The best software for school SLPs in 2026

The short answer

The best software for a school SLP depends on what eats most of your week. SLP Toolkit is the long-time pick for built-in screeners, goal writing and caseload scheduling, while SLPcentral covers the everyday core (caseload, live session data on your iPhone, goals and progress reports) at the lowest paid price of the caseload and therapy tools here (Pro is $14.99 a month), and its AI assistant, Ollie, drafts your notes and progress reports from that data for you to review. SLP Now is the pick if planning therapy is your bottleneck (6,000+ materials), Ambiki fits SLPs who also run a private practice, and among the newer AI-first tools, SLP Draft is strongest on evaluation reports, SLPDesk has a free plan for small caseloads, and SLPFlow drafts from a recording of the session. Prices were checked October 22, 2026.

Hi, I’m Ryan. I’m an SLP grad student, my fiancée is a school SLP, and I built SLPcentral, so yes, I have a horse in this race. I’ll get to that. But I also know the feeling of paying for a tool out of your own pocket and realizing three weeks in that it doesn’t fit how you actually work. So here’s the comparison I wish someone had handed me: what each tool is genuinely great at, where it falls short, what it costs, and who it’s really for.

I compared the things school SLPs actually ask about: price, how you take data in the room, what happens with notes and progress reports, content libraries, and who each tool is built for. Every fact about another company comes from its own public website, checked October 22, 2026, and links to that page; the full list is under Sources at the end. Prices change, so double-check before you buy.

Side-by-side comparison

SLP Toolkit: best for screeners, goals and scheduling

SLP Toolkit has been around since 2016, and its home page (opens in a new tab) says more than 15,000 school-based SLPs use it. If you’ve been in the schools a while, there’s a good chance your district already pays for it.

What it does well. It’s deepest on the IEP side: built-in present-level screeners you give right on your device, criterion-referenced tests and rubrics for progress monitoring, a SMART goal generator and goal bank, and banks of strategies and accommodations you can share with teachers and parents. Its “preferred schedule” tool builds your caseload schedule in a few clicks, its reports put a goal, its data points and a graph on one printable page, and it works with Medicaid billing partners so you don’t enter sessions twice (features page (opens in a new tab)).

Things to know. At $29 a month, it’s tied with SLP Now for the highest starting monthly price in this roundup (checked October 22, 2026), though its $215 yearly plan comes in under SLP Now’s $249. It’s a web app, so in-session data happens in a browser. Notes are yours to write: when you start a session you see last session’s notes, and progress reports compile your data rather than drafting the narrative. On AI, its features page lists AI therapy-plan drafts built around a student’s goals, and its help center describes an AI Goal Builder (opens in a new tab) and an AI lesson planner (opens in a new tab) that are custom GPTs where you enter a few details about the student, such as age or grade. I didn’t find anything that drafts session notes or progress reports from the data you logged.

Price. $29 a month or $215 a year, with a 30-day free trial; its features page says a card starts the trial and $0 is charged that day. Districts pay $235 per license per year by purchase order (as of October 22, 2026, from their public pricing page (opens in a new tab) and features page (opens in a new tab)).

Best for: school SLPs who want screeners, goal writing and scheduling in one place, especially if the district is paying.

Weighing it against SLPcentral specifically? Here’s the SLPcentral vs SLP Toolkit side-by-side.

SLPcentral: best for notes and progress reports

Full disclosure: I built this one, so I’m maybe a little biased. (I’m very biased.) Here’s the honest version anyway.

SLPcentral gives you the everyday core of a school SLP’s week (your caseload, live session data, goals, progress graphs and progress reports) for about half the price of SLP Toolkit or SLP Now: $14.99 versus $29 a month (checked October 22, 2026). It doesn’t have Toolkit’s screener depth or scheduling (more on that below), but it covers the work you do every single day.

Then there’s Ollie, and he’s the part I’m proudest of. Ollie is an AI assistant you text like a coworker, and he already knows your caseload, your goals and your session data. Text him “draft my notes for today” and he drafts each note from the trials you logged, in your own format. At progress-report time, he drafts the progress report or present levels from a goal’s data for the dates you pick. He’ll plan sessions around a goal (and around the fact that your student loves dinosaurs), and he’ll put IEP meetings and sessions on your calendar for you to confirm. There’s nothing to copy and paste into ChatGPT, because he’s already working from your data.

How the data part works. During the session, you tap ✓ or ✗ for each trial on your iPhone (or on the web), with cue levels and groups, and the graph builds itself. Rather talk it out afterward? A Brain Dump lets you talk through the session, and it comes back as organized notes and a SOAP draft.

You stay in charge. Ollie is built to use only the numbers in your data, and the app flags numbers it can’t trace back to your data before you save (a check, not a guarantee). If something is missing, Ollie asks instead of guessing, and nothing is saved until you review it, edit it and tap Save. Ollie drafts and suggests; you make the call.

Privacy, the plain version. Client names stay on your device by default. Ollie never receives your client name fields; he works with a random code like CLT_X92J instead. Keep names out of goals and notes and follow your district’s rules, the same as with any tool. The details are in the FAQ.

How it compares. SLPcentral, SLP Draft and SLPDesk (more on those two below) are the closest cousins here: all three keep your caseload, take live session data and draft from it. Where SLPcentral is different: it’s an iPhone app, so you tap data on your phone in the room (neither of those two mentions a phone app on its site); Ollie is an assistant you text, who also plans sessions and handles your calendar; and its paid plan is the lowest-priced of the caseload and therapy tools in this roundup (checked October 22, 2026).

Things to know. It’s new (2026), and the team is small, which mostly means me. It doesn’t have SLP Toolkit’s depth of screeners or its criterion-referenced tests and rubrics, and it won’t build your caseload schedule for you the way Toolkit does. It has built-in screeners and printable data sheets, with more screeners and printables on the way, but there’s no therapy-materials library yet and no standardized testing, so bring your own materials, and SLP Draft goes deeper on evaluation reports. It doesn’t do insurance billing. SLPDesk has a free plan (up to 10 students); for licensed SLPs, ours is a free trial. It runs on iPhone and the web; there’s no Android app yet.

Price. Licensed SLPs start with a 14-day free trial; then Pro is $14.99 a month or $149.99 a year, which is about half the monthly price of SLP Toolkit or SLP Now. Grad students get the clinical tools free (up to 20 clients, with 10 AI drafts to try), and Clinical Fellows get their CF year for $74.99. See pricing.

Best for: school SLPs whose evenings go to notes and progress reports, and who would rather tap data on a phone than on a laptop. Want to see for yourself? Try it with Leo, no sign-up needed.

SLP Now: best for therapy materials and planning

SLP Now is content-first. Its home page (opens in a new tab) says more than 7,000 SLPs and 800 school districts use it, and the heart of it is a library of 6,000+ therapy materials that keeps growing.

What it does well. If “what am I doing with my 2:15 group tomorrow?” is your biggest headache, this is the one. You get ready-made therapy plans and materials tied to goals, a planner, real-time session data that turns into progress charts, built-in probes, and notes generated from the data you enter, including progress notes and Medicaid-friendly session summaries. Its data also separates accuracy with and without support, which I really like.

Things to know. It’s a web app. Its session summaries come from a template that fills in your data (opens in a new tab), and I didn’t find any mention of AI on its website (checked October 22, 2026). Its data collection page (opens in a new tab) says it generates a draft progress note from your goal data, also with no AI mentioned. The free trial includes up to 5 material downloads.

Price. $29 a month or $249 a year, with a 14-day free trial and no card required. District pricing is by request (as of October 22, 2026, from their public pricing page (opens in a new tab)).

Best for: SLPs whose bottleneck is planning therapy, not paperwork. Honestly, if that’s you, SLP Now solves a problem SLPcentral doesn’t try to.

Using both, or deciding between them? Here’s the SLPcentral vs SLP Now side-by-side.

Ambiki: best if you also run a private practice

Plenty of school SLPs see private clients after the bell. Ambiki is a practice-management platform built for pediatric SLPs, OTs and PTs, so it covers the business side that school tools don’t: scheduling with appointment reminders, insurance claims, invoices and superbills, a patient portal, and teletherapy.

What it does well. One place to run a small practice. Notes come with a goal bank, cloning and quick phrases, and the goals you target in a saved note feed its progress tracking. Its AI Scribe turns your dictated thoughts into a SOAP note, and a Tenalog add-on drafts a visit note from a recording of the session (AI Scribe page (opens in a new tab)).

Things to know. It’s built around private-practice billing, not IEPs, so a school-only SLP would be paying for a lot they won’t use. Its AI starts from your dictation or a session recording; its site doesn’t say it drafts from the data you logged.

Price. Professional is $59 a month per user; Professional (Limited), for part-time clinicians and small caseloads, is $25 a month per user. Both start with a 30-day free trial, and some features are add-ons (Tenalog is $1 per session). As of October 22, 2026, from their public pricing page (opens in a new tab).

Best for: SLPs running a private practice who need billing, scheduling and notes in one system.

Newer AI-first tools: SLP Draft, SLPDesk and SLPFlow

Search “SLP AI tool” and you’ll find a wave of newer apps built around AI drafting. I expected simple note tools. Most turned out to be fuller than that: two of these three also keep a caseload and take live session data. Here are the three I’d look at.

SLP Draft is a browser-based documentation workspace for school and clinic SLPs, built by a practicing SLP.

• What it does well. It’s strongest on evaluations: it runs MLU on language samples and drafts evaluation reports and IEP present levels section by section. It doesn’t score tests for you; its FAQ says you enter the official scores from the test manual. You can also tap correct, incorrect and prompted trials live, and its progress drafts use your logged goal data. It says any number you didn’t enter is flagged for review, and that clinician review is still required, which I love.
• Things to know. It runs in the browser, and I didn’t see a phone app mentioned on its site. Evaluation reports draw on the notes and scores you type in for that student, so the draft is only as complete as what you enter.
• Price. $24 a month or $240 a year, with a 14-day free trial and no card (as of October 22, 2026, from its website (opens in a new tab)).
• Best for: SLPs who write a lot of evaluation reports.

SLPDesk is a caseload and documentation tool for K–12 school SLPs.

• What it does well. It covers a lot of ground: import your caseload, log trial-by-trial data with cueing levels, and get a SOAP note drafted from that session data for you to edit. There’s an IEP goal bank, a progress report tool, a PLAAFP builder, free therapy activities and games, and a parent portal and teletherapy features on Pro.
• Things to know. I couldn’t find a mobile app on its site (checked October 22, 2026), and its pricing page doesn’t say how long the Pro trial lasts. Its free PLAAFP builder and free SOAP note tool work from what you type in; the Pro SOAP notes are the ones that use your logged data.
• Price. Free for up to 10 students and 3 AI drafts a month. Pro is $24 a month, or $19 a month billed yearly; Team, for schools and districts, is $99 a month (as of October 22, 2026, from its pricing page (opens in a new tab)).
• Best for: school SLPs who want a free plan that covers a small caseload, or a plan for a whole team.

SLPFlow is an AI note tool with an iPhone and iPad app, used in clinics, schools and private practices.

• What it does well. Record the session (it keeps recording with the screen locked) or talk it through afterward, and it drafts the note in SOAP, DAP, BIRP, IEP progress or narrative format. It has a patient dashboard, a scheduling calendar, cue counters you can tap during a visit, and an AI agent that knows a patient’s history and goals and can summarize progress or draft a report. The Professional plan adds custom templates and proposes updated goals from recent sessions.
• Things to know. Its drafts mostly start from a recording of the session rather than from trial data you tap in. The Basic plan doesn’t include goal drafts or custom templates.
• Price. Basic is $20 a month or $200 a year; Professional is $49 a month or $490 a year. Both start with a 14-day free trial, no card (as of October 22, 2026, from its website (opens in a new tab)).
• Best for: SLPs who would rather record or talk through a session than tap data, especially outside the schools.

Also worth knowing: CALIPSO, for grad students

If you’re in grad school, you probably already use CALIPSO, because your program chose it. It’s a web app built for speech-language pathology and audiology training programs, where students log and submit their clinical clock hours, and its site (opens in a new tab) says 86% of SLP programs use it. It isn’t a caseload or therapy tool, so it doesn’t compete with the others here, and it’s priced for training programs instead: $125 one time per student, paid by the student, plus $750 a year per program (from its pricing page (opens in a new tab), as of October 22, 2026). Keep your hours wherever your program tells you to.

How to choose

• Notes and progress reports follow you home? Start with SLPcentral.
• Planning therapy is the hard part? SLP Now.
• Your district wants screeners, goals and scheduling in one place? SLP Toolkit.
• Running a private practice too? Ambiki for the business side.
• Writing lots of evaluation reports? SLP Draft.
• Want a free plan for a small caseload? SLPDesk.
• Rather record the session than tap data? SLPFlow.
• Can you mix them? Yes. Nothing stops you from keeping one tool for materials or screeners and using another for data and notes.

Frequently asked questions

Sources

Every fact about another company comes from that company’s own public website, checked October 22, 2026:

• SLP Toolkit: pricing (opens in a new tab), features (opens in a new tab), home page (opens in a new tab), help center on the AI Goal Builder (opens in a new tab) and the AI lesson planner (opens in a new tab)
• SLP Now: pricing (opens in a new tab), home page (opens in a new tab), data collection (opens in a new tab), help center on notes (opens in a new tab)
• Ambiki: pricing (opens in a new tab), home page (opens in a new tab), AI Scribe (opens in a new tab)
• SLP Draft: home page, pricing and FAQ (opens in a new tab)
• SLPDesk: home page (opens in a new tab), pricing (opens in a new tab)
• SLPFlow: home page and pricing (opens in a new tab)
• CALIPSO: home page (opens in a new tab), pricing (opens in a new tab)

Last updated: October 2026. Facts about other companies come from their public websites, checked October 22, 2026. If something changed, email support@slpcentral.app and I’ll fix it. Ollie is an AI assistant. He drafts and suggests; you make the call.