I Needed an Affordable Grief Therapist So I Tried Open Path Collective

Not to brag, but I've had a lot of therapy. I took a break from it for the last year, but decided to go back after experiencing a big loss and grief. I knew I needed to find a new therapist who specializes in grief and loss, but I’m also a freelancer: my income changes regularly, and as a result, my health insurance situation changes regularly too. I am often uninsured, or very under-insured. I knew I needed to work around this insurance hurdle to find a therapist, but I also knew there was no way I could afford to pay for therapy out-of-pocket.

That’s where Open Path Psychotherapy Collective came in. It’s a nonprofit that maintains an online therapist directory full of therapists that provide sessions on a sliding scale to anyone that has difficulties affording therapy otherwise. As a result, it means you can find the therapy you need at a reduced cost, usually somewhere between $30 and $70 per session, depending on the therapist and your income. This directory is specifically for people like me who either don’t have insurance or can’t afford their deductible/copays—and I’m happy to say that after I used it this month to find my new therapist, I’m very pleased. 

After considering how well the website functions, the number of filters and therapists available, cost, and other factors, I would absolutely recommend Open Path to a friend or anyone else in a similar financial situation as me. I also love how consistently great this service has performed over time, as shown by our most recent research.

Looking for a Therapist

So here was my predicament: I didn’t want to rely on insurance to afford therapy, but I also knew I couldn’t pay out-of-pocket for full priced therapy sessions, which can cost between $100-$200 per session—way more than I had to spend right now. This mean that I had to find a therapist that offered sliding scale rates, but the idea of emailing therapist after therapist to find out if they offer sliding scale services sounded like a time consuming nightmare. I did not have the spoons for that. 

But that’s why Open Path Collective stood out to me so much: It literally is a directory where you are assured, from the moment you start your search, that its therapists will offer sliding scale rates of between, thereby saving me (or you if you hede my advice and try it) a ton of time and frustration. 

Open Path asks that people who are well insured not use this service, though this is honor-based—it never asks for proof of income. Anyone who is not insured or who is underinsured is welcome to use it, as long as they make less than $100,000 annually.

And all I had to do to start the search is enter my zipcode.

Once I did and pressed “Go,” I was immediately provided with a list of whopping 561 therapists. While each therapist’s profile specified their credentials (LMSW, LMHC, etc.) and the kind of therapy they practice (art therapy, couples counseling, etc.), the Open Path website did not explain what any of these items meant. So be prepared to do some Googling—because I definitely lost some time doing just that. There are a wide variety of providers in this directory, including psychotherapists, licensed art therapists, student interns, social workers, mental health counselors, and marriage and family therapists. (I did not know the difference between a licensed clinical social worker and a licensed mental health counselor when I started this, but now I do. Thank you internet)

If I’m honest, this list was kind of overwhelming so I knew I needed to find a way to filter through it.

If I may brag again, I have received services from many different types of providers in the past, but I had never worked with an art therapist. The possibility of working with an affordable, effective therapist who would also tell me to go to Michael’s for art supplies was VERY exciting. I know myself—I am much more likely to stick with therapy, even when it gets challenging, if I can afford it and I can craft. So with that in mind, I started looking for one.

The filters available are: type (in-person or online), location, cost, specialties, modality, treatment orientation, therapist race or ethnicity, age specialty, language specialty, and therapist name. I filtered by type (online), location (NY), cost (no interns), specialty (LGBTQ+ and Grief and Loss), and modality (individual). I was able to utilize the cost filter to narrow down the list. The cost filters available are: $30-$70/session (professionals AND student interns), $40-$70 (no student interns), and $30 (student interns only).

Thankfully there were only 51 therapists left on the list after this filtration process, and the list clearly specified who was taking new clients.

I perused this list and viewed a good amount of profiles, which were very detailed. Each profile includes a few paragraphs introducing the provider and lists of their skills and expertise, as well as information pertaining to each of the possible filters (treatment modalities, locations, cost, race or ethnicity, etc). Sometimes, information about availability was included as well, so I could see definitively who was taking on new clients.  

Contacting a Therapist Through Open Path

I ultimately contacted 4 therapists that seemed like good fits. To do so, I simply clicked on their profile, then clicked “Email this therapist” button right underneath the therapist’s picture. 

When I clicked the button, a pop-up appeared prompting me to enter my contact information and send it to the therapist.

When I circled back to the landing page, I saw that the information about this fee was indeed there, but I had to scroll down to find it so I’d missed it. It was not grouped with the information about the costs of the sessions and I really wished I had known about this fee earlier in this process. Still… I wasn’t dissuaded from continuing with my outreach. 

It’s worth noting that I emailed four therapists through the site, but two never responded. The third got back to me within 24 hours, but was not accepting new clients, even though their profile stated that they were. The fourth emailed me back in two days and confirmed that they were accepting new clients, so I decided to try a session with them.

Scheduling a Session:

It was very easy to schedule my first session with the therapist who responded with availability. This therapist emailed me the times they had available, and I chose a slot that worked for me. We had our first session 13 days after I initially contacted them. They had appointments available much sooner than that, but my schedule happened to be packed around that time. Leading up to the session, I had a lot of intake forms to fill out. 

Their specific range of sliding scale fees was $50-$70, which is a little narrower than Open Path’s range. I shared my 2022 annual income and we decided on $50 sessions, biweekly. I paid my $65 membership fee directly to Open Path via their website, but I paid the $50 session fee directly to the therapist after our first session.

The morning of the first session, the therapist emailed me a Zoom link, and I had no trouble joining the meeting.

Plus, my therapy homework involves going to Michael’s, so I might actually do it.

As we’ve established, I’m not new to the therapy scene. I’ve tried both in-person and online therapy from multiple providers. The first session intake process with the therapist I found via Open Path was pretty similar to previous intake processes, with questions about my health history and what I was looking for in therapy. 

The fee is known and set, which frees up a lot of my bandwidth.

Our Most Recent Testing

We returned to Open Path Collective in 2024 to see if we’d have a similarly positive experience, and we certainly did. 

We were impressed with the number of filters available—still ten, to be exact, which is far more than most directories offer—and to test out our options, we chose “in-person sessions,” reduced the mileage radius to 10 miles, set the cost at $30-$70 per session, and said we were looking for a therapist who specialized in anger management. We received three options even after this highly specific ask, and were supplied with 21 more once we relinquished the “in-person” option.

Pricing was very clear—another important aspect in looking for a therapist, especially when cost is an issue. Each therapist’s price range was listed in their bio, taking away any guesswork. Because of this feature, we knew right away who we could afford.

We liked the fact that the bio for each therapist stated whether or not they were accepting new patients, and that email addresses were listed so that we could get in touch with any therapist directly. However, our only disappointment was that no one offered free consultations.

Pros and Cons:

Overall, I had a good experience using Open Path Collective, although there were some cons.

Final Thoughts

I would definitely recommend Open Path Collective to anyone who wants or needs mental health services, but is uninsured or underinsured. The sessions cost $30-$70, which is much less than I would pay out-of-pocket elsewhere. I was pleasantly surprised by how many therapists were in the directory, and I was impressed by the wide range of specialties included. The directory was super easy to use, and I was able to connect with a great therapist who met all of my needs.

Personally, I appreciated how upfront the site was about the price range of sessions, but I was a bit taken aback by the one time $65 membership fee, since it wasn’t mentioned alongside the price range of sessions. I do wish that all costs were communicated upfront, in the same place. I was also a bit disappointed that two therapists never got back to me, and one of the ones who did was not accepting new clients, even though their profile said that they were. That being said, I had a great first session with the therapist I did connect with, and I didn’t break the bank in the process.