Is Open Dental Free? What the Fee Schedule Charges

PickMyPMS Editorial · Last reviewed Oct 16, 2026

The short answer

Open Dental is not free to run. The vendor publishes a fee schedule, and a working practice pays several lines from it.

The main recurring charge is a support fee. It is $199 a month per location for the first 12 months and $149 a month after that, and it covers up to 3 dentists. Each additional dentist costs $20 a month.

This page lists every line the vendor publishes, so you can see what a practice pays and when.

What our record says about the license

The fee schedule we hold lists support, add-ons, hosted service and conversion. It records no separate software license price.

We have not recorded whether the program can be downloaded and run without paying the support fee. That is unclear in our data, not a yes or a no. Check Open Dental’s own fees page before you plan around it.

What our data does support is that a practice using Open Dental for real work, with staff who need help, pays the support fee. Reviewers on Capterra list paying for live support among their complaints.

The recurring fees

These are the confirmed lines from Open Dental’s fees page, checked on 2026-09-26.

Texting access is separate again. It is $5 a month for an assigned number or $20 a month for a landline, plus $0.04 per message in the US.

The totals use the cheapest base line only. A practice that adds eServices and texting pays those on top, and a practice with more than 3 dentists pays the per-dentist line for each extra one.

Our price guide shows how these figures compare with other vendors that publish a price.

What is included and what is not

The fee schedule tells you what the support fee leaves out. Open Dental’s feature records, all confirmed by the vendor, show this split.

Included: perio charting, treatment presentation, recall automation, reporting, claims, eligibility checks, online forms, a mobile app, API access and an open database.

Add-on: texting, online scheduling and ePrescribing.

Unclear: multi-location reporting. The page we checked did not settle it.

So a practice that wants online booking or texting is buying another line. The eServices bundle is where that spending sits, and the texting charges above are per message. A practice that sends many reminders pays more as volume grows.

The hosted version

Most offices run Open Dental on their own server. The vendor also lists a hosted option, Open Dental Cloud, which our record describes as a limited release.

Open Dental Cloud costs $430 a month per location for 1 provider. Additional providers are $150 a month, and there is a one-time $400 migration fee.

That is the number to use if you do not want to buy and maintain a server. It is also well above the $149 support fee, and it replaces it as the base line for a hosted practice. We do not add the two together.

Converting from another system

Moving data in is a one-time charge. Open Dental lists $1,450 per database. X-rays are $900, documents are $850, and each extra clinic is $400.

Those are the vendor’s published conversion prices, from its conversions page. Our switching guide from Dentrix covers the questions to ask about conversion.

Contract and refund terms

Open Dental has a 12-month initial term, then goes month to month. The vendor offers a 90-day money-back guarantee on support fees.

Our record holds no auto-renewal clause or notice period for Open Dental, so leaving after the first year is recorded as month to month and nothing more. Confirm it in writing.

Many vendors set longer terms that renew on their own. The contracts and exit fees guide lists them.

Getting your data out

Open Dental’s data sits in an open MySQL database the practice controls. That is the vendor’s description, in its encryption documentation. Our record lists no export fee.

The same openness shows up in the feature list as API access and an open database, both included.

What reviewers say

Open Dental holds 4.6 out of 5 from 89 Capterra reviews. Its sub-scores are 4.6 for ease of use, 4.6 for customer service, 4.5 for features and 4.6 for value. These are third-party review scores, not vendor figures.

Reviewers cite a learning curve, a dated interface, and paying for live support. The strength recorded on the vendor side is published pricing and no long-term contract after year one.

How it compares on price

Two comparison pages put Open Dental’s fees beside hosted systems:

• Denticon vs Open Dental, where the other side lists a cloud starting price.
• CareStack vs Open Dental, for a hosted suite against a self-hosted one.

Use the cost calculator to add your own location and dentist counts. It uses regular prices by default, so Open Dental’s $149 line is what a practice pays once the first year ends.

Who this suits

Open Dental suits a practice that wants a published price list, is willing to run a server or pay for the hosted version, and does not mind buying add-ons line by line. The 12-month start and month-to-month renewal also suit a practice that dislikes long lock-ins.

It suits a practice less well if it wants texting, online booking and ePrescribing bundled with no extra line, or if no one on staff is comfortable with a learning curve. For those buyers, the add-on lines above matter more than the headline support fee.

The full profile, with every source and date, is on the Open Dental page.