Group sessions
Individual sessions
Set one of them to zero sessions to price it alone, or leave both to price doing both — which is a common arrangement and frequently better than either. Typical ranges: group $50 to $125, individual $150 to $300, peer-led support groups free.
Nothing here is saved or sent. Confirm any figure with the practice and your insurer before you rely on it.
The insurance question people don’t ask
Group psychotherapy has its own CPT code — 90853 — and it’s covered by a great many plans, sometimes at a lower copay than individual therapy.
When you call, ask about that code specifically rather than about therapy generally. And ask the question that actually matters: does group count against the same visit limit as individual? On some plans they draw on separate allowances, which means you can do both. More on the money.
The comparison that actually matters
Not group against individual on price. Against what you can keep paying for.
For a specific symptom with a protocol, twelve weeks of the right individual treatment beats a year of anything else. For a long-standing pattern — how you’re with people, loneliness, a sense of being unknown — duration matters more than intensity, and the honest question is which of these you’ll still be attending in month ten.
Weekly individual therapy abandoned at month three because of cost does less than a year of weekly group you can sustain.
Where it gets cheaper
Training clinics and university programmes — and group is where trainees are most closely supervised, frequently with a licensed co-leader in the room.
Community mental health, where groups are how public systems deliver most of their psychotherapy.
Peer-led support groups — free, and a different thing from treatment rather than a budget version of it.
And your employer’s EAP, which sometimes covers group sessions and which almost nobody checks.