What do Salva AI and Arini have in common?
More than either marketing site admits. Both are built exclusively for dentistry, answer inbound calls around the clock, book appointments into practice management systems in real time, and hand off to humans when a call needs one. Arini is a Y Combinator-backed company serving practices across the US and Canada; Salva is built around the same core promise — never miss a patient call.
If you're choosing between them, you're choosing between two philosophies of how this software should be bought and rolled out.
How is the buying experience different?
Salva publishes its pricing. Basic (chat only) is $79/mo, Pro is $399/mo with 1,000 voice minutes, Growth is $599/mo with 2,000 — current numbers always on the pricing page — with annual discounts and a 14-day free trial on every plan. You can sign up, configure, and take your first AI-answered call without ever talking to a salesperson.
Arini doesn't publish pricing. Getting a number requires a sales conversation, and third-party cost analyses of the category note that all-in costs (setup, integrations, overages) often exceed the base subscription across vendors that price this way. That isn't inherently bad — custom pricing can fit custom deployments — but you can't budget from their website.
How is setup different?
| Salva AI | Arini | |
|---|---|---|
| Model | Self-serve wizard | Implementation engineer |
| Time to live | ~5 minutes of configuration, then forward your line | Phased: PMS/phone integration → customization → testing → live |
| Who does the work | You (point-and-click) | Their team with you |
| Phone setup | Forward your existing line to your provisioned Salva number | Integrates with phone providers (Weave, Mango, GoTo, Jive listed) |
Arini's guided model earns its keep when you have five locations on a Weave phone system and want someone else to own the rollout. Salva's model earns its keep when you're one practice and want the thing working this afternoon — see setting up call forwarding.
What about channels and integrations?
Arini covers phone + SMS, and lists PMS compatibility with OpenDental, Eaglesoft, and Denticon. Text-back is a real advantage for patients who won't answer an unknown ring-back.
Salva covers phone + website chat — and the chat isn't lead capture, it books real Open Dental appointments with the same engine as the voice AI. The honest limit: Salva's real-time booking is Open Dental only today (Dentrix, Eaglesoft, Curve and others are waitlisted; without a connected PMS, booking requests land in your inbox for staff to schedule). If your practice runs Eaglesoft or Denticon and real-time write-back is non-negotiable, Arini covers you today and Salva doesn't yet.
What happens on calls the AI shouldn't handle?
Both products let you route sensitive calls to humans. Salva's version is Smart Handoffs: you pick the topics (billing, clinical questions, complaints, custom ones), and each either live-transfers to your team — with a 20-second no-answer fallback to take-a-message — or goes straight to a message. Emergencies are detected mid-call, always route to your emergency line, and if no human is reachable the AI gives 911/ER guidance rather than leaving a patient hanging. Arini offers custom call flow configuration to similar ends; ask them to walk through their emergency path in the demo.
What does each cost over a year?
Salva Pro runs $4,788/yr monthly or $3,948/yr annual (1,000 voice minutes/mo, no overage charges — over the cap, calls silently forward to your office line). Arini's cost depends on your quote; when you get it, compare like-for-like: setup fees, per-minute or per-call charges past any included volume, and integration surcharges. A number you can't see on a website is a number worth negotiating.
The bottom line
- Solo/small practice, Open Dental, wants to start now: Salva AI. Trial is 14 days; the first real call is your demo.
- Group/DSO, Eaglesoft/Denticon, complex phone stack, wants a guided rollout: Arini is the safer fit today.
- On the fence? Salva's trial costs nothing and takes minutes — run it while you schedule the Arini demo, and compare real calls instead of feature pages.
Published July 4, 2026