What do Salva AI and Dentina have in common?
Both were built for dentistry from day one — Dentina markets itself as "built by a dentist," and its focus shows: it answers every call 24/7, qualifies the caller, answers routine questions (hours, insurance, new-patient info), and books appointment requests into the practice management system in real time. Salva does the same job with the same dental-first framing. Neither is a generic small-business answering bot with a dental skin.
So the choice comes down to three practical questions: which PMS you run, which channels you want patients to use, and how you want to buy.
Which PMS are you on? (This might decide it.)
Dentina advertises broad PMS coverage — third-party listings include Open Dental, Dentrix (Ascend and Enterprise too), Eaglesoft, Curve, Denticon, Cloud9, Dolphin, and OrthoTrac. If you're on Dentrix or Eaglesoft and real-time write-back is the whole point, that breadth matters and Dentina belongs on your shortlist today.
Salva goes deep on Open Dental instead of wide. Real-time availability checks and instant booking run over both phone and the website chat widget — chat booking uses the same engine as the voice AI, so a patient typing on your website at 9pm books a real slot, not a callback request. Other PMSs are on Salva's waitlist; until yours connects, booking requests land in your inbox for staff to schedule (how that works).
Simple rule: Open Dental → Salva. Anything else, write-back required today → Dentina.
How do the channels compare?
Dentina is phone-first (with text handling per third-party listings, plus voicemail transcription). Salva is phone + website chat, and treats the chat widget as a full booking surface, included in every plan — even the $79/mo chat-only Basic plan. If your website traffic is real, an AI that converts visitors into booked appointments without a call is a second front door; if your patients are phone-only, this difference matters less.
How do pricing and setup compare?
| Salva AI | Dentina | |
|---|---|---|
| Published pricing | Yes — $79 / $399 / $599 per month, annual discounts, all on the pricing page | From ~$319/mo per location, billed annually, per their site as of this writing |
| Trial | 14 days, all plans | 30 days advertised |
| Setup | Self-serve wizard, ~5 minutes, no sales call | Contact their team |
| Overages | None — past your voice-minute cap, calls silently forward to your office line | Not published |
Both publish real numbers, which we respect — it's rarer in this category than it should be. Compare the annual math for your case: Salva Pro annual works out to $329/mo with 1,000 voice minutes included.
What about emergencies and human handoff?
Dentina advertises clinical triage awareness — understanding a routine cleaning request from an emergency. Salva's escalation path is explicit and configurable: emergency detection routes to your dedicated emergency line day or night with 911/ER guidance if no one is reachable, and Smart Handoffs let you name any topic — billing, complaints, clinical questions, or your own custom ones — that should always reach a person, by live transfer with a 20-second fallback or straight to a message. Whichever product you evaluate, test the emergency path on a real call before you go live.
What about patient data?
Salva's position: HIPAA-aligned design (there's no official HIPAA certification, so we won't claim one) — no clinical health data collected, AES-256 encryption at rest, TLS in transit, no training of AI models on your data, and a BAA available on Pro and Growth. Details in how Salva protects your data. Ask Dentina the same questions — data at rest, model training, BAA terms — and get the answers in writing.
The bottom line
- Open Dental practice: Salva AI — deepest booking on your PMS, chat that books too, live in minutes on a 14-day trial.
- Dentrix / Eaglesoft / Curve practice needing write-back now: Dentina covers your system today; Salva doesn't yet.
- Either way, both publish pricing — so this is one comparison you can actually run end-to-end without a discovery call. Trial both against the same test calls and keep the one your patients can't tell is software.
Published July 4, 2026