LumaNote
LumaNote is a German AI documentation assistant for psychotherapists. It records or takes dictation of a session, transcribes it, then drafts structured clinical notes the therapist reviews and approves. Audio stays on the publisher's own servers.
What is LumaNote?
LumaNote is a browser-based clinical documentation tool built specifically for psychotherapy, published by LumaNote GbR in Erftstadt, Germany. The therapist records a session, dictates afterwards or uploads an audio file; the recording is transcribed automatically and turned into a structured note that follows a clinical template. The publisher is explicit that this is an assistance system, not a substitute: the therapist keeps full control and full responsibility, reviews every draft, and authorises it before use. No automated diagnosis or decision-making takes place.
The processing chain is unusual for a tool of this size and is described in detail. Audio is sent to servers the publisher runs in its own premises, where a locally hosted Whisper model produces the transcript. That transcript is then passed to a language-model API operated by IONOS SE in Montabaur to produce the structured documentation. The website itself is hosted by Strato AG in Berlin. All session and health data is stated to be processed within Germany and the EU/EEA.
Templates cover first sessions, progress notes, biographical case histories, group therapy, and intervision or supervision. Settings covered include individual work, children and adolescents, couples, families and groups. The tool is tuned for behavioural therapy, systemic therapy and psychodynamic therapy, with a child-and-adolescent variant added in January 2026. Twelve fully worked example notes are published openly, showing sections such as course of the session, new anamnestic material, therapeutic interventions, emotional dynamics, psychopathological findings, agreed actions and planning for the next session.
Output can be exported as PDF, Word, plain text, a clipboard copy, or a signed and timestamped PDF. Retention is deliberately short: audio and transcripts are deleted within 72 hours at the latest, and the generated documentation is held for a maximum of three days. LumaNote is currently a standalone tool with no API, no mobile app and no practice-management integration; interfaces to common practice software are announced as in preparation. The founding team is two people, a psychologist-psychotherapist and a physicist.
What it does
- Record a therapy session live in the browser, dictate afterwards, or upload an audio file
- Transcribe the recording automatically using a Whisper model run on the publisher's own servers
- Generate a structured session note from a chosen clinical template
- Produce first-session reports, progress notes, biographical case histories and group documentation
- Edit and correct the generated note in the built-in editor, including by dictation
- Export to PDF, Word, plain text, clipboard, or a signed and timestamped PDF
- Delete stored audio files manually at any time
When to use LumaNote / When not to
A quick filter to help you decide if LumaNote is the right fit.
When to use LumaNote
- Psychotherapists in private practice who write their own progress notes after every session
- Child and adolescent psychotherapists documenting individual, family and group settings
- Clinical psychologists and psychiatrists working in behavioural, systemic or psychodynamic frameworks
- Small German practices looking to cut administrative time without hiring a scribe
- Practitioners bound by professional confidentiality who require German-only hosting
When not to use LumaNote
- Practices that need the notes to flow straight into a practice-management system, since no interface exists yet
- Teams looking for an API or a developer integration, as none is published
- Clinicians who want to work from a phone or tablet app rather than a browser
- Non-German-speaking practitioners, since the interface, the help pages and the templates exist only in German
- Buyers who want to read the full contract terms before signing up, as no public terms page is published
How to use LumaNote
A typical end-to-end flow, from setup to results.
- Request access through the form on the sign-up page, which returns a personal registration link
- Alternatively, book a live demonstration, announced at around twenty minutes
- Activate the 14-day trial, which opens the full feature set and asks for no payment details
- Set up the recording hardware, following the dedicated help page on audio settings
- Run a test session first to check transcription quality, as the help pages recommend
- Sign in to the web application and start a new session
- Configure the session briefly: choose the template, the setting, and any specialist context
- Record during the session, dictate afterwards, or upload an existing audio file
- Review, correct and complete the generated note in the built-in editor
- Export the finished documentation, or save a frequently used template as the default
Pros & Cons
Pros
- Audio capture and transcription run on the publisher's own servers rather than at a third party
- Hosting is confined to Germany, and every subprocessor is named: Strato, IONOS and Stripe
- Retention is genuinely short: 72 hours for audio and transcripts, three days for the generated note
- A permanent free plan remains available after the trial, with no payment details required
- Twelve full example notes are published openly, so output quality can be judged before buying
- Notes are clinically structured, including psychopathological findings and a suicidality assessment
- Signed and timestamped PDF export supports the evidential value of the record
Cons
- No integration with practice-management software; interfaces are only announced as in preparation
- No API and no mobile application, so the tool is browser-only
- Interface, help pages and support are in German only
- No public terms of use: contract conditions are handed over only at sign-up
- The C5 badge shown on the homepage belongs to IONOS, the hosting provider, not to LumaNote
- No public legal identifier is published, neither a commercial register number nor a VAT number
- Prices are quoted inclusive of VAT, which obscures the net cost for a VAT-registered professional
Pricing & Plans
A permanent free plan is available. After the 14-day full-feature trial, the account moves automatically to Luma Free, which allows one documentation and one transcript per day at no cost and requires no payment details; there is no automatic upgrade to a paid plan. The cheapest paid entry point is Luma Basis at 39.90 EUR per month, stated inclusive of VAT. Two higher tiers follow at 69.90 EUR and 95.00 EUR per month, both also inclusive of VAT, and an Enterprise tier is quoted on request. An annual commitment is advertised as saving 17 per cent, although the annual amounts themselves are not published in the served page.
- one documentation and transcript per day
- core features
- no payment details
- upgrade possible at any time
- 30 documentations and transcripts per month
- 50 minutes of recording
- GDPR consent and data-protection templates
- individual session and progress documentation
- biographical case histories
- 120 documentations and transcripts per month
- 100 minutes of recording
- plus structured documentation for couples and groups
- unlimited documentations and transcripts
- 160 minutes of recording
- same feature scope as Pro
- larger institutions
- teams
- special requirements and individual agreements
Data, GDPR & hosting
A consolidated view of how LumaNote handles your data.
GDPR overview
The site makes concrete, repeated GDPR claims rather than a vague pledge. It states it is fully GDPR-compliant, cites Articles 6, 9 and 28 as legal bases, and publishes two separate privacy notices: one for the website, dated 8 July 2026, and one for the app, dated 7 September 2025. The controller is named as LumaNote GbR in Erftstadt, reachable at kontakt@lumanote.de. Data-subject rights are listed by article: access, rectification, erasure, restriction, portability, objection, and complaint to a supervisory authority. The notice states that no automated decision-making or profiling within the meaning of Article 22 is used. No data protection officer has been appointed, the publisher stating that it is not legally required to designate one. No Article 27 representative applies, since the publisher is established in the EU.
Who owns the data?
Under Article 28 GDPR the practice remains the controller of its patients' data and LumaNote acts only as a processor. The data-processing agreement is part of the B2B contract and can be reviewed before signature; it sets out purpose, duration, data categories and the technical and organisational measures. Named recipients are Strato AG for web hosting, IONOS SE for the language-model API, and Stripe Payments Europe for billing. Audio and transcription run on servers the publisher operates in its own premises. Authorised LumaNote staff may access stored data temporarily for support or error analysis, strictly limited to that purpose. No data protection officer has been appointed.
Reuse rights
Customers keep full control of the documentation they generate: LumaNote presents itself as an assistance system, and the therapist reviews, edits and authorises every note before using it. Output can be exported as PDF, Word, plain text, a clipboard copy or a signed and timestamped PDF, with no stated restriction on reuse in the clinical record. Recordings, transcripts and generated notes are processed only to deliver the documentation requested. Use of audio or text data for training or optimisation happens only where the user gives explicit consent, and then only on anonymised or pseudonymised material; that consent is voluntary and can be withdrawn at any time.
Data retention & training
Hosting summary
All data is processed on servers in Germany, at hosting partners named on the site. The website itself runs at Strato AG in Berlin. Particularly sensitive health data is stored on C5-certified cloud services provided by IONOS SE in Montabaur, and it is IONOS that holds that certification, not LumaNote. Audio recordings and their transcription are handled on servers the publisher operates in its own premises, described as protected by technical and organisational measures and inaccessible to third parties; the transcript is then sent to an IONOS language-model API for structuring. Session and health data is stated to be processed exclusively within the EU and EEA. An independent technical check is consistent with this: both the website address and the application host resolve to IONOS infrastructure in Berlin, and the name servers belong to Strato. Data is described as encrypted in transit and at rest, with regular backups and access controls.
Things to keep in mind
Risks and trade-offs to weigh before adopting LumaNote.
- Automation complacency: the publisher warns the AI can produce inaccurate suggestions, and a note that reads fluently is easy to sign off without really reading it
- Deskilling of clinical observation: if the tool captures the session, the habit of noticing and formulating during the hour can quietly erode
- Patient consent and trust: recording a therapy session changes the room, and obtaining informed consent from each patient remains the therapist's responsibility, not the tool's
- Third-party certification mistaken for the vendor's own: the C5 badge shown on the homepage is the hosting provider's, and the publisher holds no certification in its own name
- Contract opacity: no public terms of use exist, so the conditions, the data-processing agreement and the liability regime are only visible after sign-up
- Legal identification: the publisher is a GbR with no published register number or VAT identifier, which limits what a buyer can verify independently
- Price presentation: the advertised amounts are inclusive of VAT, so the net cost for a VAT-registered practice is not the figure shown
Setup & Integrations
Technical difficulty
Very low, with one procedural step. There is nothing to install: LumaNote runs in the browser and there is no API key or integration to configure. Access is not self-service, however, so a request form must be submitted to receive a personal registration link, and an unused access ticket expires after 30 days. The only real preparation is on the audio side, where the publisher provides a dedicated help page on recording settings and recommends running a test session first, plus a separate guide for online sessions.
Deployment
Supported languages
Behind LumaNote
Social
Resources
All the official URLs gathered for verification and reference.
Frequently asked questions
What does LumaNote actually do?
Does it replace my own documentation?
Where is the data processed?
How long is my data kept?
Will my patients' data be used to train the AI?
Is there a free plan, and what does the paid entry cost?
Can I connect it to my practice-management software?
Is there a mobile app?
Which therapeutic approaches are supported?
How much time does it actually save?
Should you pick LumaNote?
LumaNote is a deliberately narrow product: one market, one profession, one language. Within that scope it is unusually specific about how it works. The audio never leaves the publisher's own servers, transcription runs on a locally hosted model, every subprocessor is named, and retention is capped at 72 hours for recordings and transcripts and three days for the generated note. For a German practice bound by professional confidentiality, that architecture is the main argument, and the twelve openly published example notes let a buyer judge output quality before committing.
The caveats are mostly about maturity and transparency. The C5 certification advertised on the homepage belongs to IONOS, the hosting provider, not to LumaNote, and the publisher holds no certification of its own. The company is a GbR with no published register number and no VAT identifier, no public terms of use exist, and the contract documents are handed over only at sign-up. The changelog opens in December 2025 and the team is two people, so this is an early product. Prices are quoted inclusive of VAT, which flatters the headline figure for a VAT-registered professional. One of the five homepage testimonials is signed by a co-founder.
Practically, the entry point is low-risk: a 14-day trial with the full feature set, no payment details, and a permanent free tier of one note per day afterwards. The paid ladder starts at 39.90 EUR per month including VAT and is priced by documentation volume and recording length rather than by seat. If you need the notes to reach your practice-management system automatically, or you work in any language other than German, this is not yet the tool.
- Choosing a selection results in a full page refresh.
- Opens in a new window.