Berries and Blueprint both serve mental health clinicians, but they solve different problems. Berries is a specialized AI scribe that supports you before, during, and after each session and works alongside whatever EMR you already use. Blueprint pairs an all-in-one EHR with a per-session AI Assistant and a large measurement-based care library. Berries is also launching its own AI-native EMR built on the same foundation, so the choice is starting to shift from scribe versus platform to how deeply AI is built into the platform you choose.

Key Takeaways

• The product categories are converging. Berries works alongside your existing EMR today and is launching its own AI-native EMR soon, while Blueprint bundles an EHR with a paid AI Assistant and outcome measurement built in.

• Berries goes further around the note. Beyond structured notes and treatment plans, it adds session prep before you walk in, an AI chat assistant that draws on the patient's chart, Insights that reflect each session back to you, and client letters written from your note. Blueprint's strength is its assessment library and questionnaire-driven progress tracking.

• Pricing scales differently. Blueprint charges per session for its AI Assistant, so the bill grows with your caseload, while the Berries Pro plan includes unlimited session notes at a flat rate, and you can start with 20 free sessions with no credit card required.

What Is Berries?

Berries is an AI scribe built exclusively for mental health professionals, including therapists, counselors, psychologists, and psychiatric nurse practitioners, whether you work in private practice, a group, community mental health, or telehealth. It captures in-person and telehealth sessions and produces a structured clinical note within seconds of the session ending, which you review and move into your chart.

Unlike general healthcare documentation tools, Berries recognizes clinical modalities and therapeutic language rather than treating a therapy session like a medical visit. It's also built to support you before, during, and after each session, not just at the note-writing stage. Session preparation surfaces your last session summary and key follow-ups, including safety, therapeutic themes, treatment plan progress, and an alliance check. During a session, the AI chat assistant draws on the patient's history and treatment plan to answer clinical questions. Afterward, Insights reflects the session back to you, highlighting what stood out, the approaches you used, and patterns worth another look.

• Documentation depth: notes, treatment plans that keep the golden thread intact, ICD-10 suggestions, and client letters drawn from documented session content, all structured to support insurance requirements.

• Clinical continuity: a medication list that updates automatically from your notes, plus patient context you add once and Berries carries into future notes.

• Templates and customization: 20+ built-in templates, plus the option to build your own from scratch or from a sample note.

• Flexible note creation: live session capture (including headphones mode for telehealth), dictation, text-to-note, handwritten note or document upload, and audio upload.

• Works with any EMR: copy-paste or PDF export, so adopting it isn't a migration project.

• Security and compliance: HIPAA and PHIPA compliant and SOC 2 certified, with a BAA included at signup and ready-to-use client consent forms.

Berries is also launching an AI-native EMR for mental health, built on the same foundation as its scribe and designed from the ground up with AI rather than adding it to an existing record. If you want your documentation and your record in one system, you can join the Berries EMR waitlist for early access.

What Is Blueprint?

Blueprint repositioned in 2026 around a EHR core paired with a paid AI Assistant. The Core tier includes scheduling, telehealth, client records, notes, forms, payments, and insurance workflows with no client or session caps. 

The AI Assistant, which handles transcription and documentation drafting, sits on top of that and is priced per session, at a lower rate when used alongside your existing EHR and a higher rate when Blueprint is your EHR. Credits are prepaid and, as of publication, there's no monthly cap.

Blueprint's other distinguishing asset is its assessment and intervention library, which it advertises at over 600 assessments, worksheets, and interventions. Progress tracking runs primarily through client-completed questionnaires, and the company reports over 70,000 mental health professionals on the platform. Its site publishes HIPAA and SOC 2 Type 2 claims.

How Berries and Blueprint Compare

The real question is where you want your tooling to concentrate. Here's how that plays out across the areas that matter most in day-to-day practice.

Measurement-based care and progress tracking

Blueprint's tracking is built around validated instruments administered to clients before or between sessions, with results graphed over time. Research consistently supports routine outcome monitoring, and administrative overhead is usually what stops clinicians from doing it, so lowering that barrier is a genuine strength. The limitation is that questionnaire-driven tracking depends on completion, so progress visibility reflects when assessments get filled out, not necessarily what unfolded in the room.

Berries approaches continuity from the clinical documentation side. Session prep surfaces prior clinical material and follow-ups before your next appointment, Insights highlights patterns in what you've documented, and treatment plans stay connected to your notes, so the golden thread holds because the note, the plan, and the progress record draw from the same source. These aren't substitutes for each other. Our guide to evaluating client progress in counseling covers how to build formal measurement into a workflow, and our overview of therapy goals and objectives covers the treatment planning side.

Pricing and session volume

Per-session pricing is attractive at low volume, since a clinician with a small or irregular caseload pays very little. It becomes less attractive as caseload grows, because the bill scales with every session you document. The Berries Pro plan includes unlimited session notes at a flat rate, and its free plan keeps 10 sessions available every month after your first 20, with discounts for students, trainees, and early career professionals.

To decide, count your realistic monthly session volume including intakes and reschedules, multiply by each vendor's current per-session rate or compare against the flat plan, add what you're already paying for your EHR (an EHR only saves money if you'd actually switch), and factor in payment processing and claims fees where they apply. Then recheck at the volume you expect in twelve months. Our breakdown of what an AI scribe costs covers the category more broadly.

EHR fit and switching costs

Blueprint's AI Assistant works alongside a third-party EHR through copy-paste output, and native integration availability varies by partner. Its deepest value is inside its own EHR, which is also where the per-session rate is higher.

Berries works with any EMR. You review the note, then move it into your system through copy-paste or PDF export, which means adopting it doesn't require your group practice to agree on a platform migration. If you'd rather consolidate, the upcoming Berries EMR is designed to bring the scribe and the record together. If you're weighing an EHR change now, our comparison of EHR systems for therapy private practice is a better starting point than making both decisions at once.

Privacy and compliance

Both operate under HIPAA, offer a Business Associate Agreement, and publish SOC 2 claims. Beyond that baseline, ask any vendor how long session recordings and notes are retained, whether the terms of service language about model training matches the security page, whether PHIPA or another non-US framework is supported, and what consent materials they provide for clients.

Berries is SOC 2 certified, complies with HIPAA and PHIPA for Canadian practice, and covers every clinician under its BAA at signup. It doesn't store session recordings, doesn't use protected health information to train its models, and lets you delete notes anytime or set them to delete automatically after 30 days. If you're building internal guidance, our guides to ethical considerations when using an AI scribe and creating an AI policy that works walk through what to include.

Which Option Is Right for You?

The right choice comes down to whether you need an EHR and how much clinical support you want around the note itself.

Consider Blueprint if you need an EHR and one that materially changes what you can afford, if measurement-based care with validated instruments is central to how you practice, if your session volume is low or irregular enough that per-session pricing stays cheap, or if you want scheduling, billing, telehealth, and documentation in one system.

Consider Berries if you want support before, during, and after each session rather than a note generator alone, whether you keep your current EHR or plan to move to an AI-native one. It's also a strong fit if you want to build templates around your own documentation style, if keeping the golden thread intact and producing notes that hold up to insurance review matters to you, or if you carry a full caseload and want documentation costs that don't scale per session.

If you're planning to switch EHRs anyway, timing matters. With the Berries EMR launching soon, it's worth joining the waitlist and comparing both all-in-one options before you commit to a migration.

If documentation is the part of your week that's actually costing you evenings, testing a dedicated scribe against your own sessions is the fastest way to know. Berries gives you 20 free sessions with no credit card required, which is enough to evaluate note quality across a real caseload rather than a demo. Get started at heyberries.com.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Berries building an EHR?

Yes. Berries is launching an AI-native EMR for mental health professionals, built on the same foundation as its AI scribe. Until it launches, Berries works alongside any EMR through copy-paste or PDF export, and you can join the waitlist for updates and early access.

Which tool produces better clinical notes?

Note quality varies by session, audio conditions, and how much you customize the output, so this is worth testing rather than reading about. Run the same few sessions through a trial on each and compare how much editing each draft needs before it's chart-ready.

Do either of these replace an outcome measurement system?

No. Blueprint includes assessment administration, which is closer than most scribes get, and Berries surfaces patterns through Insights and session prep, but neither replaces a deliberate measurement-based care protocol. Decide which instruments you want to use clinically first, then check whether your tooling supports them.

How to ask client consent to use an AI scribe?

Most boards and ethics codes treat recording or AI processing of session content as requiring informed consent. Explain what the tool does, what happens to the data, and that clients can decline. Berries provides a ready-to-use client consent form you can share with clients, and Mentalyc offers its own consent materials.

How much documentation time should I expect to save?

Most clinicians report substantial reductions, though the honest range is wide and depends on how much editing your notes need.

In Berries’ 2026 State of AI in Mental Health Practice Report, a survey of 343 mental health clinicians, those using AI reported cutting their weekly documentation time from 7.7 hours to 3.1 hours. That’s about 4.6 hours saved each week on average, or roughly 60% less time on notes. 

Our guide to reducing admin time as a therapist covers where the rest of the time usually goes. Our guide to reducing admin time as a therapist can help as well! 

This article is for educational purposes and professional development only. It does not constitute clinical supervision or replace professional judgment in therapeutic practice.