Draft:Cliniko

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Cliniko

Cliniko is a cloud-based practice management software platform designed for allied health practitioners. Developed by Red Guava Pty Ltd, it is used by more than 65,000 health professionals across more than 95 countries. The software enables clinics to manage appointment scheduling, treatment notes, invoicing, patient communications, and telehealth services from a single platform.

Cliniko was founded in Melbourne, Australia in 2011 by software developer Joel Friedlaender and his partner Liora Dafner-Beach, an osteopath. The company operates as a fully bootstrapped, privately-owned business with no external investors and no managerial hierarchy.

Overview

Cliniko is a web-based application that targets allied health practices including physiotherapy, osteopathy, podiatry, chiropractic, massage therapy, and psychology. The platform is designed to replace paper-based or fragmented digital systems with an integrated suite of clinical and administrative tools. It is accessible on any internet-connected device and does not require locally installed software.

Subscription pricing is based on the number of practitioners at a clinic, with a 30-day free trial that requires no credit card. Cliniko offers free access to registered charities and educational institutions as part of its ethical business commitments.

History

Founding (2011)

Cliniko originated when Liora Dafner-Beach, working as an osteopath, found that the practice management software she used was unreliable and couldn't be accessed remotely. She suggested to her partner Joel Friedlaender, a software developer, that he could build something better. Using a $100,000 home renovation loan, Friedlaender quit his corporate job and, alongside Dafner-Beach, founded Red Guava Pty Ltd to develop the product initially nicknamed "Clinic thingy".

Friedlaender set a goal of signing 100 paying customers in the first 12 months. Within that period he had exceeded the target, reaching 300 customers. The software launched after approximately six months of development.

Growth and expansion

The team grew steadily through the 2010s, operating initially from Joel and Liora's living room before moving to a Glen Huntly office in a Melbourne suburb. Cliniko's first hire was a developer in Poland, establishing the company's remote-first approach from the beginning—a decision that was unplanned but became a defining characteristic of the business.

By 2015, more than 13 million appointments were booked through Cliniko's online bookings page in a single year. By 2018, 48,000 users across thousands of clinics were using the platform globally. In 2018, the company also updated the software to comply with the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) ahead of its enforcement date.

In 2020, Cliniko introduced telehealth video consultation features, and in 2021 went fully carbon neutral while celebrating its tenth anniversary.

Cliniko was named one of the Best Places to Work by the Australian Financial Review in 2025. As of April 2025, the team has grown to 57 employees spread around the world with over 65,000 users in 90 countries.

Features

Cliniko's platform includes the following core capabilities:

• Appointment scheduling — an online calendar with flexible views, repeat appointments, waitlists, and patient-facing online booking
• Treatment notes — fully customisable clinical templates, body charts, and secure cloud storage accessible from any device
• Patient communication — automated SMS and email appointment reminders, logged communications, and bulk messaging
• Financial management — invoicing, online payments, expense tracking, and integration with accounting platforms such as Xero
• Telehealth — integrated video consultations enabling remote patient appointments
• Reporting — practice performance dashboards and business analytics
• Multi-location support — management of multiple clinic sites and staff schedules
• API access — a public API enabling custom third-party integrations

Cliniko uses AES-256 encryption for data storage and performs daily backups. Data is hosted on Amazon Web Services infrastructure.

Company culture

Cliniko operates with no managers, no meetings, no hierarchy, and does not require employees to complete timesheets.. Work schedules are fully flexible, and the standard expectation is a 30-hour working week. The company also provides unlimited annual leave with a minimum of four weeks, and requires employees to take a 12-week paid bonus leave every five years.

Parental leave entitlements include six months of fully paid leave for primary carers and two months for non-primary carers. The company has been recognised on the Australian Financial Review BOSS Best Places to Work list.

The company is fully remote, with staff distributed internationally across countries including Australia, the United Kingdom, the United States, Brazil, and Malaysia. Internal communication is conducted primarily through Slack, with meetings avoided as a matter of policy. Quality control is managed through a peer review system in which code and customer support responses are reviewed by colleagues.

Joel Friedlaender has publicly stated a deliberate intention to grow the business slowly and sustainably, rejecting the venture-backed growth model prevalent in the startup ecosystem. He has expressed preference for maintaining a smaller team to preserve culture.

Ethics and social responsibility

Charitable donations

Since its founding, Cliniko has donated a portion of its subscription revenue to charity. The company began with a minimum of 1% of revenue and increased this commitment to 2%, calculated on revenue rather than profit. In some years the actual donation rate has exceeded this minimum; in 2022 the company donated 3.2% of revenue. As of October 2025, Cliniko had donated approximately AU$3 million to charitable causes.

Long-term charitable partners have included Beyond the Orphanage, which supports trafficked and homeless children in Kenya and Nepal (supported between 2014 and 2025), and Sea Shepherd, a marine conservation organisation, to which Cliniko has made monthly donations since March 2021. Cliniko staff members have personally visited partner charity operations, including a 2018 visit to Nepal to observe Beyond the Orphanage projects firsthand.

Registered charities and educational institutions are provided access to the software free of charge.

Carbon neutrality

Cliniko has achieved and publicly committed to maintaining carbon neutrality. The company assessed its emissions sources in 2021 and took steps to offset these through carbon neutral certification. By 2025, Cliniko offset all their historical carbon emissions, making them officially carbon neutral since their founding.