Brighter Vision Review 2024: Features, Pros & Cons, Cost, & Who It’s Right For

Brighter Vision Review – Key Takeaways

• Brighter Vision offers monthly subscription based full-service web design specifically for mental health practices that leverages AI to help build your website. It requires no knowledge of building a website to get a great product.
• Brighter Vision does not allow you to build the website yourself, however, you are granted full access to all customization of your website after it has been set up.
• Features offered through Brighter Vision include design, hosting, email services, ongoing support, as well as premium features at higher subscription levels like SEO and marketing support.
• Brighter Vision offers a great deal of value, only costing $100 upfront for a full website build, however, the process of building the website can take up to a month.
• Many practices will find Brighter Vision very valuable.

What Is Brighter Vision?

Brighter Vision is a unique website-building service built specifically for therapists, counselors, life coaches, nutritionists, and other wellness professionals. Using a hybrid model of DIY design and professional consultation, Brighter Vision works with you to custom-design your mental health practice’s website. Brighter Vision also includes full-service hosting services, SEO features, and much more.

Brighter Vision removes the manual work of designing a therapy website by using a combination of AI design tools and consultation with professional website designers. After your team has designed your website, you are free to customize it even further, if you like. Mental health-specific resources and content are pre-generated for you depending on your specializations and services offered.

Aside from design, Brighter Vision will acquire and annually renew your domain name, as well as host the therapist website and ensure 24/7 functionality. Additional features included with Brighter Vision are SEO features, social media management, and HIPAA-compliant email and messaging services. Brighter Vision aims to help you ensure your therapy website gets noticed and purports to take the complexity out of building your therapy practice’s website.

Brighter Vision costs range from $99 to $349 monthly, depending on the additional features you wish to add. There is a $100 set-up fee due when you sign up, as well as the monthly price of the package you choose.

Types of Website Builders

Brighter Vision is a hybrid website builder that uses AI and human designers with input from you. Brighter Vision requires very little tech knowledge and can be used to create beautiful websites even if you have no experience with design.

Website builders can range from completely do-it-yourself systems wherein you build the website mostly on your own to fully professionally managed websites designed by experienced web designers. Depending on your experience, budget, and the amount of time you’d like to spend on setup, different options may be better for you.

How Easy Is Brighter Vision to Use?

Brighter Vision is very easy to get started with. After signing up and paying the $100 setup fee, you simply submit a questionnaire to your design team about your practice’s preferences. Brighter Vision takes your website build from there and states that depending on your needs, it can take anywhere from one to four weeks to get your website fully set up.

The steps for creating a website with Brighter Vision are:

1. Select your website design preferences: During onboarding, you will submit your preferences via Brighter Vision’s interactive website builder. This includes setting up your initial template, and customizing colors, images, fonts, and many other aspects to your liking.
2. Brighter Vision builds a draft of your website: Your design team will then take your preferences and use them to build the draft website.
3. Review your draft website and make revisions: You will review the draft website, and collaborate with your design team on any necessary changes or any additional integrations or features you would like added to the site.
4. Your wesbite goes live: Once this process is complete, you will publish your website.

How Much Does Brighter Vision Cost?

Brighter Vision costs range from $99 – $349 monthly; all subscription levels require a $100 upfront setup fee. An optional HIPAA-compliant email client is available at an additional fee of $14.99 – $24.99 monthly. Brighter Vision does not offer a free trial. Discounts are available for annual billing. Both the monthly cost and the setup fee are due at the time of signup.

Here are the costs for Brighter Vision:

How to Get Started with Brighter Vision

To get started with Brighter Vision, simply navigate to the Brighter Vision pricing page, select the package you would like to begin with, and enter your payment details. Then you will be directed to the onboarding questionnaire, which will guide you through the initial steps and get you set up with your design team.

Brighter Vision Website Builder Core Features

Brighter Vision offers a wide range of features like AI-driven template design, customizable integrations, and SEO management tools. You will also have all of the hosting and security features needed to protect your clients’ information. Brighter Vision costs $99-$349 monthly, depending on which plan you choose, and there is a one-time set-up fee of $100.

Here are the core features of Brighter Vision:

AI-Driven Template Design

Brighter Vision provides web design services, much like a freelance web designer would, while retaining many of the customization features of template web builders, like Wix. Taking a hybrid approach to website building, Brighter Vision removes much of the manual work from you while still retaining a great degree of customization and personalization.

During onboarding, you will submit your preferences via Brighter Vision’s interactive website builder. This includes setting up your initial template, and customizing colors, images, fonts, and many other aspects to your liking. Your design team will then take your preferences and use them to build the draft website. You will review the draft website, and collaborate with your design team on any necessary changes or any additional integrations or features you would like added to the site. Once this process is complete, you will publish your website.

During my review of Brighter Vision, I was impressed with the ease and sense of ownership I retained during the onboarding process – Brighter Vision’s customization suite is on par with other DIY web builders I’ve used, like Wix or Squarespace. It also provides the feel of a custom designed website by a dedicated web designer.

Design Customization

Brighter Vision offers an in-depth customization suite that covers changes to your website, much like Wix. Brighter Vision sites are built on WordPress, so if you are familiar with WordPress websites, editing in Brighter Vision will be no problem for you.

Editing is a bit less intuitive in Brighter Vision than it is with Wix, as it does not offer drag-and-drop editing. Getting your website to look exactly the way you’d like it to might be a bit difficult in some instances. However, with the support you receive through your design team, more difficult changes can simply be handed off to the professionals at no cost. Brighter Vision states that there will be no costs aside from your monthly fee and setup fee, even if you’d like a redesign of your website.

There are a small number of templates available that you can modify a website to, which can be implemented by your design team. Colors can be fully modified, but matching and themed color palettes are generated for you- a great feature for those with color impairments. There are a wide range of fonts as well, and Brighter Vision will suggest options based on the style of your website and other choices you have made. Stock images are included and provided by Pexels and Unsplash.

I cannot stress enough how useful and reassuring it is to have a whole team of web professionals to guide you through the web design process from beginning to end. While this luxury is an upfront cost, having a guide through the process is well worth it. This is especially true if you don’t have any web development or design experience.

Website elements a user can customize with Brighter Vision are:

• Overall flow of the website
• Uploaded images
• Text content
• Submittable forms
• Placement of text, images, or other items around on a page
• Creation of new pages from a template
• Sitewide color scheme
• Font size and color

Website elements a user cannot customize with Brighter Vision are:

• The template the website is using
• Recoloring of individual design elements

Mental Health Specific Website Integrations

Brighter Vision offers a few standard website integrations, including ready-to-use client forms and pre-generated mental health content. These mental health specific features are a great example of why it might be a good idea for therapists and other behavioral health professionals to use a website builder with mental health in mind.

The client forms, which can be upgraded to be HIPAA compliant, allow you to collect information from your clients ahead of their appointments as well as help minimize administrative setbacks. Meanwhile, the mental health page content provides psychoeducation to clients and potential clients while browsing your site.

In terms of other integrations, Brighter Vision states that they can implement just about anything on a case-by-case basis and are happy to hear specific requests you might have for features for your website.

SEO Tools

As an ongoing service, Brighter Vision offers all of its customers support in managing SEO. Your design team will help you decide your target audience and define keywords to get your website visible on search engines.

At the highest subscription level, Brighter Vision offers you “Brighter Insights,” an SEO reporting tool that can help you ensure that your therapist website is easily found. This service also offers you tips on how to improve SEO on your website.

Marketing

Brighter Vision offers a social media tool that provides you with pre-written content and post ideas for blogs or social media on some subscription levels. It also gives you a dashboard for managing all of your internet profiles in one place.

If you’re trying to improve your practice’s online presence, the task can quickly become daunting. Brighter Vision’s Social Genie helps take a bit of the load off and could be incredibly valuable for growing your practice. Social Genie is a powerful tool that provides you with pre-generated blog and social media posts and an automation system for scheduling posts.

Brighter Vision Domains & Hosting

Brighter Vision purchases and renews your domain on your behalf, or you can import your own. Likewise, Brighter Vision fully manages the hosting of your website and guarantees 24/7 support to ensure your website is accessible. While Brighter Vision will have ownership of your domain, they guarantee to fully transfer it to you at any time without cost.

Brighter Vision includes one domain name with a subscription, as well as up to 5 HIPAA-compliant email addresses, depending on your subscription level, with the option to purchase more. Brighter Vision includes hosting of unlimited pages, so expanding your site will never be an issue.

Unlike many competitors, Brighter Vision includes 24/7, unlimited access to support at no cost. This is extraordinarily valuable, as it ensures your website will always be supported to maximize up-time.

Who Is Brighter Vision Right For?

Brighter Vision is an excellent service for building therapist websites, especially if you have limited knowledge of website building, want to take a hands-off approach, or want mental-health-specific content and resources in your web builder.

People Unfamiliar With Setting Up Websites

Brighter Vision doesn’t require you to know anything about setting up a website, or even website design and layout best practices – everything is handled on your behalf, with your input only needed for customization choices and the overall aesthetic of the website.

Those Who Want to Take a Hands-Off Approach

Brighter Vision offers a very hands-off method for building your website. Aside from providing a bit of feedback to the design team and providing the details of your practice, there isn’t any work required from you. This saves a lot of time and headache in setting up your website, plus you get the peace of mind knowing it’s being handled by professionals.

Therapists that Need a Website With Mental Health Content and Resources

Mental health-related page content and resources are an excellent addition that Brighter Vision includes with all of its subscription plans. This feature allows you to provide engaging content on your therapist website without having to track down all of these resources on your own.

Who May Want an Alternative to Brighter Vision?

Brighter Vision may not be a good fit for people that need a website quickly, are on a tight budget, or prefer to take a hands-on approach to build their website.

Therapy Practices that Need A Website Quickly

Like any custom-designed product, Brighter Vision does not deliver quickly; getting a website up and running can take up to a full month, depending on the features needed and how much deliberation is involved. If you need a website quickly and don’t mind a bit of work, DIY builders like Wix, Weebly, or Squarespace may be better options.

To read more, take a look at our Wix review.

Practices on a Tight Budget

Brighter Vision costs relatively more than other popular web builders. You can build a website for $19 monthly with Wix, whereas Brighter Vision costs at least $99 upfront. Considering Brighter Vision is a custom-built product, this price difference is understandable.

SimplePractice offers a full suite of practice management tools for one price. It’s hard to beat the value they offer for the relative cost — take a look at our review of SimplePractice Website Builder for more insight.

Those that Prefer a DIY Approach

If you like to have more control over your website, a DIY website builder would be a better option for you. While it does offer a lot of control over the aesthetics of your website, it is not as deeply customizable as designing a website on your own. Wix, Weebly, and Squarespace are all good options, or, if you’re a bit more tech-savvy, you could build one directly on WordPress.

Brighter Vision Vs. TherapySites

While Brighter Vision and TherapySites are both website-building solutions designed for therapists, they are quite different. While TherapySites offers some custom design solutions, it is mostly used as a DIY solution. TherapySites also offers a far poorer user experience and fewer customization options than Brighter Vision.

TherapySites is slightly more affordable than Brighter Vision, with the base cost being $10 less than Brighter Vision’s lowest subscription tier. However, there are many add-on features with TherapySites that are included with Brighter Vision that can drive the price up considerably. For more insight, read on to our review of TherapySites.

Brighter Vision Vs. Wix

Brighter Vision is built specifically for the unique needs of therapists, counselors, and other wellness professionals, whereas, Wix is designed to build just about any kind of website imaginable. As well, the process of building a website with Brighter Vision is managed by a design team, but Wix is almost entirely DIY.

Both Brighter Vision and Wix offer hosting, SEO, and marketing features, but Wix goes a step further in integrations, offering over 500 apps on its App Marketplace. Wix also has a larger selection of website templates, but not all of these will be applicable to therapy websites.

Setup can be completed quicker with Wix – working on your own, you could set up a website within the span of an afternoon, meanwhile, Brighter Vision requires deliberation with designers and can take up to a month, albeit with far less effort on your part.

The monthly cost with Wix can be significantly lower with Wix with plans starting at only $16 monthly, with no upfront setup fee. Meanwhile, Brighter Vision costs start at $69 monthly, with a mandatory $100 setup fee. Take a look at our Wix review to get a better idea of how it compared to Brighter Vision.

Brighter Vision – Our Final Verdict

Overall, I was very impressed with Brighter Vision. The design process eliminates a lot of the work needed to get a therapist website started. Knowing your website is being designed and managed by professionals really eases the mind. If your practice can afford the upfront expense, I would recommend Brighter Vision for creating your website.

You Should Consider Signing Up for Brighter Vision If You:

• Want a web builder tailor-made for therapists
• Want professional expertise in designing your website
• Are unfamiliar with building websites

You Should Consider Looking for an Alternative to Brighter Vision If You:

• Are on a tight budget. We explored a better alternative in our review of SimplePractice Website Builder.
• Want to be in full control of building your website. Our Wix review discusses the huge variety of websites you can build with that platform.
• Need a website built quickly. Template-style website builders like Wix offer much faster setup times.

History of Brighter Vision

According to Brighter Vision’s LinkedIn profile, the company was founded in 2011 and is headquartered in Lafayette, Colorado. The company is relatively small, as it employs between 11 and 50 employees. Notably, the company runs its Brighter Vision For Good initiative in which it donates services and expertise to non-profits dedicated to antiracism, environmental sustainability, and human rights.

FAQs for Brighter Vision

Is Brighter Vision HIPAA-Compliant?

Yes, Brighter Vision is fully HIPAA-compliant. The platform also offers features for HIPAA-compliant email and client paperwork transfers.

Is Brighter Vision Free to Use?

No. Brighter Vision offers full-service onboarding, and since a design team is working on your behalf, there is a $100 setup fee upfront. Pricing plans range from $99-$349 monthly, depending on the features you need.

Can Brighter Vision Integrate my Website With (Facebook, Yelp, Twitter, LinkedIn, PayPal, PsychologyToday, etc.)?

Yes. Brighter Vision states that they are able to integrate with any other website or service. This is done case-by-case, so you will simply contact your design team with your ideas.

Does Brighter Vision Own Your Content?

Brighter Vision retains ownership of the website itself, but you own the domain name, even if Brighter Vision purchases it for you on your behalf.

What Kind of Help and Support Does Brighter Vision Offer?

Brighter Vision offers robust support throughout the process of building your therapy practice’s website. From initial design to publishing to maintaining your website, Brighter vision offers full-service support from a team of professionals.

What Safety and Security Features Does Brighter Vision Have?

Brighter Vision is fully HIPAA-compliant and offers standard security features such as an SSL certificate. Brighter Vision states that it aims to provide comprehensive safety and security to your therapy practice, as well as the people that visit your website.

Does Brighter Vision Have E-Commerce Features?

No. Brighter Vision does not offer e-commerce features as a standard feature. However, your design team may be able to integrate these for you.

What are the Disadvantages of Brighter Vision?

Brighter Vision is relatively costly financially and in terms of time. It can take up to a month for your website to be fully up and running, so if you are on a steeper timeline, you may want to consider a different option.

Additional Website Builder FAQs

What is Web Hosting?

Web hosting, in layperson’s terms, is the process of making your website’s data available and accessible to the internet. Web hosting companies provide the storage needed on a physical server, which you would then rent to store your website’s data.¹

What is a Domain Name?

Domain names are human-readable addresses for any given web server accessible on the internet.² This address corresponds to a computer’s IP address which your web browser will use to access the page you’d like to view. Domain names are a way to make these IP addresses easier to read for humans.

What is SEO?

SEO stands for search engine optimization. It is the process of optimizing a website to be more visible on the results page of a search engine like Google or DuckDuckGo.³