Where every number comes from

Every figure on the site leads back to a row on this page. Unless a row carries its own date, we read the US sources on October 30, 2026 and the treatment-abroad sources a day later; items rechecked on November 6, 2026 say so. If a publisher stands to gain from the subject, the row names that interest. This is also the one page that links to CareCredit, whose tables carry the Synchrony cost studies; elsewhere the site points here instead.

Prices

How the two surveys are combined. Per tooth, the estimator shows three Dental Economics medians: specialists ($3,400), all offices ($4,000, the typical figure) and Minneapolis, the dearest city ($5,505). They are named medians, not the ends of a statistical range. Every price is then multiplied by the state's index: its Synchrony single-implant average divided by $2,143. Full-arch figures use the Synchrony state table directly. The calculations are ours.

Coverage and money

Clinical background

What we couldn't verify

• Abutment prices on their own. The Dental Economics component table is published as an image we couldn't read, and no other public survey we found prices abutments separately.
• The ADA's own fee survey. It is sold, not published free, so we don't quote it.
• How long veneers, partial dentures and full-arch bridges last. No figure we could verify; the calculators show the assumption instead.
• Sedation fees. No national figure; add your own.

Map

The state map comes from Census Bureau TIGER/Line outlines, which are public domain, simplified for the screen.

How each figure is checked

This replaces the separate method page the site used to have.

1. Read at the source. A figure is copied from the page that publishes it, never from a news story about it, and the reading date goes next to it. Where the publisher's wording is vague about scope (the $2,143 and $4,344 lines are examples), the page says so and labels any interpretation as ours.
2. Counted honestly. "Typical" and "median" are used only where a survey or at least four comparable clinics stand behind the number. With fewer, the page gives the prices found and their median, called a rough middle. A minimum published by a source is shown as a floor, never as a price.
3. Clinic prices. For other countries without a survey, only a clinic's own price list counts, and only lines covering post, abutment and crown together; the cheapest complete option per clinic is taken, and branches of one brand count once.
4. Rechecked on a timetable. Each page shows when its figures were last read; the US surveys and IRS limits are reread when a new edition or year appears, clinic prices more often because they move.
5. Arithmetic tested twice. The calculators work in your browser with fixed formulas. A separate implementation in another language, plus cases worked by hand (one tooth and a full arch, a plan maximum already used up, the cheapest and dearest states), is rerun after every change.
6. Left out on purpose. Named practices and dentists, patient reviews, before-and-after photos and advice for one person's mouth.

The wording of the pages comes from an AI model, and nobody reviews it by hand at present; the page about the estimator explains the people and the program behind it and why that is disclosed.

Treatment abroad and public insurance (read October 31, 2026)

• NHS: what is included in each dental band charge (page reviewed March 13, 2025): Band 3 at £332.10 in England.
• Verbraucherzentrale: Zahnersatz, Festzuschuss (January 26, 2026): 60%, 70% or 75% of the standard treatment; 2026 crown and bridge amounts.
• healthdirect: cost of dental care: Medicare generally doesn't cover adult dental care.
• Canada.ca: Canadian Dental Care Plan coverage (modified August 27, 2026).

• Medicare.gov: dental services: Original Medicare generally doesn't pay for dentures and implants.

• OCU, dental health survey press release (November 27, 2024): median of €1,850 reported for an implant in Spain.

• Verbraucherzentrale, dental implants: at least €1,000 per implant in Germany.
• Stiftung Warentest, press release (July 17, 2024): an implant can cost more than €4,000 when bone must be built up first.
• CHOICE, dental fees: implant insertion and abutment price ranges in Australia, without the crown.
• Clinics' own price pages, opened on October 31, 2026; 13 countries yielded at least one full price. These are advertised prices, not surveys; the method and the counts are on the treatment abroad page. The clinic list is kept internally and not published, so no clinic is promoted.