Online mental health businesses are booming. If you are working in the niche, welcome, your window of opportunity is here!
There are many factors on your side:
- Increased awareness of mental health and emotional wellbeing
- Convenience and accessibility of teletherapy and virtual counseling
- Client preference for private, flexible, and remote care options.
This growth is reflected in the success of well-known digital mental health platforms such as BetterHelp (subscription-based online therapy), Talkspace (messaging and video-based therapy), Headspace (mindfulness and mental wellness memberships) and more.
While these platforms are huge and helpful for experts as a launchpad, many licensed therapists, counselors, psychologists, and mental health coaches are now choosing to build their own independent online mental health businesses.
Large marketplaces are fine, but sooner or later you want to create your own!
In this guide, we’ll focus specifically on solo practitioners and small mental health practices who want full control over branding, pricing, client relationships, and content – which is achievable with WordPress.
Popular Online Mental Health Business Models on WordPress
Before building your site, let’s try to understand how mental health services can be delivered online and which clinical approaches fit best with each model – so that you know maximum software-related options when you work with your site.
Online Scheduling + Live Sessions (Teletherapy Model)
This works for areas like:
- Psychotherapy
- Counseling
- CBT, DBT
- Trauma-informed care
- Couples or family therapy.
Digital formats include teletherapy, video-based therapy, etc. – anything where you need to set up availability and then meet clients online.
WordPress offers scheduling plugins like for booking and appointment management, video conference tools (Zoom, Google Meet, HIPAA-compliant platforms) and more.
This model works best for 1:1 care and synchronous therapy sessions – WordPress lets you manage availability without manual efforts.
Courses, Workshops & Self-Guided Programs
Stress management, burnout recovery and mindfulness-based therapy are often implemented through such digital formats as asynchronous therapy, video lessons, and mental health courses.
WordPress setup may include LMS or course plugin, content restriction and one-time payments or bundles.
This model scales better and is ideal for educational mental health content rather than direct therapy.
Membership & Subscription-Based Mental Health Platform
If you want to provide full-scale ongoing emotional wellness support, low-intensity therapy support, and community-based mental health (emotional wellness, etc.), the following digital models may be useful:
- Online therapy membership
- Digital mental health platform
- Subscription-based therapy
- Secure messaging + resources
This is the most flexible and scalable model, which we’ll focus on in this guide.
Use ARMember for an Online Mental Health Business
So, what is ARMember, and why is it a strong choice for building an online mental health membership site?
ARMember is a WordPress membership plugin for subscriptions, fully supporting such popular models as:
- Digital subscriptions
- Paywalled mental health content
- Recurring payments
- Client onboarding and access control
So, what exactly can you do for your online mental health business? Create structured membership levels, offer recurring mental health subscriptions, restrict access to therapy resources, and accept online payments securely, with fully automated client communication.
If you already have a WordPress site and have a plan to provide individual coaching or lessons, you can start for free with a basic ARMember lite version. It will help any therapists and small practices testing an online model like this.
Our WordPress ARMember tutorial below walks you through the key settings of the plugin and is tailored to an online mental health business.
Installing the ARMember plugin
As we’ve mentioned earlier, you can start even with a free version to get the idea of how it works. The process is simple – you are uploading and activating the plugin on your WordPress site to get started with the settings.
You’ll see a setup wizard, which you can use or skip and configure later. It includes such key initial settings for mental health sites as:
- member approval mode, payment-based (common for subscriptions), manual approval (useful for therapy screening), email confirmation.
- currency selection.
- membership plan creation.
Creating Online Mental Health Membership Plans
Membership plans allow you to structure care access and diversify services. Mental health business memberships often work best with monthly or quarterly plans, such as:
- Monthly emotional wellness memberships
- Quarterly therapy support plans
- Annual mindfulness or self-care subscriptions
- Lifetime access to mental health courses
Let’s create an example plan: Go to ARMember → Manage Plans → Add New Plan. For example:
- Basic Plan (guided meditations, mental health resources, community access).
- Premium Plan (all resources, monthly group sessions, secure therapist messaging).
- Annual Plan (full access + bonus workshops)
You can also set up:
- Free trials
- Grace periods
- One-time payments
- Subscription renewals
Designing Content Restriction Rules for Mental Health Content
Content protection is essential for client confidentiality and ethical care delivery. The logic is simple – WordPress is perfect for creating any type of content or services, while ARMember helps you deliver and monetize them online in a smooth way.
With the ARMember WordPress membership plugin, you can restrict:
- Therapy resources
- Mental health assessments
- Video workshops
- Client-only discussion spaces
What are your mental health site content restriction options? Many flexible options:
- Entire site protection
- Category- or tag-based restrictions
- Individual pages or posts
- Custom URLs
- Drip content (weekly mental health lessons)
- Partial content using specific shortcodes
You can use these options for ongoing client engagement and progressive mental health programs.
Setting Up Secure Payments for Mental Health Services
ARMember is really awesome here – it supports 21+ payment gateways, so no matter where you are located, it’s easy to process payments on WordPress with ARMember.
Payment Setup
- Go to ARMember → General Settings → Payment Gateways
- Enable gateways like:
- PayPal
- Stripe
- Square
- Klarna
- Braintree or whichever you prefer.
- Enter API credentials
- Save settings
Payments are processed automatically and deposited into your account connected to your mental health WordPress site.
Billing & Monetization Features
You can use basic billing features as well as powerful add-ons for better upselling capabilities.
In general, at its core, ARMember helps you control and manage:
- Subscriptions
- Invoices
- Taxes & VAT
- Coupons and discounts
- Gift memberships
- Subscription cancellation
- Affiliate programs
- PDF downloads
- Access to individual pages
Once you are done with the key settings, you can start creating pages for user registration on your site. There are also easy ways to do that with ARMember.
Client Communication & Engagement
Clear communication is crucial in any mental health practice. ARMember allows you to automate welcome emails upon client registration on your site, subscription confirmations, renewal reminders, appointment-related notifications and more by sending emails, SMS, and WhatsApp.
With ARMember add-ons, you can create private client profiles, offer certificates for completed programs, use gamification for engagement, and build a members-only mental health community.
Overall, your subscription-based mental health plugin is fully under your control!
Final Takeaways: Building an Online Mental Health Business with WordPress
Are you ready to create private pages for mental health resources? Or looking to run subscription-based emotional wellness programs? WordPress site powered by ARMember is the best way to create a secure client login & registration portals, and implement various business ideas such as:
- Sell monthly therapy memberships or self-guided mental health programs.
- Offer one-time workshops or assessments.
- Launch subscription-based mental health services.
- Protect sensitive content.
- Monetize therapy resources ethically.
- Offer scalable emotional wellness programs.
- Maintain full control over branding and clients.
If you’re ready to move beyond third-party platforms and build your own online mental health business, ARMember provides the structure, flexibility, and scalability to do it within a single WordPress site.
FAQs
How to set up a mental health business?
You can set up an online mental health business by creating a WordPress site and installing plugins such as ARMember, an all-in-one membership plugin. With this, you can create a membership-based mental health business model. It allows you to restrict and drip content, give client access, collect payments and communicate from one platform.
How to start an online support group?
An online support group can be started by creating a membership-based WordPress site where registered users can access private discussion spaces, resources, and community content. So you can start by getting membership plugins like ARMember which helps you restrict access to approved members only and manage ongoing engagement.
What is the best online mental health business model?
The best online mental health business model depends on your expertise and goals. So here are the best commonly used mental health business models:
- 1:1 teletherapy sessions.
- Self guided mental health courses.
- Subscription based wellness memberships.
Membership models are the most scalable and work well for ongoing emotional wellness support.
Can I offer subscriptions for mental health services on WordPress?
Yes, Of Course! You can offer subscriptions for mental health services on WordPress using a membership plugin such as ARMember. This plugin allows you to create structured membership plans such as monthly, quarterly or annual subscriptions and manage access to mental health resources, programs and communities.
How can I set up secure payments for my mental health business?
You can set up secure payments for your mental health business using ARMember easily. ARMember supports over 21+ popular payment gateways like PayPal, Stripe, Square, Klarna, and Braintree. You can enable gateways, enter API credentials and process recurring or one time payments right from your WordPress site.
How can I communicate and engage with clients online?
You can communicate with your clients and keep them engaged by sending automated personalized email, SMS and WhatsApp notifications for registration, subscription confirmation, renewal reminders and appointments. Also, ARMember offers amazing gamification, private client profiles, certificates, and members only communities for ongoing engagement.
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