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Open Dental

The most data-independent option with the lowest exit cost, and the only major product with public pricing — but the "no per-provider upcharge" claim is wrong

Vendor: Open Dental Software Founded 2001 Oregon, USA Last verified: 2026-10-07 Official site ↗
Open Dental remains the most data-independent option among mainstream dental PMS platforms: patient records live in a standard MySQL database that the practice can export in full on its own — no vendor permission required, no extraction fee, and a month-to-month subscription that can be cancelled at any time. The official fee schedule is fully public ($199/month for the first year, $149/month from month 13, billed per location, covering every computer in that location and up to 3 providers). Three costs you need to know: (1) since version 24.4 in 2024 the product moved from a GPL open-source license to a proprietary license; (2) the widely quoted "no per-provider upcharge" does not hold — self-hosted practices pay an extra $20/month per provider beyond 3; and the vendor's own cloud is no longer priced per provider at all, it is sold as a monthly hosting package ($250–$2,370, sized by concurrent sessions, database and image storage) that the vendor charges ON TOP of the per-location support fee; (3) the published $199 does not include the paid eServices bundle ($165/month per location), although reminders, the patient portal and payment links are included at no extra cost. If your first priority is keeping both data and budget under your own control, and you have no more than 3 providers and can supply your own server, it remains the default answer on this list.

What users like

  • Pricing is public and transparent — the only mainstream product whose complete fee schedule and terms can be read directly on its own website
  • Patient records live in a standard MySQL database and can be exported in full without vendor involvement
  • The price drops to $149/month after the first year and is locked, with no annual renewal increase
  • Billed per location with no headcount upcharge for up to 3 providers, giving a clear cost advantage in that range
  • Both the support fee and eServices carry a 90-day money-back guarantee; prepaying adds a discount of 5% for 6 months, 10% for 1 year or 15% for 2–3 years
  • Long-standing strong word of mouth, including 23 posts across r/dentistry and Dentaltown in 2024–2025 recommending a switch away from Dentrix

What users complain about

  • Moved from a GPL open-source license to a proprietary license as of version 24.4 in 2024 (third parties can no longer independently publish new versions)
  • The widely quoted "no per-provider upcharge" only holds for the first 3 providers; $20/month per provider from the 4th onward
  • Vendor-hosted cloud is sold as a capacity package ($250–$2,370/month by concurrent sessions and storage) that the vendor charges on top of the per-location support fee, so a 3-provider practice pays about $719/month in year one rather than a flat all-in cloud price
  • The published $199 excludes the paid eServices bundle, so online self-scheduling and texting add $165/month
  • Interface and interaction maturity trails commercial competitors, and the ledger view is described in user feedback as hard to read
  • Self-hosting requires your own server and IT support; data conversion is not covered by the support fee and must be quoted separately
  • Denial handling is less structured than Dentrix
  • Vendor-hosted cloud is US-only and limited release, with interoperability limits on third-party integrations

Weighted score

8.7 / 10 weighted score
Feature fit ×0.4 8.0
User sentiment ×0.3 9.0
Value for money ×0.2 9.0
Transparency ×0.1 10.0

Our rankings are determined entirely by data: feature fit 40% + user sentiment 30% + value for money 20% + transparency 10%. Paid listings and sponsor placements are excluded from every calculation and will never change the order.

The four dimensions other sites skip

★ EXCLUSIVE DIMENSION

Data export freedom — 5/5

Full record export available

Patient records live in a standard MySQL database that the practice or any third-party IT provider can query and export in full — no vendor approval, no extraction fee, and no need for the vendor's cooperation to leave. This is the only product in our database where the vendor is not the gatekeeper of your data. Note: this rating rests on database accessibility, not on license type — the product moved to a proprietary license in version 24.4, but the vendor states database access and export capability are unaffected, and we will keep re-checking that.

Caveat: Exporting on your own requires some technical skill or third-party help; the cost shifts from the software license to IT services, which is the price of that freedom

★ EXCLUSIVE DIMENSION

Real 3-year cost — $13,504

Assumption: Scenario: one location, 3 providers, self-hosted (own server), with the paid eServices bundle, including server hardware and excluding cloud hosting. This scenario was chosen because most practices genuinely need online self-scheduling and texting. If the same 3 providers moved to the vendor's cloud hosting, the three-year total would be about $31,000 ((Medium hosting package $520, plus the support fee at $199 in year one and $149 thereafter) x 36 = $24,684, plus $5,940 for eServices and $400 for migration) — roughly 2.3x the self-hosted scenario, and that comparison is itself the story. Note that the cloud fee does not replace the support fee, it stacks on top of it. If online scheduling and texting are not needed, the eServices line drops to $0 (reminders, the portal and payment links are free anyway).

Subscription, Year 1 ($199/month x 12)
First-year contract price, covering up to 3 providers
 $2,388
Subscription, Years 2–3 ($149/month x 24)
Drops to $149 from month 13 and is locked, with no annual renewal increase
 $3,576
eServices bundle ($165/month x 36)
Roughly half the cost of buying the items separately (about $330/month combined); but if online scheduling, texting and eClipboard are not needed, this line can be $0
 $5,940
Server hardware (one-time)
A dedicated server for 3 providers typically runs $1,200–2,000; a refurbished PC at about $500–800 is also workable for a single chair
 $1,600
Data conversion
The vendor states this is not covered by the support fee and must be quoted separately; not counted here
 $0
Per-provider upcharge from the 4th provider
Not triggered in this 3-provider scenario; each additional provider is +$20/month
 $0

This is 2.5× what the monthly sticker price alone would suggest over the same period. Based on 0 user-reported contract prices.

★ EXCLUSIVE DIMENSION

Contract lock-in — 1/5

Commitment12-month agreement for the first year, month-to-month thereafter
Notice requiredCan be cancelled at any time after that, but the practice must call support to do so (the official documentation states "Users must call to Cancel")
Early terminationNone
Auto-renewalno

The exit cost is mainly internal process change and staff retraining, with no termination fee. The price path is also locked (first year $199, then $149) and is not exposed to annual renewal increases — a direct contrast with the widely reported "support plan auto-renews and increases" at Dentrix. The support fee carries a 90-day money-back guarantee (provided the software is discontinued); eServices comes with the same 90-day guarantee.

★ EXCLUSIVE DIMENSION

Reported claim approval rate — not published

Sample size: 0 user reports

Not enough data to publish a figure. Claim quality depends heavily on how the practice itself is configured and how completely claims are filled out, as well as the relationship with the chosen clearinghouse (DentalXChange); the software is not the only variable.

What users report:

  • Denial handling is less structured than Dentrix and relies more on the clearinghouse
  • Claim configuration takes some learning

Pricing

Starting price $199 per location / month
Pricing model subscription · billed monthly / annual
Implementation fee $0
Training fee $0
Payment processing No locked-in payment processor; eClaims run through DentalXChange at roughly $0.25 per claim
Beyond the sticker price The official fee schedule is the most transparent pricing document in the industry — but "$149/month" is still not the full cost. Items that must be added on top: (1) The paid eServices bundle at $165/month per location (promotional reminders, online self-scheduling, texting, tablet check-in, secure email, mobile, and more). Note: eReminders, General Messages, automatic thank-you letters, the patient portal, the payment portal, Message-to-Pay and Web Forms — seven items in total — are "Free for customers on support" and do not require the bundle. Only practices that need online self-scheduling (Web Sched) or texting need to buy it. (2) Server hardware, $500–5,000 (a refurbished PC is enough for a single chair; a dedicated server for 3 providers typically runs $1,200–2,000). (3) Cloud hosting: Open Dental Cloud is sold as a monthly hosting package priced by capacity — Small $250 (7 concurrent sessions, 5GB database, 20GB images), Medium $520 (15 / 10GB / 40GB), Large $1,300 (35 / 15GB / 60GB), X-Large $1,850 (55 / 30GB / 120GB) and Enterprise $2,370 (75 / 45GB / 130GB), with storage overage at $0.40/GB and a one-time $400 migration fee. Crucially, the vendor states the hosting fee is charged IN ADDITION TO the per-location support fee, and each location must stay on support for as long as it uses the cloud — so a 3-provider practice pays the Medium package plus $199 (year one) or $149 (thereafter) per month. The official cloud is limited to the United States and is in limited release (vendor email confirmation, 2026-09-28: still in limited beta, prospective customers are screened by the team, and migration and registration proceed only once the team confirms the practice can use the product successfully). (4) Data conversion is not covered by the support fee and is separately priced by the vendor. (5) Paid training and support are billed per hour or per day — online training $80/hour, on-site training $4,325 per day per trainer ($1,325 for each additional consecutive day), blank database setup $100 per session, and isolated-incident support $150 for the first half hour plus $50 for each subsequent half hour. (6) $20/month per provider from the 4th provider onward, on the self-hosted licence. (7) Other priced items published on the same fee page include AI Image Analysis at $149/month per location, ODTouch at $85/month (up to 4 devices) and Mass Email at $8/month — the last two are explicitly NOT included in the eServices bundle — plus per-provider eRx subscriptions and $110/month per FTE provider for medical software integrations and institutional users.

Features

CapabilityScoreNotes
Scheduling 4/5 Full-featured and covers routine practice scheduling; online self-scheduling (Web Sched) costs extra and is not part of the base subscription covering 3 providers
Charting / EHR 4/5 Thorough coverage of general dentistry clinical workflows; weaker for specialties (oral surgery, orthodontics)
Insurance eClaims 4/5 Supports electronic claims with configurable ERA automation; runs through DentalXChange at about $0.25 per claim. Denial handling is less structured than Dentrix
Imaging integration 3/5 Bridges to multiple imaging systems (Acteon, CEREC, Carestream, Dexis, Planmeca and others), but the vendor explicitly warns that some third-party integration methods can corrupt patient records, so each method must be confirmed individually
Patient portal 3/5 The patient portal and Web Forms are included with the subscription at no extra cost; online self-scheduling, texting and eClipboard are paid add-ons

Technology and data

Deployment on-premise, cloud, hybrid
API public-api
Export formats direct MySQL database access, CSV, custom SQL queries
Integration notesPatient records live in a standard MySQL database with a publicly documented schema, so they can be queried and exported directly. A RESTful API is provided for custom reporting and integration development. This is its strongest dimension among the 15 we track — note that the license is now proprietary, but database accessibility is unchanged, so export freedom still holds; it simply can no longer be justified on the grounds of being "open source." Also note the limitations of the vendor-hosted cloud version: US-only, limited release, and "some third-party integrations have interoperability limitations," with only integrations that go through the Open Dental API guaranteed to work.

Company

Open Dental Software was founded in 2001 by Dr. Jordan Sparks and is headquartered in Oregon, USA. The product positions itself as "developed by dentists, for dentists." Important change: from version 24.4 the product moved from the GPL open-source license to a proprietary license, so third-party vendors can no longer independently package and sell new versions. The vendor states the change does not affect pricing, database access or day-to-day use — a claim worth watching, because it bears directly on whether the "data independence" selling point holds over the long term.

Best fitSingle location, Multi-location, DSO
NoteBilled per location, but "team size does not affect price" is only half true: the base subscription covers up to 3 providers at that location (hygienists not counted), with $20/month per provider from the 4th onward. Multi-location practices have separate volume pricing (4–9 locations at $169/month per location).

Sources for this page

Open Dental — data sources

Something wrong here?

If a figure on this page is inaccurate, we want to fix it — including if you are the vendor. Corrections are verified against a primary source and logged publicly. This page was last verified on 2026-10-07.