athenaAmbient vs Freed (2026)
The two cheapest ways to an ambient note in athenaOne look nothing alike. athenaAmbient costs an athenaOne customer nothing extra and lives inside the encounter, drafting the note and surfacing possible diagnoses, orders, prescriptions and care gaps. Freed costs $39 to $119 a month, runs in its own app on phone, desktop or tablet, and reaches athenaOne through a Chrome extension that pastes the finished note in. Freed's case is portability and control. It works in any browser based EHR, publishes its business associate agreement in full, lets the clinician delete recordings immediately and opt out of model training, and adds coding suggestions, patient instructions and an AI receptionist. athenaAmbient's case is that it is already there. A practice fully on athenaOne has little reason to pay for a pasted note. A clinician who moves between EHRs, or who wants the contract terms and retention controls in writing before signing up, has one.
- No added cost for an athenaOne customer.
- Works inside the athenaOne encounter, so nothing is pasted across.
- Surfaces possible diagnoses, orders, prescriptions and care gaps alongside the note.
- Tiers from $39 a month on its pricing page, with a seven day trial and no card.
- Works in any browser based EHR through its Chrome extension.
- Its full business associate agreement attaches on use, from the entry plan.
- Immediate deletion of recordings on request and an opt out from model training.
This comparison is published by AI Health Index, an independent research platform that compares healthcare AI vendors objectively. athenaAmbient 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 | athenaAmbient | Freed |
|---|---|---|
| Primary category | Ambient Scribes | Ambient Scribes |
| Founded | 1997 | 2022 |
| Headquarters | Boston, Massachusetts, United States | San Francisco, California |
| Website | athenahealth.com | getfreed.ai |
Side by Side
Select any grade to read the note behind it.
Each record in one paragraph
Written to be quoted whole. Each paragraph states what the AI Health Index verified about the vendor, with the caveats attached.
athenaAmbient is the ambient scribe athenahealth builds into athenaOne, generally available since August 13, 2026 to the more than 170,000 clinicians on the platform at no charge beyond the athenaOne subscription. It drafts the note on desktop or mobile and surfaces possible diagnoses, recommended orders, prescriptions and care gaps for the clinician to review, inside Ambient Notes, where partner engines such as Suki and Microsoft Dragon Copilot remain available. athenahealth holds HITRUST CSF certification for all or part of its products and states its business associate role, but names no model provider for athenaAmbient and publishes no accuracy figure for it. Its network results, nearly six fewer minutes per encounter and up to 30 percent more charts closed the same day among early adopters, describe its AI features together.
Source: AI Health Index, October 2026
Freed is a self serve ambient scribe for independent clinicians and small groups, with published pricing from $39 to $119 a month and a seven day trial without a card. It reports more than 25,000 clinicians and adds coding suggestions, patient instructions, a Clinical Evidence feature and an AI receptionist to the note. EHR Push transfers the finished note into browser based EHRs through a Chrome extension, without structured field write back. Its business associate agreement is published in full and attaches on every plan, and clinicians can delete recordings immediately and opt out of model training. Freed states that it is not built for large health systems.
Source: AI Health Index, October 2026
Questions buyers ask
How does Freed work with athenaOne?
Freed runs in its own app on phone, desktop or tablet, and its EHR Push Chrome extension, part of the Premier plan, transfers the finished note into athenaOne and other browser based EHRs as text. athenaAmbient works inside the athenaOne encounter, so nothing is transferred across. Graded by AI Health Index against the same capability axes from each vendor's own published materials and the regulatory record, verified October 9, 2026. No vendor pays for placement.
How much do athenaAmbient and Freed cost?
athenaAmbient is included in athenaOne at no additional cost. Freed publishes Starter at $39 a month, Core at $79 and Premier at $119, with a seven day trial and no card required. Graded by AI Health Index against the same capability axes from each vendor's own published materials and the regulatory record, verified October 9, 2026. No vendor pays for placement.
What data controls do athenaAmbient and Freed publish?
Freed publishes its business associate agreement in full, lets clinicians delete recordings immediately and offers an opt out from model training. athenahealth states its business associate role and holds HITRUST CSF certification for all or part of its products, and names no model provider for athenaAmbient. Graded by AI Health Index against the same capability axes from each vendor's own published materials and the regulatory record, verified October 9, 2026. No vendor pays for placement.
Related comparisons
Other published head to head assessments involving these vendors or their closest peers. The full set for this category is on the Ambient Scribes page.
athenaAmbient is included in athenaOne, and Freed lists its prices. Freed's extension pastes notes rather than writing structured fields into athenaOne.
athenahealth's network results describe its AI features together, and Freed's usage figures are its own.