Let's start with the part most comparison pages leave out: Heidi's free plan is good.
You get unlimited transcription and unlimited notes on standard templates for $0. A lot of "free" scribe tiers are a trial with a different name. This one isn't. If you're a PT who's never used an AI scribe and wants to see what the fuss is about, Heidi is a perfectly reasonable place to start.
So this page isn't about whether Heidi is good. It is. It's about what a physical therapist runs into after the first week, and whether that's worth paying to fix.
What you get with Heidi
- A free plan that works. Unlimited notes on standard templates. The limit is on "actions": custom templates, Ask Heidi, forms and agent tasks. The free plan gets 10 a month.
- Apps on everything. Web, Mac, Windows, iPhone, Android. The desktop app can dictate into any window on your screen. (Claire skipped the app on purpose: it records right beside your EMR note and pushes into it, so there's nothing to switch between. On the go, Claire's web app runs in your phone's browser.)
- Languages. About 18. Claire is English only, so if you treat in Spanish, Mandarin or Arabic, this is a real point for Heidi.
- A big template community. Clinicians share templates. There's a "WebPT Physio Eval Note," for example, so someone has already done some of the PT setup for you.
- International reach. Heidi integrates with Cliniko, Nookal, TM3, Practice Perfect and WriteUpp, which are big physio EMRs outside the US.
Where PTs start to feel the limits
The copy-paste step
This is the big one for US clinics. Heidi lists a lot of integrations, but one-click push into the EMR currently works with Athena, on the Practice plan and up. If you're on WebPT, Prompt, Jane, Raintree or Net Health, the workflow is: generate the note in Heidi, copy each section, paste into your EMR, repeat for the next patient.
That's fine for three patients. At fourteen a day, it's a chore you don't need.
Claire does this part differently. It runs as a Chrome extension beside your EMR. You click through your note's fields once so it learns the layout, and every note after that goes into your EMR with one click. It works in 80+ EMRs, on every plan, and the layout you link is shared with your whole team.
PT has to come from somewhere
Heidi is a general medical scribe. It won't miss what you said during the visit, but it may not write it the way a PT would. "Knee flexion AROM 115°, quad 4/5" can just as easily come out as a sentence about the patient "making progress with bending." How "PT" your note sounds depends on the template, and the physio templates are mostly made by the community: someone else's eval, set up for their clinic. Otherwise, you build your own.
Claire comes with PT templates (general, ortho, sports, pelvic health) for evals and dailies. You can tune each section: bullets or prose, how detailed, whether to hide it if nothing came up, fixed text you always include. Measurements like ROM, MMT grades and special-test results go into Objective. Daily notes are written knowing the initial eval and last visit, so goals and plan carry forward instead of starting over.
The 10-action ceiling
On Heidi's free plan, customizing a template or asking Heidi to rewrite a section uses an action, and you get 10 a month. Once you start shaping notes to how you actually write, you'll go through those fast. That's when the free plan stops being free.
On Claire there's no meter on edits. Fix a note, press Learn, and Claire saves the change as a rule it follows on every note after that.
The rest of the visit
The SOAP note isn't the only thing a PT visit produces. There's the home exercise program and, for a lot of clinics, a recap for the patient. Heidi can draft documents from a session if you set up a template for them, but it has no HEP builder with sets, reps and exercise videos. Claire drafts both from the same recording: the HEP with sets, reps and a video for each exercise, and a plain-language summary email.
Side by side
| Claire | Heidi Health | Edge | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free option | 7-day free trial with everything included, then paid. | Free plan: unlimited transcription and notes on standard templates, 10 'actions' a month for custom templates, Ask Heidi and similar. | Heidi Health |
| Built for | Built specifically for physical therapy. | Every specialty. Physio templates come from the community (for example a 'WebPT Physio Eval Note'). | Claire |
| Getting the note into your EMR | One-click push into 80+ EMRs, including WebPT, Prompt, Jane, Raintree and Net Health, on every plan. | Integrations vary by plan. One-click push currently works with Athena on Practice/Enterprise. For most PT EMRs, you copy and paste. | Claire |
| Apps | Records in a side panel right next to your EMR note, so there's no separate app to switch from. On the go, the web app works in your phone's browser. | Web, Mac, Windows, iOS and Android. The desktop app can dictate into any window. | Even |
| Languages | English. | About 18 languages. | Heidi Health |
| PT-specific output | PT templates for general, ortho, sports and pelvic health. ROM, MMT and special tests go into Objective. Goals carry forward from the eval. | Depends on the template you pick. There are community-made physio templates to start from. | Claire |
| Home exercise program | Built from the session with sets, reps and videos, ready to email. | Not a built-in feature. | Claire |
| Learning your style | Turns your edits into rules automatically. | Custom templates and Ask Heidi edits (these count toward actions on the free plan). | Claire |
| Team pricing | From $49/mo for 50 visits ($45/mo billed annually), shared by unlimited therapists. Larger plans up to 400 visits, plus an unlimited-visit plan for solo PTs. | Per clinician seat on paid plans. | Claire |
| HIPAA | BAA signed in-app. Audio deleted after 14 days. | BAA available. Also used widely outside the US, including the UK and Australia. | Even |
- Free optionHeidi Health
- Claire: 7-day free trial with everything included, then paid.
- Heidi Health: Free plan: unlimited transcription and notes on standard templates, 10 'actions' a month for custom templates, Ask Heidi and similar.
- Built forClaire
- Claire: Built specifically for physical therapy.
- Heidi Health: Every specialty. Physio templates come from the community (for example a 'WebPT Physio Eval Note').
- Getting the note into your EMRClaire
- Claire: One-click push into 80+ EMRs, including WebPT, Prompt, Jane, Raintree and Net Health, on every plan.
- Heidi Health: Integrations vary by plan. One-click push currently works with Athena on Practice/Enterprise. For most PT EMRs, you copy and paste.
- AppsEven
- Claire: Records in a side panel right next to your EMR note, so there's no separate app to switch from. On the go, the web app works in your phone's browser.
- Heidi Health: Web, Mac, Windows, iOS and Android. The desktop app can dictate into any window.
- LanguagesHeidi Health
- Claire: English.
- Heidi Health: About 18 languages.
- PT-specific outputClaire
- Claire: PT templates for general, ortho, sports and pelvic health. ROM, MMT and special tests go into Objective. Goals carry forward from the eval.
- Heidi Health: Depends on the template you pick. There are community-made physio templates to start from.
- Home exercise programClaire
- Claire: Built from the session with sets, reps and videos, ready to email.
- Heidi Health: Not a built-in feature.
- Learning your styleClaire
- Claire: Turns your edits into rules automatically.
- Heidi Health: Custom templates and Ask Heidi edits (these count toward actions on the free plan).
- Team pricingClaire
- Claire: From $49/mo for 50 visits ($45/mo billed annually), shared by unlimited therapists. Larger plans up to 400 visits, plus an unlimited-visit plan for solo PTs.
- Heidi Health: Per clinician seat on paid plans.
- HIPAAEven
- Claire: BAA signed in-app. Audio deleted after 14 days.
- Heidi Health: BAA available. Also used widely outside the US, including the UK and Australia.
A note on price
Heidi's paid plans are priced per clinician seat, and the Practice tier is the one that unlocks the deeper integrations. Check Heidi's pricing page for current numbers. We'd rather send you there than quote a price that's out of date.
Claire starts at $49 a month for 50 visits ($45 billed annually), shared by unlimited therapists, with plans up to 400 visits and an unlimited-visit plan for solo PTs. EMR push is included in every plan.
For a solo PT who's happy copy-pasting, Heidi Free costs nothing and Claire costs money. That's just true. For a clinic that wants push-to-EMR across three or four clinicians, the math usually tips the other way, because nobody on Claire needs their own seat.
Which should you use?
Go with Claire if…
- You're on a US PT EMR like WebPT, Prompt or Jane and you're done copy-pasting.
- You want the note to come out PT-shaped on day one, without hunting for a community template.
- The HEP and the patient recap are part of what you need from a scribe.
- You're a clinic with several clinicians and want one price, not one per seat.
Heidi Health is probably the better fit if…
- You want to try AI notes without paying anything, and keep using it that way.
- You treat in more than one language.
- You document on a Mac, Windows or phone app and want dictation in any window.
- You're outside the US and your EMR is one Heidi integrates with, like Cliniko, Nookal, TM3 or Practice Perfect.
Why free isn't the whole story
Heidi is free because it's built to serve every clinician in every specialty in every country, and the free plan brings people in. That scale is impressive. It also means PT is one of hundreds of use cases, and the physio templates are mostly written by other users.
Claire is built for one kind of clinician. The PT templates are ours, the EMR push covers the systems US PT clinics actually use, and every edit you make can turn into a rule, with no monthly cap on how much you shape it. You pay for Claire because it does the PT-specific work that a general free tool leaves to you: the structure, the copy-paste, the HEP, the recap.
Run Claire's 7-day trial on a week of your own visits, with push into your actual EMR. Then compare that week with the free version.