AI Scribe Pricing Compared: Grounded Scribe vs Lyrebird vs Heidi vs NovoPsych (2026)

The Quick Pricing Overview

Here's what you'll pay per month for individual practitioner plans:

The pricing gap is significant. Grounded Scribe's Plus plan at $19/month includes 30 sessions, unlimited dictations (up to 5 mins), and access to all clinical note templates — at a fraction of what Lyrebird or Heidi charge for full-featured plans.

What You Get at Each Price Point

Grounded Scribe ($19–$99/month)

Grounded Scribe offers five tiers — including a genuinely usable free tier:

• Free: 10 healthcare-grade sessions + unlimited dictation notes per month. No credit card required. Full access to clinical note templates and unlimited assessments.
• Plus ($19/mo): 30 sessions, unlimited healthcare-grade dictations (up to 5 mins), all templates, all assessment tools.
• Core ($39/mo): 60 sessions for busier practitioners.
• Pro ($69/mo): 120 sessions — the sweet spot for full-time practitioners.
• Max ($99/mo): Unlimited sessions and extended dictation length.

Every paid plan includes unlimited clinical assessments (PHQ-9, GAD-7, DASS-21, PCL-5, and many more) at no additional cost. This is a significant differentiator — more on that below.

Additionally, Grounded Scribe offers an AI Receptionist product (from $19/month) that can answer your practice phone, handle enquiries, and book appointments. No other Australian AI scribe offers this.

Lyrebird (~$99–$199/month)

Lyrebird is a well-established Australian AI scribe with a strong reputation in the medical space. Their key strengths include deep EMR integrations with systems like Best Practice and Medical Director, which is valuable for GPs and specialists who need notes to flow directly into their practice management software.

However, this comes at a premium. Entry-level pricing starts around $99/month, making it five times more expensive than Grounded Scribe's Plus plan. For practitioners who don't need EMR integration — such as psychologists, counsellors, social workers, and allied health professionals working outside hospital systems — this premium may not deliver proportional value.

Heidi ($0–$99/month)

Heidi has built a large user base in Australia and offers a polished product with good transcription accuracy. They support a broad range of professions including GPs, specialists, psychologists, and allied health.

Heidi offers a genuinely useful Free Forever plan with unlimited sessions using default templates. However, advanced features — custom templates, document generation, and their "Ask Heidi" AI assistant — are gated behind "Pro Actions" (10/month on the free tier). The Pro plan at $99/month unlocks unlimited Pro Actions. Their Together plan ($99/user/month) adds team features and native EMR integration with Best Practice, MedicalDirector, Cliniko, and others.

For practitioners who only need basic note generation, Heidi's free tier is generous. But at $99/month for full features, Grounded Scribe's Plus ($19) through Pro ($69) plans offer significantly more value for the price.

NovoPsych / NovoNote ($0–$99/month)

NovoPsych is best known as a clinical assessment platform, but they now offer NovoNote — a full AI scribe with transcription and note generation. NovoNote is bundled with NovoPsych Psychometrics and is not available as a standalone product.

Their Free tier includes 30 AI scribe sessions per month (recordings over 5 minutes) plus unlimited dictations under 5 minutes — but only 5 assessments. Paid plans use a shared "Pro Action" pool: one Pro Action is consumed per scribe session (over 5 minutes) *or* per assessment. This means a practitioner on the $30/month Pro plan (50 Pro Actions) who administers 20 assessments has only 30 sessions left.

NovoPsych's deep assessment library (150+ instruments) with integrated outcome tracking and analytics (Insights) is their strongest differentiator. The key comparison point is that with Grounded Scribe, assessments and sessions have separate limits — unlimited assessments on every plan, including free — so you never have to choose between documenting a session and administering an assessment.

Feature Comparison

The Assessment Advantage

One of the most significant value differences is how assessments are handled. NovoPsych bundles assessments and AI scribe sessions into a shared "Pro Action" pool — meaning every assessment you administer takes away from your available scribe sessions, and vice versa. Heidi and Lyrebird don't include assessments at all.

With Grounded Scribe, assessments are unlimited on every plan, including the free tier, and they have their own separate allocation — they never reduce your available sessions. You get access to validated instruments like PHQ-9, GAD-7, DASS-21, PCL-5, K-10, and many more. Clients can complete assessments via secure link (email or SMS), and results are automatically scored and stored against the client record.

For a psychologist paying $99/month for Heidi Pro, assessments aren't included at all — you'd need a separate platform. NovoPsych's Pro plan ($30/month) includes both but forces you to share 50 Pro Actions between scribe sessions and assessments. Grounded Scribe's Pro plan at $69/month includes 120 dedicated sessions plus unlimited assessments with no shared pool.

The AI Receptionist: A Unique Offering

No other Australian AI scribe offers an AI Receptionist. This is a standalone product that answers your practice phone, handles common enquiries, provides practice information, and can book appointments — all using a natural-sounding AI voice.

You can test it for free directly in your browser before committing. Paid plans start at $19/month for 60 minutes of call time, scaling up to $99/month for 500 minutes. Calls you answer directly in your browser are always free. For solo practitioners who lose potential clients to missed calls, this feature alone can pay for itself many times over.

Who Should Choose What

Choose Grounded Scribe if: You want the best value, need assessments included, support 70+ professions, want an AI Receptionist, or use Cliniko or Halaxy for practice management. Ideal for psychologists, counsellors, social workers, allied health, and educators.

Choose Lyrebird if: You need deep EMR integration with Best Practice or Medical Director and are willing to pay the premium for that workflow efficiency.

Choose Heidi if: You prefer a large, established user community and need deep EMR integration with systems like Best Practice, MedicalDirector, or Cliniko.

Choose NovoPsych if: You want the deepest assessment library with research-grade outcome tracking (Insights analytics), and you're comfortable with scribe sessions and assessments sharing a single Pro Action pool.

The Bottom Line

For the majority of Australian practitioners — especially those outside the GP/specialist space — Grounded Scribe offers the most comprehensive feature set at the lowest price point. A psychologist on the Pro plan gets 120 sessions, unlimited dictations (up to 15 mins), unlimited assessments, clinical note templates, and access to an AI Receptionist, all for $69/month.

The maths speaks for itself.

Start your 14-day free trial at Grounded Scribe.