Editorial rating:
Psychology Today’s directory offers therapists, psychologists, and other mental health providers the ability to be discovered by a wider audience and bring new clients into your practice. It is one of the largest therapist directories and costs $29.95 monthly. Let’s take a deep dive and learn if Psychology Today’s directory is worth your time and money.
Rating of Psychology Today’s Therapist Directory
Over my years working as a clinician and as a reviewer, I have spent countless hours with a number of products and services for therapists. Psychology Today performed the best in the Potential Client Reach category because of its immense volume of users. Its lowest scores were in the Search Features and Additional Features Offered categories due to a lack of innovative search parameters and additional features.
Pros & Cons of Psychology Today
Psychology Today is one of the largest therapist directories available, and employs an easy-to-use interface for delivering high-quality and refined client leads. However, the service is relatively costly, the interface, while simple, is a bit limited, and data reporting is not very comprehensive.
Psychology Today Review – Key Takeaways
- Psychology Today offers one of the largest and most comprehensive therapist directories available. Advanced filtering and back-end technology allow clients to find the right therapist and avoid poor therapist-client matches.
- Psychology Today offers one of the largest client audiences, however, it may be difficult to compete with other therapists in larger metropolitan areas.
- Psychology Today is great for marketing your practice but doesn’t offer any other features.
What Is the Psychology Today Directory?
Psychology Today is a popular and powerful therapist directory that can link your practice with a large audience of potential clients. A Psychology Today therapist directory listing costs $29.95 monthly and includes a number of features, including a free telehealth platform, secure client messaging, and a wide audience of potential clients.
Why Create a Psychology Today Profile?
A Psychology Today profile can help you generate many more potential clients for your practice. Rather than just relying on traffic from word-of-mouth, physical advertisements, and social media, a listing on a directory like Psychology Today enables you to find clients that are perfectly suited to your practice through variables like demographics, insurance, or presenting concerns.
Reasons to create a Psychology Today profile include:
Get Attention From Potential Clients
Psychology Today states that it has been working for years to refine the way users find the therapists they are seeking. The directory uses a number of advanced filters and parameters to ensure that clients find a good match for them. Coupled with the information you supply in your profile, the best-fitting clients will be able to find you.This level of refinement is an important consideration for directories, as having a large volume of potential clients – while meaningful – is only as useful as the quality of those leads. A poor client experience with the directory, or a poor therapist-client match, can be a waste of time for you and the client and lead to other unwanted effects.
Providing a video introduction in your profile allows clients to assess whether or not you are a good fit for them and is a feature that isn’t found often. Your listing can also be targeted to your location, which is great for ensuring that clients in your geographic area see you first.
In this way, the Psychology Today directory excels – it allows you to present a great level of detail about your practice and allows the right clients to find you easily. In addition to this, Psychology Today also allows you to give endorsements to other providers and vice versa, enabling you to add credibility to your listing.
Communicate with Potential Clients
Psychology Today provides a number of methods for potential clients to get in touch with you. Email and phone calls are the main offerings, and the directory will assign you a protected phone number so you’re not exposing your personal number to the world. As well, Psychology Today has a feature that allows clients to request information and to securely text chat with you directly from Psychology Today’s website.
Overall, Psychology Today does an excellent job of ensuring there are a variety of ways for clients to reach you. If you are seeing clients locally, the option to target your listing to any given location helps to ensure potential clients will be able to find your office easily.
Integrated Telehealth
Included with your subscription cost is the ability to conduct remote video sessions from the Psychology Today portal. If you don’t have an EHR that allows for this, or another platform you use for remote sessions already, this can be very beneficial and may save you a bit of money.
Real-Time Data
SimplePractice provides a simple data tracking page that allows you to monitor how many clients have reached out to you via your listing and which contact methods are performing best. This is a very important feature, as it allows you to see if your listing is performing well enough to be worth your ongoing expense.
How Much Does Psychology Today Cost?
A Psychology Today therapist directory listing costs $29.95 monthly and includes full access to the platform, an ongoing listing, the ability for clients to communicate with you directly, a telehealth platform, and many other features. There is no free trial available, but you may receive discounts for referring other providers to the directory.
Psychology Today Directory Listing Features
For the cost of $29.95 monthly, Psychology Today allows you to market yourself to a huge audience of potential clients, as well as communicate with clients, conduct telehealth sessions, and more.
Here are the features included with your Psychology Today directory listing:
- Excellent SEO performance
- One of the largest audiences of therapy-seekers available
- Detailed filtering so clients can find the perfect match
- Data tracking and reporting
- Telehealth platform
- Protected phone number to use with potential clients
- Additional pages for support group listings
- Referral program for gaining free access to the service
Is a Psychology Today Profile Worth It?
According to a survey of 20 therapists conducted by Software Pundit in 2020, most (88%) believe that a Psychology Today profile is worth the investment.The remaining said that “it depends,” and none believed that it was not worth the investment at all.1
It is worth noting that this sample size is quite small, and we have no information on the therapists that Software Pundit surveyed. The sheer popularity of Psychology Today is reassuring; when you plug the therapist directory subdomain of the website into a traffic analysis tool, it shows that the directory receives almost 2 million visitors per month. While not all of these can be counted on as viable, a huge number can, and may very well end up being one of your next clients. It is also worth considering the size and population of the area you will be practicing. Large cities will have far greater competition than rural areas, and will definitely affect the value you receive from the service.
All that said, when you consider the relatively low cost of a Psychology Today profile, it may be worth trying it for a month or two to see if it improves your presence. Since there are no contracts or obligations, you can always cancel your profile if you find you aren’t receiving adequate gains to your caseload.
Psychology Today – Our Final Verdict
The Psychology Today directory is a great choice for most therapists and practices. The sheer volume of potential clients it can expose you to is likely worth the cost. However, if you’re needing more advanced practice management features, or you live in a heavily populated area, alternatives may need to be considered.
You should consider signing up for Psychology Today if you:
- Are looking to expand your client caseload with a popular directory
- Want to keep things simple, and don’t need more practice management features
You should consider looking for an alternative to Psychology Today if you:
- Need practice management features
- Live in a large metropolitan area and have concerns about competing with other therapists on the directory
Who Is Psychology Today Right For?
Psychology Today is a great choice for therapists that are looking to generate more leads in their local area, those who are seeking the most well-known therapist directory, and those who want a simple client acquisition solution.
Therapists That Want to Gain More Local Clients
Psychology Today’s feature for localizing your profile to a target geographic area helps to ensure your listing is seen by people in your area.
Therapists Who Want a Simple Solution
Psychology Today’s directory is very simple to implement. It doesn’t offer any additional features, such as billing support or calendar integration, but if you have all of that covered already, a simple solution may be just what you’re looking for.
Those Seeking the Most Well-Known Directory
Psychology Today is a heavy-hitter in the directory world. While it may be difficult to compete in heavily populated geographic areas, the huge audience the directory commands may allow Psychology Today to expose your practice to a larger list of potential clients.
Who May Want an Alternative to Psychology Today?
Psychology Today has a lot to offer, but it might not be the best option for therapists located in large metropolitan areas or those needing more advanced practice management features.
Therapists Located in Large Metropolitan Areas
Given the sheer popularity of Psychology Today, it may become difficult to stand out in heavily populated areas. If you are looking to be a part of a smaller therapist list, there may be directories specific to your locale, or you may choose a smaller directory like Good Therapy.
Therapists That Need More Advanced Practice-Management Features
Psychology Today provides a simple solution to a directory listing. However, other directory options are available for therapists that need an all-in-one solution that also includes things like marketing and insurance billing. Directories like Alma or Zencare may be a better choice for those therapists.
Therapists Looking To Market To A More Niche Audience
If you’re looking to market to a niche audience, there are a number of directories that fit the bill. Inclusive Therapists focuses on expanding care to disadvantaged populations, and Open Path Collective works with clients in difficult financial situations.
Learn more in our review of Inclusive Therapists and our review of Open Path Collective.
Psychology Today Vs. Zencare
Zencare offers more than just a directory listing – it also offers features for full practice management. It’s a one-stop shop for client documentation, communication, marketing, and billing.
Meanwhile, as we’ve seen, Psychology Today exclusively offers marketing features. So, it’s best for therapists that already have their practice management software accounted for. As such, Psychology Today is more affordable than Zencare, costing $29.95, whereas Zencare costs $59 monthly and an upfront cost of $130.
It is important to remember that while Zencare is more expensive, it also offers more in-depth benefits, including a professional photo and video shoot to professionalize your listing.
Psychology Today Vs. Good Therapy
Good Therapy is very similar to Psychology Today in its marketing features, however, Good Therapy also offers features for practice management, caseload management, and continuing education credits.
Compared to other directories that include practice management features, Good Therapy’s pricing model is closer to Psychology Today’s. Good Therapy costs $30.95 monthly – only a handful of pocket change more expensive than Psychology Today’s directory. There are, however, additional fees for the other features available.
How to Get Started with Psychology Today
To get started with your Psychology Today listing, simply navigate to the Psychology Today directory sign-up page and enter a few details. You’ll enter a few details about your practice, pay the first month’s fee, and be well on your way to publishing your listing.
The steps to getting started with Psychology Today are:
- Enter your practice details and your credentials (15 minutes)
- Set up profile, preferences, and additional details (30-45 minutes)
- Record your video introduction (15-45+ minutes)
- Wait for your profile to be verified and published (60-90 minutes)
- Publish your profile
What Should You Include in Your Psychology Today Profile?
To ensure the best possible outcomes and visibility for your practice, your Psychology Today profile should be filled out as fully as possible. Potential clients use a complex filtering system to find ideal matches, so the more information you provide, the greater the chance that you will find a good client match. Also, be sure to include high-quality images and a video introduction to make a good first impression on potential clients.
History of Psychology Today
According to the company’s about page, The Psychology Today magazine was founded in 1967 by Nicholas Charney and has been providing translational-style information about psychology to the masses ever since. The online therapist directory began in 2003 and is now available in 20 different countries. Currently, Psychology Today is owned by Sussex Publishers and Sussex Directories.2
FAQs for Psychology Today
Is the Psychology Today Directory Free to Use?
No. A listing with the Psychology Today directory costs $29.95 monthly, however, you can gain a free month of access for every provider you refer to the platform.
Do You Have to be Licensed to Use the Psychology Today Directory?
Not always. Psychology Today appears to prefer licensed providers, however, they will allow certain non-licensed professionals on the platform, as well. This is on a case-by-case basis.
Does Psychology Today Offer a Free Trial?
No. Psychology Today does not offer free trials for its directory.
What Does it Mean to be Verified by Psychology Today?
Psychology Today reviews all of the profiles in its directory and some will be labeled with a verified emblem. This means:
- The practitioner’s credentials and licensure information have been validated and confirmed to be valid in the area they are practicing.
- There are no current strictures or limitations placed on the practitioner’s license or credentials.
