Summary
Abridge is the best enterprise ambient scribe in the market. Best in KLAS two years running, 300 or more health systems, the deepest Epic integration anyone has built.3 If you are a health system running Epic with an IT function, buy it.
People search for alternatives for three reasons. It is roughly $2,500 per clinician per year with a three to six month procurement.1 There is no self-serve signup. And it drafts the note, which is one percent of the problem.
Published price, signup in four minutes, and the letters and coding on every plan.
Book a demoWhy people leave
Almost never quality. Abridge is very good at what it does and the KLAS results are real.33Abridge holds Best in KLAS for ambient AI in 2025 and 2026 and reports deployment across 300 or more health systems, with the deepest Epic integration in the category.
The reasons are procurement, price and scope. Three to six months and roughly $2,500 per clinician per year is reasonable for a 6,000-clinician rollout and impossible for a four-doctor practice.11Abridge is reported at approximately $2,500 per clinician per year with procurement cycles of three to six months. Abridge does not publish pricing, so this is a third-party estimate and should be confirmed directly. There is no published price and no way to try it, so you cannot compare it against anything without a discovery call first.
Abridge is also facing litigation. In January 2026 a California patient sued Sharp HealthCare alleging his appointment was recorded by Abridge without consent, seeking class-action status.44A California patient filed suit against Sharp HealthCare in January 2026 alleging an appointment was recorded by Abridge without consent, in claimed violation of California privacy law. The filing seeks class-action status and the allegations are untested. See our guide to consent. The allegations are untested and the consent failure alleged is the health system's rather than the vendor's. The same exposure applies to every product in this category including ours.
The options
If you want Abridge and cannot buy Abridge, Microsoft DAX Copilot is the other enterprise option, native in Epic, Oracle Health and athenahealth. In the only randomised trial in this category DAX showed no statistically significant change against control.22Lukac PJ, Turner W, Vangala S, et al. Ambient AI Scribes in Clinical Practice, A Randomized Trial. NEJM AI 2025;2(12). 238 physicians, 14 specialties, approximately 72,000 encounters. Nabla was the other arm and cut note-writing time by 9.5 percent, about 41 seconds, and no other ambient scribe holds a randomised win. Nabla also never stores the encounter, a position no other vendor has taken, and it publishes no price.
If you want a published price and a signup that takes four minutes, Freed starts at $39 and Heidi Clinician is reported at $150. Both are excellent notes. Freed puts letters and coding on its $119 tier and Heidi puts EHR push above its entry plan, so check the tier before you compare.
The comparison nobody runs
Every product above drafts a note. The randomised trial measured exactly that and found the best of them saved about 41 seconds and none of them reduced after-hours record time.2 Swapping Abridge for Nabla changes your invoice. It does not change your evening. The number no scribe on this page reaches is the code. Up to 19 percent of E/M visits are undercoded at roughly $37 each, and Medicare Advantage downcoding runs a reported $28,000 to $74,000 a physician a year without ever showing as a denial.
WA\ covers the consultation, the front desk and the patient record on one system. The briefing before the patient sits down, the letters, the coding, the cited answers, the phone, the booking, the deposit, the invoice, the waitlist backfill.
What $2,500 a year buys
An excellent note, pushed natively into Epic, backed by Best in KLAS two years running. Abridge earns that.
What it does not buy is the referral letter going out signed at four, the code attaching to the right problem, or the phone being answered on Saturday by something that can see Friday's consultation. Those are not gaps in Abridge. They are outside what an ambient scribe is.
What we are not claiming
We do not have Best in KLAS and Abridge does. We do not have 300 health systems or a randomised trial. If you are an Epic health system with a procurement department, Abridge is the better purchase and this page is not for you.
Availability
WA\ Clinician runs a 14-day free trial with no minimum term. WA\ Admin runs as a 90-day pilot reporting revenue, hours saved and patients cared for. Pricing is on one page.
Frequently asked questions
Why do people look for Abridge alternatives?
Rarely quality. Abridge is very good and its Best in KLAS results in 2025 and 2026 are real. The reasons are procurement, price and scope. Three to six months and roughly $2,500 per clinician per year is reasonable for a 6,000-clinician rollout and impossible for a four-doctor practice. There is no published price and no way to try it, so you cannot compare it against anything without a discovery call first. And like every ambient scribe it drafts the note, which the only randomised trial in this category suggests is about 41 seconds of a two-hour problem.
What is the best alternative to Abridge for a small practice?
Depends what you need. For a published price and a four-minute signup, Freed starts at $39 and Heidi Clinician is reported at $150, and both draft an excellent note. Check the tier before you compare, because Freed puts letters and coding on its $119 Premier tier and Heidi gates EHR push above its entry plan. For the strongest privacy position, Nabla never stores the encounter. For evidence, Nabla is the only ambient scribe with a randomised win. For the work after the patient leaves, WA\ is built for exactly that.
Is Abridge facing a lawsuit over patient consent?
In January 2026 a California patient filed suit against Sharp HealthCare alleging his appointment was recorded by Abridge without consent, in claimed violation of California privacy law, and the filing seeks class-action status. The allegations are untested. The consent obligation at issue rests with the deploying health system rather than the vendor, and the same exposure applies to every ambient product in this category including ours. Sixteen states require consent from every person in the room and some carry criminal liability for the clinician personally.
See the price without a discovery call.
Start the trial and run it beside whatever you use now for a fortnight. If it works, the 90-day pilot reports revenue, hours saved and patients cared for from your clinic. If it does not, you have lost a fortnight.
About this article. Written and published by WA\, a competitor of Abridge, and we have said where Abridge is better. Abridge does not publish pricing so the figure quoted is a third-party estimate and should be confirmed directly. KLAS results and deployment figures are from public reporting. The Sharp HealthCare litigation is unresolved and its allegations are untested, and the consent obligation at issue rests with the deploying organisation rather than the vendor. WA\ has no peer-reviewed clinical trials published to date and does not claim any. All names are marks belonging to their owners. We have priced and assessed every competitor on this page from their own published material or independent reporting, including the places where they beat us. We would rather you had the whole picture and chose someone else than had half of it and chose us.