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What the paid side really buys.
Every number here is counted from our own files when this page is built, or linked to where it came from.
The paid channels are not where the dental answer looks first. In the 20 city answers we captured on 15 September 2026, the sources ran: Google profile 90%, another directory or local site 85%, the practice's own site 80%, Yelp 40%, Zocdoc 20%. The Google profile and your own site are free and already yours. The one you rent sits last. Of the 366 dental home pages we read on 11 September 2026, just 7 carried a Zocdoc widget or link we could detect.
Now the bills. We found no public per booking price from Zocdoc, so here is the one figure we could check. On NexHealth's site, Dr. Jason Bastida of Bastida Dental Group says Zocdoc cost the practice $110 per new patient booking, and NexHealth says the practice now saves about $2,000 a month in booking fees. NexHealth sells a rival booking tool and published the story, so treat it as one practice's word, not a survey. On the agency side, three of the 8 dental agencies we looked at on 15 September 2026 print a price, from $59 a month for a basic membership to $4,997 a month at the top of another firm's plans. Your own invoice is the only true figure for your practice.
The plan
Ten money jobs for a dental practice.
One job a week for ten weeks. Each one is about where a new patient comes from and what that patient costs you, and how to tell it worked.
- 01
Add up every marketing dollar the practice sent out last month
Pull the card statement and list each vendor on one page: the booking directory, the SEO retainer, the ads manager, the review tool, the website host. Write the monthly figure beside each one. Add a second column for what each one promised in writing. Most owners have never seen this on a single sheet.
How to check it workedOne sheet shows every dental vendor, a dollar figure and a promise beside each.
- 02
Score each paid channel against what the answer actually cites
Mark each vendor on your sheet with our measured citation share: Google profile 90%, another directory or local site 85%, the practice's own site 80%, Yelp 40%, Zocdoc 20% (20 dental answers, 15 September 2026). Anything not on that list scores zero for AI answers, whatever else it does. A booking widget can still be worth keeping for the front desk, but now you know what it buys in the answer.
How to check it workedEvery line on your vendor sheet carries a citation share, or a zero.
- 03
Spend the first freed hour inside the Google profile itself
The profile is the most cited dental source we measured, so treat it as a product, not a form. Fill the services list with every procedure by name, add your hours and parking, and post an update each week. Add real photos of the office and the team, and never a patient's face without written consent. No vendor can take this with them when the contract ends.
How to check it workedThe profile lists your procedures by name and has a post from this week.
- 04
Renegotiate the booking directory before you cancel it
Call the account manager and ask for the per booking fee in writing, plus your last 12 months of booked patients. Ask what happens to the reviews on their platform if you leave. Then drop to the smallest plan for 90 days instead of quitting cold, because a sudden cancel makes the test hard to read.
How to check it workedYou hold a written fee, a 12 month booking count, and a smaller plan.
- 05
Ask your marketing agency for one piece of its own research
Not a case study and not a dashboard: a study with a date, a sample size and a method. We looked for one on three of the dental agency sites in our dental agency comparison and found none. Ask anyway, and write down the answer. Only one of the 8 showed us a guarantee in writing, so ask for that too.
How to check it workedYou have a dated reply, and either a real study or a written no.
- 06
Turn on call tracking and call new patients back the same day
Only 13% of the 366 dental home pages we read on 11 September 2026 run any call tracking we could detect, and 11% carry a Google Ads conversion tag. A free forwarding number and a paper log will do for 90 days. Log every new patient call, who answered, and how long the call back took.
How to check it workedYou have a dated log of new patient calls and the call back time on each.
- 07
Put the freed money into procedure pages, not a bigger ad account
An ad stops the day you stop paying. A page for implants, aligners or emergency care keeps answering. Write one page a week for the procedures with the best margin in your practice. This is the one step here that builds something you own at the end of 90 days.
How to check it workedYou added at least 6 new procedure pages, each in plain patient words.
- 08
Build the free review habit the directory was charging you for
The front desk asks every patient at checkout, and the practice sends one text the same evening. Ask for a Google review, because that profile is the most cited dental source we measured. Never put a patient's treatment detail in a reply, and never trade a discount for a review. Reviews on a platform you rent do not follow you out of the contract.
How to check it workedNew Google reviews arrive each week with no platform fee attached.
- 09
Count new patients for 90 days and put the two numbers side by side
Pull last year's new patient count for the same three months from your practice software. Count this quarter by hand, by source, on one sheet. 70% of the dental sites we read offer some way to book online, so ask the booking tool for its own count too. Write the comparison down before you decide to keep or cancel anything.
How to check it workedTwo dated new patient counts, same months, one year apart, on one page.
- 10
Ask both engines who they name, and look for your vendors in the answer
Open ChatGPT and Google AI Mode signed out, and ask for the best dentist in your town. Read the answer and its links closely. Check whether the directory or the agency you pay shows up anywhere in it. In our 20 answer study, Zocdoc turned up in 4 and Google Maps in 18.
How to check it workedYou can say which paid vendor showed up in the answer, and which did not.
Our own numbers on this page: 40 US cities asked "best dentist in [city]" in Google AI Mode on 8 September 2026; 366 dental home pages read by machine on 11 September 2026, out of 435 we tried; a separate study of 20 city answers captured on 15 September 2026 that recorded every link the answer pointed at; and 8 dental agencies read on 15 September 2026. Every figure above is counted from those files when this page is built. Anything from outside our own work is named where it is used. Published by KKV Labs LLC.
Get your dental practice recommended by AI in 90 days.
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Check your city
See who AI names in your city today.
Every city in the list was asked the same question in Google AI Mode on 8 September 2026: who is the best dentist here. This shows the practices that answer named back. It is one answer on one day, not a ranking. Not in the list? Ask us to run yours free.
Start typing to jump down the list. 40 US cities are screened so far.
Every one of the 40 cities in the list was asked the same question in Google AI Mode on September 8, 2026: who is the best dentist here. This shows you the dental practices that answer named back. It is one answer on one day, not a ranking.
Pick a city to see the dental practices AI named there, and the date we captured the answer. The three answers you can get are below, with how many of the screened cities gave each one.
What the three answers mean
- GREEN29 of 40Several businesses named, none called the best. The door is open.
- YELLOW8 of 40Several named, but the answer puts one of them ahead.
- RED3 of 40One business only, or nobody named. The hardest kind of market.
Questions
What owners ask before they cancel.
Three questions a practice owner asks about paid patient channels, answered with the figures we could check and nothing else.
How much do dental leads cost from Google Ads?
Is Zocdoc worth it for a dental practice?
What does a dental marketing agency cost?
Read next
The other half of the job.
Free playbook
How to get dental patients from ChatGPT for free
How to get dental patients from ChatGPT for free: a 10 step plan you can do yourself in 90 days, built on 40 city answers and 366 dental sites.
Read itThe data
The KKV Dental AI Visibility Index
Every practice AI named, city by city, with the date each answer was captured and the table as a CSV.
Read itThe questions
What patients ask AI about dentists
The ten questions patients ask before they choose a dentist, and what each one is testing.
Read them
Next step
You can do all of this yourself in 90 days. If you would rather we do it:
Get your dental practice recommended by AI in 90 days.
We run the 10 questions your customers ask ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google AI Mode in your city and show you who gets named today. Then we fix the pages, listings and answers that decide it.
$1,000 a month, 3-month minimum as it takes time to show results. If AI is not naming you by day 90, you get every dollar back.
One business per industry per city. Founder led. Dated proof every 30 days.