask five questions. Does the vendor sign a BAA on the free tier? Is data encrypted in storage and in transit, including backups? Is there an access log you can review? Is two-factor authentication available, and can you require it for staff? Can the vendor explain its safeguards in plain language? There is no official HIPAA certification, so be wary of anyone claiming one, and treat "HIPAA-compliant" with no details, no BAA, no encryption statement or an unclear data location as red flags.

ClinikEHR's Free plan is built for HIPAA-regulated work, includes a BAA at no cost, encrypts data in storage and in transit including backups, supports two-factor authentication that a practice can require for all staff, and exports your data at any time; the audit trail view starts on Essential. With self-hosted software, all of this is your job: the software may be capable of compliance, but hosting, backups, encryption and access control are configured and maintained by you. See our HIPAA compliance page for how ClinikEHR handles it.

Whatever you choose, the habits that protect a small practice are the same: unique passwords of twelve characters or more kept in a password manager, two-factor authentication on every account, updated and encrypted devices, annual privacy training for staff and a monthly look at the access log.

When to Upgrade, and How

The signs that you have outgrown a free plan are the same on every platform. You are approaching the client or encounter cap. You need electronic claims submission rather than manual filing. You want AI-assisted notes. You need a third staff member, or a client portal with secure messaging, or text reminders. Or you are spending hours a month on workarounds for a feature the paid plan includes.

A simple test is to compare the paid plan's price with the hours it saves. If electronic claims save you ten hours a month of manual filing and follow-up, a $99.90 plan pays for itself at any clinical hourly rate. If the only thing you would use is the extra telehealth links, a separate video tool might be cheaper until your online caseload grows. Price the plan you would actually need in a year, with your expected staff count and add-ons, and our guide to EHR pricing and hidden costs lists the charges that tend to appear later.

On ClinikEHR the upgrade is a plan change, not a migration: you pick Essential or Team, add a card, and your clients, notes, settings and booking page stay exactly where they were. That is the practical advantage of starting on a free plan rather than a trial. You never have to move data out of a system you tested and into the one you chose.

Try AI Notes Before You Choose Anything

If documentation time is what you hope an EHR will fix, you can test AI-assisted notes before you sign up for any of the systems above. Our free clinical notes generator drafts SOAP, DAP, BIRP and progress notes from a session summary, with no account required. It is a way to see what an AI draft looks like and how much editing it needs before you decide whether AI notes belong on your must-have list.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Is there a truly free EHR for private practice? Yes, in two forms. Free plans with no end date exist from ClinikEHR (50 clients, 2 staff), CharmHealth (50 encounters a month) and Practice Better (3 clients), and OpenEMR is free open-source software you host yourself. Every one of them is limited by design, so the question is whether the limits fit your practice, not whether the plan is real. As of 24 September 2026, ClinikEHR's Free plan is the one on this list that includes online booking, invoicing, superbills, card payments and telehealth links with no time limit.

What is the best free EHR software for a solo private practice? For a solo clinician who wants to see real clients at no cost, ClinikEHR's Free plan covers 50 clients and 2 staff with online booking, basic notes, intake forms (10 a month), invoicing, superbills, card payments and 5 telehealth links a month, and it needs no card and never expires. CharmHealth suits a low-volume medical practice that needs e-prescribing as a paid add-on. OpenEMR suits a practice with its own technical support.

What is the best free EHR software for mental health? For therapists and counselors starting out, ClinikEHR's Free plan includes the pieces a private-pay mental health practice needs on day one: online booking, progress notes, paperless intake and consent forms, superbills for out-of-network clients and card payments. Treatment planners, the client portal, secure messaging and the AI Note Taker start on Essential ($99.90 a month). SimplePractice and TheraNest are built for therapists but offer trials, not free plans, so budget from $29 to $49 a month once the trial ends.

Does ClinikEHR have a free trial? No. ClinikEHR has a Free plan that needs no card and has no time limit (50 clients, 2 staff), and a paid 30-day trial of the Essential plan for $29.90, card required. The trial converts to Essential at $99.90 a month unless you cancel, and you are emailed before it converts.

Which EHRs offer a free trial with no credit card? As checked on their pricing pages in September 2026: TheraNest (21 days), Cliniko (30 days), Practice Fusion (2 weeks), PracticeQ (2 weeks) and Healthie (14 days on its Plus plan) all say no card is needed. SimplePractice and AdvancedMD Now offer 30 days but do not state their card rules. Terms change, so confirm on the vendor's page before signing up.

What's the difference between a free plan and a free trial? A free trial gives you most or all of a product for a fixed number of days, after which you pay or stop. A free plan is a limited version, capped by clients, encounters, users or storage, that you can keep using with no end date. A trial shows you the whole product under time pressure; a free plan lets you run real, small-scale work for as long as you need.

Are free EHRs really free? What's the catch? The catch is always a limit: a client or encounter cap, a user cap, a storage cap, features held back for paid plans, or, with open-source software, the hosting and support you pay for yourself. On ClinikEHR's Free plan the limits are 50 clients, 2 staff, 1 location, 10 intake forms and 5 telehealth links a month, and manual insurance claims at $0.50 each. You upgrade when you pass those, not before.

Can I bill insurance with a free EHR plan? Usually only in part. ClinikEHR's Free plan includes superbills, CMS-1500 forms and manual insurance claims at $0.50 a claim and $0.25 an eligibility check. Electronic and AI-powered claims start on Essential ($99.90 a month), which includes 35 free claims a month and then $0.35 a claim. CharmHealth's free edition is capped at 50 encounters a month, and OpenEMR's billing module depends on the clearinghouse you set up yourself.

How many patients can I have on a free EHR plan? It varies: ClinikEHR allows 50 clients, CharmHealth's free edition allows 50 encounters a month and up to 1,000 patients, Practice Better's Sprout plan allows 3 clients, and OpenEMR has no limit because you host it. A client limit usually lasts longer than an encounter limit for a practice that sees the same people repeatedly.

Can I use a free EHR for telehealth? Some. ClinikEHR's Free plan includes 5 telehealth links a month, and Essential ($99.90 a month) raises that to 100. CharmHealth's telehealth is a $20 per provider per month add-on. If your EHR has none, a separate video tool works but adds steps, so integrated telehealth is worth it once you see clients online every week.

Do free EHR plans include e-prescribing? Almost never. E-prescribing needs a certified prescribing network and identity checks, so vendors charge for it. ClinikEHR's ePrescribe is a paid add-on on Essential and above ($49 a month per clinician plus a $99 setup fee; PDMP integration $5 a month per clinician plus $500 setup). CharmHealth charges $15 per provider per month for eRx on top of its free edition, and SimplePractice charges $49 a month plus an $89 setup fee.

What happens when I exceed the free plan limits? You move to a paid plan and keep your data, settings and workflows. On ClinikEHR that is Essential at $99.90 a month (3 staff included, up to 5 at $40 a month each) or Team at $250 a month (5 staff included, then $35 a month per extra clinician). Paying annually costs $960 or $2,400 a year, about 20% less than monthly billing.

Is HIPAA compliance included on free EHR tiers? Check three things on any free tier: a Business Associate Agreement, encrypted storage and transmission, and access controls with an activity log. ClinikEHR's Free plan is built for HIPAA-regulated work and includes a BAA at no charge; the audit trail view starts on Essential. With self-hosted software such as OpenEMR, the safeguards are your responsibility. There is no official HIPAA certification, so treat any vendor claiming one with caution.

How long should I trial an EHR before deciding? Long enough to run your real workflows end to end: intake, notes, billing, telehealth and the client's side on a phone. For most small practices that is two to four weeks of deliberate testing. Set a decision date a few days before any trial converts to a paid plan, and if you are still unsure when a trial ends, a free plan lets you keep working while you decide.

Conclusion

There is a truly free EHR for private practice; there are four, and they are free in different ways. ClinikEHR's Free plan runs a small practice with no card and no end date, capped at 50 clients and 2 staff. CharmHealth's free edition suits a low-volume medical practice, capped at 50 encounters a month. Practice Better's Sprout plan is a learning allowance of 3 clients. OpenEMR is free software that costs you hosting and support instead of a subscription. Everything else on this list is a free trial: an honest way to test a paid product, as long as you plan the evaluation around your real workflows, check the card rules and the conversion date, and decide before the trial turns into a subscription.

For most solo practitioners, therapists and small clinics, the sensible order is to start on a free plan, work for real, and upgrade when you hit a limit that costs you more than the plan does. On ClinikEHR that upgrade is Essential at $99.90 a month, with a paid 30-day trial for $29.90 when you want to test the full clinic toolkit first.

Ready to start? Create a free ClinikEHR account, compare plans on our pricing page, or contact our team with questions.

Disclaimer: Vendor prices, plans and trial terms were checked on each vendor's own website on 24 September 2026 and can change at any time. Confirm current terms on the vendor's site before you sign up. ClinikEHR and its authors shall not be held liable for any decisions made based on the information provided herein.

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