Free setupLive in 7 days30 leads in 30 days or your money back
Home  /  Industries  /  Psychology  /  Booking systems
Psychology · booking systems

Your software vendor is also ranking above you.

One of the most widely used Australian psychology systems automatically lists every verified practitioner in a public directory. Your practice management vendor competes with your own website for your own name.

The competitive layer around the software

Four things are bidding for your name.

Psychology has an unusually crowded intermediary layer, and a practice needs to understand it before assessing whether its own advertising is working.

Directory platforms rank strongly for suburb and modality searches, with one major psychology directory listing Australian practitioners from around $24.95 a month and drawing enormous organic traffic. Booking platforms charge per new patient booking. Your own practice management vendor may list you in a directory that competes with your website. And free government services requiring no referral bid for the same top of funnel intent.

None of that is a reason to withdraw. It is a reason to measure each channel separately, and to be sceptical when a directory takes credit for a client who had already decided to find you.

The systems

What each one gives you.

SystemOriginBookingConversion data
HalaxyAustraliaEmbeddableDocumented FHIR API and webhooks on patient, appointment and invoice events. Also auto-lists you in its public directory
ClinikoAustraliaEmbedded iframe or hosted pageOpen self serve API, no webhooks. Documents that the iframe breaks referral tracking and blocks custom tags
SploseAustraliaIncluded in base planREST API on application. Best documented for Google Ads, with a booking confirmed data layer event
Zanda, formerly Power DiaryAustraliaYesAPI in closed beta
JaneCanadaOwn subdomainVetted partner programme only. The vendor has said it is not launching a public API

Assessed from vendor developer documentation. There is no published survey of market share in Australian psychology software, so this is a capability comparison rather than a ranking by adoption.

The single page app problem, documented by a vendor
Splose deserves credit for publishing something its competitors do not. Its guidance states that its booking pages are single page applications where the URL never changes as a client moves through the booking flow, which means standard thank you page conversion tracking will not work, and it ships a data layer event to solve it. That is a real and common failure mode across modern booking software, and Splose appears to be the only vendor in this market that tells you about it rather than leaving you to discover it in a month of missing conversions.
Straight answers

Questions clinic owners actually ask

Which system should a psychology practice use for conversion tracking?
Halaxy has the strongest position for offline conversion import, because it is the only system in the Australian psychology set with documented, self serve webhooks covering patient, appointment and invoice events, so it can push an attended appointment in real time. Splose is the best documented for advertising conversion tracking on the booking flow itself, including a Google Tag Manager guide and a booking confirmed event. Cliniko and Nookal have open APIs and no webhooks, so they can be polled. Zanda's API is in closed beta, and Jane is effectively closed.
Is Psychology Today worth paying for in Australia?
Frequently yes, and measure it separately from your advertising rather than together. It ranks strongly for suburb and modality searches, has substantial organic traffic, and Australian listings start at around $24.95 a month with an introductory free period, which is inexpensive relative to a single client. The caution is that its location pages often outrank the individual psychologists listed on them, so it can capture demand your own site or advertising created. That is worth knowing rather than worth avoiding.
Why does my practice management software appear above my website?
Because at least one major Australian system automatically lists every verified practitioner in its own public directory. That directory has considerably more domain authority than a single practice website, so it will frequently outrank you for your own practitioners' names. It is not something you can opt into or out of by advertising harder. The practical response is to make sure your own site is genuinely better on the queries that matter, and to recognise that a proportion of your directory traffic is demand you generated being intercepted.
Does an embedded booking widget affect psychology conversion tracking?
Yes, and one vendor documents it explicitly. Cliniko's guidance states that iframe limitations prevent referral data passing from the parent website into the booking widget, and that it blocks third party code so the custom HTML tag in tag manager cannot be used inside it. Its own recommendation is to redirect to its hosted booking domain where accurate conversion tracking matters. Splose takes a different approach and publishes a data layer event because its booking pages are single page apps. Either way, the default configuration usually does not track properly and needs deliberate work.
Related

Booking systems in other clinics

Physiotherapy booking systemsDermatology booking systemsOptometry booking systems
A campaign partnership built for clinics

Ads that earn their place in your P&L.

A senior team that lives inside your account. Conversion infrastructure wired in before any ad goes live. Reporting that ties spend to booked appointments, not impressions.

Dedicated account manager

A senior specialist who runs clinic accounts day to day.

Clinic-only specialists

Every keyword, headline and account structure built inside real Australian clinic accounts.

Award-winning team

Winner, Best Google Ads Campaign, Australia 2025. Google Partner. AFR Fast 100.

When you're ready
We will be too.
Start a conversation →How we work