Get the clarity you need before getting started
We know therapists value transparency and control. These answers will help you understand exactly how Note Designer works so you can feel confident from day one.
FAQs
Yes — you can cancel your subscription at any time, directly from your account dashboard. Simply start by clicking the “Cancel Subscription” button, and following the instructions: your subscription will end at the close of your current billing cycle. You will not be charged again, and you can continue using Note Designer until your plan expires.
Absolutely. We offer a 30-day money-back guarantee so you can try Note Designer risk-free. If you’re not satisfied for any reason during your first 30 days, you can request a full, unconditional refund of your initial payment — no questions asked. Just email us at info@notedesigner.com, and we’ll take care of it.
Note Designer is licensed on an individual user basis. Each license provides access for one clinician, with full use of all features and customization tools. In the case of a group subscription, licenses can be transferred from one user to another (e.g., if clinic personnel change over time). You can review our full License here. This document outlines the terms of use, privacy protections, and your rights as a subscriber.
All our online sales are handled by Fastspring, a world leader in e-commerce and the retail partner for thousands of online companies internationally. Fastspring securely handles your credit card information and billing (using industry-standard encryption to protect the confidentiality of your personal information); we at Note Designer then set up your user account and ensure access to the program. Billing is automatically done either monthly or annually. The merchant of record is Fastspring’s office in the United States, and pricing is therefore in US dollars with conversions applied for other currencies that take into account the typical range of currency exchange fluctuation over time. If you need it, their W-9 information can be found here.
If you’ve forgotten your password, resetting it is quick and easy. Simply go to the login page (accessible from the top right corner of our website) and click the “Forgot Password?” link. Enter the email address associated with your account, and we’ll immediately send you a secure link to reset your password.
If you don’t see the email within a few minutes, be sure to check your spam or junk folder. Still having trouble? Reach out to us anytime at info@notedesigner.com — we’re here to help.
At Note Designer, we pride ourselves on offering personalized, responsive customer support — provided by real humans who truly understand the work you do. As a clinician-founded company, we know how important it is to feel heard, supported, and respected, especially when it comes to the tools you rely on every day.
When you reach out to us, you’re not speaking to a bot or navigating a help desk maze. You’re connecting with fellow professionals who care about your experience and are committed to helping you succeed. Whether you have a technical question, need help customizing a template, or just want to offer feedback, we’re here — and we listen.
In a time when automated support is the norm, our users consistently tell us how refreshing it is to get fast, thoughtful, and human responses. Your feedback truly shapes how we grow, and we’ll always do our best to help you feel supported every step of the way.
Note Designer Inc. is a Canadian company, founded by mental health professionals. While we’re proudly based in Canada, the majority of our users are in the United States, and our platform is designed to fully support U.S.-based clinicians, including compliance with HIPAA and common U.S. documentation standards.
All online sales and subscription billing are securely processed by FastSpring, a trusted U.S.-based e-commerce platform that serves thousands of software companies worldwide. This ensures smooth, secure transactions for our customers across the U.S. and internationally.
So whether you’re practicing in New York, California, Texas, or anywhere else, Note Designer is fully equipped to support your documentation needs with reliable service, ethical AI, and personalized support — no borders in the way.
No. Your notes are never uploaded or stored in the cloud — you stay in control of where and how your notes are saved.
Yes, Note Designer includes a wide range of professionally written therapy note templates and formats to support diverse clinical needs. We offer templates for SOAP, DAP, BIRP, PIRP, SIRP, PIE, and our own popular Basic Note format. In addition, you’ll find dedicated templates for Risk Assessment Notes, Intake reports, Treatment Plans, Termination Reports, and more.
Note Designer also includes specialized templates for various types of therapy, including:
- Individual therapy
- Child and adolescent therapy
- Couples and family therapy
- Group therapy
- Clinical supervision notes
- Addiction counseling notes
These templates are fully customizable and designed to help you create clear, compliant, and clinically sound documentation with ease.
Yes – Note Designer was built with flexibility in mind, making it easy to create progress notes that reflect your individual clinical style and therapeutic approach.
There are many ways to customize. For each note you create with Note Designer, you can readily add your own tailored content. For instance, you can choose to add introductory and closing paragraphs to each of your notes. You can also modify the wording of our 500+ pre-set statements to match your particular clinical situation and style. The program also allows you to generate and add your own content (e.g., common difficulties you work with, particular types of interventions you make, typical exercises you implement) that can be saved for use in all your future notes. If you choose to use our AI-rewriting feature, you are also free to edit and modify your note output by making additions or deletions as you wish.
Finally, the program has been set up to allow for even more extensive customization by the user: You can create entirely new note templates by moving around elements or even creating new tabs, subtabs, or categories of content. All of these features are designed to balance structure and convenience with flexibility and customizability. Your customizations are stored on our secure server so they are available on all your devices.
Whether you’re a psychologist, social worker, counselor, or psychotherapist, Note Designer helps you write better, faster, and more personalized clinical notes — your way.
Yes. Note Designer is built to help you write therapy notes quickly and effectively, with the flexibility to use them in your own secure systems.
Most users either print their notes, export them as PDFs, or copy and paste the completed note into their EHR (Electronic Health Record) system or into a word processing program like Microsoft Word for final editing, formatting, and secure storage.
Note Designer is not an EHR and does not transmit or store your notes on the cloud or on our servers. It’s a documentation tool — not a storage platform — designed to support structured, efficient, and customizable note composition.
For guidance on secure storage options and best practices, visit: https://notedesigner.com/resources/storage
Because Note Designer is a note writing software and not a record storage system (such as with Electronic Health Records), and because user-identifying information never leaves your browser, HIPAA compliance is not an issue. You are fully in charge of where and how you store your confidential data – with Note Designer your identifying protected health information is never stored in the cloud or on our server – they remain in your hands on your device. Read more about HIPAA here.
Yes, Note Designer is created to be fully compliant with both PIPEDA (Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act) and PHIPA (Personal Health Information Protection Act). As a Canadian-based company, we take privacy and data protection seriously. While Note Designer does not store identifiable client health information, we follow strict protocols to ensure that all data handling, encryption, and user access controls align with Canadian privacy legislation. This allows mental health professionals across Canada to use Note Designer with confidence and peace of mind.
No, you do not have to use any AI features in Note Designer. Thousands of clinicians have used Note Designer for over 10 years without AI, relying instead on our expertly written templates and structured tools to produce clear, comprehensive, and readable clinical notes. AI features are entirely optional and designed to support—not replace—your professional voice and judgment. Whether you prefer to work manually or with AI assistance, Note Designer gives you full control over your documentation process.
Note Designer’s Ethical AI is built on the principles of transparency, user control, and security. Our AI system is not powered by a third party—instead, we manage a private instance of an open-source model (currently Microsoft’s Phi-4) hosted on our HIPAA-compliant AWS server space. Because we manage the AI model, Microsoft has no access to your client data, and no information is ever shared externally.
Key features of our Ethical AI approach include:
- No identifying client information is ever sent to the AI. Patient details from your Headings tab remain entirely within your browser.
- AI processing is encrypted and secure. When you click “AI Rewrite,” only non-identifiable note content is sent to the AI model, and results are securely returned to your browser.
- Nothing is stored or reused. Inputs and outputs are never stored, never shared, and never used to train any AI model. The model we use is pre-trained and static.
We are committed to ethical clinical AI. For more thoughts on this, we invite you to read Patricia’s blog posts or reach out to us directly at info@notedesigner.com.
Yes — Note Designer offers a comprehensive library of video tutorials designed to help users get the most out of the software. These tutorials are easily accessible via our resources/videos page or in the app’s Help menu and cover everything from basic setup to advanced customization and specialized note types. Topics include:
- Introduction & Overview — A welcoming walkthrough for new users
- Tour of New Features — “Tour of Our New Features – 2023” video that highlights recent updates
- Subscription Management — “Set Up and Manage Your Subscription” tutorial
- Customization — Step-by-step guides for both simple and advanced customization features
- Common Progress Note Formats — In-depth walkthroughs for Basic, SOAP, BIRP, and DAP formats
- Specialized Notes — Dedicated tutorials for Risk Assessment, Treatment Plans, Intakes, and Termination Reports
You’ll also find additional videos covering progress notes, content library usage, and AI features. With options for both new and experienced users, these tutorials make learning intuitive and efficient.
Yes — Note Designer is thoughtfully designed for a wide range of mental health professionals, including psychologists, counselors, social workers, marriage and family therapists, and other licensed clinicians. Whether you’re in private practice, a group setting, or a nonprofit agency, Note Designer provides professional, flexible, and easy-to-use documentation tools that support your unique workflow.
Our platform supports clinical work across diverse client populations, including individuals, children, couples, families, therapy groups, and those receiving addiction counseling or clinical supervision. Note Designer also accommodates a broad range of therapeutic approaches, such as CBT, ACT, EMDR, trauma-focused therapy, Gottman-based couples work, sex therapy, gender-affirming care, art and play therapies, psychodynamic and psychoanalytic therapy, behavior medicine, and parts work, including Internal Family Systems (IFS). With customizable templates for every note type — from SOAP and DAP to treatment plans and risk assessments — Note Designer helps you create clear, comprehensive documentation that aligns with your clinical voice and theoretical orientation.
Yes — Note Designer now proudly supports Allied Health professionals, including both occupational therapists (OTs) and physical therapists (PTs). In addition to our long-standing tools for mental health documentation, we’ve expanded our platform to meet the specific needs of OT and PT practitioners. This includes customizable templates for evaluations, treatment plans, progress notes, discharge summaries, and discipline-specific frameworks like SOAP, DAP, and functional goal tracking. Whether you’re working in a clinic, hospital, or home-based setting, Note Designer offers flexible, professional tools to streamline documentation and support clear, client-centered care.
Note Designer supports a wide range of treatment modalities through our robust Content Library, where you can easily select clinical language and interventions tailored to your preferred therapeutic approach. Whether you use structured, insight-oriented, trauma-focused, or integrative models, our platform gives you the flexibility to document in your own voice and within your chosen framework.
We currently offer content for the following treatment approaches:
- Acceptance & Commitment Therapy (ACT)
- Accelerated Resolution Therapy (ART)
- Adult ADHD Interventions
- Art & Expressive Therapy
- Attachment-Focused Therapy
- Behavioral Medicine
- Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
- Cognitive Reprocessing
- Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)
- EMDR
- Gender-Affirming Care
- Inner-Child Therapy
- Internal Family Systems (IFS)
- Mentalization-Based Treatment (MBT)
- Motivational Interviewing (MI)
- OCD Specific Treatment
- Psychodynamic & Psychoanalytic Therapy
- Supportive Therapy
- Trauma-Focused Therapy
- Solution-Focused Therapy
- Spiritually Integrated Therapy
If you don’t see your approach represented, just send us an email at info@notedesigner.com — we’re happy to create and add the clinical content you need. Our goal is to support your unique style and orientation while making your documentation process faster, clearer, and more personalized.
Yes — Note Designer provides clear, practical guidance for writing professional psychotherapy notes. In fact, we published a comprehensive guidebook: Note Designer: A Simple Step-by-Step Guide to Writing Your Psychotherapy Progress Notes by Patricia C. Baldwin. This easy-to-follow resource offers expert insights into crafting clear, concise, and clinically sound documentation. It’s available for purchase on Amazon and Bookshop.org.
In addition to the book, we regularly share free note-writing tips and best practices on our blog, covering everything from structure and tone to ethical considerations and formatting styles.
Whether you’re new to documentation or just want to refine your skills, we’re here to support you every step of the way.
Setting up your Note Designer account is quick and easy. Since Note Designer runs in any computer’s browser, there’s nothing to install, and you can conveniently use it across multiple devices.
After you purchase a monthly or annual subscription, you’ll receive an email with a secure link to set up your account and password. Once you’re logged in, any custom phrases or edits you make to the pre-set templates will be safely stored in your account on our server, making them available whenever you log in—no matter which device you’re using. (Mobile devices such as cellphones with small screens are not currently supported.)
Please note that Note Designer does not store your completed notes. Instead, you can easily export your notes as a PDF or copy and paste them into Microsoft Word or your Electronic Health Record (EHR) system.
Note Designer offers flexible and affordable subscription plans for mental health professionals. You can choose between a low monthly subscription or save even more with our discounted annual plan.
We also provide reduced group rates for practices or teams with three or more clinicians. These group pricing options are perfect for clinics, organizations, or supervision groups, and full details are available on our Pricing page.
Whether you’re a solo practitioner or part of a team, Note Designer offers a plan to fit your needs and budget—with no hidden fees, client limits, or caps on usage.
No — with Note Designer, there are no limits on the number of therapy notes or clients you can manage as a licensed user*. Whether you’re a solo practitioner or part of a busy group practice, each individual licensed user can create unlimited clinical notes across all formats, including SOAP, DAP, BIRP, and more.
You’re free to document as many of your sessions as you need without worrying about hidden caps, extra charges, or data restrictions. This makes Note Designer an ideal solution for mental health professionals who want simple and affordable documentation support.
*Note Designer licenses are issued per clinician or per clinician in a group license. To maintain data integrity and compliance, shared or group use under a single license is not permitted.
No — Note Designer does not impose any usage caps or charge extra fees for additional clients, notes, or sessions. Your individual user license includes unlimited access to all note formats, templates, and features, with no hidden costs.*
Whether you’re documenting hundreds of sessions per month or managing a growing caseload, you can rely on Note Designer to support your workflow without surprises. It’s a truly flat-rate documentation solution for mental health professionals who want simplicity, transparency, and full functionality from day one.
*Note Designer licenses are issued per clinician or per clinician in a group license. To maintain data integrity and compliance, shared or group use under a single license is not permitted.
Yes — you can try Note Designer risk-free. We offer a free demonstration note so you can explore how the software works and see the quality of our templates and interface before subscribing.
And when you purchase a subscription, you’re fully protected by our 30-day money-back guarantee. If Note Designer isn’t the right fit for your practice, you can request a full refund within the first 30 days — no hassle, no questions asked.
This way, you can experience how Note Designer simplifies and elevates your clinical documentation with complete confidence.
Yes — Note Designer offers special pricing options to make our software more accessible for a variety of users. We provide discounted group rates for clinics and practices with three or more users. If you are a supervisor or instructor running a training program, please reach out to learn about the resources we offer including access to our book and software for your students while in your program.
These options are designed to support growing teams and training programs. For full details, please visit our Pricing page or contact us directly at info@notedesigner.com.
Yes — Note Designer offers discounted group licenses for teams of three or more practitioners, and these rates are clearly outlined on our Pricing page. Whether you’re running a group practice supervising interns, or coordinating a training program, our group plans provide an affordable way to ensure your team has access to professional, consistent documentation tools.
Each clinician — including interns and trainees — will receive their own secure login and customizable account, allowing for personalized content while maintaining professional boundaries and ethical documentation practices. If you’re unsure which plan is right for your team, feel free to contact us at info@notedesigner.com and we’ll be happy to help.
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