Insurance panels · Headway
Headway’s new $9.99 marketplace fee, explained
In short
Does Headway's $9.99 marketplace fee apply to my sessions?
Which clients carry the per-session fee, which are exempt, the rollout by state, and what it costs at your own payout
$9.99 a sessionFrom 8 October 2026, Headway takes a flat fee from your payout for sessions with clients who found you through its directory. Here is what each term means, which sessions it touches, and which it never will.
- Only marketplace clients, meaning people who searched Headway and booked from your profile.
- Every session with that client, for as long as you see them. Insurance or private pay.
- Same amount on every health plan. Your contracted rate and the client’s cost do not change.
- Taken out of your payout. No separate bill.
Headway has long pitched itself as free for providers. This fee changes that, but only for one kind of client: the ones Headway’s directory sent you. Clients you bring yourself stay fee-free.
The catch is that the fee follows a marketplace client for the life of the relationship. A weekly client you met through Headway’s search costs you $9.99 every week they see you, so it adds up quietly.
Four questions. A green answer at any step means no fee.
Run any appointment through these in order. The answers come from Headway’s own help article, read 8 October 2026.
Has the fee started in your primary practice state?
Did the session happen?
How did this client first book with you?
Did they first book before the fee started in your state?
Six words in Headway’s article, in plain English.
Marketplace client
A client who searched on Headway and booked from your Headway profile.
Headway found them for you. They are the only clients the fee touches.
Client source
Set by the link a client used at their first booking with you, and fixed after that.
A permanent label on each client, kept separately for each provider.
Direct link
Your own booking link, in Profile settings. A client who books through it is yours, wherever you shared it.
The one to put on your website, your directory profiles and your intake emails.
Marketplace visibility
Whether you appear in Headway’s client search. Set in Sigmund under Settings › New Clients Settings.
Off stops new marketplace clients. It does not change the ones you already have.
Primary practice state
The state that decides when the fee starts for you. In a group it follows each provider’s own state.
California is not in the first five states.
The deduction
One $9.99 deduction per completed marketplace session, taken from your payout. It shows on the client’s page under Pricing and on the Payments tab.
Group admins get a column for it in the payments report.
When it applies, and when it never will.
Fee Applies
- Clients who searched Headway and booked from your profile on or after your state’s start date
- Their first session and every session after it
- Insurance sessions and private-pay sessions alike
- Existing marketplace clients after you hide your profile
- Under supervision: the supervising provider’s intake, and sessions after a client is transferred
No fee Does not apply
- Any session before the fee starts in your state. It is never retroactive
- Clients who found you on Headway before the change, including all their later sessions
- Clients you bring, or add yourself in the provider portal
- Anyone who books through your direct link
- Health-system referrals
- No-shows and cancelations, by either side
One appointment is never charged twice. In a supervised arrangement the fee falls on the supervisor or the supervisee, not both.
The label sticks to the pair, not to the client.
What counts is how a client first booked with you. A client a colleague found on Headway, who then books you through your direct link, is yours.
The question that came up most
Clients who find you on Psychology Today or your own site and then book through Headway’s scheduling, or whom you add yourself, are not marketplace clients. Headway’s article excludes clients “added in the provider portal” and anyone who books through your direct link. The fee is for people who found you in Headway’s search.
Five states today. California later in 2026, on a week’s notice.
Flat per session, so it weighs most on low rates and weekly clients.
The fee does not change with the plan or the rate, so its share of a session depends entirely on what Headway pays you for it. Put in your own payout from the Payments tab.
The starting inputs are examples, not Headway figures: a full week of twenty sessions, every one from the marketplace, is the worst case, and Headway does not publish what it pays in California. Only completed sessions count.
| Completed sessions with one marketplace client | Total deducted |
|---|---|
| 1 | $9.99 |
| 10 | $99.90 |
| 20 | $199.80 |
| 40 | $399.60 |
$9.99 times the count. Weekly therapy for most of a year is about forty sessions.
Turning the marketplace off stops new fees, not existing ones.
| Situation | Visible in Headway search | Hidden from search |
|---|---|---|
| New clients from Headway search | $9.99 on every session | None arrive, so no fee |
| Existing marketplace clients | $9.99 on every session | $9.99 on every session still |
| Clients who book through your direct link | No fee | No fee. The link keeps working |
| Clients who found you before the change | No fee | No fee |
So the question is whether Headway’s search still pays for itself. If your openings already fill from your own site, colleagues and other directories, the marketplace may not be worth $9.99 a session. If Headway search is what fills your week, it may still cost less than finding those clients another way. The economics of the platforms side by side are on the platform comparison.
Headway calls it investment. The thread calls it a per-session pay cut.
Headway’s announcement email, as posted to r/therapists, says it spends more than $150 million a year on marketing, health-system partnerships and support, and will “significantly increase” that spending in 2027 to bring providers more clients. The fee is how it proposes to pay for that. The megathread that followed kept returning to five points.
Every session, not once
The most repeated objection. Several therapists said they could accept a one-time fee for a new client, like a booking marketplace charges, but not a charge that repeats for the whole course of care.
On top of the share Headway already keeps
Headway is already paid out of the reimbursement and keeps an unpublished share of it. Commenters read the new fee as a second charge for the same client. What Headway keeps today is on the Headway page.
Is a per-client fee a referral fee?
Some asked whether a charge that rises with each client a platform sends is fee-splitting or a kickback, and at least one wrote to their own state board. In California the test is B&P §650 and the Board’s referral rule, set out on the paying-for-referrals page. That page rules on no platform, and neither does this one. A specific contract is a question for your own lawyer.
Which clients count
Many weren’t sure whether clients who come from Psychology Today and then book through Headway count. Under Headway’s article they don’t, as long as they use your direct link or you add them yourself. See client source.
What people are doing about it
Sending feedback through Headway, signing a public petition for a different fee structure, turning off marketplace visibility, and, for some, credentialing with insurers directly. Getting on panels yourself covers that route.
Before the banner appears in your account.
- Copy your direct link from Profile settings, and put it wherever people find you: your website, directory profiles, email signature and intake emails.
- Send referrals the link. When a colleague sends someone, give the client your direct link rather than telling them to search Headway.
- Check your current clients. A client’s page shows the source under Pricing. Anyone who found you before your state’s start date stays fee-free.
- Watch for the banner. Headway says California providers will see it at least seven days before the fee starts.
- Groups: admins control marketplace visibility, and the payments report has a column for the deductions.
Where every figure came from
Sources.
The reaction
Every rule on this page is Headway’s own, from its help article as read on 8 October 2026; Headway may change it, and the banner in your account is what governs your start date. Every dollar figure is $9.99 multiplied by a count. The forum thread is summarized by theme, without names. Nothing here is legal advice, and the page does not assess the fee against B&P §650.
