GoodTherapy alternative for therapists comparing GoodTherapy cost and Psychology Today

Figures come from each company's own pages where they publish a price, and from independent reviews where they do not. Directory prices change, so confirm the current one on the signup page before you pay.

GoodTherapy is worth it when it sends you at least one client in the first few months, because one weekly private pay client covers years of the membership. It tends to work best for clinicians who like its ethics stance, use its continuing education and practice in a city where its patient audience is active. It works less well where few patients use it.

Reviewers who compare the two directories generally agree on three points.

• Psychology Today shows up more often in Google results for "therapist near me" style searches, so it usually produces more inquiries per listing.
• GoodTherapy reviews profiles before they go live and publishes a large library of articles for patients, which builds trust with readers who arrive from those articles.
• The clinician dashboard on GoodTherapy is plainer than Psychology Today's, and some therapists find it slower to update.

If your GoodTherapy profile has been complete for three months and produced no inquiries, the issue is visibility in your market. Adding a listing that reaches different patients is cheaper than guessing.

The reasons we hear are practical.

• Few or no inquiries in a specific city, even with a full profile.
• Paying two directories at once and wanting to cut to one plus a cheaper second.
• A new practice coming off the reduced first years rate and reviewing what the full rate buys.
• A group practice that wants one invoice and one page for every clinician instead of separate memberships.
• Wanting verification that patients can see, not only a review that happens behind the scenes.

None of these mean GoodTherapy is a bad directory. They mean the clinician needs evidence of where clients actually come from.

NearbyTherapy is built from the federal NPPES NPI registry, so your basic listing already exists before you sign up. You can search for yourself, see exactly what patients see today and decide from there.

• A License verified badge shown on your profile after we compare your NPI, license number and state with NPPES and your state board lookup.
• Your profile appears in the concern, insurance and fee filters patients use. Unclaimed registry listings do not.
• Patient inquiries by email, released only after the patient confirms their own address, so you are not answering spam.
• No reviews or star ratings on any profile, which keeps you clear of the testimonial rules in most professional ethics codes.
• Flat pricing with no per client fee and no share of your session fees.
• On the Featured plan, priority placement in your city and up to 5 nearby ZIP codes, plus an SMS alert for each inquiry.

How the check works is on the therapist license verification page.

• Search your name or NPI on the claim your therapist profile page. Your registry listing appears in a few seconds.
• Claim it and confirm your license number and state. We check both against NPPES and your state board.
• Copy your statement, specialties, insurance and fees from your GoodTherapy profile so patients see the same details everywhere.
• Choose a plan and keep GoodTherapy running until its billing period ends. Ask every new client where they found you for the next three months.
• Keep whichever listings brought clients. Cancel the rest.

Every plan is a flat subscription. Yearly billing saves 50 percent.

Practices replacing several GoodTherapy memberships with one account can read about the group practice directory listing. Full plan details are on the therapist directory listing page.

Search your own city and specialty on each directory the way a patient would. Count how many profiles load before yours would appear. A directory where you show on the first screen often sends more inquiries than a bigger one where you sit on page six.

Then match the directory to how you get paid. Private pay clinicians benefit most from directories where patients compare fees and specialties. If you mostly take insurance, a credentialing network may fill hours faster than any listing, and a directory only needs to cover the private pay slots.

Track sources for three months and keep what pays. Our guide to marketing for therapists covers the profile details patients read first, and the comparison of Psychology Today alternatives covers the insurance networks in more depth.