What does the AI actually cost?

Four Bench Tests in, I owe you the pricing story.

The problem is still there. Pearl directs you to a quote. Overjet puts pricing into the demo conversation. Videa invites you to book a demo. Those pages give us somewhere to start a conversation. They do not give us a comparable price list. Pearl · Overjet · Videa

I do not have a set of verified practice invoices from which to publish a credible market range. That part is still owed. But we can make the next quote much easier to read.

Imagine the rep says $450 a month.

Your first question is what that buys. One location? One doctor? Every operatory? The imaging product, the voice product, or both? Does the connection to your existing software come with it?

Until those questions are answered, you have a number attached to an incomplete description.

I would ask the rep for a written total covering the exact products and locations being discussed. Alongside the subscription, show implementation, hardware, integration, required add-ons, usage charges and training. Mark what is optional. State when billing starts.

Then add your own cost of getting the team ready. If four people spend three hours each learning the system, twelve staff-hours belong somewhere in the decision. Some of that may be an additional cash expense; some may displace other useful work. Keep those two costs separate.

Here is a worked example. Every number below is hypothetical. Neither column represents a vendor quote. Assume the two offers cover the same scope and both implementations use the same hardware and staff time.

The difference is $900 in the first year. Looking only at the subscriptions would have suggested $1,800.

Taxes, financing, usage charges and other costs are excluded from this illustration. In a real comparison, add whichever apply. Use the same number of delivered chair-hours for both offers, across the same locations. An office with several chairs must count the hours delivered across those chairs, rather than quietly switching to the doctor's working hours.

That last line helps you compare costs. It does not tell you whether either purchase works.

After last week's Voice issue, this is the question I keep coming back to: where did the time go?

If the team finishes its notes sooner but everyone works the same paid hours, the wage bill has not fallen. People may get a proper lunch, leave on time, or spend longer explaining something to a patient. Those are real benefits. Record them accurately.

A financial return needs an observable change: less overtime, an expense you can actually stop paying, or additional appropriate care delivered and collected after the costs of providing it. Time needed to review and correct the output belongs in that calculation.

For another hypothetical example, $7,200 of annual cost requires $600 a month of additional contribution to break even. If an appropriate completed visit contributes $150 after its variable costs, the arithmetic is four additional visits a month. That assumes the practice can schedule them, deliver them, collect for them, and reasonably attribute the change to the system. It is not a reason to recommend four extra treatments.

Ask what happens when the initial term ends. What renews, at what price, and on what date? How much notice is required to leave? What happens if you add a doctor, close a location, change software, or sell the practice?

Have the agreement answer those questions. Include the practical cost of leaving: exporting the records and outputs you need, paying any applicable charges, and doing the work of moving. These are questions to resolve for the particular offer, not claims that every vendor imposes the same terms.

Choose the one tool you are most likely to buy or renew. Put its written first-year total beside the problem you expect it to solve. Assign someone to measure that problem before the pilot begins, including the time spent correcting the software.

At the end of the pilot, that person should be able to tell you what changed, what it cost, and whether the team wants to keep using it.

If you already pay for one of these systems, reply with the product, monthly charge, billing unit and required extras. Leave out patient information and account credentials. A typed summary is enough; there is no need to send an unredacted contract. With enough comparable, verifiable examples, we can put real ranges beside this arithmetic.

— Thad

Related: The Dental AI Product Guide · OVN Nexus for dentists

Source note: The vendor pages linked above were checked September 27, 2026. The calculations are illustrations, not observed prices or measured returns. This issue returns to the pricing question; it does not claim to complete the promised invoice-based market survey.