Starting a practice
Headway vs. SonderMind: Which is best for your practice?
Deciding between Headway and SonderMind? Let’s break down the key differences and benefits to discover which is right for your mental health practice.
December 12, 2025
7 min read
Being a therapist is rewarding, but the admin tasks of running a practice can be time-consuming, and sometimes even stressful. From credentialing with insurance payers to writing compliant progress notes and submitting insurance claims, it can be difficult to juggle the business side of your practice with clinical care.
Third-party therapy platforms provide extra support with admin and workflows, while making it easy for clients to access the mental health care they need. But how can you decide on the best partner for your practice?
Ultimately, there’s no single platform that’s ideal for every behavioral health provider. The best option for you depends on your unique goals, specialty, and workflow preferences — which is why it’s so important to carefully weigh your choices before landing on one.
This guide compares two major insurance-based therapy networks: Headway and SonderMind. As you learn about and consider their similarities and differences, you can make a decision that’s best for your practice.
Key takeaways
- SonderMind is a third-party platform that supports therapists and psychiatric providers in accepting insurance and finding and treating clients. It’s best for providers who want structured support and prioritize outcome measurements.
- Headway is a third-party platform that makes it easier for therapists and psychiatric providers to accept insurance and expand their practice without administrative stress. It’s best for providers who value flexibility in their practice.
- Both SonderMind and Headway help streamline insurance-based practice, but Headway offers greater flexibility and lighter-touch workflows, while SonderMind emphasizes a more structured, outcomes-driven care model.
An overview of each platform
For a deeper understanding of the differences between Headway and SonderMind, get acquainted with their key features.
A look into Headway
Headway’s goal is to improve access to high-quality mental health care by making it easier for behavioral health providers to accept insurance, without the added burden of juggling multiple, time-consuming credentialing processes. Today, Headway partners with over 70,000 providers across all 50 states and works with dozens of major insurance plans.
Clients can find therapists or psychiatric providers that meet their needs through detailed filters for location, specialty, insurance coverage, and therapeutic approach. Providers offer secure, virtual therapy through Headway’s EHR. Psychiatric providers can also prescribe mental health medication as needed.
Headway comes with many other features that can support providers, including those in independent practice and group practices. Joining Headway is free: There are no membership fees or hourly requirements, so providers can focus more on their clinical work than the costs of scaling a business.
Headway also supports providers with stressful administrative duties, from credentialing and billing to documentation and scheduling. With clear, bi-weekly payouts and individualized support during credentialing and onboarding, clinicians can invest more time and energy in supporting their clients on their mental health journeys. All Headway clinicians also have free access to continuing education and other professional resources, so they can continue nurturing their clinical skills over time.
A look into SonderMind
SonderMind is a mental health platform that connects clients with therapists and psychiatric providers and helps clinicians navigate insurance-based care. The company has contracts with a wide range of insurance payers and offers support with credentialing, billing, and client referrals, allowing providers to focus more on clinical work. Clients can search for care based on a provider’s location, ability, and treatment type. Like with Headway, providers may offer both therapy and medication management, depending on their credentials.
For clinicians, SonderMind offers access to an integrated EHR with scheduling, secure messaging, notes templates, and outcome-tracking tools. It also offers a mix of free and discounted continuing education for providers. Clinicians are paid on a bi-weekly basis, and the platform automates claims submissions after each appointment.
While SonderMind offers meaningful support for clinicians looking for structure, its model is more standardized compared with platforms that emphasize flexibility and autonomy. Providers typically follow a more guided workflow, including consistent use of measurement-based care tools and clinical assessments. This approach may appeal to clinicians who prefer a defined system with built-in tools, though this may not be the best experience for all your clients depending on their situation.
Note: Content about SonderMind has been sourced from publicly available information on sondermind.com.
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Are the benefits the same for therapists and prescribers?
Both Headway and SonderMind support therapists and prescribing providers with core services like insurance credentialing, billing support, and patient matching. But there are some key differences in how each platform is built for psychiatric care providers.
Headway offers the same core infrastructure to psychiatric providers and therapists: free onboarding, bi-weekly payments, integrated scheduling and documentation tools, and the flexibility to shape your own clinical workflow. Its lighter-touch model tends to appeal to psychiatric clinicians who want autonomy, quick credentialing across multiple states, and minimal operational constraints.
SonderMind takes a more structured approach to working with psychiatric providers. It emphasizes outcomes-tracking tools, a built-in EHR with treatment plans and clinical measures, and support for both therapy and medication-management workflows. While psychiatric providers on SonderMind follow the same overall payment and credentialing structure as therapists, the platform’s more guided care model and clinical resources may appeal to psychiatrists who prefer a standardized system with more measurement-based support.
In short, Headway favors flexibility, and SonderMind prioritizes structure and integrated clinical tools.
| Feature | Headway | SonderMind |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | Free to join | Free to join |
| Insurance | Works with 45+ top insurance plans | Works with many insurance plans |
| Credentialing | Fully handles insurance credentialing for therapists, allowing credentials in multiple states in as little as 30 days | Handles credentialing for therapists, allowing credentials in multiple states, usually in 4-8 weeks |
| EHR features | Built-in EHR features with scheduling, assessments, and note-taking to support payer requirements | Built-in EHR features with scheduling, assessments, and note-taking |
| Pay schedule | Pays all providers every two weeks | Pays all providers every two weeks |
| Resources | Up to 150 hours of free continuing education courses through Headway Academy | Access to discounted and free continuing education opportunities through SonderMind University |
So, which one’s right for you?
Choosing a third-party therapy platform to partner with is a completely personal decision. The best option for your practice depends on your business goals and workflows, and the areas you need the most support in. Learn more about how Headway and SonderMind can help you streamline and grow your practice.
Best for private practice
If you have a private practice or you want to start one, Headway is your partner in building your business without administrative headaches. From supporting you through the entire credentialing process to handling insurance claims and providing guaranteed biweekly payments, Headway makes it easy to focus on effectively treating your clients — and finding new ones when it’s time to grow your business.
Best for providers who value autonomy
If you prefer a flexible, clinician-driven practice, Headway offers the infrastructure to expand your caseload without disrupting how you work. You maintain more control over your clinical approach while Headway handles credentialing, billing, and other administrative tasks behind the scenes.
Best for providers seeking more structure
If you want a more guided approach to care, SonderMind offers standardized workflows, built-in outcomes measures, and clinical tracking that can help support therapists and psychiatric providers.
In the end, it’s all personal preference
Some therapists will prefer one tool over another depending on their area of expertise and personal factors. Before deciding on the best third-party therapy platform for you, it’s important to carefully consider your unique needs and understand how your options align with them.
How does Headway compare to other options?
Want to learn more about other therapy platform options so you can find the one that’s right for you? Explore our other comparison articles below.
Focus on providing care, let Headway take care of the rest
No matter your background or focus, your goal as a clinician is simple: provide great care. Headway makes that easier by handling the administrative load that typically comes with accepting insurance — credentialing, claims, scheduling support, and documentation tools — so providers can focus on their clients instead of paperwork.
With free onboarding, reliable bi-weekly payments, and access to free continuing education through Headway Academy, Headway offers a simplified way to grow a practice while maintaining clinical autonomy. Whether you're a therapist or a psychiatric clinician, Headway’s streamlined and flexible model helps you spend more time on what matters most.
Expand your practice with Headway
Growing a practice shouldn’t require navigating endless insurance paperwork or juggling complex administrative tasks. With Headway, you can expand your reach while keeping your workflow simple. We handle credentialing, billing, claims, and scheduling support at no cost, making it easier to accept insurance and connect with clients who need your expertise. Whether you’re building a caseload or streamlining an established one, Headway offers an easier path to growth, so you can focus on delivering exceptional care through it all.
This content is for general informational and educational purposes only and does not constitute clinical, legal, financial, or professional advice. All decisions should be made at the discretion of the individual or organization, in consultation with qualified clinical, legal, or other appropriate professionals.
© 2025 Therapymatch, Inc. dba Headway. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced without permission.
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