Per-Practice vs Per-Provider Pricing (2026)

Short answer

Per-provider pricing charges a billing company once for every rendering provider in its book, regardless of how many claims that provider generates. Per-practice pricing charges once per client practice, regardless of how many providers that practice employs. The axis determines how your software cost responds when you add clients.

At a book of 5 practices with 3 providers each, the gap between models is already meaningful. At 20 practices and 50 practices it becomes decisive. The core reason: most billing companies add clients that have more than one provider per practice. Per-provider pricing turns every new provider into a new line item; per-practice pricing absorbs that headcount at no extra charge. The more providers your clients tend to carry, the wider the gap grows.

Medi uses per-practice pricing at $20 per client practice per month, with volume discounts as the book grows. AdvancedMD, Tebra, and RXNT all use per-provider pricing. This study models what a billing company actually pays each vendor at three book sizes, using consistent assumptions drawn from published pricing and industry-standard billing volumes. Competitor figures are published ranges or directional estimates from third-party sources, as noted in the methodology section.

Sources: Medi pricing · AdvancedMD software pricing · Tebra pricing

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Methodology and Model Assumptions

All three scale points use the same operating assumptions, which come from the Medi competitive research published June 2026 and reflect mid-market billing company volumes.

**Book assumptions (held constant across scale points):**

Under these assumptions, a practice generates 750 claim lines per month (300 claims × 2.5 lines). The ERA return produces approximately 246 paid ERA lines per practice per month (300 claims × 82% × 1.0 line average, simplified for this model). Each practice runs 20 eligibility checks per month.

**Medi transaction cost per practice per month (at these volumes):**

• Claim submission: 300 claims × ($0.25 first line + $0.20 × 1.5 additional lines) = 300 × $0.55 = $165 claim EDI
• ERA: 246 paid lines × ($0.25 first + $0.20 additional, averaged at ~$0.22/line) ≈ $54 ERA EDI
• Eligibility: 20 × $0.20 = $4
• Total per-practice EDI: approximately **$223 per practice per month**

The platform fee adds $20 per practice (or the applicable graduated rate). The all-in Medi cost per practice at standard volume is approximately **$243 per practice per month** at the first tier, falling as the graduated discount applies at higher practice counts.

**Competitor pricing used in this study:**

All competitor costs are seat fees only. AdvancedMD, Tebra, and RXNT include ERA retrieval and claim submission in their published per-provider tiers. Fees are labeled [published] where taken directly from the vendor's pricing page, or [third-party/estimate] where drawn from reseller analysis or third-party aggregators. Get a current vendor quote before using any figure here for budget planning.

CollaborateMD's pricing is included in a range because it gates its per-provider fee publicly. The figures used ($1,900–$2,600 at 5 practices, scaled accordingly) come from a reseller-documented rate sheet and should be treated as directional. Office Ally is excluded from the primary comparison tables because it is a clearinghouse tool without a billing-company operating surface, not a like-for-like alternative for the workflow needs modeled here.

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The Cost Comparison at Three Book Sizes

Book size 1: 5 practices, 15 providers, 1,500 claims per month

At 5 practices, the Medi all-in is roughly half the cost of the lowest third-party per-provider estimate in this model (Tebra, which does not publish its pricing) and less than one-quarter of AdvancedMD's entry tier. CollaborateMD is the closest to Medi in dollar terms because its usage-based structure partially mirrors the per-transaction model, but its pricing is gated and stacks ERA, scrubbing, and eligibility as separate line items on top of a per-provider fee.

The structural observation: at 5 practices with 3 providers each, Medi charges $100 for the platform regardless of whether those 15 providers generate 100 claims or 1,000 claims per month. The per-provider platforms charge $2,985–$6,435 for those 15 seats before a single claim moves.

Book size 2: 20 practices, 60 providers, 6,000 claims per month

At 20 practices the gap is substantially wider. AdvancedMD's 60-provider seat cost is more than four times Medi's all-in. Even Tebra at the mid-range estimate is roughly twice the cost. The reason the gap grows: per-provider platforms count 60 providers at $199–$429 each; Medi counts 20 practices at $20 each.

The EDI portion of Medi's cost also grows here, from ~$1,440 to ~$5,760, because it tracks claim volume rather than provider count. A book that adds practices with light claim volume will see a proportionally smaller EDI increase than this model assumes. A book that adds high-volume specialty practices will see more. The platform portion stays exactly $400 (20 × $20) regardless of volume.

Book size 3: 50 practices, 150 providers, 15,000 claims per month

At 50 practices, the graduated volume discount begins to work. Medi's platform fee drops from $20 to $15 on practices 26 through 50, bringing the platform total to $875 instead of $1,000. At 51+ practices the third tier at $10 applies to any additional practices beyond 50. The volume discount is applied per practice added into each band, not as a flat rate applied to all practices, so there is no billing cliff when crossing a threshold.

The Medi all-in at 50 practices is roughly half Tebra's seat cost and less than one-quarter AdvancedMD's. CollaborateMD approaches Medi in range at this scale, though the upper end of the reseller estimate ($20,000/month) still exceeds Medi's published all-in.

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Why the Axis Matters: Volume vs Provider Count

The pricing axis a vendor chooses is not arbitrary. It reflects who the vendor built the product for.

Per-provider pricing originated in the EHR market, where a per-clinician seat license is the natural unit: each clinician uses the software independently, generates clinical notes, and schedules appointments. When billing modules were added to those systems, the seat structure followed them. A billing company that uses an EHR-adjacent platform inherits that structure even though it does not manage individual clinician workflows the same way an in-house billing department would.

Per-practice pricing treats the billing company as the actual customer. A billing company thinks in client practices, assigns staff to practice queues, and prices its services to clients by the practice. The software cost per client practice is a real operational number. The number of providers inside that practice is largely irrelevant to the billing company's software workflow: a 5-provider orthopedic group and a 2-provider primary care practice both require one login, one payer configuration set, one ERA posting queue, and one A/R aging view.

The practical consequence is visible in the tables above. When a billing company adds a 4-provider family medicine group, per-provider platforms add four seats immediately. Medi adds $20. When that same practice adds a fifth provider mid-year, per-provider platforms add a fifth seat. Medi's bill does not change.

This asymmetry is most pronounced for billing companies whose clients tend toward multispecialty groups or mid-sized practices. A book of solo practitioners (one provider per practice) narrows the gap because the provider count and practice count are equal. Most billing companies carry a mix, and the average tends above one provider per practice for any book that includes specialty practices.

The model in this study assumes exactly 3 providers per practice. Billing companies with a higher-than-3 provider average will see a larger gap in their favor; those with a lower average will see a smaller one.

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Caveats and Where Per-Provider Can Close the Gap

This study uses representative assumptions. Several real-world conditions change the picture.

**High per-practice claim volume compresses the gap.** Medi's cost is driven primarily by transaction volume, not practice count. At very high per-practice claim volume, the EDI line grows toward the point where a fixed per-provider seat cost becomes competitive. A practice submitting 2,000+ claims per month at 2.5 lines each generates an EDI bill approaching $1,100 per practice per month on Medi. A per-provider seat at $199 for a 3-provider practice ($597 per month) would be cheaper for just the software cost at that volume. This scenario is uncommon at the individual practice level but is worth modeling if the book includes high-volume multispecialty groups.

**The platform fee remains low regardless.** Even in high-volume scenarios, Medi's platform fee (the $20–$10 per practice bracket) does not change. The variable is always the transaction line. A billing company can model this directly using the pricing calculator with its own claim-per-practice volume.

**Competitor figures are ranges, not quotes.** The AdvancedMD figure in this study ($429/provider) is the published Medical Specialties entry price. AdvancedMD's actual range runs to $1,070 per provider per month. Tebra does not publish its pricing; third-party analyses cite a range of $49 to $799 per provider, which is the basis for the estimate used here. Some billing companies negotiate volume discounts through partner programs (AdvancedMD's AdvancedBiller program, for instance), but those discounts are not published and cannot be modeled here. Get a current quote with your specific provider count, practice count, and payer mix before drawing final conclusions.

**Office Ally is cheaper on raw price, but is not a billing-company operating layer.** Office Ally's Service Center is free for participating-payer claims, with a $44.95 per-month non-par fee per unique Tax ID and Rendering NPI combination. For a billing company with a heavily government-payer book and low commercial exposure, Office Ally's transaction cost is the lowest available. But it is a clearinghouse, not a work surface. It routes claims and retrieves ERAs; it does not manage denial workflows, A/R aging views, multi-practice queues, or posting decisions across a book. Billing companies that run Office Ally alongside their operations typically add manual processes or separate tools to fill those gaps.

**CollaborateMD is a genuine usage-based peer.** It is the one platform in this market that uses a partially similar structure (transaction-based fees plus a per-provider component). Its pricing is gated, however, which makes direct comparison difficult. The reseller-document estimates used in this study should be confirmed with CollaborateMD directly before treating them as quotes.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Does per-practice pricing mean all providers in a practice are included for one fee?

Yes. Medi's platform fee of $20 per client practice per month covers the practice regardless of how many providers are enrolled. A 2-provider practice and a 10-provider practice both generate one $20 monthly platform charge. The only variable that changes the bill is claim volume, ERA volume, and eligibility checks, all of which are billed per transaction through Stedi.

At what practice count does the graduated volume discount begin?

The discount applies to practices 26 through 50, where the rate drops from $20 to $15 per practice per month. Practices 51 and above are billed at $10 per practice per month. The discount is marginal, meaning each practice falls into its own band; there is no retroactive repricing of earlier practices when a new threshold is crossed. A billing company at 26 practices pays $500 for the first 25 and $15 for the 26th, for a total of $515.

How does Medi's cost change if a client practice adds a provider mid-engagement?

It does not. The Medi platform fee is fixed per practice; adding or removing providers within a practice does not change the monthly charge. The EDI transaction line may grow if the new provider increases the practice's claim volume, but the platform cost stays the same.

Are there scenarios where per-provider pricing wins outright?

At very high per-practice claim volume, a fixed per-provider seat can become competitive on total cost. The break-even depends on the per-provider rate and the actual claims-per-practice average. A practice billing 2,000+ claims per month with a 3-provider panel on a $150/provider seat would cost $450 per month in seat fees versus roughly $960 in Medi EDI fees at that volume. Billing companies with consistently high-volume practices should model their specific claim-per-practice average against the Medi transaction schedule at pricing calculator before assuming per-practice pricing is always lower.

Why do incumbent platforms still use per-provider pricing?

Per-provider pricing was inherited from the EHR market, where a per-clinician license is natural because each clinician uses the system independently for scheduling, notes, and prescribing. When billing modules were added to those platforms, the seat structure followed. Billing-company-specific software built from scratch can use a different axis, and per-practice pricing reflects how billing companies actually organize their work and charge their clients.

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For the full benchmark context covering onboarding fees, hidden costs, and year-over-year cost trends, see the State of Billing Company Software Costs 2026. For the broader vendor landscape, see the best medical billing software for small billing businesses.

Explore Medi pricing details and published fee schedule or book a walkthrough to run the numbers against your specific book.

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A note on the pricing figures here

The pricing shown for other vendors is gathered from their public pricing pages where they publish one, and from third-party aggregators, reseller materials, and customer reports where they do not. Many of these vendors do not publish their pricing, so these figures are approximate, may not reflect negotiated or current rates, and can change without notice. Treat them as a starting point and confirm current pricing with each vendor directly. Where a vendor does not publish its pricing, this page says so rather than presenting an estimate as fact. Medi's own pricing is published in full at /pricing.

Sources: Medi pricing · AdvancedMD software pricing · Tebra pricing · State of billing company software costs 2026