Abridge vs Freed (2026)
Less a rivalry than a fork in the road, because each serves a customer the other does not. Abridge sells only to health systems, with Best in KLAS for Ambient AI in 2025 and 2026, a Kaiser Permanente evaluation published in NEJM AI, and native Epic embedding with bidirectional note sync, and it has no self serve path or individual plan. Freed is the opposite motion, with published tiers from $39 a month, a business associate agreement on every plan, same day sign up and more than 32 million visits transcribed, at the cost of a Chrome extension push with no structured write back. If your failure mode is structured data and auditability across a health system, start with Abridge. If it is procurement itself, a solo or small practice that needs working notes this week, start with Freed.
- Kaiser Permanente's evaluation of Abridge is published as peer reviewed research in NEJM AI, and Abridge was named Best in KLAS for Ambient AI in 2025 and 2026, where Freed publishes no peer reviewed study or controlled evaluation.
- Structured data lands in the chart, through native embedding across Epic Haiku, Canto and Hyperdrive with bidirectional note sync, structured orders and real time prior authorization.
- Linked Evidence maps every part of a generated note back to the source audio, so any sentence can be checked against what was said before signing.
- Freed puts the whole price on one page, with $39 Starter for up to 40 notes, $79 Core with unlimited notes and $119 Premier, which adds EHR Push and coding, plus a seven day trial with no credit card.
- Data controls sit with the customer: SOC 2 Type II, retention the customer sets down to immediate deletion of recordings, and an opt out from model training, under a business associate agreement on every plan.
- There is no deployment project. Clinicians sign up and generate notes the same day, and Camarena Health rolled Freed out to 55 clinicians across 24 sites without formal implementation.
This comparison is published by AI Health Index, an independent research platform that compares healthcare AI vendors objectively. Abridge and Freed are each graded against the same capability taxonomy, from each vendor's own public materials and the regulatory record, under the AI Health Index verification standard. No vendor pays for placement, and no vendor has reviewed this page. How this evidence is graded
Plain facts
| Fact | Abridge | Freed |
|---|---|---|
| Primary category | Ambient Scribes | Ambient Scribes |
| Founded | 2018 | Not recorded |
| Headquarters | Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania | San Francisco, California |
| Website | abridge.com | getfreed.ai |
Side by Side
Select any grade to read the note behind it.
Each vendor in one paragraph
Written to be quoted whole. Each paragraph opens the AI Health Index profile of the vendor: what the product is, who buys it and what it does.
Abridge is an enterprise ambient AI platform that turns the clinician patient conversation into a structured, billable note inside the EHR, sold to health systems rather than to individual clinicians. It partners with more than 300 health systems, including Kaiser Permanente, Mayo Clinic, Johns Hopkins, Duke Health, Memorial Sloan Kettering, Northwell, UPMC, Sutter Health and NYU Langone, and won the KLAS Research award for Ambient AI in 2025 and 2026.
Source: AI Health Index, July 2026
Freed is a self serve ambient scribe: a clinician can sign up and generate notes the same day with no sales call, no IT deployment and no annual contract. It reports more than 26,000 clinicians, more than 1,300 clinics and more than 32 million patient visits transcribed. It records on phone, desktop or tablet, returns a structured SOAP note within a minute or two, and publishes its pricing in full.
Source: AI Health Index, July 2026
Questions buyers ask
How do Abridge and Freed work with the EHR?
For Abridge, the integration is embedded in Epic Haiku and Hyperdrive, so recording, review and the finished note stay in the Epic workflow with no copy and paste step and no parallel interface. The February 2024 Epic announcement described the path as running from recording conversations in Haiku to embedding generated notes in the patient chart in Hyperdrive.
Freed says it works with dozens of browser based systems and works best on SimplePractice, PracticeFusion, Tebra, Elation, Therapy Notes, Athena, Optimantra, Kipu, Aarista and DrChrono, with support for new EHRs added monthly. Installing it takes less than a minute and needs no IT support, and it is part of the Premier plan. From the AI Health Index, drawn from each vendor's own published materials and the regulatory record, verified July 22, 2026. No vendor pays for placement.
How are Abridge and Freed priced and sold?
Abridge reaches its 300+ health systems through institutional contracts rather than individual clinician signup, and there is no self serve path. The trust center lists a master services agreement among its legal documents, held behind an access request alongside the security documentation.
For Freed, a seven day free trial opens the Premier features with no credit card needed. Eligible students, residents, trainees and fellows can get 12 months of Core at no cost, or up to 50 percent off monthly Premier for 24 months. From the AI Health Index, drawn from each vendor's own published materials and the regulatory record, verified July 22, 2026. No vendor pays for placement.
How do Abridge and Freed handle patient data?
With Abridge, the OpenAI listing indicates that content derived from the encounter reaches a third party model provider.
In Freed's case, audio is held until the note and its quality checks are complete, then deleted automatically. Clinicians can edit or delete notes at any time, or set them to delete automatically after 30 days. From the AI Health Index, drawn from each vendor's own published materials and the regulatory record, verified July 22, 2026. No vendor pays for placement.
Which settings and specialties do Abridge and Freed cover?
The clinicians platform page says Abridge is used at over 40 specialties, with a structured, specialty specific note produced for each visit.
Freed's site has specialty pages for nurse practitioners, family medicine, internal medicine, psychiatry, mental health, pediatrics, functional medicine and OB/GYN. Every plan includes specialty specific templates, and the homepage claims 98 percent recall on medical terms across more than 30 specialties. From the AI Health Index, drawn from each vendor's own published materials and the regulatory record, verified July 22, 2026. No vendor pays for placement.
Related comparisons
Other published head to head assessments involving these vendors or their closest peers.
Volume and deployment figures for both vendors are vendor published, including Abridge's more than 300 health systems and Freed's 32 million transcribed visits. Freed's EHR Push works through a Chrome extension into browser based EHRs with no native API or structured field write back, and Freed centers on primary care and general practice. Freed publishes its prices in full, and Abridge publishes none.