Phila
For South African counselling organisations

Run the practice.
Hold the whole journey.

The calm operating system for counselling teams - booking, sessions in person, on video or by phone, AI-drafted notes you sign, messaging, documents that file themselves, invoicing, and funder reporting in one place. The reporting falls out of the work instead of being a second job.

Start your 17-day free trial

No credit card required · full features of your chosen plan · cancel anytime

  • POPIA-grade by design
  • Client files stored in South Africa
  • No medical-aid claims, ever
philasa.com/hub
The whole practice

One calm place - not seven tools that don't talk

Today it's a scheduler in one tab, a Google Form for intake, a WhatsApp group, a Dropbox folder, a spreadsheet, and a separate invoice tool - none of them aware of each other. Phila is the one place where they are, and everything below is one system talking to itself.

Watch one booking travel

One booking. The whole thread.

  1. Thandi books herself in

    Tuesday 09:00, from your public booking page - consent captured, the waitlist holding anyone you can't seat yet.

  2. The reminder sends itself

    WhatsApp on her own number, or one PhilaSMS - one message, one credit, never split.

  3. The session happens

    In the room, on PhilaVideo with screen share - or by PhilaVoice when she has no data at all.

  4. The note signs and files itself

    An AI draft the counsellor reads, edits and signs - it lands in her folder on PhilaDrive as your letterhead PDF.

  5. The invoice follows

    Pay-by-link to the practice's own gateway - overdue tracking without the spreadsheet.

  6. The funder report ticks up

    Indicators, demographics, outcomes - consented, anonymised, already done. Nothing re-typed.

Booking & intake

A public page that works while you sleep - service, time, counsellor, consent. Duplicates detected, imports handled, waitlist built in.

Your public pageWaitlistDuplicate detectionClient importConsent at the door

Forms that send themselves

Build once, pick the moment - on booking, after every session - and who fills it in. Answers land on the client's file as branded PDFs.

Fires on bookingAfter each sessionClient or counsellorLetterhead PDFCompletion tracked

AI session scribe

A structured draft you read, edit and sign - you stay the author of record; reporting gets the fields for free.

Classroom supervision

Supervision groups with schedules, resources, registers and attendance - oversight without another spreadsheet.

Companies & EAP

Employer-paid clients handled properly - company records, employer intakes, and the billing that follows.

Outcomes & care plans

Measures tracked over time and care plans the client can actually see - progress that shows itself.

Messaging - team & clients

Staff chat with groups and @mentions - plus a private thread each client can read and reply to.

Invoicing & PayShap

A4 invoices with your own notes, pay-by-link, VAT the SA way - clients pay the practice directly.

Documents on PhilaDrive

Folders create themselves, notes file themselves, and when a client is reassigned everything moves with them.

Rooms & sites

Every room across every site - who's in it, how full it is, never double-booked.

The client's own portal

Sessions, care plan, shared documents and messages - a calm private view that's theirs.

And it's one system - a booking mints a room, a reminder, and an invoice; a signed note feeds the funder report. Nothing re-typed, nothing out of sync.

Simple, honest pricing

One plan per practice - no per-seat surprises

Pick the tier that fits, and try all of it free first. Usage costs (PhilaSMS, voice minutes, extra AI) are prepaid credits with a hard stop - a bill never runs away from you.

Every plan starts with a 17-day free trial. No card required.

Solo

For the independent counsellor

R790/ month

Free for 17 days, then billed monthly

  • 1 counsellor
  • The whole daily loop: bookings, calendar, sessions, live notes & invoicing
  • Client portal + your own public booking page
  • PhilaVideo secure video with screen share
  • 2 forms with automations
  • 5 GB PhilaDrive storage, letterhead PDFs
  • Outcome measures, care plans & waitlist
Start your 17-day free trial

Practice

For a growing counselling practice

R1 990/ month

Free for 17 days, then billed monthly

  • 10 counsellors
  • The whole daily loop: bookings, calendar, sessions, live notes & invoicing
  • Client portal + your own public booking page
  • PhilaVideo secure video with screen share
  • 5 forms with automations
  • 20 GB PhilaDrive storage, letterhead PDFs
  • Outcome measures, care plans & waitlist
  • WhatsApp & PhilaSMS reminders (prepaid credits)
  • PhilaVoice: phone your client when they have no data
  • Team roles, Classroom supervision & rooms
  • AI session scribe to start
Start your 17-day free trial

Organisation

Most loved

For NGOs, EAPs & multi-site organisations

R3 699/ month

Verified nonprofits: R2 990 / month

Free for 17 days, then billed monthly

  • 100 counsellors
  • The whole daily loop: bookings, calendar, sessions, live notes & invoicing
  • Client portal + your own public booking page
  • PhilaVideo secure video with screen share
  • Unlimited forms with automations
  • 100 GB PhilaDrive storage, letterhead PDFs
  • Outcome measures, care plans & waitlist
  • WhatsApp & PhilaSMS reminders (prepaid credits)
  • PhilaVoice: phone your client when they have no data
  • Team roles, Classroom supervision & rooms
  • AI session scribe included
  • Funder portal & grants - live, anonymised reporting
  • Companies: employer-paid & EAP clients
Start your 17-day free trial

Enterprise

For provider networks & large programmes

fromR7 500/ month

Priced with you - trial included

  • Unlimited counsellors
  • The whole daily loop: bookings, calendar, sessions, live notes & invoicing
  • Client portal + your own public booking page
  • PhilaVideo secure video with screen share
  • Unlimited forms with automations
  • 250 GB PhilaDrive storage, letterhead PDFs
  • Outcome measures, care plans & waitlist
  • WhatsApp & PhilaSMS reminders (prepaid credits)
  • PhilaVoice: phone your client when they have no data
  • Team roles, Classroom supervision & rooms
  • AI session scribe included
  • Funder portal & grants - live, anonymised reporting
  • Companies: employer-paid & EAP clients
  • Priority support, DPA & SLA
Talk to us

Start free, no credit card required. Prices exclude VAT. Every tier includes POPIA tooling (consent, audit, DSAR, 2FA) and client files stored in South Africa.

Built on Phila's own rails

Every plan rides the same four - prepaid credits, hard stops, never a runaway bill.

PhilaSMS

Text reminders that never split - one message, one credit, always.

PhilaVoice

Phone a client who has no data - minutes metered by the system, honestly.

PhilaVideo

Secure video with screen share - in-app, in-region, no external meeting tool.

PhilaDrive

Files that file themselves - signed links only, stored in South Africa.

The day, held

Every counsellor's day, calm and in one place

  • Calendar, caseload, and the session you're in - no hunting.
  • Live in-session notes that autosave and never block.
  • Mark done, no-show, or postponed; the thread just updates.

Today5

08:30
Lerato Mahlangu
Completed
Room 1
09:45
Sipho Khumalo
In session
Room 1
11:00
Fatima Adams
Upcoming
Online
The org, in view

Programme-grade oversight the incumbents can't show

  • Every counsellor's calendar, rooms, and utilisation at a glance.
  • Intake, invoicing, and team roles with honest permissions.
  • Income prediction and no-show rate from the real schedule.
184
Clients this week
across 6 counsellors
6%
No-show rate
this month
72%
Room use
2 sites

Appointments

Nomsa Dlamini82%
Thabo Mokoena64%
Aisha Patel48%
Proof, without the second job

Funder and demographic reporting that writes itself

  • Indicators roll up live from the clinical work - no double entry.
  • Consent-gated, k-anonymised, audited - nothing identifiable.
  • One click to the funder's template; the report is just there.

Grant indicators

k-anon · audited
Unique clients reached312 / 300
Female participants58% / 60%
Improved ≥5 on PHQ-971% / 70%

Small cells suppressed - a funder can never re-identify a client.

For the people you serve

Your clients get a calm, private space - not a portal they dread.

Booking that takes two taps, reminders where they already are, and a private home for their whole journey. The care is yours - Phila just makes it feel effortless for them.

  • Book in a couple of taps
    From your public page, on a phone, on metered data - service, time, consent, done.
  • Reminders on WhatsApp
    Booked, reminded, rescheduled - on the channel they already use every day.
  • A private space of their own
    Their sessions, documents, invoices, messages with their care team, and the next steps their counsellor chooses to share.
  • Crisis help, one tap away
    SADAG front and centre - a person in distress is never left to hunt for support.
philasa.com/me
Your next session
Wed 3 Jul · 10:00
with Nomsa · online · in 2 days
Join

Your steps

2 of 3 done
Try the breathing exercise before bed
Note one thing that went well each day
Read the worksheet Nomsa shared
If you need to talk now

SADAG · 0800 567 567 free, any time. You never have to hunt for help.

For funders

Give funders live proof - without giving away a single client.

Invite a funder to a portal scoped to their grant. They watch indicators move against targets in real time - the same numbers that fall out of your counsellors' daily work. No spreadsheets, no quarter-end scramble, no identifiable client ever in view.

  • Read-only & scoped
    A funder sees only their own grant - never another, never the org's inner workings.
  • Nothing identifiable
    Aggregate, k-anonymised, consent-gated. Small cells are suppressed, not shown.
  • Every view audited
    The org controls exactly what each funder sees, and every view is recorded.
philasa.com/funder
DSD Community Wellness Grant
Apr–Jun 2026 · quarterly report
Aggregate · anonymised

Indicators vs target

Unique clients reached312 / 300
Female participants58% / 60%
Improved ≥5 on PHQ-971% / 70%
Sessions delivered1840 / 1800

412 of 530 clients have consented demographics.

Trust is the product

Built for the most sensitive data there is

Counselling notes, demographics, sometimes GBV survivors - under POPIA, all of it is special personal information. Phila treats it that way from the first commit, not as a launch checklist.

Data stays in South Africa

Client PII rests in an SA region before launch. AI inference is de-identified before any cross-border call, on a zero-retention provider - audio is never stored.

Consent before capture

Every purpose - notes, demographics, comms, AI, funder reporting - is independently granted, versioned, and revocable. Off means nothing leaves.

Audited by design

Every read of a note, contact, or demographic writes an audit row. The Hub seeing a note is a recorded access - never silent.

Tenant isolation

Every query is bounded to its org by Postgres row-level security - the database itself refuses a cross-org row, not just the app.

Encrypted where it counts

ID numbers and special-category fields are encrypted at the field level. We never store sensitive data in the clear.

Compliance you can show

A one-click POPIA pack - consent records, lawful basis, audit, retention - ready for the Information Regulator.

Who it's for

Built for organisations the billing incumbents serve badly

Not a medical-aid claims tool, and not a solo-therapist scheduler. Phila is for multi-counsellor organisations that bill clients directly - and it scales down to a single practice as the entry tier.

Community & NGO counselling

Multi-counsellor teams serving clients directly, with funders to report to and demographics to track.

EAP & corporate wellness

Employee-assistance providers running caseloads across employers, with utilisation and outcomes to show.

University & student services

Campus counselling centres with high volume, intake forms, and waitlists to manage calmly.

Faith-based & community services

Mission-driven services that bill clients directly and scale down to a single practice.

“Friday afternoons used to mean rebuilding the quarter from memory - who we saw, what changed, what each funder still needs. The reporting was a second job. Phila just has it.”

The week we built Phila to give back to counselling teams.

Bring calm to your counselling practice.

We'll walk you through Phila with your own services, intake, and reporting in mind and set it up with you. No obligation, no pressure.

Start your 17-day free trial