Cliniko vs SimplePractice: Solo Clinic Software 2027

The short answer: on the public record, neither Cliniko nor SimplePractice is a clear default for a medical practice. Cliniko describes itself as practice management software for clinics and allied health practitioners. SimplePractice names therapists, speech-language pathologists, occupational therapists and psychiatrists as its specialties. Both say they will sign a business associate agreement, and both let you export your data. The decision turns on three narrower questions: whether you need e-prescribing and telehealth inside one tool, how much clinical history you must carry across, and whether the vendor's import tools can take what you have. If a written quote cannot answer those three questions, neither product belongs on the shortlist yet.

How we evaluated

We read each vendor's homepage and help-center articles, then checked the regulatory and market claims against a government, regulator or professional-society source where one existed. We did not use review sites or price directories for any statement in this article. Checked October 19, 2026: we re-opened the Cliniko and SimplePractice homepages that day to confirm how each describes its customers and specialties. Where a vendor page would not open or showed only a footer, we say so in the text rather than filling the gap. Each product got the same five questions: who it names as its customer, what it says about HIPAA and business associate agreements, what it says about exporting and importing records, what it says about the features a physician office needs, and what happens when you leave.

No vendor figure appears in this article. Neither vendor's price is in our vendor store, and we did not re-fetch and date one for this page, so every price question below is routed to a written quote. Pricing is quote-based for both vendors, and neither prints a figure on the pages we read.

Who Cliniko is for

Cliniko's homepage describes it as practice management software for clinics and allied health practitioners. It promises help to "manage your schedule, treatment records, invoices, payments, and lots, lots more," and lists connections to MailChimp and Xero. The customer stories on its site cover physiotherapy, chiropractic, osteopathy, myotherapy, speech pathology, psychology and dietetics. The stories we reviewed came from allied health clinics, and the public materials do not name a medical specialty.

That does not make Cliniko the wrong tool for a small clinic with non-physician clinicians. It does mean a physician practice cannot assume the product was shaped around its billing, referral or lab patterns. Ask for a reference customer in your specialty before you rely on it for those workflows.

Who SimplePractice is for

SimplePractice describes itself as EHR software for health and wellness professionals. Its homepage says the EHR "includes integrated telehealth, a robust template library, and helpful insurance tools." The specialties it lists are therapists, speech-language pathologists, occupational therapists and psychiatrists, with a "View all specialties" link implying more. It names new, solo and group practices as audiences.

The psychiatry reference matters for a medical practice. The homepage we reviewed mentions e-prescribing only in that context, saying psychiatrists can manage patient medications with ePrescribe. A group of primary care physicians will find little on the public page that speaks to its own workflow. Ask for the e-prescribing scope for your state and your prescriber types in writing.

Side-by-side

Sources: Cliniko homepage and help center; SimplePractice homepage, BAA page and support center. "Not published" means the public pages we could read do not say it.

The table shows how thin the public record is. Most cells that matter for a physician practice read "not published." That is a finding, not a gap in our reading. A practice that needs a specific answer should get it in the quote, in writing.

Compliance anchors that drive the choice

The regulatory frame sets what you must verify whichever product you buy. According to CDC NCHS, 95.0 percent of office-based physicians used an EHR in 2024, so migration rather than adoption is the real risk. The figures below are the ones that change your contract and your cutover plan.

Sources: eCFR, 45 CFR 164.316; UNC School of Government; Compliancy Group, summarizing OCR breach data; CDC NCHS, National Electronic Health Record Survey.

Cliniko's HIPAA help article says turning on the HIPAA setting "by default" turns on the HIPAA-required settings. A practice requests a BAA from its patient privacy settings, under a "Compliance" section. The article also says that "by following these steps and using the features we've provided, your business won't automatically be compliant with HIPAA." It does not say which plans are eligible for the BAA. It describes encryption as "EBS encrypted volumes on all servers" at rest, with TLS in transit, and it does not name a data location.

SimplePractice's homepage calls its software HIPAA-compliant, and its footer links to a BAA page titled "SimplePractice™ Business Associate Agreement." The page we could open showed only the footer, not the agreement text. A third-party review says the BAA excludes e-prescribing and lab integrations. We could not confirm that from SimplePractice's own pages, so ask for the signed text and read the scope clause yourself.

According to Compliancy Group, 772 large breaches were reported to OCR in 2025, so the count matters less as a headline than as a reason to read the agreement. Each vendor's BAA is a contract, and the terms on breach notice, subcontractors and return of PHI at termination decide who carries the cost when something goes wrong.

Pros and cons

Cliniko

Pros:

• Full export is available to administrators as a CSV snapshot that opens in common spreadsheet tools, so you can leave with your data.

• The HIPAA setting and BAA request sit inside the account settings, and the help article says subprocessors handling PHI have signed BAAs.

• The user-activity export includes sign-in attempts, which gives you an audit trail you can pull yourself.

• A developer API link appears on the homepage. That matters if a lab or referral system must connect, though you need to confirm it covers the data you need.

Cons:

• Public materials name no physician specialty and no medical workflow.

• Treatment notes, appointments and invoices cannot be imported directly. Treatment notes can go in as file attachments, and Cliniko's FAQ suggests re-creating upcoming appointments and outstanding balances by hand.

• Data exports expire after two weeks, so a full export is a file you must download and store yourself.

• Its own help says using the product does not make a practice compliant.

SimplePractice

Pros:

• Public pages name HIPAA compliance, a BAA, integrated telehealth and e-prescribing for psychiatrists in one product.

• Insurance tools are named on the homepage, which matters if claims are central to your billing. Confirm the claims scope in writing, because the public text does not describe it.

• The SimplePractice team will build client profiles from a template, which gives a structured starting point for a move.

Cons:

• The team cannot import clinical notes, billing documentation or appointments from another platform.

• Only the account owner, or a practice manager with export permission, can export. The file is emailed and password-protected, and SimplePractice's help center says deleted account data cannot be recovered.

• The BAA's scope for e-prescribing and labs is disputed by a third-party reading, and we could not settle it from the vendor's pages.

• Data location is not published on the pages we reviewed.

What switching actually costs

Migration is where the two products differ least and where the work lands. Neither vendor's import tools take your full clinical history, so the switch is partly a manual project.

Sources: Cliniko import help article and FAQ; SimplePractice help center on transferring from another EHR and on exporting data.

The survey evidence says the time is the main risk. The figures below are older than the vendor pages, so treat them as context rather than as current benchmarks.

Sources: AAFP Family Practice Management; HCInnovation Group, reporting an ONC data brief.

According to AAFP Family Practice Management, 81 percent of respondents called the time investment of a migration a moderate or major challenge. Plan for about a month of overlap. That is our planning assumption, not a vendor-published timeline. Export and archive from the old system first, build the new profiles, load intake forms, and run both systems side by side until one full billing cycle has cleared.

Build the migration around an exception queue. Every record the import tools reject, whether notes, appointments or invoices, goes to a named staff reviewer with a due date, and the reviewer either closes it or escalates it. This human-escalation pattern is the kind of exception routing US Tech Automations writes about, but confirm any tool against your own PHI rules before you use it on patient records.

If you are weighing other options, see SimplePractice alternatives for medical practices. For another SimplePractice comparison, see SimplePractice vs Weave for medical practices. For the claims side of the decision, see Availity vs Change Healthcare for medical practices.

The verdict, and who should pick the other one

These two are close, and the public record does not separate them for a medical practice. Neither product names physicians as its target, and neither publishes the physician-specific detail you would need to choose on fit alone.

Pick Cliniko if you run an allied health or small clinic with non-physician clinicians, want a full export you can pull yourself, and do not need e-prescribing built in. Its public pages do not describe e-prescribing, so confirm it in the quote if you think you need it.

Pick SimplePractice if your practice is psychiatry-led or mental-health-led and you want telehealth and e-prescribing in one tool. Accept that the team-run migration covers client profiles, not notes or appointments, and that its export is an owner-run, password-protected file.

Pick neither if you are a physician group that needs lab interfaces and e-prescribing across several prescriber types. Shortlist a medical EHR instead and treat both products as out of scope.

Whichever you pick, the step most likely to break is intake matching. A returning client's intake form has to land on the correct new record before the first visit. A mismatch is an exception, and it belongs in the same reviewer queue described above. If you add an escalation layer for that step, a US Tech Automations workflow can route the mismatch to front-desk staff, but it will not recover records the vendor never exported.

Before you sign, request a written quote that covers:

• Seats, counting clinicians and administrative users separately

• Each module you need: telehealth, e-prescribing, patient portal, claims

• Migration help, including what is done by the vendor and what is done by you

• The signed BAA text, including its scope clause for e-prescribing and labs

• Contract term, and the export terms at cancellation

What usually drives the number is the clinician count, the modules switched on, claims volume, how much migration work the vendor will do, and the contract length. Ask each vendor for those drivers in writing so the two quotes can be compared line by line.

For more practice-software comparisons from US Tech Automations, start from the site home page.

FAQs

Is either product built for physicians?

Neither public site names a primary care or multi-specialty physician group as a target customer. SimplePractice names psychiatrists, and Cliniko names allied health practitioners, so confirm physician fit in writing.

Do both vendors sign a business associate agreement?

Yes, both say they will, but neither public page publishes plan eligibility rules, so request the signed text. Cliniko's BAA request sits in the patient privacy settings after the HIPAA setting is on, and SimplePractice's BAA is linked from its footer.

How long must documentation be kept?

According to eCFR, Security Rule documentation under 45 CFR 164.316 must be kept for six years, which is the period to plan around for archived policy and audit records. HIPAA itself sets no federal period for patient charts, so state law usually controls that question.

How fast must a practice answer a records request?

According to UNC School of Government, a practice has 30 calendar days, with one extension that caps the total at 60 days. A business associate's delay counts against the same clock, so ask each vendor how long a full record pull takes.

Can I move clinical notes from one of these tools to the other?

Not through either vendor's standard import tools. Cliniko's import tools do not accept treatment notes, and SimplePractice's team cannot import clinical notes from another platform, so plan manual uploads or file attachments.

Will workflow automation fix a bad migration?

No. A workflow layer can route exceptions to people, but it cannot create data that was never exported. Treat it as a way to clear the queue, not a substitute for a complete export.

How long does a switch take?

Plan for about a month of overlap. That is our planning assumption, not a vendor-published timeline, and the real figure depends on how much history you carry across.

Key Takeaways

• Neither vendor's public record names medical practices as a target, so ask for physician fit in writing.

• Both say they sign a BAA. Read the scope clause, especially for e-prescribing and labs.

• Cliniko's full export is an admin CSV that expires after two weeks, and its import tools skip notes, appointments and invoices.

• SimplePractice's team-run transfer excludes notes, billing documentation and appointments, and its export is an owner-run, password-protected file.

• Plan for six years of documentation retention and a 30-day clock on records requests.

• No vendor price is printed here. Request a quote covering seats, modules, migration and the BAA.