Theracharts vs PsychSurveys: Choosing a Digital DBT Diary Card

If you run DBT and you've decided to move the diary card off paper, you've almost certainly run into PsychSurveys. It's the tool most DBT clinicians reach for first, and for good reason. This is an honest comparison of PsychSurveys and Theracharts for digital diary cards — written by a clinician, with a clear answer about which one fits which practice. We'll say plainly where PsychSurveys is the better choice.

A quick disclosure: Theracharts is the tool I built. I've tried to represent PsychSurveys fairly; where it's the stronger fit, the article says so.

The short version

PsychSurveys is a focused, inexpensive, app-first diary-card and survey tool that does one job well. Theracharts is a broader outcome-tracking platform — the digital diary card is one feature alongside a 100+ assessment library, trend analytics, and clinical updates you paste into your EHR — with a free tier and free printable tools.

If you want the cheapest possible dedicated diary-card app and nothing more, PsychSurveys is hard to beat. If you want the diary card to be part of a wider measurement-based-care workflow — or you want to start free, on paper or in the browser, before committing to anything — Theracharts is built for that.

What PsychSurveys does well

PsychSurveys was developed in partnership with clinicians trained in cognitive and dialectical behavior therapies, and it shows. It's purpose-built for the diary-card-and-survey loop: you customize a card to track the emotions, urges, behaviors, and skills a given client is working on, the client completes it on iOS or Android with reminders, and results are scored and viewable to both of you over time. It's HIPAA-compliant and has been adopted by established DBT programs, including training institutes.

It's also genuinely cheap — $4.99 per month per clinician on an annual plan ($5.99 monthly), with a free 30-day trial that doesn't ask for a card up front. For a solo DBT therapist who wants a digital diary card and validated surveys and nothing else, that's a very reasonable deal, and the focus is a feature, not a limitation.

What Theracharts does differently

Theracharts is a clinical-intelligence platform that happens to include a strong digital diary card. The configurable DBT diary card tracks emotions, urges, target behaviors, and skills use across all four modules, with daily reminders, automatic trend charts, and clinical alerts — and it's free on every plan. The difference is what surrounds it: a library of 100+ validated assessments (PHQ-9, GAD-7, and more) with auto-scoring and reliable-change flags, and one-click clinical updates that paste into your EHR's note fields. The diary card is one input into a fuller picture of whether treatment is working.

Theracharts is also a progressive web app rather than a native app — clients install it to their home screen and get push reminders without an app-store download.

Two things matter specifically for DBT clinicians evaluating the switch:

• You can start completely free. Theracharts has a free plan (up to 10 active clients) that includes the full assessment library and the digital diary card. There's also a free printable DBT diary card PDF and a free, no-login diary card builder that generates a custom card in your browser — useful whether or not you ever create an account.
• It scales past the diary card. If you later want practice-wide measurement-based care, supervisor caseload views, or aggregate outcomes, that's already in the platform rather than a separate tool.

The paid plan is $25 per therapist per month (versus PsychSurveys' ~$5), which reflects the wider scope. If all you need is a diary card, you're paying for capability you won't use — which is exactly why the honest recommendation below is split.

How to choose

Choose PsychSurveys if: you want a dedicated, low-cost diary-card and survey app, you're comfortable in a native mobile app, and you don't need a broader outcomes platform. At ~$5/month for a single, well-executed job, it's the efficient choice for a focused DBT practice.

Choose Theracharts if: you want the diary card to live inside a measurement-based-care workflow — validated assessments, trend tracking, clinical alerts, and clinical updates for your EHR — or you simply want to start free (with a printable card, a browser builder, or a free account) before deciding what you need.

Try both for free. PsychSurveys offers a 30-day trial; Theracharts has a free tier with no time limit for up to 10 clients. There's no reason to guess — run a couple of clients through each and see which fits how you actually work.

Switching from PsychSurveys to Theracharts

If you've decided to move, the switch is smaller than it looks, because the two tools don't need to overlap for long and there's nothing to migrate that you can't rebuild in an afternoon.

1. Don't try to migrate history. Assessment scores in PsychSurveys are a record of the past; they don't need to live in the new tool to be useful. Export or print each active client's most recent scores as a baseline for the chart, and start fresh in Theracharts from the next administration.
2. Rebuild the diary card, don't copy it. Open the diary card builder and recreate the sections you actually review in session — emotions, urges, target behaviors, skills. Most clinicians drop a third of what they were tracking. The same configuration becomes the client's digital card in Theracharts.
3. Pilot with two or three clients for two weeks. Assign the card and the one or two measures you use most (PHQ-9, GAD-7, or your program's battery). Compare the review experience — trend charts, alerts, and the Clinical Update you paste into your notes — against what you had.
4. Move the rest of the caseload at session boundaries. Send the Theracharts client link at the end of a session, confirm the first entry lands, then archive the client in PsychSurveys. Group practices at two or more seats can bulk-import clients from CSV instead of adding them one at a time.
5. Cancel PsychSurveys when the last client is over. The annual plan bills up front, so time the switch to your renewal.

Total hands-on time for a solo caseload of 15–20 is usually a couple of hours spread across two weeks, and the free plan covers the pilot. Start free and run the pilot before you cancel anything.

The free way to start today

You don't need to pick a platform to improve your diary-card workflow this week. Download the free printable DBT diary card PDF, or build a custom card for a specific client with the free diary card builder — no account, nothing stored. If digital tracking with trend charts turns out to be what you want, the digital DBT diary card is free on every Theracharts plan.

For more on moving off paper, see why digital diary cards improve compliance and save session time and the paper-versus-digital trade-offs.

This comparison reflects publicly available information as of September 2026; check each tool's site for current pricing and features. Theracharts is the author's product, and PsychSurveys is an independent tool with no affiliation.