Mental Health Match Review 2024: Cost, Pros & Cons, & Is It Right for Your Practice?

Mental Health Match Review – Key Takeaways

• Mental Health Match uses a unique system that aims to match clients to therapists that have the ideal set of experience and techniques to suit their needs. This can improve the quality of pairings between therapist and clients.
• Aneasy profile creation process and the two-month free trial remove most barriers to trying Mental Health Match.
• Mental Health Match offers only a fraction of user traffic compared to larger directories and doesn’t offer any additional features that larger directories often do, such as those for documentation, scheduling, or billing.

What Is Mental Health Match?

Mental Health Match is a moderately well-trafficked therapist directory that allows you to market your practice to new clients. It offers clients the ability to find a therapist via a unique matching and filtering system. Mental Health Match costs $24.97 monthly or $199 annually and includes a 60-day free trial.

Key features of Mental Health Match include:

Gaining Ideal Therapist-Client Matches

Mental Health Match functions less like a traditional therapist directory such as Psychology Today. While it is possible to manually input a zip code and search through the database, what sets the platform apart is its matching system. More like a dating app and less like a directory, Mental Health Match asks you questions about your needs, preferences, and budget and then presents your top matches.

Search parameters available for clients include preferred approach, issues addressed, insurance, and session cost, as well as optional parameters such as therapist gender, race, religion, and more. When I tested the system from the client side of things, I was impressed by the detail in the matching feature, and I felt the therapist I was presented with was a good match right away before ever contacting them – whether or not that was based on the actual quality of the match remains to be seen. It could be that simply the act of having a therapist suggested to me rather than choosing from a list made it feel more personalized.

In terms of reporting, Mental Health Match provides you with a simple dashboard for viewing the number of visitors your profile has had, and how many people were matched with you. If you add your phone number, email, or social media links to your profile, the dashboard will track the number of people that clicked on each of these items. Unlike some other therapist directories, Mental Health Match does not provide an anonymized phone number or email address for client use, meaning whatever contact details you provide on your profile will be available to anyone who visits it.

Optimizing Your Profile

From the therapist’s side of Mental Health Match, it’s important to consider how you will respond to the various client search parameters on your profile. The more specialty areas you include, the greater your chance of showing up in more searches, but you might also be throwing off the algorithm and reducing the match quality if you include areas that are not your top specialites. During the onboarding process, Mental Health Match indicates the ideal number of specialty areas to include is six, which is definitely helpful.

That said, when you are crafting your profile, it is worth taking your time to consider how your responses will impact search results. Overall, I felt as though Mental Health Match did a good job of providing guidance in writing and optimizing your profile. The website also provides additional resources and guides for improving your profile performance, as well as guides for generally improving your practice.

Publishing & Blogging Opportunities

Mental Health Match also offers therapists opportunities for blogging and publishing articles. Blog articles can be written on any topic related to mental health and within your area of expertise. According to the clinician dashboard within Mental Health Match, all posts will be reviewed before publishing – Mental Health Match states they attempt to have all posts reviewed within two days.

While Mental Health Match certainly isn’t a well-known publication in this area, if you are new to publishing content online, it is a simple and effective method of getting your name into the online mental health content arena.

How Much Does Mental Health Match Cost?

Mental Health Match costs $24.97 monthly or $199 annually. Costs include a customizable profile listing on the directory, as well as some tools for managing client intake. A 60-day free trial is available and does not require credit card information.

Who Is Mental Health Match Right For?

Mental Health Match is a great choice for bringing in new client leads to your practice. It’s particularly great if you’re on a tight budget or are looking to improve the quality of matches with your clients.

Practices on a Tight Budget

With a generous two-month free trial and an ongoing price slightly lower than many competitors, Mental Health Match is a good choice for clients on a budget. Two months is a decent amount of time to get your profile set up and ensure it will help generate client leads before committing to an ongoing monthly or annual subscription.

Those Who Are Looking for Better Therapist-Client Matches

Mental Health Match aims to help improve the match quality between clients and therapists. If your practice has been suffering from poor-quality client matches lately, it might be worth considering a directory like Mental Health Match that focuses on improving this.

Who May Want an Alternative to Mental Health Match?

Mental Health Match is a great solution for many and would be a good secondary directory to use in conjunction with others. However you may not want to use it as your only or primary service if you need more practice management features built-in or are looking for something with more user traffic.

Those That Need More Practice Management Features

Mental Health Match doesn’t offer any additional features, such as billing management or documentation. If you’re looking for a full practice management suite, it’s worth checking out SimplePractice.

Learn more in the SimplePractice Monarch directory review, as well as our full review of the SimplePractice EHR system.

Practices Looking for The Most Popular Therapist Directory

While Mental Health Match offers a moderate amount of user traffic on its directory, it is still only a fraction of what you find with the largest directories. If you’re looking to join a directory with the largest number of users, you’ll want to look at Psychology Today and GoodTherapy.

Learn more about these two platforms in our review of Psychology Today and our GoodTherapy Review.

Mental Health Match Vs. Psychology Today

Psychology Today is likely the first therapist directory people think of and – alongside GoodTherapy – is the dominant force in terms of user traffic. While it doesn’t have the matching system that you find with Mental Health Match, the sheer number of people that use it makes it a great choice for clinicians looking to grow their practice.

Mental Health Match is a bit cheaper than Psychology Today; its monthly fee is $24.97 monthly, whereas Psychology Today’s is $29.95 monthly. Psychology Today does not offer a free trial, whereas Mental Health Match offers a 60-day free trial.

Mental Health Match Vs. TherapyDen

TherapyDen is certainly unique in the world of therapist directories. It is focused on providing inclusive filters that help clients feel as though they are seen while giving therapists the opportunity to settle into better-defined niche areas.

Most importantly, TherapyDen is free to use with a basic membership, and premium memberships range between $10 – $30 monthly, on a pay-what-you-can basis. TherapyDen has much less traffic than Mental Health Match, but since it’s free to use, it’s hard to beat.

Learn more in our comprehensive review of TherapyDen.

Mental Health Match – Our Final Verdict

Overall, during my time using and reviewing Mental Health Match, I was impressed by the unique value that the service offers both clients and therapists. While it remains to be seen whether you should cancel your Psychology Today membership in exchange for Mental Health Match, it would make a good secondary service, and the two-month trial and easy onboarding process means there is very little risk involved in trying it.

You should consider signing up for Mental Health Match Directory if you:

• Are looking to grow your practice with extra clients
• Are looking to focus on improving the quality of your client-therapist matches
• Are looking for good publishing and blogging opportunities

You should consider looking for an alternative to Mental Health Match Directory if you:

• Are looking for a directory with built-in practice management features
• Want to join the most heavily trafficed and most popular directories

How to Get Started with Mental Health Match

To get started with Mental Health Match, simply navigate to the Mental Health Matching signup page. Then, enter a few details about your practice to get started. You’ll enter some details, a headshot, and your license information, and once your profile is approved, you’ll be ready to post it.

The steps for getting started with Mental Health Match Directory are:

1. Create an account. To get started, create an account with Mental Health Match by entering a few details about yourself. (~2 minutes)
2. Enter practice details, preferences, and a headshot. You’ll enter some short entries about your practice, and the style of therapy you use, and select the issues you do and do not work with. You’ll also upload an image to use as your profile photo. (~5 minutes)
3. Wait for your profile to be verified. Mental Health Match should have your profile verified within a couple of business days, and once everything is approved, it will be ready to publish. (1-2 days)

Joining Mental Health Match is very easy, as no credit card is required for the trial and the process for creating a profile is intuitive and entirely self-service.

History of Mental Health Match

Mental Health Match is relatively new, having been founded in 2019. Since then, it has generated a good amount of users. Mental Health Match focuses on improving client-therapist matches by improving the way clients search for therapists. The company is relatively small with only three employees listed on the company’s LinkedIn profile. Mental Health Match is headquartered in Sugar Land, Texas.

Rather than endlessly searching lists of therapists, Mental Health Match helps to match clients with therapists ideally suited to their needs. According to the company’s website, the founder based the idea for Mental Health Match on modern, swipe-based, dating apps after becoming displeased with finding a therapist for himself.¹

FAQs for Mental Health Match

Is Mental Health Match Free to Use?

No, Mental Health Match is not free to use. Mental Health Match costs $24.97 monthly, or $199 annually, however, there is a 60-day free trial.

Do You Have to be Licensed to Use Mental Health Match?

Yes, you must be licensed in the state you plan to practice in order to use Mental Health Match.

Does Mental Health Match Offer a Free Trial?

Yes, Mental Health Match offers a 60-day free trial.

Is Mental Health Match Legit?

Yes, Mental Health Match is legitimate and well-known and has been featured in major publications such as NBC and NPR.