Our new entry-level counselling service gives employees structured counselling they book entirely online, from £0.34 per person per month.
People book most things online now, from GP appointments to dentist visits. But arranging counselling through an EAP usually means calling a helpline during work hours, and that’s often where people stop. Many want support but keep putting off the call.
Essentials solves this problem. It’s a new self-serve option where everything from booking to referral happens online, while the support remains personal.
Essentials is a lower-cost alternative to a full EAP, offering many of the same core benefits. It’s priced below EAP Core, EAP Advanced, and EAP 360°. Prices start from just £0.34 per person per month plus VAT, based on a 12-month term for 175 employees.
This is our most affordable option. By not paying for helpline access or legal and financial support, we can channel that saving into counselling. That matters, since counselling is the reason most people access an EAP in the first place. Coverage includes employees and their dependants, and you get launch support, promotional materials, and MI reporting from day one. Clients start with a working service right away, not just a login and a leaflet.
Essentials is all about making counselling easy to access, rather than offering the full EAP suite. Here’s how it compares.
Self-serve doesn't mean screen-only. Bookings and referrals happen online, but the counselling itself is delivered by video, phone, or face-to-face, whichever suits the person. No one needs to call to set it up.
If your team needs 24/7 support, legal or financial advice, or virtual GP access, those features start with EAP Core and above. Essentials is for organisations that want reliable counselling support that’s easy to access and affordable for the finance team.
How people seek support has changed. When given the choice between phone and digital, most choose digital. We see this in our other services too: when online booking is available, people use it. Someone who has put off a phone call for weeks is more likely to book a session in two minutes when the option is sitting on their screen, at 11pm.
That’s why we made the admin side digital, because people prefer to handle it themselves, and kept the care human, since that’s what matters most.
It’s digital when it should be, human where it counts.
This also answers a common request from brokers and HR teams. Organisations want to provide real counselling support, but budgets are under pressure, and usage is the metric every programme gets judged on. Essentials is designed to be a service people will actually use.
You can find all the package details on our SME page, or email us at client.services@healthhero.com. We’d be happy to talk you through how Essentials could work for you.