Search for free physiotherapy software and you will get five categories of result presented as though they were one. They behave very differently three months in, which is exactly when it is most expensive to have chosen the wrong one.
Five things vendors mean by "free"
| What it is | How long it lasts | What it really costs |
|---|---|---|
| Free trial | 7 to 30 days | Nothing, then the full price. Fine — just not free software. |
| Free tier of a paid product | Indefinitely, within limits | A cap on patients, users or features. Usually honest, always finite. |
| Free while in beta | Until they decide | You are testing the product. Pricing arrives later and you have no say. |
| Open-source records software | Forever | Hosting, updates, backups, and somebody competent to run it. |
| Free in exchange for something | Indefinitely | Directory listings, lead fees, or data used in ways worth reading about. |
Four of those five are legitimate. The fifth is legitimate too, provided you know that is the trade — and provided the trade is described somewhere other than clause fourteen.
How to tell which one you are looking at
Three questions, answerable in about two minutes on the vendor's own site:
- Is there a pricing page with paid plans on it? If yes, the free thing is a tier or a trial, and the pricing page tells you what happens next. If there is no pricing page at all, you are looking at beta, open source, or a model that has not been explained.
- What is the limit, in a number? Patients, users, storage. "Generous limits" is not a number. If you cannot find one, assume it will appear at an inconvenient moment.
- Is export available on the free plan? This is the one that decides whether a free plan is a gift or a trap.
What a free plan can realistically hold
Free tiers exist because vendors want you to become a customer, not because they want to give away a practice management system. That is a rational trade for both sides, but it sets the size of what is on offer.
In practice, a free tier of a clinical product suits three situations: you are starting out and have a handful of patients, you are testing properly with real data rather than a demo account, or you have a small side caseload alongside employed work. It does not suit a full week of patients, and any vendor implying otherwise is describing a tier that will be withdrawn or a product that will start charging.
Free tiers are not smaller versions of the paid product in the way people assume. The cap is usually on patients, not on quality: the clinical record, the diary and the finance screens are the same ones. That is what makes a free tier a genuine test rather than a demo — as long as you read the number.
The free option people forget: a spreadsheet
A spreadsheet and a paper diary cost nothing, work offline, and are under your control. For a small caseload they are a perfectly respectable answer, and we say so in the article about moving off them.
What they cannot do: hold a clinical record safely on two devices, tell you who confirmed tomorrow's appointments, produce a report while someone waits, or survive a laptop that gets stolen. The moment any of those matters, the spreadsheet is no longer free — it is costing you in a currency that does not show up on a bank statement.
Four questions before you put records into anything
Free or paid, these are the same four, and they are worth an email to support before you import your patient list.
- Where is the data hosted, and who can access it? You carry the professional obligation regardless of what you paid.
- Is there an audit trail? Who opened a record, who changed it, when. It matters on the day it matters, and not before.
- How do backups work, and do they require you to remember anything?
- Can I export everything, myself, whenever I want? If the answer involves contacting support, that is the answer.
Be careful with anything that offers you patients. Some free products are funded by referral fees, directory placement or lead selling. That can be a fair arrangement, but it is a marketing relationship with your patient list adjacent to it, and it deserves reading properly rather than clicking through.
Our free plan, described plainly
Physioly has a free plan, so the honest thing is to describe exactly what it is rather than let the word do the work.
- The first 7 days have no limits at all. Everything the paid plans do, with as many patients as you like. It is a real week of work, not a tour.
- After that it is free forever, with 1 patient. Full clinical records, diary and finances, under monthly usage limits. Enough to follow one patient properly from assessment to discharge.
- No credit card to start, and no card to keep using it.
- Export works on the free plan. Your records are yours on every tier.
- Nothing is sold. We make money when people upgrade, which is the whole model and the reason the free tier is small.
One patient is not a practice management system for a full caseload, and we would rather write that here than have you discover it on day eight. The unlimited week is the part that is genuinely useful: it is enough to write real notes, run a real diary and decide.
Use the unlimited week properly
Five awkward patients, a real week in the diary, three notes written in the room, one PDF, one export. That is the test.
Create a free account → No credit card. The first 7 days have no limits at all.When free stops being the right answer
There is a point at which staying on a free plan costs more than the paid one, and it is fairly easy to spot.
- You are keeping records in two places because of a limit. That is the most expensive arrangement available, and the most dangerous clinically.
- You are spending more than an hour a week on workarounds. At almost any session fee, that hour is worth more than the subscription.
- A second person needs access. Shared logins destroy attribution, and attribution is what a clinical record is for.
- You cannot answer "who owes me money" in ten seconds. The amount you are not chasing is usually larger than the annual cost of the software.
None of those means the free plan was a mistake. It means it did its job, which was to let you find out what you actually needed before paying for it.
Questions we get asked
Is there genuinely free software for physiotherapists?
Yes, in two forms: free tiers of commercial products, which are limited by patients, users or features, and open-source health records, which are free to license but cost you hosting, updates and backups. A free trial is neither — it is a paid product you have not started paying for yet.
What are the limits of a free physiotherapy software plan?
Usually a cap on active patients, one user, limited storage, and features held back for paid tiers. Read the cap before you import anything, because the point at which you hit it is also the point at which you are most dependent on the product.
Is free software safe for patient records?
Free and safe are unrelated questions. What matters is encrypted transport and storage, individual logins, an audit trail, backups that happen without you, a clear statement of where data is hosted, and an export you can run yourself. Ask for those regardless of price — you carry the professional obligation either way.
What does Physioly’s free plan include?
The first 7 days have no limits at all. After that the free plan is free forever and holds 1 patient, with full clinical records, diary and finances under monthly usage limits. It is enough to follow one patient properly, not a free system for a full week of work.
Can I export my data if I leave a free plan?
In Physioly, yes — export is available on every plan, including the free one, and it is not a support request. In general, ask this before you start: a product that makes leaving difficult on a free plan will not make it easier once you are paying.