Per-Practice vs Per-Provider Pricing (2026)

Short answer

Per-provider pricing charges a billing company once for every rendering provider in its book, no matter how many claims that provider generates. Per-practice pricing charges once per client practice, no matter how many providers that practice employs. The axis you pay on decides how your software cost moves when you add clients.

At 5 practices with 3 providers each, the gap between the two models is already wide. At 20 and 50 practices it dominates the budget. Most billing companies add clients with more than one provider per practice, so per-provider pricing turns every new hire into a new line item while per-practice pricing absorbs that headcount for free. The more providers your clients carry, the wider the gap.

Medi uses per-practice pricing at $20 per client practice per month, with volume pricing available. AdvancedMD, Tebra, and RXNT use per-provider pricing. This study models what a billing company pays each vendor at three book sizes under one consistent set of assumptions. Competitor figures are published ranges or directional third-party estimates, labeled as such in the methodology.

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, drawn from Medi competitive research published June 2026 and reflecting mid-market billing company volumes.

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

Under these assumptions, a practice generates 300 claims per month and 20 eligibility checks per month. ERA retrieval is included in the per-claim fee at no additional charge.

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

• Claim submission: 300 claims × $0.70 per claim (ERA included) = $210 claim EDI
• Eligibility: 20 checks × $0.25 per check = $5
• Total per-practice EDI: approximately **$215 per practice per month**

The platform fee adds $20 per practice. The all-in Medi cost per practice at standard volume is approximately **$235 per practice per month**.

**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 per-provider tiers. Fees are labeled [published] where taken from the vendor's pricing page, or [third-party/estimate] where drawn from reseller analysis or aggregators. Get a current vendor quote before using any figure here for budget planning.

CollaborateMD appears as a range because it gates its per-provider fee. The figures used ($1,900–$2,600 at 5 practices, scaled accordingly) come from a reseller-documented rate sheet and are directional only. Office Ally is excluded from the primary tables: it is a clearinghouse tool without a billing-company operating surface, not a like-for-like alternative for the workflows 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 lowest Tebra Billing Starter reference in this model and less than one-quarter of AdvancedMD's entry tier. CollaborateMD sits closest to Medi in dollar terms because its usage-based structure partly 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 point: Medi charges $100 for the platform whether those 15 providers generate 100 claims or 1,000 claims per month, with ERA included in the flat per-claim fee. 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 widens sharply. AdvancedMD's 60-provider seat cost is more than five times Medi's all-in, and even Tebra at the mid-range estimate is more than twice the cost. The gap grows because per-provider platforms count 60 providers at $199–$429 each while Medi counts 20 practices at $20 each.

Medi's EDI portion also grows here, from ~$1,075 to ~$3,925, because it tracks claim volume rather than provider count. The volume discount applies at 6,000 monthly claims: first 500 at $0.70, claims 501–5,000 at $0.65, and claims beyond 5,000 at $0.55. A book that adds light-volume practices sees a smaller EDI increase than this model assumes; one that adds high-volume specialty practices sees 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 and 15,000 monthly claims, the volume discount drops the per-claim rate to $0.55 for the bulk of submissions ($0.70 for the first 500, $0.65 for 501–5,000, $0.55 beyond 5,000), with ERA included at each tier. The Medi all-in at 50 practices is roughly half Tebra's seat cost and less than one-quarter AdvancedMD's. CollaborateMD approaches Medi's 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

A vendor's pricing axis reflects who it 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 to chart, prescribe, and schedule. When billing modules were bolted onto those systems, the seat structure came with them. A billing company on an EHR-adjacent platform inherits that structure even though it does not manage individual clinician workflows the way an in-house clinic does.

Per-practice pricing treats the billing company as the customer. A billing company thinks in client practices, assigns staff to practice queues, and prices its services by the practice, so the software cost per client practice is a real operational number. The provider count inside a practice barely touches that workflow: a 5-provider orthopedic group and a 2-provider primary care practice each need one payer configuration set, one ERA posting queue, and one A/R aging view.

The tables above show the consequence. When a billing company adds a 4-provider family medicine group, per-provider platforms add four seats; Medi adds $20. When that practice adds a fifth provider mid-year, per-provider platforms add a fifth seat; Medi's bill does not move.

The asymmetry is sharpest for books weighted toward multispecialty groups or mid-sized practices. A book of solo practitioners narrows the gap, because provider count and practice count are equal. Most books carry a mix, and any book with specialty practices runs above one provider per practice on average.

This study assumes exactly 3 providers per practice. Books with a higher average see a larger gap in their favor; books with a lower one see a smaller gap.

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Caveats and Where Per-Provider Can Close the Gap

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

**High per-practice claim volume compresses the gap.** Medi's cost is driven by transaction volume, not practice count, so at very high per-practice volume the EDI line climbs toward the point where a fixed per-provider seat becomes competitive. A practice submitting 2,000 claims per month runs a claim EDI bill of roughly $1,375 (first 500 at $0.70, remaining 1,500 at $0.65), ERA included. A per-provider seat at $199 for a 3-provider practice ($597 per month) would be cheaper on software cost alone at that volume. This is rare at the individual-practice level but worth modeling if the book includes high-volume multispecialty groups.

**The platform fee stays low regardless.** Even in high-volume scenarios, Medi's platform fee ($20 per client practice per month, with volume pricing available) does not change based on provider count; the variable is always the transaction line. Model it directly with your own claim-per-practice volume in the pricing calculator.

**Competitor figures are ranges, not quotes.** The AdvancedMD figure here ($429/provider) is the published Medical Specialties entry price; AdvancedMD's actual range runs to $1,070 per provider per month. Tebra publishes per-provider rates at $99 to $199 for its Billing Starter tier, with fuller EHR bundles running $399 to $799, at tebra.com/pricing/overview; the $199 mid-range reference used here is the published Billing Starter upper end. 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. Get a current quote with your specific provider count, practice count, and payer mix before drawing 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 heavily government-payer book with 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, and it does not run denial workflows, A/R aging views, multi-practice queues, or posting decisions across a book. Companies that run Office Ally typically add manual processes or separate tools to cover those gaps.

**CollaborateMD is a genuine usage-based peer.** It is the one platform here with a partly similar structure (transaction-based fees plus a per-provider component). Its pricing is gated, which makes direct comparison hard, so confirm the reseller-document estimates with CollaborateMD 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 no matter how many providers are enrolled. A 2-provider practice and a 10-provider practice each generate one $20 monthly platform charge. The only things that change the bill are claim volume, ERA volume, and eligibility checks, all billed per transaction through Stedi.

Does Medi offer volume pricing?

Medi's platform fee is $20 per client practice per month, with volume pricing available.

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

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

Are there scenarios where per-provider pricing wins outright?

At very high per-practice claim volume, a fixed per-provider seat can win 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 run $450 per month in seat fees versus roughly $1,375 in Medi claim EDI fees at that volume (ERA included). Billing companies with consistently high-volume practices should model their own claim-per-practice average against the Medi transaction schedule in the pricing calculator before assuming per-practice pricing is always lower.

Why do incumbent platforms still use per-provider pricing?

They inherited it from the EHR market, where a per-clinician license is natural because each clinician uses the system independently to schedule, chart, and prescribe. When billing modules were added, the seat structure followed. Software built for billing companies from scratch can use a different axis, and per-practice pricing reflects how billing companies actually organize their work and price their clients.

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

See Medi's published fee schedule or book a walkthrough to run the numbers against your own book.

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A note on the pricing figures here

Pricing for other vendors comes 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 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 with each vendor directly. Where a vendor gates 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