Penelope vs. TheraNest by Therapy Brands

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Penelope
Score 6.7 out of 10
Mid-Size Companies (51-1,000 employees)
Bonterra’s Penelope is a configurable and secure case management system designed to help social good organizations save time for their staff, improve data quality and reporting, and better serve and connect with their participants.
$400
per year per user
TheraNest by Therapy Brands
Score 9.7 out of 10
N/A
TheraNest Professional is a mental health and therapy notes software from Therapy Brands, that is designed to help psychologists, psychotherapists, social workers and others in mental health manage and grow their practices and organizations. From health records, to notes, to payment processing, TheraNest aims to make managing clients and business simple, with reporting that enables the user know how a practice is doing including referral reports, retention rates, and billing reports.
$39
per month
Pricing
PenelopeTheraNest by Therapy Brands
Editions & Modules
Basic
$400
per year per user
TheraNest (up to 30 active clients)
$39
per month
TheraNest (up to 40 active clients)
$50
per month
TheraNest (up to 50 active clients)
$60
per month
TheraNest (up to 80 active clients)
$91
per month
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
PenelopeTheraNest by Therapy Brands
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
YesNo
Entry-level Setup FeeRequiredNo setup fee
Additional DetailsPenelope software is priced on a Named Active Users model, with a minimum of 25 users. There’s also a one-time fee for implementation of the software, and our Tailored Services team is available to quote on additional services as required.
More Pricing Information
User Ratings
PenelopeTheraNest by Therapy Brands
Likelihood to Recommend
7.0
(32 ratings)
9.7
(3 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
10.0
(2 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Usability
7.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
10.0
(1 ratings)
7.0
(1 ratings)
Implementation Rating
8.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
PenelopeTheraNest by Therapy Brands
Likelihood to Recommend
Social Solutions
Even if Penelope by Social Solutions is useful for case noting and any other file management, coordination and reports, it is not user-friendly. It does not let you delete your mistakes easily, it does not let you go back, and all the other issues mentioned, which are minor, added too much for a system that is supposed to support your work. However, some of the characteristics have been chosen by the system administrator and are not Penelope by Social Solutions's fault.
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Therapy Brands
TheraNest is appropriate for clinical practice and seems well-suited for providing speech-language and other allied health services. Without firsthand experience billing, it is difficult to provide input regarding the ease of billing with this software. I have yet to see how TheraNest would work for clients with multiple insurance types. I trialed the TheraNest video conferencing near the beginning of 2020 (start of global pandemic), but the feature had glitches and I have since discontinued use of this feature.
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Pros
Social Solutions
  • Provides time-saving features by automatically compiling data to an individual file from multiple areas.
  • Allows staff to be updated on important information in real time.
  • Provides a user-friendly experience and ease of access for staff with all levels of technical experience.
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Therapy Brands
  • Well-organized layout
  • Syncs to Google Calendar
  • User friendly
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Cons
Social Solutions
  • The feature for the date of birth times out too quickly.
  • You can't upload any files that may have a symbol such as a . in their title.
  • The learning modules could be more concise making it faster to find the help you need.
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Therapy Brands
  • Make it easier to see if a note is linked to an appointment
  • More options for making employee availability blocks
  • Synced appointments still show up after client is archived
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Likelihood to Renew
Social Solutions
Penelope is saving us so much time and providing us with much-needed consistent regular data tracking and documentation. It has been a game-changer for our organization and we should have had it years ago. It has allowed us to have an efficient organized system to use daily in our non-profit agency.
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Therapy Brands
No answers on this topic
Usability
Social Solutions
Penelope has a lot of features and options which is one of the reasons why it is so great. With a lot of features also comes a lot of time to learn all of them. For someone who is part of the development and implementation process, it is a lot of learning to fully understand how everything works. This is good to know in advance when choosing a team to develop your database. The great thing about Penelope is that you can customize the features for each level of staff that will be using it so the staff only have access to the parts of Penelope that they need and will be using regularly. This makes the training process for staff a lot easier.
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Therapy Brands
No answers on this topic
Support Rating
Social Solutions
Our support person with Penelope has been a dream to work with since day one. She is accommodating to our ever-changing schedule and has worked around us for training and Zoom meetings. She is always available via e-mail and is quick to respond to our many inquiries throughout the development and implementation process. Our Zoom meetings have been like talking to a long-time staff member. She explains things in a way that everyone can understand and will review with us as needed. She has been innovative in ways that Penelope can work for us and our needs and we have been so pleased with the support we have received.
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Therapy Brands
TheraNest support team is great but has grown since we bought it 4 years ago. 4 years ago you could call a number and someone would assist immediately and your issue would be resolved within moments. Now when you call to support you speak to someone who tells you they will create a ticket and get back in touch, which takes 2-3 days for a resolve. We understand that this is because TheraNest is growing and cannot staff at such a large scale so quickly without needing to better structure the support process. However, it is something that has been hard to transition over to for our company.
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Implementation Rating
Social Solutions
Be sure to have a good team of staff that will be on board with the training and will dedicate time and energy to the process. You want to have people who are motivated and excited about the new program that you are investing in.
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Therapy Brands
No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
Social Solutions
Penelope is more controlled, well designed, and easy to use. We like that Penelope has some structure to it while having a decent amount of opportunities to be configurable to our own specific needs. Our staff finds Penelope easy to navigate and enter their data into the system in a reliable and easy way. We valued that at the time of purchase, Penelope was a Canadian company that understood our specific needs as a Canadian nonprofit.
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Therapy Brands
TheraHelper was outdated software that was difficult to use and hard to understand. We have cut down almost 3X the amount of work it took to use TheraHelper. TheraHelper did have a better report option for accounting purposes and that is something we are hopeful TheraNest grows toward. TheraHelper also was just beginning to offer a cloud-based option that was very different from the original software they offered, but still too difficult to navigate.
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Return on Investment
Social Solutions
  • Created the need to hire temps to correct data incorrectly entered based on a poor initial setup.
  • Frustrated staff to the point many stopped entering services that were essential for receiving funding.
  • Gave me an excellent understanding of what happens when core functions are lacking.
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Therapy Brands
  • Saved us money!
  • Saved us time!
  • Helped us stay organized!
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