Methodology
Where every number comes from.
Every price, contract term, rating and feature claim on PickMyPMS carries a source and the date we read it. This is where that data comes from, how it is labelled, and what keeps it current.
What is included
What counts as a practice management system.
Four tests decide whether a product belongs on this site at all. They are written down because the first pass at this registry worked outward from the big vendors' portfolios, and missed the products no portfolio page links to.
- It holds the schedule and the ledger A product has to run the appointment book and the patient ledger to count. A system sold to dentists treating sleep apnea counts if it schedules and bills patients. A messaging or review tool does not, however deeply it integrates.
- It is sold to US practices Products sold only in Canada, the UK, Australia or Europe are recorded and set aside. Their prices and contract terms do not carry over to a US practice.
- It is taking new customers A product its vendor has stopped selling is recorded and kept out of rankings, because a published price nobody can sign up at is not one a reader can act on.
- It is a product, not a vendor Henry Schein One and Carestream Dental each sell several systems on different prices and different contracts. Each system gets its own record; the parent company does not.
Known, and written up
Two different numbers, both published.
A name enters the registry once it has been judged against those four tests. A profile is the next step, and a slower one: reading the vendor's own pages and recording each fact with a link and the date we read it. There are always more names than profiles, and the difference is published here.
Today 44 have a profile, every fact read from the vendor and dated. Another 2 are in scope and waiting for one to be written. 26 names failed one of the four tests and stay on file with the reason, so the same ones are not reconsidered from scratch every time they turn up. The remaining 16 are unsettled, either because they arrived in the last sweep or because we have not worked out what product the name refers to.
Names reach us from the integration lists that phone, booking, payments and imaging vendors publish, from specialty association exhibitor halls, from search results, and from asking the models directly. That sweep runs weekly. It can find a name; only a person decides what it is.
Treat the registry as a floor. No credible count of how many dental practice management products are sold in the United States exists, so this site does not publish one, and a new name is measured against the four tests above rather than against a target.
Three labels, kept apart.
One of these sits beside every fact on the site. They are never added together and never averaged: a figure a vendor publishes and a figure a listing site repeats are not the same kind of number.
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Vendor-published
Straight from the vendor: its pricing page, its terms of service, or a press release.
The strongest label we use · 689 facts today
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Estimate (third-party)
From a review site, an aggregator or another third party. Never presented as the vendor’s own price. Ratings and what reviewers report carry "Third-party source".
Shown, always labelled · 186 facts today
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Unverified
We could not confirm it against a current source. Shown with this label rather than leaving a gap or guessing.
Flagged for re-check · 7 facts today
From our own survey, once enough dentists have answered for a median to mean anything. It will only ever appear as a median, a range and a sample size, and never blended with the other three. No figure on the site carries that label today.
Research process
Read it, record it, check it again.
- Read what the vendor publishes Each vendor’s own pricing page, terms of service and product documentation, recorded with a link and the date we read it.
- Say so where there is nothing Where a vendor publishes no price, the page says that plainly, and shows a labelled third-party estimate only where one exists.
- Check it again, separately A second pass re-opens every source URL against what was recorded. Anything that no longer matches is marked unverified rather than corrected by guesswork.
What we never do
Four rules that do not bend.
These are not aspirations. The first two are why this site exists; the last two are checked by the build, which refuses to publish a page whose figures are not in the data behind it.
- NEVER Accept payment from a vendor for placement, a ranking position or a better score.
- NEVER Let a vendor supply or edit its own review or rating on this site.
- NEVER Invent or estimate a number that is not in the sourced data.
- NEVER Blend vendor-published, third-party and dentist-reported figures into one number.
90 days before a figure is due for a re-check
Checked Day 90 · due Day 180 · build fails
Staying current
A date nobody maintains is worse than none.
Every figure carries the date it was last read. Past 90 days the build warns on it; past 180 it refuses to build at all, so a stale price cannot sit there unnoticed. The changelog records what has moved.
How picks are chosen
Every ranking scores products against the same criteria, applied the same way whichever vendor is involved. A reader should be able to repeat the process and land on the same picks.
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Currently sold and supported. A product must carry
status: activein our data. Legacy, sunset and acquired products are left off every ranking, whatever their install base or reputation. - Published pricing. A confirmed, vendor-published starting price outranks a quote-only product in the same category. Where no vendor price exists, the page says so instead of showing a third-party estimate as if it were the number.
- Contract and exit terms. Initial term length, renewal notice period, and what it costs to get data out at the end all factor into an award, and appear on the page with their own source and date.
- Platform and deployment fit. Whether a product runs on a server, in the cloud, or natively on macOS decides awards like "best if you keep a server" or "best for Mac practices".
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Specialty and practice-size focus. A product's own
specialtiesandpractice_sizefields decide whether it is eligible for a specialty or practice-size award. A general system is not given a specialty pick for listing that specialty alongside several others. - Review-site ratings, as a secondary signal. Capterra, G2 and Software Advice scores can break a tie between two products that are otherwise close, but a rating never outweighs pricing, contract terms or specialty fit, and a review-site score is never presented as our own opinion.
A product's position on any ranking changes when its underlying data changes. Each pick's "why" cites the specific fields above that earned it the award, so a claim on a ranking always traces back to a sourced fact on that product's own profile.