Writing therapy progress notes on your Mac, without the recording leaving it
Mentalyc starts at $14.99 a month billed annually. Upheal is $1 a session, capped at $69 a month. Blueprint is $0.99 a session. SimplePractice adds $35 a month for AI notes. All send session audio to a vendor. Vocemo drafts DAP, BIRP and SOAP notes on your Mac for $15 a month.
- What the note tools cost
- Mentalyc from $14.99 a month annually, Upheal $1 a session capped at $69
- The add-on route
- SimplePractice AI Note Taker is $35 a month on top of a $49 to $99 plan
- The local option
- $15 a month, or $144 a year, recording and drafting on the Mac
- What it is not
- No certification, no BAA needed because no vendor receives the audio
Can you write therapy progress notes with AI without uploading the session?
Yes, if the model runs on your own computer. A progress note is a summary of a recording. The recording is audio, the transcript is text, and the note is a shorter piece of text in a fixed shape. None of those steps needs a server. They need a processor and some memory, and a modern Mac has both.
Almost every product sold to therapists for this job works the other way round. You record on a phone or in a browser, the file goes to the vendor's infrastructure, a large model there writes the draft, and the text comes back. That design is not careless. It is what lets a vendor run very large models, ship changes weekly and serve Windows, iPhone and Android from one place. It also means a third party holds a recording of a therapy session, however briefly.
The question this article is about is narrow. Not whether those vendors are careful, because most of them are demonstrably careful. The question is whether the recording needs to leave your office at all, and what changes in your own analysis when it does not.
Why is confidentiality different for therapists?
Every clinician handles sensitive information. The content of a psychotherapy session sits at the far end of that range. A session transcript can contain a disclosure of abuse, a suicidal statement, an affair, an immigration status, a diagnosis the client has told nobody else, and the names of people who never consented to anything.
The law reflects that in several places, and the details differ by country and by state.
- In the United States, HIPAA gives psychotherapy notes a separate and stricter treatment from the rest of the medical record, and most disclosures of them need specific authorisation. Progress notes are not the same thing as psychotherapy notes under that rule, and the distinction matters. Read the rule, or ask your attorney, rather than taking a summary from a website.
- In the United Kingdom and the European Union, health data is special category data under the UK GDPR and the GDPR, which raises the bar for a lawful basis and for any processor you engage.
- Professional bodies add their own duties. The ethics codes of the APA, the ACA, the NASW, the BACP, the UKCP and the BPS all say something about records, consent and third parties. They are not identical and they change.
None of that is legal advice, and this page cannot give you any. It is a list of the instruments you would check. Your regulator and your indemnity insurer are the people who answer the question for your practice.
What does on-device processing actually change?
It removes one party from the picture. That is the whole of it, and it is worth being precise about what follows and what does not.
What it changes. If the audio and the transcript never leave the Mac, there is no vendor holding them. No account of yours can be breached at that vendor, because there is no account. No retention setting can be misconfigured, because there is no retention. No Business Associate Agreement is needed with a company that never receives protected health information, because a company that never receives it is not a business associate. No subpoena served on that company can reach your session, because the company does not have it. And your clients' consent form has one fewer name in it.
What it does not change. The recording still exists. It is on your laptop, and your laptop is now the whole of the security boundary. Full disk encryption, a strong login password, automatic locking, backups you control, and a plan for a stolen machine all become your responsibility rather than a shared one. So does deleting the audio when you no longer need it. Local processing does not make you compliant with anything. It changes which questions the assessment has to answer, and you still have to do the assessment.
There is a longer explanation of the general principle in running AI on your own Mac, and a practical way to check where any app sends data in is your AI app uploading your data.
What do Mentalyc, Upheal, Blueprint and SimplePractice cost?
Prices below are from each vendor's own pricing page, checked September 2026. Several of them run promotions, so what you see may be lower for the first months and higher afterwards.
| Tool | Where the session audio goes | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Mentalyc | Mentalyc's servers | Mini $19.99 a month, or $14.99 a month billed annually, for 40 notes. Super $119.99 a month, or $99.99 billed annually, for 330 notes. 14 day trial |
| Upheal | Upheal's servers | $1 a session, capped at $69 a month per provider. Free plan available. 30 day trial |
| Blueprint | Blueprint's servers | Alongside your existing record system, $0.99 a session or $69 a seat a month for unlimited sessions. All in one plan $1.49 a session |
| SimplePractice | SimplePractice's servers | AI Note Taker add-on $35 a month, on top of a solo plan at $49, $79 or $99 a month |
| Vocemo | Stays on your Mac | $15 a month, or $144 a year, which is $12 a month. 7 day trial |
If you would rather this ran on your own Mac, that is what Vocemo does. Free for 7 days, then $15 a month for 3 Macs.
Download free for MacTwo things are worth pulling out of that table. First, the note tools are not expensive by the standards of clinical software. A solo therapist seeing twenty clients a week pays Upheal about $69 a month and Mentalyc about $30 to $60 a month depending on volume. Second, most of them are more than a note writer. Upheal and Blueprint are record systems. SimplePractice is a full practice management platform where the AI is an add-on. If you need scheduling, intake forms, telehealth and insurance claims, a note tool that runs on your laptop does not replace any of that.
Are these tools HIPAA compliant, and do they sign a BAA?
Generally yes, and you should not choose between them on that basis alone. Mentalyc's pricing page lists HIPAA, PHIPA, SOC 2 Type 2 and Australian APP compliance, and includes a BAA in its plans. Upheal states HIPAA, PHIPA, PIPEDA and GDPR compliance and SOC 2 certification, and offers BAAs. Blueprint publishes a BAA page and a privacy and security page. SimplePractice states HIPAA compliance and references HITRUST.
Those are real commitments with real audits behind them, and it would be wrong to suggest otherwise. A BAA is a contract that makes the vendor legally accountable for the data it holds. A SOC 2 Type 2 report is an auditor's opinion that controls operated as described over a period. If you are going to use a cloud tool, these are exactly the things you should insist on.
The argument for local processing is not that those vendors are careless. It is that a contract about data is a different kind of protection from not sending the data. One allocates responsibility after something goes wrong. The other reduces the number of places where something can go wrong. Which you prefer is a judgement about your practice, your clients and your risk appetite, and reasonable therapists land on both sides of it.
What does a Mac need to run this locally?
Apple silicon and macOS 13 or later. That means a MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, Mac mini, iMac or Mac Studio from late 2020 onwards. Intel Macs cannot run the speech and language models at a sensible speed.
Vocemo's installer is 5.5 MB, because it contains no models. The speech model and the language model download the first time you use the feature that needs them, and they shut down after 120 seconds of inactivity so they are not sitting in memory between clients. A one hour session transcribes in a few minutes on an eight core machine and faster on a Pro or Max chip.
The workflow is short. Record the session, or import an audio file you recorded some other way. The transcript comes back with speakers separated, so client and therapist turns are distinguished. Pick a summary template, DAP, BIRP or SOAP. Read the draft, fix it, and press copy. The note goes onto the clipboard and you paste it into whatever record system you already use.
What does the local option not do?
This section matters more than the price table, and it is the part most comparison pages leave out.
- It holds no certifications. Vocemo is not HIPAA certified, is not GDPR certified, has no SOC 2 report, is not HITRUST certified and is not approved, cleared or registered for clinical use by any regulator. There is no such certification claim anywhere on this site, and you should treat any tool that claims one loosely with suspicion.
- It signs no Business Associate Agreement. A BAA is signed by a business associate, meaning a party that receives protected health information on your behalf. Vocemo never receives your recordings, so there is no data relationship for a BAA to cover. That is an accurate statement about where data goes. It is not a legal opinion about your obligations, and it does not remove your duty to document your own reasoning.
- You remain responsible for the compliance assessment. Your regulator, your local law, your professional body's code and your insurer's conditions all still apply. So does the security of the Mac itself. If your practice needs a documented risk analysis, a records retention schedule or a client consent form that names your tools, none of that is done for you.
- Every note must be reviewed and signed by the clinician. Language models make mistakes, including confident ones. They can attribute a statement to the wrong speaker, compress two sessions of context into one, invent a detail that sounds plausible in context, or miss a risk disclosure entirely. A generated draft is a first draft and nothing more. Read every line against what actually happened before it enters the record. This is true of every product on this page, local or cloud.
- There is no EHR or practice management integration of any kind. No push to SimplePractice, TherapyNotes, Jane, Valant, TheraNest or anything else. No client list, no scheduling, no billing, no treatment plans, no outcome measures, no telehealth. The output is text on the clipboard, and you paste it yourself.
- The templates are fixed shapes, not clinical judgement. DAP, BIRP and SOAP structure a note. They do not decide what belongs in it, what your payer requires, or what medical necessity language your state Medicaid programme expects.
- It is a Mac app. No web version, no iPhone app, no Windows build, no Android. Three Macs on one subscription is the limit.
- Consent is still yours to get. Recording a client requires their agreement whatever happens to the file afterwards. Local processing changes what you tell them about where it goes. It does not remove the conversation.
How should a therapist decide between the two?
A few honest heuristics.
Choose a cloud tool if you want the notes to land in the chart automatically, if you work in a group practice with shared templates and supervision workflows, if you need the same tool on a phone and a laptop, if you want a vendor who has signed a contract accepting liability, or if your organisation's policy requires a named processor with an audit report. Those are all good reasons and they cover a lot of practices.
Choose a local tool if the recording leaving your office is the part you cannot get comfortable with, if you already have a record system you are happy pasting into, if you work alone, if you want a flat price that does not scale with your caseload, or if your clients ask specifically who else hears the session. A therapist seeing thirty clients a week pays Upheal's $69 cap or roughly $60 a month on Mentalyc's larger plans. The same caseload on a local tool is $15 a month, because nothing about the price depends on volume.
And if you are unsure, ask your regulator before you record anything. That answer is worth more than any comparison table, including this one.
Prices verified September 2026.
Questions
Is AI therapy note software HIPAA compliant?
Several products state HIPAA compliance and sign a Business Associate Agreement, including Mentalyc, Upheal and SimplePractice, and some publish SOC 2 reports. Vocemo makes no compliance claim of any kind and holds no certification. What it does is keep the audio on your Mac, so no vendor receives it. Your own compliance assessment, your local law and your professional body's rules remain your responsibility.
Do I need a BAA for an AI note taker that runs on my own computer?
A Business Associate Agreement covers a party that receives protected health information on your behalf. If the recording and the transcript never leave your Mac, no such party exists in that step, so there is nothing for a BAA to cover. That is a factual statement about where data travels, not legal advice. Confirm the position for your jurisdiction with your attorney or your regulator.
Can AI write DAP, BIRP and SOAP notes?
Yes, all the tools on this page produce notes in those shapes, and Vocemo includes SOAP, DAP and BIRP templates. The output is always a draft. Models make errors, including confident ones that read perfectly, so every note must be checked against what happened in the session and signed by the clinician.
How much does Mentalyc cost per month?
Mentalyc's Mini plan is $19.99 a month, or $14.99 a month billed annually, and covers 40 notes a month. The Super plan is $119.99 a month, or $99.99 billed annually, for 330 notes. There is a 14 day trial with no card required. Prices checked on mentalyc.com in September 2026.
Is Upheal or Blueprint cheaper for a small caseload?
Upheal charges $1 a session with a $69 monthly cap per provider, so a light caseload costs very little. Blueprint charges $0.99 a session alongside your existing record system, or $69 a seat a month for unlimited sessions, and its all in one plan is $1.49 a session. Below about seventy sessions a month both are cheaper than their own caps.
Will a local note tool put the note into my EHR?
No. Vocemo has no integration with SimplePractice, TherapyNotes, Jane or any other record or practice management system, and none is planned as part of this description. It puts the finished note on the clipboard with one button and you paste it in. If automatic filing into the chart is what you need, a cloud tool with a built in record system is the better fit.
Sources
Every price on this page was read from the vendor's own page on the date shown above. Prices change; if you find one out of date, tell us and we will correct it.
Competitor prices in this article were checked in September 2026. Prices change; if you find one out of date, write to us and we will correct it.