How Much Does an AI Receptionist Cost a Dental Practice?
The monthly price is the easiest number to find and the least useful on its own. What a practice pays depends on how the product charges and what it takes to run.
The monthly price is the easiest number to find and the least useful on its own. What a practice pays depends on how the product charges and what it takes to run.
The monthly price is only part of the cost
Most practices compare AI receptionists on the monthly price. It is the easiest number to find and the least useful on its own. What a practice actually pays depends on how the product charges, what it needs to set up and how much of the team's time it takes to run.
Five ways vendors charge
Before comparing prices, find out which of these each vendor uses. Two quotes on different models are not comparable.
- A flat monthly subscription per location.
- A charge per conversation, per message or per booking.
- A charge per minute for phone calls, often with an allowance.
- Charges per user or per seat on the team.
- A one-off setup or onboarding fee.
Costs that do not appear on the price page
- Staff time to write and approve what the receptionist may say: prices, policies, treatments, and the questions it must hand over.
- Staff time to review conversations, especially in the first weeks.
- Extra locations, and whether each needs its own plan.
- Overage when a busy month goes past an allowance.
- Connections you need that are sold separately, or do not exist yet.
How to work out what it is worth to your practice
No vendor can tell you what an AI receptionist is worth to your practice, because it depends on numbers only you have. A simple way to frame it uses three of them.
- Count the enquiries you receive in a typical month across every channel, and how many arrive outside opening hours.
- Estimate how many of those currently get no reply, a late reply or no follow-up, using last month's enquiries as a sample.
- Decide what a single new patient or a single accepted plan is typically worth to your practice, from your own records.
Questions to ask any vendor about price
- Is there any charge per conversation, message or booking?
- What happens in a month with twice the usual enquiries?
- Is there a setup fee, and what does setup include?
- Does each additional location cost extra, and how much?
- Which channels are included today, and which are coming later?
- Can we see the price before a sales call?
A worked example of the framework
Suppose a practice receives around 120 enquiries a month across all channels, and a quarter arrive outside opening hours. Looking at last month, it finds that about 20 enquiries got a reply the next day or later and 15 never got a follow-up after the first answer. Those are the enquiries an AI receptionist could change.
The practice does not need to know how many of those would have become patients. It needs to decide whether answering and following up those 35 enquiries a month is worth the monthly price, using its own view of what a new patient or a consultation is worth. The figures here are illustrative; use your own.
Where the real cost of a cheap option hides
The cheapest tool is not always the cheapest to run. A product that cannot book, only collects details, moves the cost back to reception. A product that answers from the open internet rather than your approved information creates work every time it gets something wrong. And a product that only covers one channel leaves the others where they were.
How Clinqly prices
Clinqly publishes its plans and prices on its pricing page. Every plan includes unlimited team members and fair-use unlimited conversations, with no per-conversation charge. Website chat, WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook Messenger are live; phone answering and inbound email enquiries are coming soon, so they are not part of today's price.