Heidi Health is one of the best-known AI scribe products in healthcare. It is polished, widely used, and clearly built for busy clinical environments. It supports many specialties, including mental health, and offers features across the consultation workflow, from transcription and note generation to templates, task management, evidence support, and communications. Heidi describes its product as suitable for “every clinician, every specialty, every setting,” including general practice, specialists, nurses, allied health, mental health, and more.

AirNote takes a narrower approach. It is designed specifically for therapists in private practice, especially solo therapists using Mac. Rather than trying to serve every clinical specialty, it focuses on therapy documentation: recording sessions, transcribing locally, generating Clinical Notes and richer Process Notes, creating client and professional documents, and helping therapists build a clearer record of the therapeutic work over time.

That difference matters.

Is AirNote or Heidi Health better for therapy-specific documentation?

Heidi Health is designed for healthcare broadly. That is part of its strength. A GP, psychiatrist, nurse, specialist doctor, dentist, allied health clinician, or mental health professional can all use the same general scribe platform. Its scribe product captures an encounter and turns it into structured clinical documentation, with support for templates, task management, Ask Heidi, and patient/session linking depending on plan.

For many clinicians, especially in medical settings, that breadth is useful. A clinician seeing high-volume appointments may want a fast, flexible scribe that can document the present consultation, generate a letter, and move information into an EHR.

Therapy documentation is different. A therapy session is rarely just a “consult.” It is often one part of a long therapeutic relationship. The note may need to preserve themes, emotional process, interventions, client responses, formulation, risk, goals, relational patterns, and continuity for future sessions.

AirNote is built around that therapy-specific distinction. It generates a concise Clinical Note for the formal record, but also a richer therapist-facing Process Note for clinical reflection and continuity. That separation is important: the record entry and the therapist’s working clinical thinking are related, but they are not the same thing.

For therapists, the question is not simply, “Can this tool write a note?” The better question is, “Does this tool understand the difference between a medical encounter and an ongoing therapeutic process?”

Is AirNote or Heidi Health better for working across multiple sessions?

Many AI scribes are designed around the current appointment. That makes sense in much of healthcare. A patient presents with a concern, the clinician assesses, documents, plans, and moves on. Even when care is ongoing, the individual consult is often the main unit of documentation.

Therapy usually works differently.

A session often only makes sense in relation to what came before: the rupture from three weeks ago, the client’s developing insight, the shift in avoidance, the repeated relational theme, the homework that was not completed, the risk that has changed, or the new meaning of an old story.

Heidi Health does include patient and session linking on some plans, with limitations depending on tier. But its centre of gravity is still broad clinical scribing: capturing a consultation, creating a structured note, and supporting clinicians across healthcare settings.

AirNote is designed around the idea that therapy notes should gradually become a richer client record. Previous sessions inform the current note and related documents. The goal is not just to summarise what was said today, but to help preserve continuity across the therapeutic relationship.

That is a subtle but important difference. In therapy, context is not an add-on. Context is the work.

Is AirNote or Heidi Health better for privacy-conscious therapists?

Both products are built for clinical environments where privacy matters. Heidi Health has public compliance resources for GDPR, HIPAA, UK GDPR, safety, and trust, supported by optional features like flexible data retention.

AirNote is also GDPR and HIPAA compliant, but it's privacy approach is more architecture-led and local-first. Session audio is recorded on the therapist’s Mac and transcribed on-device. Audio does not leave the Mac for transcription, and raw audio is deleted after transcription. AirNote does not store client data on its servers, that data lives on the therapist's Mac only, with optional encrypted iCloud backup.

For therapists, this distinction may matter because therapy audio is unusually sensitive. A recording contains the client’s voice, emotion, pauses, names, stories, and relational nuance. It is often more sensitive than the final written note.

So the privacy question is not just, “Is this product compliant?” It is also, “How much sensitive material needs to leave my device in the first place?”

AirNote’s answer is deliberately conservative: keep transcription local, avoid storing client records on AirNote’s servers, and only use cloud AI processing where it is needed for higher-quality note generation.

Is AirNote or Heidi Health better for solo private practice pricing?

Pricing is one of the clearest differences.

Heidi Health offers a free plan, but the more complete individual clinician plan is priced at $150 per user per month according to current software marketplace listings, with Capterra listing Heidi’s starting price as $150 per user per month. Heidi’s own pricing page also distinguishes between Free, Evidence Plus, Clinician, and team/enterprise offerings, with the Clinician tier unlocking more complete scribe functionality such as unlimited transcription, advanced templates, patient/session linking, personalisation, and broader Ask Heidi use.

For a medical clinic, hospital department, multidisciplinary team, or high-revenue practice, that may be a reasonable cost. A broad healthcare scribe can save time across many types of encounters, integrate into larger systems, and support organisational workflows.

For a solo therapist, the economics are different.

AirNote is priced at $9.99 per month, a single plan that includes unlimited sessions, notes, documents, Ask AirNote, client linking, upcoming sessions, practice analytics, custom templates, and the Mac desktop app.

That pricing reflects a different product philosophy. AirNote is not trying to be a full healthcare AI platform for every specialty and setting. It is a focused documentation tool for therapists, built around local transcription and a Mac-native workflow.

For solo practitioners, that difference can be significant. A therapist does not always need a broad medical scribe platform. They may need something simpler, calmer, cheaper, and more closely shaped around therapy notes.

Is AirNote or Heidi Health better for medical teams?

Heidi Health has a strong case here.

It supports a wide range of clinical settings and specialties, including general practice, physicians, surgeons, critical care, mental health, allied health, nurses, veterinarians, and trainees. It also offers features beyond the scribe itself, including Heidi Evidence and Heidi Comms, designed to support decisions and patient care after the visit.

For larger healthcare teams, those broader platform features may matter. If a practice needs multilingual clinical documentation, EHR workflows, team controls, coding, centralised billing, enterprise support, or broader healthcare adoption across multiple clinician types, Heidi Health is clearly operating in that world.

AirNote is not trying to be that kind of product.

It is Mac-native, therapy-specific, and focused on private-practice documentation. It does not aim to replace a hospital scribe, a general medical AI platform, or a multidisciplinary EHR workflow.

That focus is a limitation if you need broad healthcare infrastructure. It is also the reason AirNote can feel more directly relevant if your work is therapy.

Is AirNote or Heidi Health better for client documents and follow-up?

Both tools support work beyond the immediate note.

Heidi Health includes features such as Ask Heidi, task management, templates, document/session sharing on some tiers, and broader communications features through Heidi Comms. Its scribe page describes after-consult workflows such as sending information to an EHR, applying codes and tasks, and generating referrals and handouts.

AirNote approaches follow-up from the therapy workflow. It can generate drafts such as GP referrals, client session summaries, client homework, work or school excuse letters, and provider progress letters from the reviewed session material.

The difference is emphasis.

In a medical workflow, follow-up may mean letters, codes, handouts, tasks, and patient communications. In a therapy workflow, follow-up is often about preserving the therapeutic thread: what the client is working on, what was agreed, what should be revisited, what can be safely shared, and what should remain private to the clinical record.

AirNote’s document generation is therefore designed to be bounded and therapist-reviewed. It should not invent diagnosis, risk, legal conclusions, or fitness-for-work claims. It gives the therapist a draft, not a decision.

Is AirNote or Heidi Health better for Mac users?

Heidi Health is built as a broad healthcare platform and can be used across different clinical contexts and devices. It is designed for flexibility across settings.

AirNote is specifically Mac-native. That means its workflow is built around the Mac as the therapist’s working environment. The app records locally, transcribes locally, and uses the privacy and performance advantages of Apple Silicon.

That will not suit everyone. If a therapist works mainly on Windows, iPad, mobile, or inside a large EHR environment, AirNote’s Mac-first design may be a constraint.

But for therapists who already run their private practice from a Mac, the native approach can feel natural. Less like logging into another medical platform. More like opening a calm workspace for therapy documentation.

Is AirNote or Heidi Health better for therapists overall?

The honest answer is that it depends on the practice.

Heidi Health is a strong, mature AI scribe for clinicians who want a broad healthcare platform. It is especially relevant for medical teams, multidisciplinary clinics, higher-volume healthcare settings, and clinicians who want a product that spans many specialties and workflows.

AirNote is narrower by design. It is built for therapists, especially solo private-practice therapists on Mac, who want a private, affordable, therapy-specific documentation workflow. Its emphasis is local transcription, therapist-reviewed notes, Clinical Notes and Process Notes, client documents, continuity across sessions, and a price that makes sense for solo practice.

The best choice depends less on which product has the longer feature list, and more on the shape of your work.

If you are evaluating AI scribes as a therapist, ask:

Does this tool understand therapy as an ongoing relationship?
Does it separate formal records from therapist-facing process notes?
Does it help me preserve clinical continuity across sessions?
Does it fit the privacy expectations of my clients?
Does the monthly price make sense for solo practice?
Does it feel like it was built for the way I actually work?
Those questions matter more than a generic AI scribe comparison table.

For therapists, the right documentation tool should not just save time. It should protect the clinical quality of the work, respect the sensitivity of the material, and make the admin around therapy feel lighter, clearer, and more human.

FAQ

Is Heidi Health designed for therapists?

Heidi Health supports mental health as one of many clinical specialties. It is a broad healthcare AI scribe designed for clinicians across general practice, specialist medicine, nursing, allied health, mental health, and other settings.

Is AirNote designed only for therapists?

AirNote is designed specifically for therapists in private practice, with a focus on therapy notes, process notes, client documents, and continuity across sessions.

How much does Heidi Health cost?

Heidi Health has a free plan, but if you want to use the AI Scribe with all features and without limits, you'll need the more complete clinician plan at $150 per user per month.

How much does AirNote cost?

AirNote is priced at $9.99 per month, with one plan that includes unlimited sessions, notes, documents, Ask AirNote, client linking, custom templates, practice analytics, and the Mac desktop app.

Does AirNote upload session audio?

No. AirNote transcribes sessions locally on the Mac. Audio does not leave the Mac for transcription and is deleted after transcription.

Which product is better for large medical teams?

Heidi Health is more naturally positioned for broad healthcare teams, medical settings, and multi-specialty workflows. AirNote is more narrowly focused on solo therapy documentation.

Which product is better for therapy continuity across sessions?

AirNote is designed around therapy as an ongoing process, with client linking, prior context, Clinical Notes, Process Notes, and therapist-facing documentation designed to build a richer record over time.