Softwr

Healthcare · head to head

Included Health vs OpenClinica

Included Health logo

Included Health

Healthcare

Care navigation and virtual care in one contract for self funded employers and health plans

From
On request
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
OpenClinica logo

OpenClinica

Healthcare

Clinical trial EDC with a genuinely open source community edition alongside a quoted commercial platform

From
On request
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Each has a real cost: Included Health owning both the navigation recommendations and the virtual care delivery creates a structural incentive to steer members to the vendor own clinicians, and an employer should require disclosure and measurement of how often that happens.; OpenClinica the free community edition is a different and older product line from the commercial platform, so evaluating the open source build tells you little about what the paid product actually does.
  • They diverge on capability: Included Health covers Care navigation, OpenClinica covers Open source community edition.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 1 September 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Included Health and OpenClinica actually diverge.

Attributes where Included Health and OpenClinica differ
AttributeIncluded HealthOpenClinica
PlatformsWeb, iOS, AndroidWeb, Self-hosted, iOS, Android

Identical on both: starting price (On request), pricing model (quote), free tier (No), user rating (Not yet rated), category (Healthcare).

What each one covers

Drawn from each product's published feature list. An absence here means we hold no record of it - not that the product lacks it.

Only in Included Health

  • Care navigation
  • Provider quality steerage
  • Expert medical opinion
  • Virtual primary care
  • Virtual behavioural health
  • Virtual urgent care
  • Benefits integration
  • Employer reporting

Only in OpenClinica

  • Open source community edition
  • Electronic data capture
  • eConsent
  • eCOA and ePRO
  • Randomisation
  • EHR-to-EDC
  • Audit trail
  • Reporting and analytics

What people use each for

The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.

Included Health

  • A large self funded employer whose members cannot tell which specialist to see and who currently absorbs the cost of poor referral decisionsnot OpenClinica
  • An employer that has bought several point solutions and needs one front door that routes members to the ones already paid fornot OpenClinica
  • A self funded plan wanting expert second opinions before high cost elective surgery, where a changed recommendation pays for the programmenot OpenClinica
  • An employer replacing separate navigation and telehealth vendors with one contract and one member experiencenot OpenClinica

OpenClinica

  • An academic coordinating centre running investigator-initiated trials that needs Part 11 compliant capture without an enterprise eClinical budgetnot Included Health
  • A registry or observational cohort study collecting structured data across many sites over yearsnot Included Health
  • A small device sponsor that needs eConsent and ePRO in the same system as its case report formsnot Included Health
  • An informatics group that wants to self-host the open source edition for a non-regulated internal studynot Included Health

Where each one falls short

Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.

Included Health

  • Owning both the navigation recommendations and the virtual care delivery creates a structural incentive to steer members to the vendor own clinicians, and an employer should require disclosure and measurement of how often that happens.
  • Pricing is per employee per month across the whole eligible population, so a plan with low navigation engagement pays for everyone to serve the minority who call.
  • Savings claims rest on avoided costs and changed referral decisions, which are counterfactual by nature, so performance guarantees need very careful definition or they measure activity rather than money.
  • The company is a merger of three organisations with different origins, and members and benefits teams still encounter seams between navigation, virtual primary care and behavioural health that the single brand implies are absent.
  • It sells primarily to large self funded employers, so mid market employers and fully insured plans find both the pricing and the implementation effort disproportionate to their size.

OpenClinica

  • The free community edition is a different and older product line from the commercial platform, so evaluating the open source build tells you little about what the paid product actually does.
  • The vendor provides no support or services at all for the community edition, which means outages, patching, database upgrades and validation documentation are entirely your problem.
  • Commercial pricing is not published, so you cannot benchmark it against alternatives without entering a sales process, and third-party figures around USD 1,000 a month are indicative rather than contractual.
  • Study build is skilled work: complex edit checks, randomisation schemes and integrations usually mean paying for vendor or consultant configuration services on top of the licence, which is a frequently underestimated line in the budget.
  • As a smaller vendor than the large eClinical suites it has a thinner partner and consultant ecosystem, so finding experienced build staff or a CRO already fluent in the platform is harder than with the market incumbents.

Pricing, plan by plan

Included Health

On request
  • Included Health$undefined/year
    • Per employee per month across the eligible population, quoted not published
    • Navigation and virtual care modules priced separately or bundled
    • Some components offered with performance guarantees tied to measured savings

OpenClinica

On request
  • Community Edition$undefined/year
    • Free and open source under the LGPL
    • Self-hosted, on the older 3.x line
    • No vendor support or services of any kind
  • OpenClinica Enterprise$undefined/year
    • Pricing only through a sales process
    • Hosted and validated instance
    • EDC, eConsent, eCOA, randomisation and analytics modules

Which should you pick?

Choose Included Health if

  • You need care navigation.
  • You work on Web, iOS, Android.
  • You also want provider quality steerage.
Included Health review

Choose OpenClinica if

  • You need open source community edition.
  • You work on Web, Self-hosted, iOS, Android.
  • You also want electronic data capture.
OpenClinica review

Questions people ask

Is Included Health or OpenClinica better?
Neither clearly leads. Included Health starts at On request and OpenClinica at On request, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Included Health or OpenClinica?
Included Health starts at On request and OpenClinica at On request.
Does Included Health or OpenClinica run on more platforms?
Included Health runs on Web, iOS, Android. OpenClinica runs on Web, Self-hosted, iOS, Android.
What is Included Health best used for?
Included Health is most often used for a large self funded employer whose members cannot tell which specialist to see and who currently absorbs the cost of poor referral decisions, an employer that has bought several point solutions and needs one front door that routes members to the ones already paid for, a self funded plan wanting expert second opinions before high cost elective surgery, where a changed recommendation pays for the programme, an employer replacing separate navigation and telehealth vendors with one contract and one member experience. Of those, a large self funded employer whose members cannot tell which specialist to see and who currently absorbs the cost of poor referral decisions and an employer that has bought several point solutions and needs one front door that routes members to the ones already paid for are not what OpenClinica is typically brought in for.
What can Included Health do that OpenClinica cannot?
Included Health covers Care navigation, Provider quality steerage, Expert medical opinion, Virtual primary care. OpenClinica covers Open source community edition, Electronic data capture, eConsent, eCOA and ePRO.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Included Health: What exactly is Included Health?

The combination of Grand Rounds Health navigation, Doctor On Demand virtual care and the original Included Health concierge service, operating under one brand since late 2021.

OpenClinica: Is OpenClinica free?

There is a genuinely free, LGPL licensed community edition you host yourself with no vendor support. The commercial platform with eConsent, eCOA and a validated hosted instance is quoted and paid.

Included Health: Who pays for it?

The self funded employer or the health plan pays a per employee per month fee. Virtual care visits may also carry member cost sharing depending on plan design.

OpenClinica: Is the open source version still maintained?

Yes, releases on the 3.x line continued through 2025, but it is a separate and older architecture from the commercial product.

Included Health: Is there a minimum size?

No published minimum, but it sells primarily to large self funded employers and the pricing and implementation effort do not suit small organisations.

OpenClinica: Does it meet 21 CFR Part 11?

The commercial hosted platform is built for Part 11 and GCP compliance. If you self-host the community edition, compliance and validation are entirely your responsibility.

Included Health: How does it recommend providers?

Through data driven quality analysis rather than a plain directory. Ask specifically how those recommendations are produced and how often they resolve to the company own virtual clinicians.

OpenClinica: What does the commercial version cost?

Not published. Third-party listings suggest enterprise arrangements from around USD 1,000 per month, but real cost depends on study count, subjects, modules and build services.

Share

Related pages

More on Included Health

More on OpenClinica

Keep looking

Other head to heads