Berries and Mentalyc are both AI scribes built specifically for mental health clinicians, which already puts them in a narrower category than general medical documentation tools. Both turn session content into structured clinical notes, support treatment planning, and operate under HIPAA with a BAA. 

The differences that affect your work are pricing structure, how much support each tool gives you before and after the note, and which clinical extras you'd actually use.

Key Takeaways

• Both are purpose-built for behavioral health. Neither is a general medical scribe adapted for therapy, so both handle therapeutic language, modality-specific interventions, and mental health note formats far better than a generic tool.

• Both generate structured notes and treatment plans, but Berries adds session prep beforehand, an AI chat assistant that draws on the patient's chart, Insights that reflect each session to you, and patient letters written from your note. Mentalyc's main extra is Alliance Genie, which tracks therapeutic alliance over time.

• Trials differ in length and shape. Berries gives you 20 free sessions with no credit card required, plus 10 new free sessions every month on its free plan, and Mentalyc offers a 14-day trial including 15 notes. Evaluate note quality on your own sessions rather than on feature lists.

What Is Berries?

Berries is an AI scribe designed exclusively for mental health professionals, including therapists, counselors, psychologists, and psychiatric nurse practitioners. It captures in-person and telehealth sessions and generates a structured clinical note within about a minute after the session ending. You review, edit, and move it 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 stay aligned with the golden thread, ICD-10 suggestions, and patient letters drawn from documented session content.

• 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, dictation, text-to-note, handwritten note or document upload, and audio upload.

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

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

What Is Mentalyc?

Mentalyc is also built exclusively for behavioral health. It accepts live recording through its app, uploaded audio files, dictation, or a typed session summary, and it uses a record-then-process workflow rather than real-time streaming transcription.

Mentalyc publishes support for SOAP, DAP, BIRP, GIRP, PIE, and SIRP formats along with a custom template library, and its higher tiers add treatment planning, supervision notes, and CPT code computation. It also offers Alliance Genie, a session insight feature aimed at tracking therapeutic alliance over time.

Pricing runs on tiered monthly plans with note caps, from a small entry plan capped in the low double digits of notes per month up to a higher tier in the low hundreds, plus a per-seat team plan with unlimited notes for group practices.

How Berries and Mentalyc Compare

Both tools will cut documentation time substantially compared to writing notes by hand. Here's where they actually diverge, and where they're closer than you might expect.

Pricing and session volume

Tiered plans with note caps work well when your volume is low or predictable. They work less well when your caseload fluctuates, because exceeding your tier means upgrading or rationing notes at the end of the month. Flat pricing with unlimited notes is easier to budget around as a caseload grows, since your documentation cost doesn't move every time you add a client.

At the low end, Berries' free plan keeps 10 sessions available every month after your first 20, which is worth factoring in if you see only a handful of clients. Do the math with your real monthly session count, including intakes and reschedules that still generate documentation. Pricing shifts on both platforms, so confirm current figures on each vendor's pricing page. 

Our breakdown of what an AI scribe actually costs covers how to evaluate this category more broadly.

Note formats and templates

Format coverage is closer to even than it looks on a feature page. Berries offers 20+ built-in templates, including SOAP, DAP, BIRP, EMDR, and couples formats, and covers the other named formats clinicians commonly use. If you're still choosing a format, our guides to SOAP notes and BIRP notes cover the structural differences.

Mentalyc also publishes a long list of named formats and a custom template library, which helps if you work across settings or supervise clinicians using different conventions. Berries leans harder on customization. You can create a template from scratch, generate one from a sample note you already like, and share customized templates across a group practice, so notes follow your structure without manual reformatting.

Note creation options

Both tools handle more than live recording, which matters if part of your caseload isn't recorded for consent or setting reasons. Berries supports live session capture, dictating a summary afterward, generating a note from typed text, uploading an audio file, and uploading handwritten notes or documents as images, PDFs, or Word files. Headphones mode supports telehealth sessions where you're wearing a headset.

Once the note exists, Berries focuses on the editing layer, with section-level revision through Magic Edit so you can fix one part of a note without regenerating the whole thing.

Privacy and compliance

Both are HIPAA compliant with a BAA available, which is the baseline before any tool touches PHI. Beyond that, the questions are about certifications, retention, and model training.

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. For any tool you evaluate, confirm the BAA is in place, ask how long recordings and notes are retained, and check that the terms of service language about model training matches what the marketing page says. Our guides to HIPAA compliance in AI documentation and the ethics of using an AI scribe go deeper, and if your practice needs formal guidance, we've covered how to create an AI policy that works.

Clinical support beyond the note

Mentalyc's Alliance Genie tracks therapeutic alliance signals across sessions, which is a real draw if you treat alliance as a process measure. Berries takes a broader approach to the clinical workflow around the note. Insights reflects each session back to you, session preparation brings forward a summary of the last session and key follow-ups for the next session, and the AI chat assistant lets you ask questions grounded in the patient's chart. Treatment plans generated from session content, ICD-10 suggestions, patient letters, a medication list, and an interventions bank round out the picture.

Neither replaces formal outcome measurement. Our guide to evaluating client progress in counseling covers the validated instruments that belong alongside any AI-generated summary.

Which Option Is Right for You?

The right choice comes down to your session volume and how much support you want around the note itself.

Consider Berries if you want support before, during, and after each session rather than a note generator alone, if you want to build your own templates, or if you care about keeping the golden thread intact and producing documentation that is optimized for insurance review. It's also a strong fit if you carry a full or growing caseload and want unlimited notes at a predictable price, or if you practice in Canada and need PHIPA alongside HIPAA.

Consider Mentalyc if a dedicated alliance-tracking feature is something you'd actively use, or if your group practice has already standardized on its template library.

Keep in mind that caseloads tend to grow. A pricing model that fits your volume today is worth checking against the volume you expect in twelve months.

If you want to test Berries against your own sessions, your first 20 sessions are free with no credit card required. Start a session, run therapy the way you normally would, end the session, and review the note that comes back. Get started at heyberries.com.

Frequently Asked Questions

Are Berries and Mentalyc both HIPAA compliant?

Yes. Both are HIPAA compliant and offer a Business Associate Agreement. Berries is also SOC 2 certified, maintains and PHIPA compliance, and doesn't store session recordings. Confirm your BAA is in place before using any tool with client information.

Can I use either tool with my existing EHR?

Yes. Berries works with any EMR through copy-paste or PDF export, so you don't need to change systems. Mentalyc supports export and integration, though native integration availability varies by partner. Confirm your specific system with the vendor first.

Do AI scribes work for couples and family sessions?

Both handle multi-speaker sessions, though quality varies with audio conditions and the number of voices. Berries includes a built-in couples template. If conjoint work is a large share of your caseload, test it directly during your trial, and pay attention to microphone placement, which makes a substantial difference.

Do I still need to review AI-generated notes?

Always. The note is a draft, and you remain clinically and legally responsible for what enters the record. Review for accuracy, clinical nuance, and anything the tool inferred rather than observed. Our guide to using AI for progress notes covers this in more detail.

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.

Which tool is cheaper?

It depends on your volume. Tiered plans with note caps can be cheaper at moderate volume and more expensive at a full caseload, while unlimited flat pricing stays predictable as you grow. At very low volume, compare Mentalyc's entry tier against the sessions included in Berries' free plan. Run your actual monthly session count against each vendor's current published pricing.

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