As a professional nutritionist, you provide important services for your clients, which is why it’s critical that you have at your side a capable solution that will ease your job and automate the tasks involved in organizing and running your business. Doing so will allow you to dedicate more time and energy to your clients and, as a result, provide better service and improve client satisfaction.
The most essential features that business management software should possess in order to be useful to a professional nutritionist include:
- Client management – CRM features
A holistic solution needs to provide you with an overview of all client information from one place, where you can see the entire client history, along with all the transactions, appointment history, and the like, as well as manage and edit all the important details.
- 24/7 online scheduling
An essential option that any self-respecting business has to offer is scheduling at the client’s convenience, wherever they may be, whenever they feel like it, and using a medium of their choice. To this end, you should have at your side a platform that will integrate with social media channels, as well as with Google My Business – so when someone does a local search, your business will appear in Google Maps with a Book Now link.
- Support for package deals and coupons
The secret to having clients keep coming back to you is enticing them with deals they won’t be willing to skip. This includes offering them package deals and group bookings at lower prices, discounts on repeat appointments, discount codes, and so on, which means you should go with a software solution that supports these options.
- Email automation
A capable business management solution will also help you stay in touch with your clients by facilitating email automation. This way you can promote new services, re-engage dormant clients, keep them in the now of any changes or exciting deals you’re offering, and more.
- Online payments and invoicing
Another important feature to look for in the management software for your nutritionist business is the support for online payments, billing, and invoicing. This is possible through integrations with popular payment processors like Stripe and PayPal, invoice templates and generators, and automatic payment reminders.
Some features aren’t as important as the above-listed but are still nice to have in your line of work. For example:
- Nutrition analysis features
While you can certainly create nutrition analysis for a patient manually, having the tools to do so electronically will save you a lot of time and energy, as well as prevent any potential mistakes due to fatigue.
Moreover, you’ll be able to get a detailed overview of each of your patients’ dietary intake, nutritional goals and progress, and caloric needs, whenever you need it and all from one place. While there are solutions equipped with meal plans and nutrition analysis features, this can also be monitored via easily editable client notes and other client management options.
Today, there are a lot of solutions that more or less fit the above description(s), but even more that don’t. To make sure you avoid subpar software and direct your attention to only the best on the market, we deliver a list of the nine most promising software solutions that are bound to make running your nutritionist practice a walk in the park.
1. vcita
Pros:
- Highly budget-friendly (Plans starting at $12/month)
- Tons of features
- Some extras
Cons:
- Takes some getting used to
The HIPAA-compliant vcita platform equips your nutritionist business with handy features like 24/7 online scheduling and payments, business calendar, billing and invoicing, a client portal, online lead capturing widget, and automated reminders.
It also offers client management, facilitating a personalized approach to each of your clients and allowing you to create a bird’s-eye view of their nutritional progress and goals, appointments, documents, and conversations.
Integrations with PayPal and Stripe facilitate easy and safe processing of your clients’ payments, while Zoom integration lets you hold video appointments. Reserve with Google will also allow your clients to use the search engine for booking appointments with you.
vcita bases its pricing on the size of your team. Its cheapest Essentials package (available for one service provider) will set you back by only $19/month under the annual subscription. It will get you all the above features, although tech support is only available via email and chat.
For teams that include more than one user and/or require more complex features, vcita offers advanced plans, starting with the Business plan at $45/month (charged annually). This plan will get you the coveted email and SMS marketing campaigns, SMS notifications and reminders, online coupons, integration with Google Analytics and QuickBooks, as well as phone support.
vcita’s online booking feature is available as a separate service and is charged only $12/month under the annual subscription. The service is free to test during a 14-day free trial and its current Trustpilot rating is 4.6 stars (out of 5).
2. Virtuagym
Pros:
- Enables close communication with clients
- Easy to use
Cons:
- Some technical glitches
Virtuagym offers software for businesses that focus both on fitness and nutrition. It provides membership and staff management with automated billing and invoicing, branded training app, online and on-site scheduling, as well as multiple payment integrations.
It also offers support for exercise and nutrition coaching, online member registration, 20+ software integrations, 25+ access control integrations, video appointments, access to recipes and tips, health challenges, attendance tracking, calendar management, CRM, and three apps – for nutrition guidance, coaching, and fitness.
Extras include support for bi-weekly wellness challenges with real prizes for your clients, as well as email nutritional tips and motivational messages.
Depending on your focus, these features are scattered across two standalone and three add-on packages. There’s no free trial, but the free demo might help you decide whether this platform is suitable enough for your needs. Pricing is only available after you sign up for and view the demonstration, but starts roughly at around $29/month.
Virtuagym scores 4.0 on Google My Business, with technical problems cited as the main reason for the slightly poorer score than the competition.
3. SimplePractice
Pros:
- Budget-friendly
- Lots of integrations
Cons:
- Costly. Plans starting at $39/month
SimplePractice provides health-oriented businesses with the affordable means to organize their work, regardless of the volume. A solo nutritionist can purchase the provider’s Essential pricing plan at $39/month, which is equipped with a client portal, appointment reminders via email, text, and voice, payment processing, templates, automated invoicing, electronic intakes, and mobile apps.
Online scheduler and group support are available in the pricier Professional plan at $59/month (for one practitioner), as are reminder customization, billing, payment reports, and secure messaging.
Additional practitioners are charged $39 each, while non-practitioner team members can be added for free. There are also optional add-ons like telehealth and a professional website.
If you’re worried you might change your mind after you’ve already paid, don’t be. There’s a generous 30-day period during which you can use the platform completely free and just leave it at that if you don’t like it. On Trustpilot, SimplePractice has a score of 4.1.
4. Healthie
Pros:
- Telehealth included in opening plan
- Starts out cheap
Cons:
- A bit buggy
- Costly.
Healthie is a HIPAA-compliant platform that offers several plans for wellness and health businesses ranging from beginner to enterprise.
The cheapest Beginnings plan is priced only $29/month (regardless of whether you opted for an annual or monthly subscription) and covers up to 5 clients, providing services of scheduling and billing, a client portal, paperless intakes, nutritional and lifestyle journaling, client messaging, appointment reminders, telehealth, form builder, Healthie mobile app, and HIPAA compliance.
The more expensive Small Practice option at $75/month (billed annually) removes the limitation on the number of clients and adds CMS 1500s, superbills, group messages, basic email branding, as well as migration and onboarding support.
Even more advanced features (e.g. group telehealth, SMS appointment confirmations, and care teams, basic and advanced email templates) are available in the pricey Practice Plus, Group Practice, and Enterprise plans. All the plans come with a 14-day free trial period that you can cancel at any time.
Do note that some dietitians have complained of software bugs and errors in the platform that sometimes hinder usability. Healthie currently lacks Trustpilot and Google My Business score.
5. NutriAdmin
Pros:
- Plenty of features
- Inexpensive
Cons:
- Multiple users available only in most expensive plan
NutriAdmin is a comprehensive solution for nutritionists and dietitians that offers lots of relevant features scattered across its several packages. Their pricing depends on the number of clients and/or team size.
All the packages, starting with the cheapest at $29.99/month include a CRM, customizable client profiles and questionnaires, a client portal, automated reports and templates, meal plans and nutritional databases, automatic reminders, Google Calendar and Dropbox integration, your page integration, and content branding.
Online Stripe payments (with additional fees), recipe databases, or auto-generated meal plans aren’t available in the basic option, while only its most expensive, the Business plan supports multiple team members and team document sharing.
Before making any final decisions, you can take NutriAdmin’s platform out for a spin during a two-week free trial, although you’ll have to cancel it before it ends if you don’t wish to proceed. So far, this platform hasn’t had any Trustpilot or Google My Business reviews.
6. a la calc
Pros:
- 3-recipe trial
- Easy to use
Cons:
- Not many features
a la calc is a simplistic AI-powered solution that can best be described as a nutrition-focused companion to your regular business management software. In other words, you can’t use it alone to run your business but it can certainly help with a lot of functionalities on its own.
It supplies nutritionists, food manufacturers, laboratories, and schools with recipe management, support for picture uploads, cost analysis per serving, and sub-recipes – all secured with the 256-bit bank-level encryption for hack-proof data storage.
The platform is also compliant with general food standards and provides allergen information, a handy perk for any wellness or health business that advises clients on their dietary choices.
Register for free and you’ll get a 3-recipe trial so you can get the feel of the platform. If you like what you see, you can purchase its 15-recipe plan at $55.50 or the 50-recipe plan at $149.50, with no limitations on duration.
Recipe optimization and an API for your website are available in the duration-based packages you can purchase as a 1-year option at $239.50 (close to $19.96/month) or as a 7-year subscription that entails some discounts at $869.50 (equals to only $10.35/month).
a la calc is yet to receive a rating on Trustpilot or Google My Business.
7. DietMaster Pro
Pros:
- One-time payment
- Plenty of features
Cons:
- Very expensive. $499/plan
DietMaster Pro is a professional nutrition software solution that helps you quickly generate nutritional reports, create meal plans from scratch, or access its optional library of Registered Dietitian-designed meal plans and grocery lists.
On top of that, it provides printable food labels for custom recipes, allowing you to use assessment reports to analyze your clients’ eating habits, as well as track body measurements and weight control goals.
This particular solution focuses specifically on providing nutrition-oriented services, without helping much in terms of the tasks that focus on managing your business. However, if you already have such a solution in place, DietMaster Pro can complement it with specific features.
The software itself comes with a hefty price tag of $499, but this is only a one-time payment, which means once you buy it, it’s yours forever. Since the people who designed this software understand that it isn’t an easy decision to pay that much money, they offer a 15-day free trial with all the features and functions of DietMaster Pro PC software to help you decide.
That said, DietMaster does have a business solution aptly named Total Business Solution (TBS), that adds mobile and web portal branding, your own website, payment processing, live chat on your website, reporting, CRM module, reselling options, and Quickbooks integration. However, this solution is very, very expensive – starting at $2.195.
DietMaster doesn’t have a rating on Trustpilot or Google My Business yet.
8. Nutralysis
Pros:
- 60 days + training for free
- NSRG access alone available
Cons:
- A tad expensive
Nutralysis aims to equip nutritionists and practitioners with an intuitive clinical experience with quality nutrition schedules, therapy notes, and resources from other practitioners via the Nutritional Supplement Resource Guide (NSRG).
It offers additional business management features scattered across its several modules available at different prices. For instance, the Fundamental package only includes nutrition schedules and NSRG access and it costs $55/month. However, set aside $85/month for the Essential plan and you’ll also get a customer portal, exams and forms, as well as health history.
At $105/month, the Professional option adds inventory management and exam editor, while the hefty price tag of $135/month for the Advanced package also throws in 24/7 appointment scheduling and point of sale features (payment tracking, cash flow, sales tax, and so on).
Each of these packages includes a $50 one-time setup fee along with phone, web, and email support. They’re all intended for one practitioner and unlimited support staff.
If you only need access to the NSRG, it can be yours for just $25/year. Nutralysis also offers a very generous 60-day free trial that includes a free training session. The platform doesn’t have a Trustpilot or Google My Business rating yet.
9. TiqDiet
Pros:
- Supports nutrition plan templates
- Isn’t too expensive
Cons:
- Cloud-based only
- Very basic
TiqDiet is a platform that provides the basic features for nutritionists and dietitians, including nutrition plans, recipes, product and shopping lists, tracking progress and results, as well as communication with clients through built-in chat and client portal. There are also mobile apps for iOS and Android that both you and your clients can use.
The provider has one pricing plan that is available as a monthly or annual subscription. The annual subscription is somewhat cheaper than the monthly and costs an equivalent of $24/month per feature (charged annually). It lets you add an unlimited number of clients and create unlimited nutrition plans.
Unfortunately, TiqDiet has its limits and they’re primarily evident in the missing offline usability options since the platform is exclusively cloud-based, as well as in the lack of advanced business management options, like appointment scheduling, billing, reports, and other features.
If you want to try the platform out before making a final decision, you can do so through a 14-day free trial, although some functionalities may not be available to you. TiqDiet currently doesn’t have a Trustpilot or Google My Business rating.
Food for thought
This brings us to the conclusion of our analysis of the best nutritionist software solutions on the market, but it is only the beginning of the journey for you. To make the final decision, you’ll need to analyze the current requirements of your business and then compare them with the features offered by each of the solutions we listed above. You’ll also need to have a clear idea of how much you’re willing to pay for such a solution, as they differ in prices as well – sometimes dramatically. We hope we succeeded in putting you on the right track. Good luck!
