Honest comparison, August 2026
Joy vs Upheal
Both write your session notes for you. They differ on price, privacy and how much software you want around your sessions. Here is the whole picture, in £.
First 20 sessions free. No credit card needed.
The short version
Joy exists to give you your evenings back. Notes done before you leave the office, a recap waiting before each client arrives, and no new system to run. One flat £25 + VAT a month, your clients' words hosted in the EU, and never used to train AI. That is the whole product, on purpose.
Upheal is a different bet: a US platform growing into a full practice system, with scheduling, a client portal and billing on top of notes, and a genuinely generous free plan at low volume. If that is what your practice needs, they do it well, and we say so below. If what you want is the admin gone, you are in the right place.
Side by side
| Feature | Joy | Upheal |
|---|---|---|
| Price (UK) | £25/month + VAT, flat. Unlimited sessions. | £0.70 per session, capped at £49/month, plus applicable tax. Billed monthly on usage. |
| Trying it out | First 20 sessions free with AI notes. No credit card needed, and no clock on them: your free sessions never expire. | 30-day full trial, no card. A free plan after that. |
| What stays free | Nothing ongoing. After 20 free sessions, Joy is £25/month + VAT. | Unlimited notes if you dictate a summary or upload your own recording. Live session capture with automatic notes is paid. |
| AI training on client data | Never, on any plan. There is no setting to find because there is nothing to switch off. | Anonymised session data is used to improve their AI only if you and your client both explicitly opt in, according to their site (August 2026). Nothing is used otherwise. |
| Where your data lives | Session data hosted in the EU. Swedish company, under GDPR and the UK Data Protection Act 2018. | US company. GDPR and DPA compliant according to their site. |
| Video sessions | Video calls with automatic notes included. | Telehealth free without notes. AI notes from live sessions are part of the paid plan. |
| Beyond notes | Calendar with pre-session briefs, reminders, to-dos pulled from your notes, voice commands. | Scheduling, client portal, forms, payments, treatment plans, insurance billing (not yet in the UK). |
| Built for | Solo therapists, counsellors and coaches. | Solo providers through group practices and enterprises. |
| Support | Human support. Small team, the founders answer. | Chat and email support. Their pricing page lists priority support on the paid plan. |
Where your clients' words go
A session note is not ordinary data. It holds what a client said behind a closed door, on the understanding it would stay there. Whether your home is BACP, UKCP or another member body, your ethical framework asks the same thing of you: keep that material confidential, and be able to stand behind how you keep it. For BACP members, the 2026 Ethical Framework spells this out for AI tools from November. So choosing who handles your notes is not an IT decision. It is a clinical one.
It is worth knowing what can go wrong. In December 2024, therapists at Alma, a large US platform, reported that its note assistant, powered at the time by Upheal, had generated notes describing things that never happened in session. The companies said the issue affected roughly 1% of the notes the tool had generated to date, and that they resolved it together in under two business days. A quick, honest response. But the question it leaves behind is yours to answer: if the tool behind your notes got something wrong, would you catch it before it entered a client's record? That is the risk every AI note tool has to be designed against. Here is how Joy is built:
Your words, not a guess
Joy drafts your note from what you actually said, and shows you the result straight away.
You approve every note
Nothing goes into a client record without you reading it first. The therapist stays the author.
Nothing feeds a model
Your session notes are never used to train AI. Not with consent, not de-identified, not at all.
Source on the Alma incident: ClearHealthCosts, March 2025.
Where Upheal wins
- You want one system for everything: scheduling, client portal, forms, payments and notes in one place.
- You see a handful of clients a month and want the lowest possible cost. Their free plan and per-session pricing are genuinely generous at low volume.
- You run a group practice or plan to grow into one. That is their home turf, not ours.
Where Joy wins
- You hold a full caseload and want one predictable price. £25 + VAT a month, however many sessions you run.
- Privacy is the deciding factor for you. EU-hosted data, no AI training on your notes, ever, on any plan, and a data processing agreement ready to keep on file.
- You want your admin to disappear, not another system to manage. Notes, calendar, reminders and to-dos, and a human when you need one.
Curious what free looks like? Your first 20 session notes are free, no card needed.
45,000+ consultations and counting
Trusted by therapists and counsellors in the UK and across Europe.
"Joy has transformed my private practice. I no longer have to spend hours typing. Joy's accurate, efficient service frees up my time for a good work/life balance. It's worth every penny."
Katya Jezzard-PuyraudPsychotherapeutic Counsellor, UK
"This fabulous program has changed my note-taking life! I never believed that my own thoughts and ramblings could be translated into just the right tone and meaning."
Gina HowardCounsellor, UK
A note from Charlotta
Hi, I'm Charlotta, one of Joy's co-founders. I have built healthcare technology for over a decade, on both sides of the table: as CEO of companies that deliver care themselves, and as the vendor behind the tools they run on.
That long in healthcare teaches you one thing above all: trust is not a feature you add later. It is the whole product. It is why Joy never trains AI on client data, on any plan, and why there is no toggle to find. Nobody should sit opposite a client wondering where their words might end up.
If you are weighing Joy against Upheal and this page leaves a question open, email me at hello@joy.day. I read everything that comes in there.
Charlotta
Co-founder, Joy
Quick answers
Is Joy or Upheal cheaper for UK therapists?
It depends on your caseload. Upheal charges £0.70 per session capped at £49/month, so it is cheaper at low volume. Joy is a flat £25/month + VAT with unlimited sessions, which works out cheaper from roughly 36 sessions a month, so from about 9 a week you are ahead.
Does Joy train AI on client data?
No. Joy never uses session notes or client data to train AI, on any plan. There is no opt-out setting because there is nothing to opt out of.
Where is Joy's data hosted?
Session data in Joy is hosted in the EU. Joy is built by Joy Solutions AB, a Swedish company, and complies with GDPR and the UK Data Protection Act 2018.
Do I need a data processing agreement with Joy?
Under UK GDPR you are the data controller for your client records and Joy acts as your processor, so a data processing agreement belongs in your paperwork. Joy has a standard data processing agreement you can read and keep on file.
Try Joy with your next session
Your first 20 sessions are free. If it is not for you, nothing to cancel.
Try Joy for freeNo credit card needed. Takes 30 seconds.
Prices and plan details checked on 18 August 2026 against upheal.io/uk/pricing, their free plan page and their privacy page. Upheal is a trademark of Upheal, Inc. Spotted something out of date? Tell us at hello@joy.day and we will fix it.