Cerbo vs Charm EHR for DPC and Functional Medicine (2027 Comparison)

Cerbo vs Charm, which is better for DPC and functional medicine?

Cerbo is the better fit for most membership-first DPC and functional medicine practices, because it is built around cash-pay care, with subscription and family billing, supplement inventory, a deep lab list and a Fullscript integration that now covers labs as well as supplements. Charm is the better fit when keeping software cost low matters most, or when you still bill some insurance, because it offers a free plan, a pay-per-encounter plan and a flat provider plan with claims tools. Both connect to Fullscript and to Labcorp and Quest, so the real choice comes down to how you bill and how much you want to pay before your panel fills.

Every vendor fact below comes from Cerbo's or Charm's own pricing page or help center. The Sources line at the end says when the prices and the table were last checked. Both companies update plans and add-ons often, so use this as your shortlist and confirm the details on a demo. If you are still deciding which EHRs belong on your list at all, the broader DPC EHR comparison for 2027 covers Elation, Hint, Atlas.md and Akute as well.

Cerbo vs Charm at a glance

Here is how the two compare on the jobs a DPC or functional medicine practice cares about most, every value from the vendor's own page:

What the table can't hold:

• Memberships. Cerbo bills recurring subscriptions, groups families and small businesses under one payor, and supports ACH, per its help center. Charm runs recurring card payments through Bluefin on weekly, monthly, quarterly or annual schedules, with auto invoices, per its user guide.
• Supplements and dispensing. Cerbo's Fullscript integration covers supplements and labs, and its DPC page lists inventory management for medication stock and labeling. Charm has a Fullscript add-on, inventory management on paid plans and an eCommerce add-on for selling inventory through the portal.
• Labs. Cerbo lists two-way interfaces with Labcorp, Quest, Genova, Boston Heart, Access and many more, with graphable results. Charm lists Labcorp, Quest, Vibrant America, Boston Heart, Access and others.
• Telehealth. Cerbo offers native 1:1 or multi-participant video as an add-on, or a Zoom integration. Charm includes it on the provider plan.
• Insurance. Cerbo's DPC page says practices can run without insurance billing or claims workflows, so ask about claims on a demo. Charm's claims, eligibility checks and ERA posting are add-ons.
• Best for. Cerbo suits membership DPC and functional medicine practices with supplements, inventory and heavy lab use. Charm suits startups watching cost and hybrid practices that bill some insurance.

Which is the best EHR for a functional medicine DPC?

The honest answer depends on the kind of practice you run. Here is how the choice tends to shake out by practice type.

A membership-first DPC with supplements and in-house dispensing

Cerbo is the stronger default here. Its direct primary care page describes subscription management with small group and family plans, ACH billing, eRx for compounded and controlled medications, and inventory management for medication stock and labeling. That covers the core of a DPC that dispenses at cost and sells a few supplements on the side. If dispensing is a big part of your model, our guide to DPC dispensing of medications and labs covers the state rules to check first.

A functional or integrative practice with heavy lab panels

Cerbo again tends to come out ahead, mostly because of its lab list and its Fullscript connection. Its lab integrations article lists dozens of two-way interfaces, including Genova, Boston Heart, Access Medical Labs, Evexia, Labcorp and Quest, and says results arrive as structured data you can graph and track over time. Charm's list is also long and includes Vibrant America, which matters if that is your go-to lab.

A brand-new practice watching every dollar before launch

Charm is hard to beat on cost. You can open the free plan, build templates and test your workflow before you pay anything, then move to a paid plan once visits pick up.

Charm's free plan covers one provider, five users, up to 50 encounters a month and up to 1,000 patients, per its pricing page.

Charm's encounter plan is $0.50 per encounter with a $25 monthly minimum.

Cerbo has a new practice special too. On some visits its pricing page offers about half off the setup fee for new, part-time solo or micro practices with fewer than 30 patients and less than six months in business. Other visits show no setup section at all.

That special brings Cerbo's setup fee from $1,195 (seen November 4, 2026) to $595 (seen November 4, 2026). A restricted user is $15 one time on every visit.

A hybrid practice that still bills some insurance

Charm describes itself as an EHR, practice management and medical billing solution, and its pricing page lists add-ons for electronic claims, real-time eligibility checks and ERA posting. If you are converting an existing practice to DPC and will keep a tail of insurance patients for a while, that is useful. Cerbo's DPC page, by contrast, emphasizes that practices can run without insurance billing or claims workflows, so if claims matter to you, ask Cerbo to walk through them on a demo.

A multi-provider practice with dietitians, acupuncturists or health coaches

Look closely at per-user pricing. Cerbo publishes lower prices for non-prescribing providers, supporting providers such as acupuncturists, dietitians and counselors, and part-time providers in multi-provider clinics. On Charm, the encounter plan does not depend on how many providers you have, which can suit a team of part-time practitioners.

On Charm's provider plan, the pricing FAQ lists non-physician providers such as PAs, NPs and licensed acupuncturists at the same price as a physician.

That price is Charm's provider plan rate, $200 per provider per month.

How much does Cerbo cost compared with Charm?

Both vendors publish real prices, which makes this easier than most EHR comparisons. The tricky part is that each one packages features differently, so the base price alone can mislead you.

Cerbo's published pricing

Cerbo prices per user per month and says it does not lock clinics into long-term contracts. Its plan includes eRx, eFax and EPCS for prescribing providers and 250 free outbound fax pages a month.

Per Cerbo's pricing page, a full-time prescribing provider is $281 per month and a part-time prescribing provider is $174 per month. A full-time non-prescribing provider is $256, a supporting provider is $127 and each additional full-time staff user is $63.

Cerbo says its one-time setup fee covers a private cloud server, six weeks of training and two weeks of post-go-live support.

A restricted user is $15 one time, and some visits also show a one-time setup fee of $1,195 (seen November 4, 2026), or $595 for a new part-time solo or micro practice with fewer than 30 patients and under six months in business (seen November 4, 2026). The patient portal add-on shows $79 per month with its patient slider set at 1,000 patients, and 1:1 telemedicine is $27 per provider per month.

Charm's published pricing

Charm sells three plans. The free plan is limited by encounters and patients, the encounter plan scales with visit volume, and the provider plan is a flat monthly fee with unlimited encounters.

Per Charm's pricing page, the provider plan includes eRx, EPCS, PDMP, telehealth, an unlimited patient portal, 500 fax pages and 1,000 text or voice messages a month.

The provider plan is $200 per provider per month.

On the free and encounter plans, eRx is an add-on at $15 per provider per month and telehealth is an add-on at $20 per provider per month. Charm's eCommerce add-on, which lets you sell inventory to patients through the portal, costs 1% of order value with a $20 monthly minimum.

A worked example for one full-time physician

Take a solo DPC physician who prescribes, wants a patient portal and does some video visits. On Cerbo, that is the full-time prescribing provider seat, the portal add-on at the 1,000-patient setting and 1:1 telemedicine.

That comes to about $387 per month on Cerbo ($281 plus $79 plus $27), plus the one-time setup fee above on the visits that show one. On Charm's provider plan, the same physician pays $200 per month with portal and telehealth included.

Card processing is separate on both, through the payment partners each vendor names in its docs. Neither number includes a membership billing platform such as Hint if you choose to run one alongside your EHR, which our DPC membership billing software guide covers in detail.

How does membership billing work in Cerbo and Charm?

Cerbo's subscription billing article says any charge in your charge list can run automatically on a set interval, either charged to the card on file or left as an invoice for patients who prefer to pay by check. It also says you can group family members' subscriptions under one payor so one automatic payment covers the whole family. The same help center links to articles on family and small-business subscriptions and on a Hint integration, which matters if you already use Hint for memberships.

Charm's recurring payments guide describes recurring card charges through Bluefin on weekly, monthly, quarterly or annual schedules. It can create an invoice for every payment automatically, send patients a link to update an expired card, flag failed payments on a watch list and send failed payment notifications. That covers the basics of a monthly membership, though we could not find a dedicated DPC membership module on Charm's site, so ask on a demo.

Cerbo's help center covers small-business subscription grouping, but we could not find invoicing for larger employer groups or membership pause settings described on either vendor's site. If you sell to employers or offer seasonal holds, ask both on a demo and have them show you the workflow, not just the setting.

Supplements and Fullscript in Cerbo vs Charm

Both EHRs connect to Fullscript, and both let you keep your own shelf inventory as well. The difference is in how far the integration goes.

Cerbo's Fullscript article, updated in August 2026, says the integration syncs Cerbo patients with Fullscript, lets you order supplements and labs through Fullscript, shows a patient's Fullscript supplements and labs in their Cerbo chart and receives Fullscript lab results electronically. For a functional medicine practice that runs much of its supplement and lab ordering through Fullscript, that is a lot of work kept in one chart.

Charm's Fullscript add-on guide says practices link their Fullscript account in settings, map providers to Fullscript users, build supplement templates from the Fullscript catalog and transmit orders electronically, after which Fullscript ships to the patient. Charm's resource center also lists WholeScripts and VitaminLab add-ons, and its integrative medicine page describes an inventory module for supplements, lab kits and other dispensed items with low-stock alerts.

Labs for functional medicine

Lab connections are where functional medicine practices feel the most pain when an EHR falls short, because specialty panels often arrive as PDFs or faxes that someone has to file by hand.

Cerbo splits its list into two-way interfaces, where you order electronically and results flow back into the chart, and results-only interfaces, where you order by fax or paper but results still arrive as structured data. Charm's labs FAQ lists established interfaces and explains that the lab's own representative has to start each new interface, after which Charm's lab team builds and tests it.

The practical step is the same for both. Write down the three to five labs you order from most, then check each one against the vendor's current list and ask how long a new interface usually takes to go live. You can also see how labs fit into the rest of your tools on our Labcorp and Quest integration pages.

Patient portal and telehealth

Cerbo's portal is an add-on priced by patient count, per its pricing page, and its DPC page says it supports secure messaging, document sharing, fillable forms and encounter summaries. Telemedicine is a separate add-on with native 1:1 video, multi-participant calling or a Zoom integration.

Charm includes the portal on every plan, with the patient limits shown in the table above, and its integrative medicine page says patients can request appointments, track vitals and message the care team. Telehealth is included on the provider plan. If you message patients heavily between visits, our guide to HIPAA-compliant texting for DPC covers what to add on top of either portal.

One more check for HIPAA. Charm's pricing table shows the BAA included on the encounter and provider plans, while for the free plan it points you to email support for BAA details, so settle that in writing before you load real patient data.

Who should pick which

• Pick Cerbo if you run a cash-based, functional or integrative practice and want one EHR set up around it. Where it wins: a do-it-all EHR for practices of many kinds; memberships through an integrated merchant partner.
• Pick Charm if budget comes first, or you still bill some insurance, since it has a free plan and claims tools. Where it wins: a free plan to start; electronic claims through an add-on.
• What Tabflows does not do: chart visits or prescribe; bill memberships or charge cards.

Questions to ask Cerbo and Charm on a demo

A demo is most useful when you bring your own workflow to it. These questions tend to surface the differences that matter:

• Show me a family membership with two adults and a child, billed to one card, and what happens when that card fails.
• How do I bill an employer for 40 employees on one invoice?
• Which of my top five labs have a live two-way interface today, and how long does a new one take?
• How do Fullscript orders and results show up in the chart, and who sees them?
• What does the portal cost at my expected panel size in year two?
• What data can you import from my current system, and who rebuilds my templates? Our guide to switching EHRs without losing patient data has a fuller checklist.

Making either EHR work with the rest of your tools

Whichever you pick, the EHR will not be your only system. Most DPC and functional medicine practices also run Fullscript, a phone and text tool, scheduling and sometimes a separate membership billing platform, and the work that falls between them (a lab result that needs a call, a failed card that needs a nudge, a supplement refill that needs a check-in) is where things slip.

That gap is what Tabflows works on. Tabflows is a dedicated tech team that connects the tools a clinic already uses, including Cerbo, Charm and Fullscript, so follow-ups, tasks and patient context live in one place. If you want to see what that looks like day to day, read how it fits a Cerbo integrative medicine workflow or a Charm functional medicine workflow, or see how it differs from an all-in-one EHR in Tabflows vs Cerbo.

If you are earlier in the process and still mapping out your whole setup, start with how to start a DPC practice and the best DPC software for 2027.

Sources

Checked on November 5, 2026: cer.bo. Checked on November 4, 2026: cer.bo/pricing, charmhealth.com/ehr/ehr-pricing-us.html and charmhealth.com/resources/billing/recurring-payments.html. Spot a wrong fact? Email a correction.