Counselling Directory vs Psychology Today: which is worth paying for?

Once your practice has a name and a website, the next question is where else people should be able to find you. For most UK counsellors that means a directory, and it usually comes down to two: Counselling Directory and Psychology Today. Both charge a monthly fee. Both promise to put you in front of people looking for help. They’re not the same product, though, and the right one depends on where you practise and what you want it to do.

Here’s how they actually compare.

The short version

Counselling Directory is UK-only and counselling-specific, with a strong community and content side. Psychology Today is a global platform, broader in scope, cheaper to start, and technically slick. If you want to be listed on a British, therapy-focused site with a professional community around it, Counselling Directory leans your way. If you want low cost, useful tools and a long free trial to test the water, Psychology Today makes an easy first move.

Now the detail.

Cost

At the time of writing, in July 2026, Psychology Today is the cheaper of the two. It’s £19.95 a month, with no contract, and new members get six months free before any payment starts. That free window is genuinely useful, because it lets you see whether enquiries actually come through before you’ve spent a penny.

Counselling Directory is £24.50 a month on a rolling plan, with thirty days’ notice to cancel, or less if you pay annually, where you save £49 over the year. Registered charities can be listed free. There’s no six-month trial, so you’re paying from the start.

On price alone, Psychology Today wins, and the free half-year makes the gap wider for your first year. But price alone isn’t the whole story, because what you’re paying for differs.

What you get

A Psychology Today profile is built around being found and making contact easy. You get an intro video, a written statement and a photo gallery, a link to your own website, and a protected phone number so clients can call without seeing your personal line. Members also get access to Sessions, a free secure video platform for online work, and real-time tracking that shows when people call or email you through the listing. If you run groups, you can add separate pages for them.

Counselling Directory leans more towards presence and profession. Your profile is a dedicated page where you can set out your services, publish articles and advertise events, which gives you a way to show expertise rather than just list it. It comes with performance tracking so you can see where enquiries are coming from, a UK membership support team, weekly networking sessions and a private community, plus a profile on the sister site Happiful at no extra cost. There are also media and press opportunities and topic-specific CPD workshops.

Put simply, Psychology Today gives you tools and reach. Counselling Directory gives you a platform and a professional community. Both track your results, which matters more than any feature, because it lets you judge whether the fee is earning its keep.

Reach and who’s searching

The bigger difference is who each site brings you.

Counselling Directory is British and built solely around counselling, so the people landing on it are usually in the UK and already looking specifically for talking therapy. That’s a narrower audience, but a well-matched one.

Psychology Today started in the United States and covers mental health broadly, from therapy to psychiatry. Its UK section is real and used, and its listings tend to show up well in general search, which is part of why practitioners rate it for visibility. The trade-off is that it’s a bigger, more mixed pond, and you’re one of many.

Neither is automatically better. A directory is only worth what it returns for you, in your area, for your kind of work, and that varies enough that the only honest answer is to test it.

Getting listed

Both directories are for qualified, insured practitioners, and both will expect you to show that you’re properly trained, covered by professional indemnity insurance, and registered with a recognised professional body before they’ll publish you. The exact entry requirements can change, so check each site’s current joining criteria rather than assuming, especially if you’ve recently qualified and are still building your registration.

So which one?

If you’re setting up in the UK, want a therapy-specific home with a community and a way to publish your thinking, and you’re comfortable paying from day one, Counselling Directory fits.

If you want the lowest-risk start, a long free trial, solid contact tools and broad search visibility, Psychology Today is the easier first step.

Plenty of counsellors begin with both, especially while there’s a free trial running on one of them, then use the tracking each provides to see which actually sends enquiries. After a few months the numbers usually make the decision for you. Keep the one that earns its fee, and don’t pay for presence that isn’t bringing anyone through the door.

Whichever you choose, a directory works best pointing at a website that already does its job. If yours isn’t there yet, that’s the piece to sort first.

Rather have this done for you? Choosing and filling in a directory is entirely doable yourself. If you’d sooner hand it over, we set up a directory profile properly for £75, or the Get Found package covers your directories, Google and every listing together for £250.