Mentalyc vs Yung Sidekick Review: Pros & Cons for Therapists in 2025

AI platforms are changing how therapists manage documentation, clients, and practice growth. Both Mentalyc and Yung Sidekick have unique strengths that work best for different practices.

Let's look at what matters most to therapists - from faster documentation to better client tools. This comparison will help you pick the right platform for your practice.

Documentation Burden: How Each Platform Reduces Paperwork

Mental health professionals spend too much time on paperwork. Mentalyc and Yung Sidekick tackle this challenge differently through their unique approaches to documentation automation.

Time Savings for Progress Notes

Progress notes are essential — but for most therapists, they’re also a time sink. Writing detailed, compliant notes after every session often adds up to hours of unpaid admin work each week. That’s where AI-powered tools like Mentalyc and Yung Sidekick come in.

Mentalyc You can choose how you document: record a session, upload an audio file, dictate a summary after the session ends or type about your session. It takes a lightweight, automated approach. It works best when you record the session using their app. The platform analyzes the audio and generates a progress note, typically in a format like SOAP or DAP. For solo practitioners or those who keep a standard workflow, this setup can reduce documentation time by 70–80%. But customization is limited — if you use a less common note style or want to tweak the structure, you're working within fixed templates. There’s no editable report builder.

Yung Sidekick. You can choose how you document: record a session, upload an audio file, or dictate a summary after the session ends. The platform instantly transforms your input into a polished, structured note in your preferred format — whether that’s SOAP, BIRP, DAP, or a custom hybrid style. It also lets you build reusable templates and treatment plans, so each note can be consistent without being repetitive. For therapists juggling multiple formats, treatment types, or group practice requirements, Yung Sidekick cuts time without locking you into a rigid flow.

Automated Treatment Plan Generation

Creating treatment plans can be one of the most time-consuming — and compliance-critical — parts of a therapist’s workflow. That’s why many mental health professionals are turning to AI-powered tools to speed up this process without sacrificing quality.

Mentalyc allows semi-automated approach works best for solo practitioners who use. Mentalyc's AI listens to your session recordings and picks out important clinical details. The system suggests treatment goals, interventions, and progress markers based on what was discussed.

Yung Sidekick also generates a structured treatment plan — including goals, objectives, interventions, and expected outcomes. It supports DSM-5 diagnoses, lets you adjust language based on therapy modality (e.g., CBT, DBT, psychodynamic), and offers full customization.

Mentalyc AI vs Yung Sidekick AI: Technology Comparison

These platforms differ mainly in their AI technology. Users say Mentalyc excels at understanding therapy conversations, emotional tones, and clinical terms across different methods. The AI adapts to your documentation style and gets better over time.

Yung Sidekick shines with its data analysis capabilities. The system looks at patterns across all your cases and identifies what worked best with similar clients. This helps you make informed decisions for current clients based on past successes.

Both platforms keep your data safe with HIPAA-compliant cloud storage and end-to-end encryption.

Therapist Workflow Enhancement

The quickest way to spend more time with clients and less on paperwork is a good workflow system. Mentalyc and Yung Sidekick both offer tools to optimize therapist workflows, but they take different approaches.

Session Preparation Tools

Mentalyc AI makes contextual preparation simple with automatic pre-session summaries from past documentation. These summaries highlight important themes from previous sessions, treatment plan milestones, and notable things clients have said. You'll get these summaries in your inbox 24 hours before appointments. This helps you prepare quickly between back-to-back sessions.

Yung Sidekick also offers a suite of proactive tools to help therapists walk into every session feeling prepared. One key feature is Pre-Session Summaries: Quick-glance updates on client progress, recent interventions, symptoms flagged in previous sessions, and goals in progress.

Clinical Insight Generation

The biggest difference shows up in how these platforms help with clinical decisions. Mentalyc excels at long-term analysis. The platform tracks emotional patterns, what interventions work, and progress markers throughout treatment. This helps spot breakthroughs and stuck points that might go unnoticed.

Yung Sidekick offers basic reports, and analyzes session data to surface patterns over time as well. Also, to make this more visual, Yung Sidekick introduced the Progress Tracking feature. This tool offers a Weekly Client Assessment, estimating levels of Depression, Anxiety, and Satisfaction based on how the client presents during the session. It’s not a diagnostic measure, but a weekly emotional snapshot grounded in scales like PHQ-9, GAD-7, and SWLS — all translated into a 0–100% score and visualized on a dynamic graph.

Real Therapist Reviews and Experiences

Real-world feedback from practitioners offers valuable insights beyond feature comparisons. Therapists across different practice settings report varied experiences with these platforms, highlighting strengths and limitations not apparent in marketing materials.

Solo Practitioner Feedback on Mentalyc

Independent therapists report the AI-powered note generation reduces administrative time by approximately 40-50%, allowing them to see 1-2 additional clients weekly. Solo practitioners particularly value the streamlined billing integration, which many describe as "surprisingly uncomplicated" compared to other practice management systems.

Not all feedback is positive, however. Several independent therapists mention concerns about Mentalyc pricing, noting that recent increases have impacted their ROI calculations.

Group Practice Experiences with Yung Sidekick

Larger practices report that Yung Sidekick's analytics dashboard provides valuable insights for strategic planning. Notably, practices implementing the platform report average reductions of 30% in administrative workload after full implementation.

Specialty-Specific Therapist Reviews

Feedback varies significantly across clinical specialties. Child and adolescent specialists appreciate Mentalyc's ability to capture family dynamics during recorded sessions, while addiction specialists note Yung Sidekick's superior tracking of measurable behavioral changes between appointments.

Trauma-focused therapists express mixed opinions about both platforms. While many value Mentalyc's transcription accuracy for processing-intensive sessions, others prefer Yung Sidekick's more structured approach to tracking treatment outcomes across extended therapeutic relationships.

Regardless of specialty, therapists consistently emphasize that successful implementation depends on proper training and realistic expectations. According to surveys, practitioners who invest in complete staff training report substantially higher satisfaction with either platform compared to those who attempt partial implementation.

Return on Investment Analysis for 2025

Choosing between Mentalyc and Yung Sidekick for practice management technology needs more than just comparing features. You'll need to look at their ROI profiles for 2025 to make a smart choice.

Time-to-Value Calculation

The Mentalyc app gives you quick returns. Most practices see better productivity within 2-3 weeks of implementation. This quick turnaround comes from its laser focus on making documentation easier. Solo practitioners usually get back their money in about 4 months. They save enough time to add more client sessions.

Yung Sidekick takes a different path to show its value. Practices need 6-8 weeks to see real benefits, but these benefits pack more punch once they kick in. The platform's features work together to save more time. Most practices recover their investment within 5 months.

Cost-Benefit Analysis for Different Practice Sizes

Mentalyc's pricing works better for smaller practices. It gives more value to solo therapists and tiny groups. As practices grow bigger, Yung Sidekick becomes the better deal because it handles multiple providers so well.

The best ROI comes from picking the tool that fits your practice's workflow needs, not just the cheaper option. Time saved, new clients gained, and smoother admin work all add up to the bottom line.

Comparison Table

Conclusion

Both Mentalyc and Yung Sidekick offer powerful solutions to help therapists reduce documentation time and reclaim hours in their week. But the right choice ultimately depends on your practice’s size, workflow, and flexibility needs.

If you're a solo practitioner looking for a simple, automated solution with client-facing features, Mentalyc might be a good starting point. It’s designed to streamline the basics and keep things minimal.

But if you need customization, team collaboration, and robust documentation formats — or if you're growing a group practice — Yung Sidekick offers the flexibility, structure, and scale to support you long-term. With everything from BIRP and SOAP notes to editable treatment plans and tailored reporting, it’s built to grow with your practice — not just document it.

Final tip: Try both. Mentalyc offers a 14-day free trial, and Yung Sidekick gives you unlimited-access trial minutes to explore features without commitment. The best tool isn’t just the one with the sleekest design — it’s the one that works with you, not against you.

FAQs

What are the main differences between Mentalyc and Yung Sidekick for therapists?
Mentalyc is geared more toward solo practitioners and small private practices. It focuses on automated note generation and streamlining documentation for individual therapists.
Yung Sidekick, on the other hand, is built for both solo and larger group practices. It includes comprehensive practice management features, customizable workflows, and custom pricing plans for teams — making it a scalable solution for growing clinics.

What features do these platforms provide for documentation?
Mentalyc’s main feature is AI-generated therapy notes from recorded sessions. It also includes a client portal that gives clients access to treatment plans, session summaries, and progress updates.
Yung Sidekick offers AI-generated SOAP, DAP, BIRP, GIRP notes, customizable templates, treatment planning, and both client and therapist reports.

Which platform is more customizable?
Yung Sidekick wins when it comes to customization. It lets you edit, structure, and brand your notes however you want — supporting a wide range of formats and preferences. It also allows you to build your own custom report format — perfect for clinicians who need flexibility in how they document.
Mentalyc follows a more standardized format, which may limit flexibility but works well for therapists who want plug-and-play documentation.

Is there a difference in team collaboration features?
Yes. Yung Sidekick supports multi-user access, team permissions. Mentalyc is primarily designed for individual use.

Which one offers better client engagement tools?
Mentalyc includes a client-facing portal, offering transparency and engagement through shared plans and progress updates.
Yung Sidekick is more focused on supporting the clinician’s workflow and documentation needs rather than direct client interaction.

Do both platforms support EHR workflows?
Yes — both can be used alongside existing EHRs.
Yung Sidekick is specifically optimized for easy copy-paste into any EHR and offers formats that align with popular systems. Mentalyc’s notes may require some formatting adjustments depending on your EHR.