Four things:

1. Somewhere records live that is secure, backed up and exportable.

2. A work email on a domain you own.

3. A way to be reached that isn't your personal cell — which, at this size, can legitimately be blocked outbound caller ID and an email address.

4. A way to take payment and issue a receipt.

That is the whole list at two to six clients a week. Not a video platform separate from your records software, not a scheduling tool, not a website, not a fax number, not a business phone service with hours and greetings and transcription.

The reason is arithmetic. Fixed monthly software costs the same at four sessions a week as at twenty-four, so at a small caseload every subscription is a much larger fraction of what you earn. A tool that is obviously worth it full-time can be genuinely not worth it part-time, and it is not sentimentality to say so — practitioners in these discussions say plainly that they cannot afford a second line on their phone plan, or that they cannot sustain the platform they are on.

What changes when the practice is small?

Three things, and they all cut the same way.

Volume doesn't justify automation. The whole case for a system that answers your phone is that you cannot get to the calls. At four sessions a week you have gaps, and returning two voicemails yourself is faster than configuring anything.

Your clients are mostly people who already found you. Part-time practices are usually fed by a referral relationship or a directory profile, not by inbound phone volume. Which means the intake machinery most guides describe is machinery for a problem you do not yet have.

Switching later is cheap while you are small. Twelve clients can be moved between systems in an afternoon. Two hundred cannot. So the cost of choosing "wrong" now is much lower than the anxiety about it suggests, and the right move is to choose quickly and revisit in a year.

What's still worth paying for?

Records software. Even at four clients. Notes need to be somewhere that is secure, that you can export, and that will still open in ten years. This is not the place to improvise with documents on a laptop.

Your own domain and mailbox. Cheap, and it means the address on your consent forms never has to change.

Professional liability insurance and registration. Non-negotiable at any caseload.

Everything else earns its place by fixing a problem you have actually had twice.

When does a phone service become worth it?

When the answer to "what happens when someone calls while I'm working?" stops being "I call them back at lunch."

Concretely, the tipping points people describe are:

• You are in session or at another job during the hours prospective clients call, with no gap you can use.

• You are getting enough inquiries that some of them go unreturned.

• You need two-way texting because a client — often a teenager — will not use anything else.

• You want a number you can put on a public profile without it being your cell.

Until one of those is true, the cheap answers hold. Blocked outbound caller ID costs nothing and keeps your number off client phones when you call out. Email and a booking link are a complete intake channel. A second line from your mobile carrier is the smallest real upgrade and it costs less than most software.

What about a part-time practice alongside a full-time job?

Then the constraint is not money, it is overlap — the hours a prospective client would phone are the hours you are unavailable, and your employer's phone and email are not places practice mail can go.

The smallest answer that works is a clear statement of when you reply, on every surface where someone can reach you, and one channel you genuinely check daily. Two channels you check unevenly is worse than one you check reliably.

The tool implication is smaller than it feels: a separate email and a separate way to be reached, not a separate infrastructure.

What's the failure mode of buying too much?

Two, and both are common enough to name.

You spend the practice's first year administering the practice. Six subscriptions, six logins, six things to configure, none of which produced a client.

You lock yourself in before you know your shape. Part-time practices change — they grow, shrink, change population, or stop. A twelve-month contract signed in month one is a bet on a version of your practice that does not exist yet.

Prefer monthly billing, exportable data, and the smallest tier that does the job.

The short version

Records, email, a way to be reached, a way to be paid. Buy nothing else until a specific problem has happened twice. Keep everything month-to-month and exportable, because the most likely thing about a part-time practice is that it will be a different size in a year — and the tools should follow that, not anticipate it.

About Rivet

Rivet is a Canadian practice line built for therapists — a separate number for calls, texts and voicemail, with video sessions and clinical tools in the same place. Your data stays in Canada, and transcription runs on Rivet's own hardware rather than a third-party AI service.

One plan, $65 CAD a month, everything included. Fourteen-day trial, no card.

See what's included · Start the trial