ICANotes vs Sunwave
Updated October 16, 2026
Behavioral health providers choosing a records system often compare ICANotes and Sunwave. The two look similar on a feature list, but ICANotes is built for outpatient psychiatry and therapy practices, while Sunwave is built for addiction treatment and residential centers with admissions pipelines. Sunwave is also in the middle of combining two products, which affects how much a buyer should expect on day one.
Our analysts compared ICANotes and Sunwave on posted pricing, admissions tools, notes, product stability, results, and rollout time, using the HIR review of each company and the plans ICANotes posts on its site. In the following sections, we compare them in one table, describe which provider each fits, and list dated releases from each this year.
ICANotes vs Sunwave at a glance, October 2026
| What buyers weigh | ICANotes | Sunwave |
|---|---|---|
| Published price | Prices are posted on icanotes.com. | Not published |
| Pricing model | Monthly plans with posted prices by clinical role. Full billing services are quoted separately. | Custom quote from Sunwave. |
| What drives cost | Your clinical role (notes only, non-prescriber, or prescriber), full-time or part-time note limits, telehealth, staff users, and text reminders. | Number of facilities, beds, and users, which modules are used (CRM, EMR, billing, AI documentation), and billing services. |
| Who it is built for | Psychiatrists, psychiatric nurse practitioners, and therapists in solo and group practices. | Addiction treatment and behavioral health centers. |
| Admissions and intake | Residential treatment centers that need bed and admissions tools are a weak fit. | Tracks prospective patients from the first call through admission. Clear edge |
| Notes | Menu-driven notes that ICANotes writes into a narrative, more than 100 rating scales, and an ambient AI scribe. | SIA drafts progress notes and session summaries for clinicians to review. |
| Product stability | Founded in 1999; a second generation of the founding family leads it. Clear edge | The merged product is still coming together; customers stay on their current system while Sunwave builds toward one product. |
| Results | Scores 7.6 on note time saved and clean claims. Higher score | Scores 6.8 on admissions, documentation, and claims results. |
| Product depth | Scores 7.5 for its behavioral health EHR. Higher score | Scores 7.2 for its treatment center platform. |
| Moving onto the system | Scores 7.3; clinicians live in 2-6 weeks. Higher score | Scores 6.6; admissions and clinical go-live in 2-4 months. |
| Time to full value | About 2 to 5 months | About 7 to 15 months |
| What you need first | A practice owner who runs the switch. | Operations leader who owns systems. |
| Deal-breaker | You provide residential care. | Outpatient practice only. |
| Pricing clarity score | 8.3 Clearer pricing | 6.9 |
| HIR overall score | 7.6, Recommend. Higher score | 6.9, Conditional. |
| Best for | Psychiatrists, psychiatric nurse practitioners, and therapists in solo and group practices. | Addiction treatment and behavioral health centers that want admissions, clinical records, and billing in one system. |
| Not a fit for | Residential addiction treatment centers that need bed and admissions tools. | Buyers who want a vendor with one settled product and a long-standing leadership team. |
Which fits which buyer
Your level of care settles most of this choice.
Choose ICANotes if
- You run an outpatient psychiatry or therapy practice with prescribers or therapists.
- You want structured notes that hold up in audits and a posted monthly price.
- You want to be live within weeks, not months.
Choose Sunwave if
- You run an addiction treatment or residential behavioral health center.
- You need admissions tracking from the first call through intake, in the same system as records and billing.
- You can wait for a merged product to settle and keep your current system in the meantime.
Verdict
ICANotes is the safer, faster choice for outpatient behavioral health practices, with higher marks and clearer pricing. Sunwave is the better match for treatment centers that need an admissions CRM tied to clinical records and billing.
Residential programs should not choose ICANotes, and small outpatient practices will find Sunwave heavier than they need.
Where the two tools are headed in 2027 and beyond
ICANotes: ICANotes shipped version 10.0 on July 17, 2026, version 10.1 on August 26, 2026, and version 10.2 on September 17, 2026, which added tablet form sessions and client portal document uploads.
Sunwave: Sunwave announced in June 2026 that Lightning Step and Sunwave Health now operate under the single Sunwave brand, with existing customers kept on their current systems while the combined product is built.
Ask Sunwave which product you would sign onto today, and ask ICANotes which listed upcoming features are dated.
Methodology
Each row comes from the HIR reviews of ICANotes and Sunwave, scored under the HIR method, and from each vendor's public pricing where it exists. Any published price for ICANotes or Sunwave was checked on that vendor's own site on October 16, 2026.
A green check marks a clear edge for ICANotes or Sunwave only where their review scores differ by at least 0.3 points or the two reviews show a plain difference. Rows with nothing published for either ICANotes or Sunwave are left out, and time to full value for each adds up the rollout stages in its review.
Sources
- HIR review of ICANotes and HIR review of Sunwave
- ICANotes website
- Sunwave website
- ICANotes v10.2.0 release notes, September 17, 2026
- Sunwave announces unified brand, June 2026