Mytherapist.ng, a Nigerian online therapy platform, is partnering with healthcare financing company MyItura to let users pay for therapy in instalments rather than upfront.
The offering is part of a relaunch the company calls Mytherapist.ng 2.0, which also introduces in-person sessions at Café One, a co-working network with more than 30 locations across Nigeria.
Approximately 20% of Nigerians experience a mental health condition, yet fewer than 10% receive minimally adequate care. In 2020, out-of-pocket spending accounted for 74.7% of health expenditure, according to the World Health Organisation. For people who need repeated therapy sessions for their mental health, the cost can become a recurring expense.
“We’ve gotten feedback over the past two years. We’ve seen data. We’ve seen what people want, and along the way we’ve met quite a lot of these demands, but we’ve seen that we can do much more, which is why we are doing Mytherapist.ng 2.0,” Oluwaseun-Raphael Afolayan, Mytherapist.ng’s co-founder and chief executive officer, told TechCabal. “What we’ve always believed in is that nobody should be denied help just because they cannot afford to pay for it at that moment.”
Afolayan and Dedoyin Ajayi founded Mytherapist.ng in 2021 after Afolayan struggled with his mental health, where he found it difficult to access therapy.
“Before the advent of platforms like Mytherapist.ng, if you needed to talk to a therapist and you had the capacity, you would go to platforms like BetterHelp, but you quickly come to find out that it’s really difficult opening up or getting the best out of therapy when your therapist doesn’t understand the socio-cultural challenges that you are having in this part of the world,” he said.
Mytherapist.ng began as a spreadsheet of therapists that Ajayi could vouch for. In December 2021, the founders decided to turn the initiative into a company.
The current version of Mytherapist.ng lets users sign up, browse therapists by speciality and availability, and book sessions. Users can use the platform’s AI-powered matching tool to help find a therapist or manually search for therapists who work with conditions and experiences including depression, anxiety, grief, panic attacks, and burnout.
The company is now extending that model with its partnerships with MyItura and Café One to address how users pay for therapy and where they receive it.
Book for therapy now, pay later
MyItura will offer therapy financing through its Mediloan product, launched in December 2025. Users can select the payment option when booking a therapy session and spread the cost over time.
“Finance is a really big problem for a lot of Nigerians, especially when it comes to their wellbeing,” Afolayan said. “It’s a really big solution to this problem where our users can now book and not have to pay at that spot if they don’t have the financial capacity to be able to do that.”
MyItura told TechCabal that it assesses each user based on their identity, repayment capacity, existing financial obligations, available financial and transaction information, and repayment behaviour where available, before deciding whether they are eligible for financing, loan amount and the repayment terms.
“The information used depends on the customer’s profile and is processed with consent,” the company said in a statement. “Automated scoring supports the decision, with manual review for exceptions or unclear cases.”
The company noted that after approving the loan, it pays the therapist through Mytherapist.ng, while the user repays MyItura in instalments. It added that its financing facility is typically repaid monthly over about three months, although eligible users can receive terms of up to six months depending on the amount and their affordability assessment.
MyItura said its current non-performing loan rate is about 0.5%, although the portfolio is still young and has not yet written off any defaults. For missed payments, the company sends reminders and automated notifications, retries authorised payment methods where permitted, and follows up through its collections team. It also said that continued delays lead to more structured recovery, which could involve reporting to an authorised credit bureau and lawful third party.
“Accounts that pass the applicable delinquency threshold are classified as non-performing and provided for,” MyItura stated. “A balance is written off only after the approved recovery process and accounting criteria are met. Throughout the process, MyItura prohibits threats, public shaming, improper contact with third parties, and interference with clinical care.”
Book therapy online, see your therapist in person
Mytherapist.ng is also taking its online therapy sessions offline. The company is partnering with Café One to let users in Lagos book a therapist online and meet them in person at selected Café One locations. Afolayan said the sessions will take place in private meeting rooms within the spaces.
“We’ve chosen Café One specifically because we’ve seen that it meets a lot of our requirements for how serene and conducive we want these therapy rooms to be,” Afolayan said. “They’ve done a really fantastic job of making sure that their spaces and hubs are very quiet and conducive because therapy itself has to be held in a very quiet and conducive environment without noise and other distractions.”
Afolayan said the partnership is not exclusive to Café One, as Mytherapist.ng is launching its physical therapy offering through a clinic in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital. The company plans to add at least seven more locations in Lagos and about two in Abuja within two months to keep its hubs close to both users and therapists.
Mytherapist.ng is also launching subscriptions and group therapy sessions, alongside its new updates. Afolayan explained that the subscription feature is designed for users who want to commit to regular sessions with the same therapist. Users can subscribe to a therapist and lock in a recurring time slot at a discounted per-session rate.
The company is also introducing group therapy, which Afolayan said will give people a space to share experiences with others going through similar situations without feeling alone.
The economics of therapy
Mytherapist.ng operates as a marketplace that connects users with vetted therapists. It, however, does not set a single price for therapy. Therapists on the platform set their own rates, giving users different price points depending on their choice and care type. A session can cost about ₦4,000 ($3) at the lower end and as much as ₦80,000 ($60) to ₦100,000 ($75) for some therapists, according to Afolayan.
The company said it has a network of over 100 verified therapists and has completed more than 5,200 therapy sessions since its inception.
The new physical sessions will follow the same principle, although users will pay an additional location fee for appointments held at partner spaces. Mytherapist.ng said the fee will be shown separately from the therapist’s charge.
The company competes in a market where other mental-health clinics and platforms are trying to make professional care easier to find and access. In Nigeria, Blueroom Care offers online therapy, while global platforms such as BetterHelp and Talkspace have built businesses around connecting users with mental-health professionals online. Afolayan said Mytherapist.ng is trying to build a care system rather than just a place to find a therapist.
“We’ve always believed that therapy has to be both active and passive,” he said. “Active in the sense that when you book, you book for one hour and in that one hour it is just you and your therapist. But the care has to continue beyond that one hour of therapy. That is why we give you access to various tools even when you’re not actively in therapy.”
True scale demands moving beyond surface-level integrations to robust execution. We’ve filtered the noise out of Moonshot 2026, optimising the conference strictly for high-calibre connections between startup founders, global financial operators, enterprise leaders and individuals rewiring Africa’s technical frameworks. Get 20% off Early Bird tickets for a limited time.