Dental practices lose real revenue to unanswered phones — after hours, over lunch, and whenever the front desk is helping the patient standing in front of them. AI receptionists exist to close that gap. This guide compares the four we see practices actually evaluate, as honestly as we can manage given that we make one of them.
How should you compare dental AI receptionists?
Five questions matter more than any feature list:
- Does it book real appointments into your PMS, or just take messages? Real-time write-back into your schedule is the difference between "answered" and "handled."
- What does it actually cost? Some vendors publish pricing; others require a sales call, and third-party analyses note that all-in costs (setup fees, overages, integration surcharges) can land well above the sticker price.
- How fast can you go live? Self-serve setup is measured in minutes; engineer-led onboarding is measured in days to weeks.
- What happens on the calls AI shouldn't handle? Emergencies, upset patients, and clinical questions need a clean path to a human.
- Which channels do you need? Phone is table stakes. Website chat, SMS, and outbound campaigns vary by vendor.
How do the four compare at a glance?
| Salva AI | Arini | Dentina | Viva AI | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Published pricing | Yes — from $79/mo; voice plans $399 and $599/mo | No — sales call required | From ~$319/mo per location (annual), per their site | Yes — $349 / $899 / $1,199/mo (credit-based) |
| Free trial | 14 days, all plans | Not published | 30 days advertised | 30 days advertised |
| Channels | Phone + website chat | Phone + SMS | Phone (+ text per third-party listings) | Phone, SMS, webchat, email |
| PMS booking | Open Dental (real-time, voice and chat); others waitlisted | OpenDental, Eaglesoft, Denticon listed | Broad PMS list advertised (Open Dental, Dentrix, Eaglesoft, Curve, more) | "All major PMSs" claimed, direct integrations |
| Setup | Self-serve, ~5 minutes | Implementation engineer, phased | Not published in detail | ~1 week, phased onboarding |
| Outbound campaigns | No — inbound only | No (inbound + SMS engagement) | No | Yes — recall/reactivation |
| Emergency handling | Detection + escalation to your emergency line, 911/ER guidance | Custom call flows | Clinical triage awareness advertised | Transfers complex cases to staff |
| Overage model | None — over the minute cap, calls silently forward to your office line | Not published | Not published | Extra credits $0.08–$0.10 each |
Competitor details from their public websites and materials as of July 2026 — verify current terms directly with each vendor.
When is Salva AI the right pick?
Salva is built for the solo practice and small group that wants to switch on an AI receptionist today, know exactly what it costs, and not sit through a demo call to find out. Everything is self-serve: you configure your practice, services, FAQs, and tone in about five minutes, embed the chat widget, and forward your line.
Strengths worth weighing:
- Transparent pricing with no overage math. Plans are on the pricing page. If you use up your monthly voice minutes, calls silently forward to your office line — patients never hear a billing message and you never get a surprise bill.
- Chat books appointments too. The website widget does real Open Dental booking, not just lead capture — same engine as the phone.
- Honest escalation. Emergencies are detected mid-call and routed to your emergency line with 911/ER guidance when no one is reachable; Smart Handoffs let you route topics like billing or clinical questions to a human every time.
- One-click patient callbacks from your inbox that show your practice's own number as caller ID.
And the honest limits: Salva is Open Dental only for real-time booking today (other PMSs are waitlisted — without one, booking requests land in your inbox for staff to schedule), it's inbound only (no outbound recall campaigns), and patient-facing channels are phone + web chat, not SMS.
When is Arini the right pick?
Arini (a Y Combinator company) leans into multi-location groups and DSOs — their onboarding pairs you with an implementation engineer who integrates your PMS and phone stack (they list compatibility with Weave, Mango, GoTo, and others), customizes call flows, and tests before going live. If you run several locations on a mixed phone stack and want a guided rollout, that model has real value. The trade-offs: pricing isn't published — you'll need a sales conversation — and the guided setup takes correspondingly longer than self-serve.
When is Dentina the right pick?
Dentina's pitch is that it was built by a dentist, and its advertised PMS coverage is broad — third-party listings include Open Dental, Dentrix (including Ascend and Enterprise), Eaglesoft, Curve, Denticon, and several ortho systems. If you're on Dentrix or Eaglesoft and want real-time write-back today, Dentina belongs on your shortlist. Their site lists pricing from around $319/month per location billed annually as of this writing.
When is Viva AI the right pick?
Viva covers the widest channel surface: voice, SMS, webchat, and email in one inbox, plus outbound recall and reactivation campaigns — the only vendor here that proactively calls dormant patients. It advertises 100+ languages and SOC 2 Type II certification. The trade-off is the credit-based pricing model: plans from $349 to $1,199/month with per-credit overages ($0.08–$0.10), which makes your effective monthly cost depend on volume — do the math against your call load. Onboarding runs about a week.
What about HIPAA?
Every vendor here addresses HIPAA in its own words — some claim compliance outright, Viva cites SOC 2 Type II. Our view at Salva: there is no official "HIPAA certification," so we describe Salva as HIPAA-aligned — data minimization (no clinical health data collected), AES-256 encryption at rest, TLS in transit, and a BAA available on Pro and Growth plans. Whichever vendor you pick, ask how they handle patient data at rest, whether they train models on your data (Salva doesn't), and get the BAA question answered in writing. More in HIPAA and the BAA, explained.
The bottom line
- Fastest, most transparent start; Open Dental practice: Salva AI — live today, pricing on the site, 14-day trial.
- Multi-location group wanting guided rollout: Arini.
- Dentrix/Eaglesoft practice wanting write-back now: Dentina.
- Omnichannel + outbound recall as priorities: Viva AI.
If you're Open Dental and want to see it work before talking to anyone, start the trial — setup takes about five minutes and the first call is the demo.
Published July 4, 2026