Headway's $9.99 Marketplace Fee: What It Costs You Each Year

What the fee costs in a year

The fee is $9.99 per session, the same for every health plan, so the yearly cost is $9.99 times the sessions you hold with marketplace clients. Cancellations and no-shows are not charged. The figures below assume 40 held sessions a year for a weekly client and 20 for a client seen every two weeks.

Who pays the fee, and who does not

Headway charges the fee on every session with a client who searched on Headway and booked with you from your Headway profile, on or after your state's start date. It applies to insurance and private pay sessions alike, and Headway says it is never applied retroactively.

These sessions are not charged:

• Clients you bring yourself, including clients you add in your provider portal
• Clients who book through your direct link, wherever you share it (your Psychology Today profile, website or email signature)
• Clients who found you on Headway before your state's start date, including their later sessions
• Referrals from health systems
• Sessions that do not happen: client cancellations, your cancellations and no-shows. Any cancellation fee you charge is still paid to you in full.

When the fee starts in your state

The fee follows your primary practice state. Headway has published one start date so far; we add others only when Headway publishes them. If your state is not listed, Headway says you will see a banner in your account at least 7 days before the fee starts for you.

How to check which clients carry the fee

1. Look at each client's page

   Headway shows how each client found you, with any session fees under Pricing. Your Payments tab shows the fee on upcoming and past payments.

2. Share your direct link everywhere

   A client's source is set by the link they use the first time they book, and it stays the same for every session after. Your direct link is in your Headway profile settings. Put it on your Psychology Today profile, website and email signature so clients you find yourself are recorded as yours.

3. Decide whether to appear on the marketplace

   In Settings, under New Clients Settings, you can turn your marketplace appearance on or off, and Headway says you can turn new clients on or off for each health plan. Turning it off stops new marketplace clients. It does not remove the fee for marketplace clients who already booked on or after your start date.

If you run a group practice

• The fee is charged one provider and one client at a time, and follows each provider's primary practice state. Until every state is live, a multi-state group sees it for some clinicians and not others.
• The practice admin manages marketplace settings for everyone in the practice.
• For supervised and transferred clients, the supervising provider's intake and each session after a transfer include the fee. Each appointment is charged once.
• The practice payments report has a column showing when the fee was deducted.

Your own insurance contracts: what changes

With contracts in your own name, no platform takes a fee for the clients you see. But your own contracts are not free either: someone has to bill your claims, and the rate each insurer offers you may be lower or higher than what you are paid on Headway. Compare the totals before you decide.

You do not have to leave Headway to plan ahead

1. Keep the clients you have

   Clients who found you before your state's start date are not charged, even after it.

2. Route your own referrals through your direct link

   Every client you find yourself should book through it, so they never count as marketplace clients.

3. Start your own credentialing now

   Headway says credentialing you hold independently is separate from its own process. Credentialing usually takes 60 to 90 days with each insurer, so starting now means your own contracts are ready when you want them.

Other Headway changes this fall

• From October 12, 2026, Headway asks talk therapists to have every adult client complete a baseline assessment, such as the PHQ-9 or GAD-7, at the start of care where clinically appropriate, and one follow-up a year.
• Once a year, Headway will review a sample of your notes. You share up to ten notes within 30 days.

How Medtransic helps

We credential you with the insurers you choose at $150 per application, per provider, and track every application to its effective date in your client portal. Once your contracts are live, we can bill for you at 4-8% of collections, inside SimplePractice, TherapyNotes or the software you use, with no long-term contract.