Open Dental 2026 Overview: Pricing, Ratings & Details

Open Dental is practice management software developed by former dentist Dr. Jordan Sparks. Frustrated by expensive programs and lack of control, he developed a program for his own practice that gave him functionality, flexibility, and access to data. The result is Open Dental: high quality, affordable software, built by a dentist for dentists.

Open Dental's fees are never hidden and remain low because they believe in making the best dental software accessible to all dentists. Customer feedback drives new feature development and frequent releases mean users quickly have access to new features. In addition to appointment scheduling, patient demographics, charting, treatment planning, account management, claims, and scanned documents, advanced features include a mobile app, patient portal, web forms, integrated text messaging, and online recall scheduling, all designed to make the practice more efficient and save you money.

Open Dental technicians and engineers provide some of the best support in the industry. Unlike many competing software systems, Open Dental source code is licensed under the GNU General Public License. This open-source philosophy allows other developers access to Open Dental's source code so that they can build on what Open Dental started. This benefits the entire dental community by offering a resource that can never be taken away. If you feel stuck with a practice management software you are not happy with, Open Dental can convert almost any database and test conversions are free with no commitment.

Whether you are a small office or a large DSO, a general dentist or a specialist, Open Dental can improve your practice. Dr. Mike Barr, the author of The Dental Warrior® blog, converted from Softdent to Open Dental in June of 2014 and had this to say: ”I'm only two months into my conversion from a very old version of Softdent to Open Dental. Holy cow, I'm glad I did it! It's an incredibly well-crafted program and at a bargain price. Updating my old software to a current version of the big players would have cost me $7,000 - $10,000++. After hearing from so many of my colleagues how great Open Dental is, it was a no-brainer. My friends were right. My office team loves it, too.”

We recommend Open Dental to any dentist looking for an intuitive, easy-to-implement comprehensive dental practice management system; we especially recommend it to tech-savvy dentists who want to build their own custom software/hardware ecosystem. Not sure if Open Dental is the right dental practice management system for you? Call, click, or email to speak with an unbiased Technology Advisor today for a no-cost, no-obligation consultation on your unique needs.