Therapy asks us to listen on several levels at once: to the client’s words, emotional shifts, protective strategies, changes in risk and the meaning developing across sessions. Documentation matters, but it should not compete with that attention—or become another hour of work after the final client has left.

Berries and AirNote both aim to reduce that burden, and this is a closer comparison than many AI-scribe matchups.

Berries is genuinely designed for mental health professionals. It offers therapy-specific templates, treatment plans, pre-session preparation, contextual AI assistance and tools for insurance-oriented documentation. It is not a generic medical scribe with therapy added as an afterthought.  

AirNote is also built specifically for therapists, but it takes a more local-first and reflective approach. Alongside the formal Clinical Note, it creates a separate Process Note for the therapist’s thinking. That material can support Prior Context, session preparation and psychological formulation across the course of therapy.

For most solo therapists who work from a Mac, AirNote is the more compelling overall choice. It costs considerably less, keeps raw session audio on the therapist’s device during transcription and connects documentation, reflection, preparation and formulation within one coherent therapy workflow.

Berries remains a strong alternative for clinicians who want a small free allowance, broader device access, insurance-focused medical treatment planning or group-practice features.

Key takeaways

• AirNote costs $19.99 per month. Berries Pro is $99 per month. Consequently, AirNote costs $948.12 less over twelve months.

• Berries has a useful free plan: the first 20 sessions are included, followed by 10 sessions each month. That can suit occasional use, but most therapists with active caseloads will require Pro.  

• Both products are designed around mental health rather than general healthcare.

• Berries offers strong formal documentation, 20-plus templates, treatment plans, ICD-10 suggestions, patient instructions and an AI assistant that can use previous notes.  

• AirNote creates both a formal Clinical Note and a therapist-facing Process Note as standard parts of the session workflow.  

• Berries securely processes recordings and does not ordinarily retain them after processing. AirNote transcribes audio locally, so the recording does not need to be uploaded for transcription in the first place.  

• Berries’ continuity tools centre on patient context, treatment plans, goals and previous notes. AirNote’s continuity is more explicitly reflective and formulation-led.

Berries vs AirNote at a glance

What is Berries?

Berries is an AI documentation platform built for mental health professionals.

It can capture in-person and telehealth sessions and convert them into structured Clinical Notes. Its current feature set includes more than 20 mental health templates, customisation, pre-session summaries, treatment plans, patient instructions, letters, diagnostic-code suggestions and an AI assistant informed by previous notes.  

Berries also supports several ways of providing session material. Clinicians can capture a session live, dictate afterwards, enter text, use handwritten notes or upload an audio file. That flexibility may be useful for therapists who do not follow the same documentation routine after every appointment.  

Its wider clinical emphasis is particularly visible in features such as:

• Treatment plans aligned through the “Golden Thread”.

• ICD-10 suggestions and explanations.

• Medication lists carried across sessions.

• Insurance-friendly notes.

• Letters for clients, schools, employers and other providers.

• Custom arrangements for group practices.

These are valuable features, especially for US therapists working with insurers, multidisciplinary behavioural health teams or prescribers who need medication and diagnostic information close at hand.  

What is AirNote?

AirNote is a local-first macOS documentation and practice assistant developed specifically for therapists.

After transcribing a session, AirNote can prepare two separate drafts:

• A concise Clinical Note for the formal client record.

• A richer Process Note for the therapist’s reflection, formulation, continuity and preparation.

This separation is central to AirNote rather than an optional template choice. The therapist can preserve clinically useful thinking without automatically placing every impression, relational observation or tentative hypothesis into the formal record.  

AirNote also links sessions to clients and can develop Prior Context from previous Process Notes. That context can help preserve recurring themes, goals, significant changes, formulation ideas and points that may be useful to revisit.

Its wider therapy tools include:

• Ask AirNote.

• Psychological formulations.

• Pre-session summaries.

• Client homework.

• Client session summaries.

• GP referrals.

• Provider progress letters.

• Work or school absence documents.

• Custom client and professional documents.

• Practice analytics, local search and data exports.

AirNote’s public site describes preparation based on previous sessions, formulations drawn from the client’s work over time and editable documents that can be copied or exported into an existing EHR or practice system.  

Pricing: AirNote is substantially less expensive

Price is one of the clearest differences between the products.

Berries offers a genuine ongoing free allowance. A clinician receives the first 20 sessions free and then 10 sessions each month, without providing a credit card.  

That is more generous than a time-limited trial and may be enough for:

• A therapist who sees only a few clients.

• Occasional assessments.

• Testing AI documentation over a longer period.

• A clinician who uses a scribe only for particularly complex sessions.

Ten sessions per month, however, averages only a little over two sessions each week. A therapist with a typical private-practice caseload is likely to exceed that allowance quickly.

Berries Pro is $99 per month, with unlimited sessions, personalised templates, treatment plans, instruction emails, pre-session highlights, ICD-10 suggestions and AI assistant chat.

AirNote costs $19.99 per month after a seven-day trial.

Using the current displayed prices:

AirNote therefore costs $948.12 less over twelve months.

Put another way, Berries’ starting Pro price is almost four times AirNote’s monthly price.

Berries includes meaningful functionality for that additional cost. Its free allowance, flexible capture methods, treatment-plan tools, insurance-oriented features and group options may justify the expense for some clinicians.

For solo therapists, however, the economics of practice are often different from those of a medical clinic. Supervision, insurance, professional registration, room rental, directories, continuing education, scheduling, video platforms, accounting and EHR subscriptions may all be paid personally.

When two products are both designed for mental health and both extend beyond simple note generation, a difference of almost $1,000 each year deserves careful attention.

Which product is better for therapy documentation?

Berries is strong at producing formal mental health documentation.

Its feature pages describe more than 20 built-in templates, customisation, consistent structure, insurance-aware output and Magic Edit. A therapist can select a format that fits the particular session and adapt the result to their preferred tone and level of detail.  

For clinicians whose main need is a polished SOAP, DAP, BIRP or other progress note, Berries is a credible option.

AirNote’s advantage is not simply another collection of templates. It begins with the recognition that therapists often need two different forms of documentation.

The formal Clinical Note may need to be brief, factual and proportionate. It may record the presenting issue, interventions, client response, risk, progress and plan without including every tentative clinical thought.

The therapist may simultaneously need to preserve:

• Emotional tone and shifts.

• Relational patterns.

• Avoidance and protective processes.

• Therapeutic stance.

• Ruptures and repairs.

• Emerging formulation.

• Questions to carry into the next session.

• Material that is clinically useful but unsuitable for a concise formal record.

AirNote gives this material a dedicated Process Note.

On the current Berries feature pages reviewed for this comparison, the standard documentation workflow is described primarily as a Clinical Note. Berries’ custom templates may allow a clinician to create a richer reflective format, but its public materials do not present the same paired Clinical Note and Process Note workflow that AirNote provides automatically.  

That distinction can reduce both over-documentation and under-documentation. The therapist does not have to choose between a sparse record that loses useful continuity and a formal note containing more reflective detail than it needs.

Templates: two strong but different approaches

Both products take therapy templates seriously.

Berries offers more than 20 built-in mental health formats. They are customisable, and its editing tools are intended to adapt notes to the therapist’s preferred structure and tone. This is particularly appealing for clinicians who already know exactly how they want their progress notes to read.  

AirNote’s template library is more closely connected to its wider therapy workflow.

A template is not treated solely as a way of rearranging headings. It sits within a system involving:

• The formal Clinical Note.

• The therapist-facing Process Note.

• Prior Context.

• Session preparation.

• Psychological formulation.

• Client and provider documents.

Therapists can select a modality-focused starting point, modify an existing template or create their own. The benefit is not necessarily having the largest template count. It is beginning with structures designed around therapeutic work and having those structures inform what happens after the note is written.  

Berries may have the advantage for clinicians who want extensive formal-note customisation and insurance-conscious language.

AirNote has the advantage when templates need to support a connected process of documentation, reflection and formulation.

Continuity across sessions

The older comparison understated Berries’ continuity features.

Berries now provides pre-session preparation based on the previous session and treatment goals. It highlights follow-up points before the client arrives. Patient Context can be added once through text or uploaded documents and then carried into future sessions. Its AI Chat Assistant can also draw on the chart and previous notes.  

These are valuable capabilities. It would no longer be accurate to describe Berries as treating every appointment as an isolated encounter.

The difference lies more in what kind of continuity each system prioritises.

Berries’ model connects:

Patient context → previous note and goals → pre-session summary → treatment plan

This is especially useful when the therapist needs to maintain measurable goals, demonstrate medical necessity or keep documentation aligned for insurance purposes.

AirNote’s model connects:

Session → Clinical and Process Notes → Prior Context → formulation and preparation → next session

Prior Context is built from the therapist-facing material in earlier Process Notes. It is intended to preserve recurring themes, meaningful changes, developing hypotheses and continuity points that may not belong in a standard progress note.

For example, a therapist may need to remember not only that a client completed an agreed task, but that:

• The client asserted a need without immediately apologising.

• A familiar withdrawal pattern appeared after a moment of closeness.

• A previously intellectualised subject carried more emotion.

• A rupture was repaired differently from earlier ruptures.

• A formulation hypothesis is becoming more or less convincing.

Berries can carry facts, goals, previous notes and patient background across sessions.

AirNote is more explicitly designed to carry the therapeutic process across sessions.

Psychological formulations

Formulation is one of AirNote’s clearest specialist advantages.

AirNote can create a separate draft psychological formulation using selected Process Notes, Prior Context and a chosen formulation framework. This allows the therapist to organise material across several sessions rather than squeezing a brief case-conceptualisation paragraph into each progress note.

Depending on the framework, a formulation might help organise:

• Predisposing influences.

• Precipitating experiences.

• Maintaining processes.

• Protective factors and strengths.

• Attachment or relational patterns.

• Beliefs and assumptions.

• Behavioural cycles.

• Systemic influences.

• Possible priorities for therapy.

The formulation remains a draft. It should be reviewed against the source record, revised as therapy develops and treated as a working clinical understanding rather than a definitive explanation.

Berries’ treatment-planning features are strong. It can connect goals, interventions and progress through the Golden Thread, helping therapists maintain alignment between treatment plans and subsequent documentation.  

That solves a different problem.

A treatment plan asks, broadly, “What are we working towards, and how will progress be documented?”

A psychological formulation asks, “How might we understand what is happening, what maintains it and what may support change?”

Many therapists need both. AirNote places the second question much closer to the centre of its product.

AI assistance beyond the note

Berries has evolved into more than an AI scribe.

Its AI Chat Assistant can answer questions using previous notes and patient context. It can help the clinician explore ideas and alternatives, although Berries appropriately states that clinical decisions remain the healthcare provider’s responsibility. It also produces patient instructions, letters, treatment plans, ICD-10 suggestions and medication lists.  

These features are particularly useful for insurance-based practices, psychiatric services and clinicians who need diagnostic, medication or treatment-plan information organised around the client.

AirNote’s broader AI functions are more closely centred on psychotherapy and private practice.

Ask AirNote can help the therapist explore material associated with a particular session and its relevant client context. A therapist might use it to:

• Retrieve what was agreed for the next appointment.

• Review themes present in the transcript.

• Identify interventions and client responses.

• Consider questions worth returning to.

• Develop possible homework.

• Prepare a client-friendly summary.

• Begin structuring a formulation.

AirNote can also draft client homework, session summaries, referrals, provider progress letters, absence documents and custom materials. All outputs remain editable drafts and are not automatically shared.  

The distinction is not that Berries lacks an AI assistant. It clearly has one.

AirNote’s advantage is that Ask AirNote sits beside the Process Note, Prior Context and formulation workflow. The same material that supports documentation can also support reflection, preparation and carefully bounded client communication.

Treatment plans versus formulations and reflective context

Berries may be the stronger product for a therapist whose administrative world is organised around:

• Diagnoses.

• Insurance authorisation.

• Measurable treatment goals.

• Medical necessity.

• Progress updates.

• Medication information.

• Consistency across a group practice.

Its treatment-plan and coding functions are well aligned with that kind of work.  

AirNote is likely to feel more natural when the therapist’s clinical world is organised around:

• The therapeutic relationship.

• Evolving formulation.

• Emotional process.

• Reflective practice.

• Meaning across sessions.

• Preparing thoughtfully for the client’s return.

• Keeping formal and private notes distinct.

These are not mutually exclusive approaches. Many therapists work with both clinical depth and administrative structure.

The practical question is which side of the work the software is primarily designed to support.

Privacy: two responsible but meaningfully different models

Both companies take privacy seriously.

Berries complies with HIPAA, HITECH and PHIPA requirements, is SOC 2 certified, encrypts data in transit and at rest, stores data in the United States and does not use protected health information or personal data to train its models. Every clinician who signs up is automatically covered by its Business Associate Agreement.  

Berries also says session recordings are not retained after processing, apart from limited circumstances involving technical troubleshooting or legal obligations. Its privacy policy explains that transcripts, notes, treatment plans, codes and related clinical material are processed through its service. Certain data, such as session notes, may be set to delete after 30 days by default, while users can configure other retention settings.  

This is a credible security model for a cloud-based therapy scribe.

AirNote is also HIPAA and GDPR compliant, but takes a different architectural approach.

The recording is transcribed locally on the therapist’s Mac. Raw audio is not sent to the cloud for transcription. Following successful transcription, it is deleted; interrupted or failed transcription audio may be retained locally for a limited retry period.  

Clinical records are stored locally by default. When the therapist deliberately asks AirNote to generate a note, document, formulation or Ask AirNote response, the relevant text is securely sent for processing. Raw audio is not included. Optional Cloud Sync can be enabled, but raw audio files remain excluded.  

The difference can be stated simply:

• Berries: securely processes the recording through its service and does not ordinarily retain it afterwards.

• AirNote: performs transcription on the therapist’s own Mac, avoiding the need to upload the raw recording for that purpose.

A therapy recording is unusually sensitive. It contains voice, affect, pauses, names, personal histories and disclosures that may never appear in the final note.

Both approaches can support responsible professional use. For therapists who want to minimise where the raw source material travels, however, AirNote’s local transcription provides a meaningful additional boundary.

Local records versus cloud convenience

Berries’ cloud-based architecture supports flexible access and a broader range of devices. For clinicians moving between offices or working within a group, that convenience may be important.

AirNote keeps the primary clinical record on the therapist’s Mac. Cloud Sync is optional rather than the default, and raw recordings are excluded from synchronisation.  

Neither model is universally superior.

A group practice may value centralised cloud access. A solo therapist working from one secured Mac may prefer to reduce the number of systems holding complete client records.

The more useful privacy question is not merely, “Is the data encrypted?”

It is: Where does this information need to exist for my practice to function well?

For many independent therapists, AirNote’s local-first answer will feel proportionate to the sensitivity of the work.

Which product is likely to save more time?

There is no independent head-to-head study showing that either product universally creates better notes or saves a fixed number of minutes per session.

Both should reduce the time required to turn a therapy conversation into structured documentation.

Berries may save the most time when the therapist’s main workload involves:

• Insurance-ready progress notes.

• Treatment-plan updates.

• Diagnostic-code selection.

• Patient instructions.

• Medication tracking.

• Moving between devices.

• Standardisation across a group.

AirNote is designed to reduce work across a broader reflective cycle:

• Capturing and transcribing the session.

• Producing the formal Clinical Note.

• Preserving a therapist-facing Process Note.

• Carrying context into later sessions.

• Preparing for the client’s return.

• Developing a psychological formulation.

• Creating homework and summaries.

• Drafting referrals and progress letters.

• Retrieving relevant information through Ask AirNote.

For therapists, documentation burden is rarely limited to typing the progress note. It also includes trying to remember what mattered, rebuilding the thread of the work, preparing resources and writing occasional documents for clients or other professionals.

AirNote’s strength is that these tasks belong to the same connected workspace.

Which product is more likely to support quality of care?

No AI scribe can guarantee better therapy.

Quality of care remains dependent on the therapist’s competence, ethical practice, supervision, judgement and relationship with the client. AI-generated notes, formulations, codes and documents require careful review.

A well-designed tool can nevertheless create better conditions for thoughtful care.

When a therapist is not trying to capture every detail manually, there is more room for eye contact, emotional attunement and curiosity. When notes are completed promptly, the record may be more accurate. When previous themes are easier to retrieve, meaningful continuity may be less likely to disappear beneath a full caseload.

Berries supports these conditions through structured notes, pre-session preparation, treatment-plan alignment and contextual AI assistance.

AirNote adds a more explicitly reflective layer. Process Notes, Prior Context and formulations help the therapist return not only to what was documented, but to what may be developing in the therapy.

The AI does not replace clinical thinking.

Used carefully, it can give the therapist more time and space in which to think.

Who should choose Berries?

Berries may be the better fit when you want to begin with an ongoing free allowance; need access across phone and windows devices; work in an insurance-heavy setting; rely on treatment plans and Golden Thread documentation; regularly use medication lists; want several flexible input methods; or need group-practice templates and administration.

It is a serious therapy product, and its current context, preparation and AI features are considerably broader than a simple note generator.

Who should choose AirNote?

AirNote is likely to be the stronger fit when your work is primarily psychotherapy or counselling; you practise independently; you work mainly from a Mac; you want formal Clinical Notes and private Process Notes kept distinct; you care about formulation and reflective continuity; you regularly create homework, summaries, referrals or professional letters; you want raw audio to remain on your device during transcription; and you want the complete therapy-specific workflow for $19.99 per month.

AirNote’s case is not simply that it is less expensive.

Its note structure, client context, formulations, documents and preparation tools are organised around the way a therapeutic relationship develops over time.

Final verdict

Berries and AirNote are both credible AI therapy scribes.

Berries has a strong mental health focus, a useful free allowance and an increasingly capable set of tools around preparation, treatment plans, clinical context, letters and AI assistance. Therapists working with insurers, diagnostic coding or group-practice workflows may find its structure particularly valuable.

AirNote is the more reflective, private and economical option for solo therapists.

It makes the distinction between a formal Clinical Note and a therapist-facing Process Note part of the standard workflow. It uses earlier reflective material to support Prior Context, preparation and dedicated psychological formulations. Its raw audio is transcribed locally, and its clinical records remain on the therapist’s Mac by default.

The price difference is substantial. At $19.99 per month, AirNote costs $948.12 less over twelve months than Berries at its $99 monthly price.

For a group practice that prioritises insurance documentation, cloud flexibility and centralised treatment planning, Berries may be a good investment.

For a solo therapist who wants to remain present in sessions, preserve the deeper thread of the work, protect sensitive recordings and spend considerably less on documentation, AirNote is the more compelling choice in 2026.

Frequently asked questions

Is Berries designed for therapists?

Yes. Berries is built specifically for mental health professionals. Its features include mental health note templates, pre-session preparation, treatment plans, patient instructions, letters, ICD-10 suggestions and contextual AI chat.  

How much does Berries cost?

Berries provides the first 20 sessions free and then 10 free sessions each month. Pro currently starts at $99 per month and includes unlimited sessions and its wider documentation features.  

How much does AirNote cost?

AirNote costs $19.99 per month following a seven-day free trial. Its single plan includes the core note, client-context, document, formulation and Ask AirNote workflows, subject to fair-use terms.

Does Berries remember information between sessions?

Yes. Berries can carry Patient Context across sessions, generate pre-session summaries and allow its AI assistant to use previous notes and chart information.  

What is different about AirNote’s continuity?

AirNote’s Prior Context is informed by all previous sessions. It is designed to preserve recurring themes, changes, ideas and continuity points that can support later notes, preparation and psychological formulations.

Does Berries retain therapy-session recordings?

Berries says audio is processed transiently and is not retained after processing, except where required for limited technical troubleshooting or legal obligations.  

Does AirNote upload session audio for transcription?

No. AirNote transcribes raw session audio locally on the therapist’s Mac. Relevant text is sent for secure AI processing only when the therapist initiates a generation feature.  

Which product is better for treatment plans?

Berries has the clearer dedicated treatment-planning workflow, including goals, interventions, progress updates and Golden Thread alignment.  

Which product is better for psychological formulations?

AirNote has the stronger dedicated formulation workflow. It can create a separate formulation documents for clients based on the client's session history.

Which product is better for Process Notes?

AirNote. Separate Clinical and Process Notes are standard parts of its session workflow, and Process Notes can support later context, preparation and formulation.  

Which product is better for group practices?

Berries offers custom group-practice pricing and a practice template library. AirNote is more deliberately focused on individual and private-practice therapists.  

Which product is better for solo therapists?

Berries may suit solo therapists who need its free allowance, cross-device access or insurance-oriented tools. For Mac-based therapists who prioritise local audio transcription, reflective continuity, formulation and lower cost, AirNote offers the stronger overall value.

Features and publicly displayed Berries pricing checked on June 22, 2026. Berries describes Pro as starting at $79 per month; plans and billing terms may change.

Editorial note: AirNote’s current project source of truth lists its price as $19.99/month. The animated price on the live AirNote page currently renders inconsistently to text crawlers, so the visible public price should be checked before this comparison is published.