What does a dental receptionist actually cost?
Start with wages: the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics puts the median receptionist wage at $17.90/hour as of May 2024 — about $37,000/year for full-time — with the top ten percent above $23/hour. Dental front-desk roles, which carry insurance, billing, and PMS responsibilities well beyond general reception, commonly pay above that all-industry median, and you're not done at wages: add payroll taxes, benefits, PTO coverage, training time, and turnover costs (front-desk turnover is a perennial practice-management complaint). Your all-in cost for a good full-time front desk is comfortably above the sticker salary.
And worth every penny — which is the part cost comparisons in this category tend to skip.
What does an AI receptionist cost?
Flat monthly software pricing, with the range across vendors in 2026 roughly:
| Vendor | Published price | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Salva AI | $79/mo (chat only) · $399/mo Pro · $599/mo Growth | 1,000–2,000 voice minutes included; no overage charges — past the cap, calls forward to your office line. Current pricing always on the pricing page. |
| Dentina | From ~$319/mo per location (annual) | Per their site as of this writing |
| Viva AI | $349–$1,199/mo | Credit-based; extra credits $0.08–$0.10 |
| Arini | Not published | Sales conversation required |
Competitor figures from their public materials as of July 2026 — verify directly. Category-wide, watch for setup fees, per-minute overages, and integration surcharges, which third-party cost analyses note can push all-in costs above the base price at some vendors.
So is an AI receptionist cheaper than hiring?
On raw dollars, obviously — a few hundred a month versus tens of thousands a year. But that arithmetic answers a question nobody should be asking, because an AI receptionist doesn't do your receptionist's job. It can't greet the patient walking in, verify insurance line by line, handle the delicate financial conversation, or run your recall list with human judgment. Any vendor pitching "replace your front desk and pocket the salary" is selling you a staffing crisis.
Here's the comparison that actually holds up:
- Your receptionist's job: everything that happens at the desk, plus the phone while they're free to answer it.
- The AI's job: the phone when nobody's free to answer it — after hours, weekends, lunch, sick days, and the mid-morning rush when three things are happening at once.
Those calls today are handled by nobody, at a cost of zero dollars and an unknown number of lost patients. That's the line item the AI replaces.
What's the break-even math?
Do it with your own numbers, qualitatively: one new-patient exam that books because the 9pm call was answered — instead of ringing out — typically covers a month of AI service at any vendor's published price, before counting the lifetime value of a retained patient. Count your after-hours and rolled-to-voicemail calls for one week (your phone system logs both); if even a fraction are bookable new patients, the math resolves quickly. If your log shows two calls a month, it may not — we'd rather you check than take our word for it.
Can they work together?
That's the actual model. Front desk owns the desk and the daytime line; AI owns overflow and off-hours; Smart Handoffs route the calls that need a human straight to one, and everything the AI handles lands in the inbox for your team each morning — messages, bookings made, emergencies flagged. Your receptionist stops walking in to a voicemail backlog and starts walking in to a triaged list. If you want to see what that looks like on your own line, the trial takes minutes to set up.
Published July 4, 2026