Practice-management software gets all the attention, but it’s a third of the stack. The other two-thirds are calendar, calls, payments, files, website, email, security. Pick badly there and the practice-management tool can’t save you.
Here’s what a clean, no-frills tech stack looks like for a solo or small therapy practice in India in 2026. Categories, options per category, our recommendation, and the integrations that actually matter (most don’t).
The minimum viable stack
Six categories cover everything a small therapy practice actually needs.
- Practice management — clients, calendar, notes.
- Video calls — for telehealth sessions.
- Payments — how clients pay you.
- File storage — anything that isn’t a session note.
- Email and domain — communicating professionally.
- Website — being findable.
I’ll go through each. The recommendation in each section is what I’d give a counsellor I genuinely cared about wasting time on the wrong tool.
1. Practice management
Covered in detail elsewhere on this blog. Short version: pick a tool that fits your size and country.
Options: MindMaster (us), SimplePractice, TherapyNotes, Power Diary, Carepatron.
Recommendation: Use our comparison post and decision tree.
Cost: ₹999–₹5,000/month depending on tool.
2. Video calls
The pandemic forced this into the default stack. Even in-room therapists keep one slot a week available remotely.
Options:
- Google Meet (free with a Google Workspace account, ~₹125/month).
- Zoom (free tier limited to 40 minutes; paid is ₹1,250/month for Pro).
- Whereby (browser-only, no install required for the client; ~€10/month).
- Native telehealth in your practice management tool (some have it built-in).
Recommendation: Google Meet for most. Built-in to Workspace, integrates with your calendar, no client install. The exception is if you do more than five hours a week of video and want recording or the cleaner UX — Whereby is better there. Avoid the free Zoom tier; the 40-minute cap mid-session is the worst possible failure mode.
Cost: ~₹125/month if you’re already on Google Workspace (highly recommended for the email, see below). Free if you only do occasional video sessions.
3. Payments
The fastest-changing part of the stack for Indian practitioners.
Options:
- UPI direct (PhonePe, GPay, Paytm — free, but you reconcile manually).
- Razorpay Payment Pages (1.99% per transaction, full automation, invoices, GST).
- Stripe (2.5%+₹2, but only useful if you take international/USD payments).
- NEFT/IMPS (free but slow and clunky).
Recommendation: For a 100% domestic INR practice, Razorpay Payment Pages. Auto-generated invoice with GST line, email link to client, reconciliation in one dashboard. For international USD-paying clients, add Stripe alongside.
Cost: ~2% of revenue. On a ₹1L/month practice, ₹2,000/month in fees. Worth every rupee for the reconciliation time saved.
4. File storage
For everything that isn’t a session note. Intake forms, assessment PDFs, signed consent, the occasional resource you send a client.
Options:
- Google Drive (15 GB free, more with Workspace).
- Dropbox (2 GB free, paid for more).
- iCloud Drive (if Apple ecosystem).
- Built-in document storage in your practice tool (varies).
Recommendation: Google Drive with a clear folder structure
(/intake-forms/, /assessments/, /admin/). If your practice tool has
a document-attachment feature, use it for client-specific files (intake
form for client X stays in client X’s record). Use Drive for non-client
files (forms templates, resources, accounting).
The non-negotiable: two-factor authentication on the account. The single biggest mistake in this category is a Google Drive account with just a password.
Cost: Free or ~₹150/month for 100 GB.
5. Email and domain
This is the upgrade nobody thinks they need until they realise that
therapistname2017@gmail.com undercuts every other professional choice
they’re making.
Options:
- Google Workspace + custom domain (~₹150/month per user).
- Zoho Mail + custom domain (free tier for solo, ~₹60/month per user).
- Microsoft 365 (~₹136/month).
Recommendation: Google Workspace with a domain like yourname.in or
yourname-counselling.com. The professionalism boost is genuine; the
cost is trivial. Zoho is the budget option that does the job.
Cost: ~₹150–200/month. Worth it.
6. Website
Easy to over-engineer. Hard to under-deliver.
Options:
- Squarespace (₹1,500/month, drag-and-drop, looks great).
- Wix (similar to Squarespace).
- WordPress (more setup, more flexibility, free software but ₹400–₹800/month hosting).
- A single static HTML page (lifetime cost: ₹500 for hosting).
- Linktree-style single page (free).
Recommendation: A small Squarespace site, or a single static page hosted on Vercel or Netlify (free tier). The minimum content is: your name, your qualifications (RCI number if applicable), your specialisations, a contact form. That’s it. A blog can come later if you write.
Don’t: use a Facebook page or an Instagram bio as your “website.” They’re discovery tools, not destinations.
Cost: ₹0–₹1,500/month.
The integrations that matter
A small set of integrations actually pay off. Most don’t.
Matter:
- Practice management ↔ Calendar (Google Calendar two-way sync).
- Practice management ↔ Video call (one-click join from session).
- Practice management ↔ Payment (invoice triggered when session is marked done).
- Email ↔ Calendar (your work email reads/writes the calendar your clients book against).
Don’t matter (for a small practice):
- Practice management ↔ Slack/Discord (you don’t need a Slack channel for your therapy practice; talk to colleagues elsewhere).
- Practice management ↔ Zapier (until you have 5+ practitioners, manual is fine).
- AI note-taking on top of the existing note tool. Resist for the moment. We’re still in the early-trough of this; the savings aren’t real yet and the confidentiality story is unclear.
A complete stack, summarised
The above as one paragraph for a solo practitioner in 2026:
MindMaster (or equivalent) for practice management.
Google Workspace for email, calendar, video, and storage.
Razorpay Payment Pages for payments.
A small Squarespace site (or a single static page).
Two-factor authentication everywhere.
Manual quarterly export of everything that matters.
That’s the stack. Total monthly cost for a solo practitioner: roughly ₹2,500–₹3,500/month plus payment-processing fees. Setup time: a weekend, if you’ve put it off.
What we’d build next if we were starting today
Honest aside. If we were starting a new therapy practice in India today, the only piece we’d change from the above is the practice-management tool: we’d use MindMaster (yes, ours) because we built it specifically for this stack and this market. Everything else on the list is more or less independent of who makes it — Google’s calendar, Razorpay’s payment pages, Squarespace’s site, they’re all decent regardless.
If you want to start with the practice-management piece, the trial is at mindmaster.modoware.com. The rest of the stack you can stitch together in a weekend.