Every figure on this page links to the organization that produced it, and each was re-checked against that source before publishing. How dental practices use video and market themselves, and the evidence behind it: our own read of 340 dental practice homepages; how many dentists and dental offices there are and how fast DSOs are growing; what dental offices spend on advertising, from Census data and SEC filings; how patients find a dentist and use health video; what peer-reviewed studies say about dental videos on YouTube and TikTok and about patient education video; the HIPAA, FTC and Florida rules on reviews and testimonials; and where seven popular dental marketing numbers came from.
In our read of 340 U.S. dental practice homepages on November 1, 2026, 35.0% showed a video player, and most of it was a muted background clip: 21.2% played autoplay background video. (Our measurement)See details
Dental homepages point to Facebook far more than to video platforms: 75.9% linked to Facebook, 15.3% to a YouTube channel and 5.6% to TikTok. (Our measurement)See details
U.S. dental offices spent $2.29 billion on purchased advertising in 2024, 1.3% of revenue (our calculation from Census data); a DSO that filed with the SEC spent 1.0% in 2017. No measured source supports the 4-7% repeated by marketing agencies. (U.S. Census Bureau, Birner Dental 10-K)See details
16.1% of U.S. dentists were affiliated with a DSO in 2024, up from 7.2% in 2015, and 27 percent of those less than 10 years out of school; practice ownership fell to 73% in 2023. (ADA Health Policy Institute)See details
88% of private-practice dentists said in December 2022 that their practice had online reviews, and 39% had been unable to answer one because of HIPAA. (ADA Health Policy Institute)See details
Replying to reviews with patient details has cost dental practices $10,000 (2019), $23,000 (2022) and a $50,000 civil money penalty (2022) in HHS enforcement. (HHS Office for Civil Rights)See details
A 2024 meta-analysis of 173 trials found no support for video information reducing adult dental anxiety, but a braces trial found an animated video saved 8.5 minutes of clinician time with the same recall; no trial we found measured case acceptance. (Journal of Anxiety Disorders, AJO-DO)See details
"77% use reviews first" is a 2016 survey about doctors, not dentists, and "80% are afraid of the dentist" is a 2009 press release; a 2025 JADA survey found 72.6%. (Software Advice, AAE, JADA)See details
How many dental practice websites show video?
About one in three. On November 1, 2026 we opened the homepages of 400 U.S. dental practices drawn at random from OpenStreetMap, the open map database, and 35.0% of the 340 we could read showed a video player (our measurement). The frame was every U.S. dentist mapped in OpenStreetMap with a website, 7,628 distinct practice websites. Of the 400 sampled, 13 asked crawlers to stay away in robots.txt and were not visited, 11 showed a bot wall, 25 failed to load and 11 were no longer dental sites.
Most of that video is decoration, not content. 21.2% of the homepages played a muted background video that starts on its own, the kind a web template ships with. 22.6% carried a video file hosted on the practice's own site, and 15.6% embedded a video from YouTube, Vimeo or a similar host. Only 9.1% embedded a YouTube player, and 15.3% linked to a YouTube channel at all. Of the pages with any video, 52.1% used only self-hosted files.
On the homepage (340 readable U.S. dental practice sites, Nov 1, 2026)
Third-party scheduling tool (NexHealth, Modento, Flex, Zocdoc and others)
25.3%
Dental practices point patients to Facebook far more than to video platforms: three in four homepages link to Facebook, against fewer than one in six to YouTube and about one in twenty to TikTok. A hand check of 30 random sites agreed with the automatic video classification on all 30 (100.0%); the booking and scheduler rules missed a few buttons, so those two shares are slightly low. OpenStreetMap is mapped by volunteers, so this is a random sample of mapped practices that list a website, not of every U.S. practice; 327 of the 340 readable sites belonged to a single office. The per-site results are public in homepages.csv and crawl-summary.json.
How many dentists and dental offices are there in the U.S.?
About 205,000 dentists and about 138,000 dental offices. The ADA Health Policy Institute counted 205,088 professionally active dentists in the United States in 2025, or 60.0 per 100,000 people (ADA Health Policy Institute). The ratio has barely moved in two decades: it was 57.3 in 2001, peaked at 61.1 in 2017 and stood at 59.5 in 2024 (ADA HPI). By state it ran from 40.2 per 100,000 in Arkansas to 103.2 in the District of Columbia in 2024 (ADA HPI). 39.4% of dentists were women in 2025 (ADA HPI), and the average dentist retired at 68.7 in 2024, up from 64.7 in 2001 (ADA HPI).
The Bureau of Labor Statistics counts only dentists on a payroll, so its number is lower. BLS put wage-and-salary jobs for all dentist occupations at 141,610 in May 2025 (BLS OEWS), and total dentist jobs including the self-employed at 161,400 in 2025 (BLS Employment Projections), 12% of them self-employed (BLS). The ADA count is higher again because it includes every professionally active dentist, owners among them.
BLS projects dentist employment to grow 6% from 2025 to 2035, with about 4,800 openings a year (BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook). Hygienists are projected to grow 8% with about 15,000 openings a year (BLS), and dental assistants 7% with about 53,000 (BLS).
On the business side, BLS's Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages counted an annual average of 137,612 private offices of dentists in 2025, up from 129,663 in 2015 (BLS QCEW; BLS QCEW 2015). They employed 1,051,878 people in 2025, against 901,983 in 2015 and 885,825 in the pandemic year 2020 (BLS QCEW), at an average annual pay of $67,443 per job (BLS QCEW). From 2015 to 2025 offices grew 6.1% and jobs 16.6% (our calculation from the QCEW rows).
Most dental offices are small. Census County Business Patterns counted 135,665 offices of dentists with paid employees in 2023 (U.S. Census Bureau): 51,142 had fewer than 5 employees and 48,076 had 5 to 9 (Census CBP; Census CBP), so 73.1% had fewer than 10 (our calculation). Another 29,790 had 10 to 19 (Census CBP). A further 51,359 dental offices had no paid employees at all in 2022 (Census Nonemployer Statistics).
That size matters for marketing. In May 2025, BLS estimated that U.S. dental offices employed 1,054,930 people (BLS OEWS), of whom just 4,590 were market research analysts and marketing specialists (BLS OEWS), 130 were marketing managers (BLS OEWS) and 780 were public relations specialists (BLS OEWS). That is about 4.4 marketing specialists per 1,000 dental office workers (our calculation), against 69,930 receptionists (BLS OEWS). The marketing specialists earned a median $52,020 (BLS OEWS). In practice, the front desk, the dentist or an outside agency runs a dental office's marketing.
How many dentists own their practice, and how many work for a DSO?
Most still own one, but the share is falling and dental service organizations (DSOs) are growing. 73% of U.S. dentists owned a practice in 2023, down from 85% in 2005 (ADA Health Policy Institute). The share of dentists affiliated with a DSO more than doubled, from 7.2% in 2015 to 16.1% in 2024 (ADA HPI). Among dentists less than 10 years out of school it was 27 percent in 2024, up from 24 percent in 2023 (ADA HPI). Only 15 percent of those early-career dentists practiced solo, against 48 percent of dentists at least 25 years out (ADA HPI). Across all dentists, One-third were in solo practice in 2024 (ADA HPI).
Ownership is coming later in careers. Of dentists who graduated in 2016-2020, 21 percent owned a practice 5 to 9 years out of school, against 33 percent of the previous cohort at the same stage (ADA HPI). Female dentists were somewhat more likely than male dentists to be DSO-affiliated in 2024: 17.6% against 14.8% (ADA HPI).
The Census Bureau's 2022 Economic Census shows the same picture from the business side. It counted 121,011 dental firms running 136,650 offices (U.S. Census Bureau). 116,585 firms had a single location and earned $121.7 billion of the industry's $160.3 billion revenue (Census). 4,426 multi-unit firms ran 20,065 offices (Census), or 14.7% of all offices (our calculation). Just 61 firms with 25 or more locations ran 8,428 offices (Census), 6.2% of the total (our calculation). The industry is still unconcentrated: the four largest firms earned 3.9% of revenue and the 50 largest 10.0% (Census; Census). Census counts firms by ownership, so practices that stay legally separate but buy services from a DSO can appear as single-location firms. That is why the ADA's 16.1% affiliation share is higher than the Census share of offices in large chains.
Suppliers' filings describe the same shift. Henry Schein describes customers running from sole practitioners to group practices that can scale to several hundred practices, often owned and run by DSOs (Henry Schein 10-K for 2025). Align Technology sells directly to DSOs and calls them a large and growing opportunity (Align 10-K for 2025). Envista says DSOs have been one of the fastest growing segments of its customer base (Envista 10-K for 2025). For marketing, consolidation means a growing share of practices get their website, video and advertising from a central team rather than the dentist.
How much do dental practices spend on marketing?
About 1.3% of revenue on bought advertising, by the only national measure. The Census Bureau's Annual Integrated Economic Survey reports that U.S. offices of dentists with employees spent $2.29 billion on purchased advertising and promotional services in 2024 (U.S. Census Bureau), against revenue of $171.3 billion (Census) and total operating expenses of $129.2 billion (Census). That makes bought advertising 1.3% of revenue and 1.8% of operating expenses (our calculation). It counts money paid to outside parties only: staff time spent on social media or video sits in payroll, and a DSO's central marketing team may sit in a different industry code.
Two other measured figures land in the same place. Birner Dental Management Services, a DSO that filed its own annual reports until 2018, spent $620,000 on advertising and marketing in 2017, 1.0% of revenue (Birner Dental 10-K). In 2016 it cut television, radio and yellow-pages spending at its established offices and raised internet advertising by $107,000 (Birner Dental 10-K). An older ADA survey, reported by HHS and summarized by Becker's Dental Review in 2014, put advertising at a mean of $11,290 a year, 1.2 percent of gross billings (Becker's Dental Review, citing HHS and ADA data). The survey year is not stated.
The companies that sell to dentists and patients spend far more. Align Technology, maker of Invisalign, spent $188.7 million on advertising in 2025 (Align 10-K), down from a peak of $325.6 million in 2021 (Align 10-K), a fall of 42.0% (our calculation). Its consumer marketing on television, social media and events aims at an estimated 600 million potential patients (Align 10-K for 2025), and its Doctor Locator and Invisalign.com send them to practices (Align 10-K). Direct-to-consumer SmileDirectClub spent 61.7% of revenue on marketing and selling in 2022 (SmileDirectClub 10-K) and 49.2% in 2020 (SmileDirectClub 10-K) before it shut down; it had over 665,000 Facebook likes at the end of 2022 (SmileDirectClub 10-K). Dentsply Sirona's direct-to-consumer Byte aligners were about 2% of its 2025 revenue after it suspended their sale and marketing in October 2024 (Dentsply Sirona 10-K).
A marketing software industry has grown up around practices. Henry Schein's practice-management, patient-engagement and marketing software, including Dentrix, Officite, Demandforce and Lighthouse 360, had about 95,000 active practice users at the end of 2025 (Henry Schein 10-K), and its technology segment was 5.1% of sales (Henry Schein 10-K). Weave Communications, whose customers are mostly dental, optometry and veterinary practices, had nearly 40,000 locations under subscription at the end of 2025 (Weave 10-K) and spent $17.2 million on its own advertising (Weave 10-K).
Dentists themselves do not rank marketing high. In the ADA's survey of practice owners for 2026, only 6.0% of those who wrote in another big priority named marketing (ADA HPI). But demand has softened: in the third quarter of 2026, Two out of five dentists said they were not busy enough and could treat more patients, up from a quarter in the second quarter (ADA HPI), and new patients waited an average of 12 days for a first appointment, down from 14.3 days two years earlier (ADA HPI).
How do patients find and choose a dentist online?
Mostly through reviews and recommendations, according to the few dental-specific surveys. In Dentaly's online survey of 1,099 Americans in October 2023, 83% said they use online reviews to evaluate a dentist (Dentaly), 52% would only consider a dentist with at least 10 reviews (Dentaly) and 63% use social media to vet a dentist (Dentaly). 42% said they trust dentists who promote themselves on TikTok less (Dentaly). Quality of treatment came first as a reason to choose, at 90%, ahead of cost and location (Dentaly). Dentaly is an ad-funded consumer dental site and did not publish its panel or weighting.
Dentists confirm that reviews are everywhere. In an ADA Health Policy Institute panel of private-practice dentists in December 2022, 88% said their practice had received online reviews (ADA HPI); of those, 52% had ever replied to one (ADA HPI), and 39% had at some point been unable to reply because of HIPAA (ADA HPI). In an online experiment with 410 U.S. adults, prospective patients rated a practice more favorably when the dentist, not a staff member, answered its reviews (Health Communication). In 3,802 Yelp reviews of U.S. oral surgeons, reviews about staff, billing or waiting were 2.6 times as likely as clinical ones to be one-star (Oral Surgery, Oral Medicine, Oral Pathology and Oral Radiology).
Personal recommendation still matters. In a study published in 2020, among 89 German parents bringing a child to a pediatric dentist, 86.5% had been referred by friends and acquaintances, while internet portals mattered to 19% (European Journal of Paediatric Dentistry). In a 2023 survey of 478 dental patients in Saudi Arabia, 48.3% had visited a dentist's Instagram account (Acta Informatica Medica). Neither is a U.S. sample.
Health video is now mainstream. In the National Cancer Institute's HINTS survey, 59% of U.S. adults had watched a health-related video on YouTube in the past 12 months in 2022 (National Cancer Institute), and 59.6% had watched health videos on social media, nearly double the 2017 share (Journal of Medical Internet Research). In 2018, about 35% had watched a health video on YouTube (JMIR). In KFF's July 2025 poll of 1,283 adults, 55% said they use social media for health information at least occasionally (KFF), and 47% of YouTube users aged 18 to 29 said most or some of the health information they see there is trustworthy (KFF). Pew found in October 2025 that 85% of adults get health information from health care providers at least sometimes (Pew Research Center) and 36% from social media (Pew). None of these surveys asks about dentistry separately.
What do dental videos on YouTube and TikTok look like?
Mostly made by patients and lay creators, and often low in quality, according to peer-reviewed content studies. In a 2020 study of the first 100 relevant YouTube results for "Invisalign", 73% were uploaded by laypeople (The Angle Orthodontist). Of 546 orthodontic YouTube videos screened in 2018-2019, 45.8% were patients reviewing their own treatment, against 18.3% education and 6.6% advertisements (The Angle Orthodontist). Of the 100 most-viewed English-language toothbrushing videos, 78% came from independent media outlets and only 24% matched professional advice on brushing time (Journal of Dental Hygiene).
Views and quality do not line up. In a 2022 study, 117 TikTok videos about clear aligners had over 300 million views between them (International Orthodontics), but scored a mean 2.48/5 on the Global Quality Score (International Orthodontics). In a 2020 review, 74 YouTube videos on dental implants averaged 0.324 on a 0-2 usefulness scale (Journal of Stomatology, Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery). In a 2022 study of 61 YouTube videos on early orthodontic treatment, 59% had low information content, and videos uploaded by doctors scored higher (American Journal of Orthodontics and Dentofacial Orthopedics). In a 2024 study of 50 YouTube videos on gum grafts, 27 were low quality, and the most-watched tended to be the weakest (Journal of the American Dental Association). On TikTok, 148 dental implant videos met the criteria of a 2022 study, and educational videos scored more reliable than testimonials, product ads and entertainment (Journal of Stomatology, Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery). The pattern across these studies is consistent: video made by clinicians is rarer and better.
Does patient education video work?
For anxiety in children and for saving chair time, there is trial evidence; for adult anxiety and case acceptance, there is not. In a 2017 double-blind trial in Saudi Arabia of 48 children aged 6 to 10 having fissure sealants, those shown a modelling video had significantly lower dental anxiety than a control group (European Journal of Paediatric Dentistry). A 2023 systematic review of Forty trials on behavior guidance for children found modelling and audiovisual distraction among the techniques with large anxiety reductions on some scales (Pediatric Dentistry).
For adults the results are mixed. In a 2022 Spanish trial of 120 oral biopsy patients, the video group ended with lower dental anxiety than the group given verbal information (International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health). In a 2025 Turkish trial of 60 root canal patients, a video lowered anxiety, but no more than verbal information did (Journal of Oral Rehabilitation). In a 2018 study of 100 U.S. patients shown a wisdom tooth consent video, Thirty-one percent said it made them more anxious, 12% less (Journal of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery). A 2024 meta-analysis of 173 trials on adult dental anxiety found the evidence does not support video information for reducing anxiety during treatment (Journal of Anxiety Disorders).
Video does save clinician time. In a 2021 trial in Jordan of 64 adolescents aged 12 to 18 starting braces, a 3D animated video produced the same recall as a verbal explanation plus a leaflet while saving 8.5 minutes of clinician time (American Journal of Orthodontics and Dentofacial Orthopedics). For hygiene, a 2022 six-week trial in Pakistan of 96 adult orthodontic patients found no difference between video, disclosing tablets and verbal instruction (International Orthodontics), while a 2024 six-month trial among 90 adolescents in India found plaque scores fell to 0.4 with a cartoon video against 0.9 with a pamphlet (Special Care in Dentistry). In a Singapore study of 2020-2021, 88% of 50 patients shown a video decision aid felt confident in their treatment decision (International Endodontic Journal). None of these trials measured case acceptance.
What do the rules say about dental videos, testimonials and reviews?
Three sets of rules apply to a dental practice's video and social posts in the U.S.: HIPAA for patient information, the FTC's rules on reviews and testimonials, and the state dental board's advertising rules, with the ADA's ethics code on top for members.
HIPAA and online replies. Answering a review with patient details has cost dental practices real money. Elite Dental Associates in Dallas paid the HHS Office for Civil Rights $10,000 in October 2019 after disclosing patient information in replies to Yelp reviews (HHS OCR), from a complaint filed on June 5, 2016 (HHS OCR), plus two years of monitoring (HHS OCR). New Vision Dental in California paid $23,000 in December 2022 for the same thing (HHS OCR), five years after the complaint in November 2017 (HHS OCR), with two years of monitoring (HHS OCR). A North Carolina practice that answered a review on a webpage drew a $50,000 civil money penalty in March 2022 (HHS OCR). Northcutt Dental-Fairhope in Alabama paid $62,500 in 2022 for giving patient information to a political campaign manager and a marketing company (HHS OCR), and a solo Pennsylvania practice, Shen Smiles, agreed to pay $140,000 in a resolution OCR listed in August 2026 (HHS OCR).
HHS OCR HIPAA right-of-access cases against dental practices
The three dental settlements of September 2022 took OCR's right-of-access total to 41 cases (HHS OCR), and the Gums Dental Care penalty in October 2024 was its 50th (HHS OCR). The rule is that patients get their records within 30 days, with one possible 30-day extension (HHS OCR).
FTC reviews and testimonials. The FTC's rule on consumer reviews and testimonials took effect on October 21, 2024 and covers dental practices like any business (Federal Register). Knowing violations can draw civil penalties of up to $53,088 per violation as of November 2026 (eCFR, 16 CFR 1.98), up from $51,744 when the rule was adopted (Federal Register). It bans rewards conditioned on the sentiment of a review (section 465.4) (eCFR), undisclosed reviews and testimonials by owners and staff (section 465.5) (eCFR) and review suppression by threats or intimidation (section 465.7) (eCFR). The FTC's Endorsement Guides, revised on July 26, 2023 (eCFR), say a testimonial is read as typical, so an ad showing an unusual result should disclose the generally expected performance (eCFR), and an ad that says it shows actual patients should use them in both the audio and video (eCFR). The Consumer Review Fairness Act voids form-contract clauses that gag reviews, for contracts made from 90 days after its December 2016 enactment (U.S. Code via GovInfo).
Florida's dental advertising law, as an example of a state rule. Section 466.019 of the Florida Statutes counts websites and social media as advertising (Florida Legislature). It bars laudatory statements and ads likely to create false, unjustified expectations of favorable results (Florida Legislature), which is the line testimonial and before-and-after videos must stay behind. Fee ads need a minimum fee only disclaimer (Florida Legislature); a 2024 amendment, chapter 2024-214, requires a disclaimer on telehealth dental ads (Florida Legislature); and section 456.062 requires ads for free or discounted services to state, in capitals, the patient's right to refuse payment for other services within 72 hours (Florida Legislature). The Board of Dentistry's advertising rule 64B5-4.002 was last amended effective 9/24/2026 (Florida Department of State), lets a buyer use a previous owner's name for up to 2 years (Florida Administrative Code) and keeps in-person and phone solicitation prohibited (Florida Administrative Code).
The ADA code. The ADA's Principles of Ethics and Code of Professional Conduct, with advisory opinions revised to October 2025 (American Dental Association), bars false or misleading advertising under section 5.F, now naming social media (ADA). It carries seven advisory opinions under 5.F, the newest being 5.F.7 on social media, and none deals specifically with testimonials or before-and-after photos (ADA). Under opinion 5.F.7, influencers and endorsers must disclose paid partnerships (ADA), and opinion 4.E.1 treats paying a marketer or influencer a share of patient fees as fee splitting (ADA). The ADA lets a practice use a departed dentist's name for one year (ADA), half Florida's limit.
How many people see a dentist, and how much does the U.S. spend on dental care?
About two-thirds of adults have a dental check-up in a year, and the U.S. spent $189.2 billion on dental services in 2024. In the CDC's National Health Interview Survey, 66.7% of adults had a dental exam or cleaning in the past 12 months in 2025 (National Center for Health Statistics), after 65.5% in 2023 (NCHS) and 64.1% in 2022 (NCHS). In 2019, 86.9% of children aged 2 to 17 had a dental visit (NCHS). A different survey counts actual visits: by the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey, 47% of the whole population visited a dentist in 2024 (ADA HPI), 53% of children and 41% of adults aged 19 to 64 (ADA HPI). The surveys differ in question and population, so the two shares are not comparable.
Insurance shapes who comes in. 58% of people with private dental insurance visited a dentist in 2024, against 33% with public coverage and 31% with none (ADA HPI), and 24% of the population had no dental coverage (ADA HPI). In 2025, dental care had the highest level of cost barriers of any kind of U.S. health care, ahead of medical care, mental health and prescriptions (ADA HPI analysis of NHIS).
CMS put U.S. spending on dental services at $189.2 billion in 2024, up 6.6 percent (Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services), with out-of-pocket payments and private insurance together paying 80 percent (CMS). That was 3.6% of all U.S. health spending (ADA HPI), and growth after inflation was 4% (ADA HPI). Consumer spending on dental care was down 2.4% in 2026 through August (ADA HPI). On Census figures, offices of dentists with employees took in $160.3 billion in 2022 (2022 Economic Census) and $171.3 billion in 2024; revenue fell from $139.3 billion in 2019 to $127.2 billion in 2020 (Census) before recovering.
The ADA itself publishes two different figures for the economic impact of dental offices: $478 billion a year on one page (ADA HPI) and $487 billion on another (ADA), both with 2.5 million jobs. We list both because the ADA has not said which is current.
What the popular dental marketing numbers really say
Dental marketing agencies, review platforms and video producers repeat a small set of numbers. We traced each to the organization that produced it. Pages that repeat a claim are linked only as dated evidence of how it spread, never as a source for the number.
"77% of patients use online reviews as the first step to find a dentist"
It is a 2016 figure about doctors, not dentists. A 2026 dental marketing page still repeats 77% as a dental statistic (Click Vision). The origin is Software Advice's 2016 survey, which found 77 percent of patients use online reviews as the first step in finding a new doctor (Software Advice), among 1,438 U.S. patients (Software Advice). Its 2020 edition put the share at 71% (Software Advice), from 498 respondents (Software Advice); Software Advice is part of Gartner Digital Markets and earns referral fees from software vendors. Use instead: Dentaly's October 2023 survey of 1,099 Americans (Dentaly), the only dentist-specific version we found, in which 83% use online reviews to evaluate a dentist (Dentaly).
"88% trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations"
It is BrightLocal's 2014 figure for local businesses of every kind, and BrightLocal's own number has since roughly halved. A dental agency blog still cites 88% (DentalMarketing.com), and Birdeye's dental blog says over 72% with no source (Birdeye). BrightLocal measured 85% in 2017 (BrightLocal), from 1,031 U.S. consumers (BrightLocal). After it changed the question in its survey fielded in November 2021, the share was 49% (BrightLocal), then 46% in January 2023 (BrightLocal) and 49% in its 2026 survey of 1,002 U.S. adults (BrightLocal). BrightLocal sells local marketing software and publishes no dental breakdown. The best-known dental-specific figure, that 43.3% of people would choose the dentist with the best reviews, comes from a 2019 survey of 1,500 Americans commissioned by IronMonk, a marketing agency, and asked a hypothetical question (IronMonk via MarTech Series).
"Patient education videos raise case acceptance by 35%"
We found no study that measured it. A 2025 dental agency press release says practices that add authentic video see up to a 35% increase in case acceptance "according to HubSpot" (EIN Presswire); HubSpot has published no dental case acceptance study we could find. A 2026 dental video page says video marketing brings 40% more website conversions, with no source (Webtonic). The nearest thing to an origin is a vendor test: Spear Education, which sells patient education videos, reported in 2019 that 91 percent of 400 patients shown its cracked-tooth video said they would go ahead with treatment (Spear Education). That is stated intent, with no control group. None of the trials in the patient education section above measured case acceptance.
"Dental practices spend 4-7% (or 2-5%, or 15%) of revenue on marketing"
These are rules of thumb, not measurements. One 2026 dental marketing page gives 4-7% and, further down, 2-4% (Click Vision). A 2015 Dental Economics column by the head of a direct-mail company recommended 15%, citing general small-business sources (Dental Economics), and a dental website vendor anchors its budget advice in a 11.8% figure for 2022 from a survey of large-company chief marketing officers (DoctorLogic). The measured figures are all much lower: purchased advertising was 1.3% of dental office revenue in 2024 on Census data (our calculation), Birner Dental spent 1.0% in 2017, and an older ADA survey found 1.2 percent. The Census figure excludes staff time and DSO head-office marketing, so total marketing effort is higher than 1.3%, but no measured source supports 4-7% as typical.
"80% of Americans are afraid of the dentist"
It comes from a 2009 press release with no method. A dental practice blog still says about 80 percent, citing the American Association of Endodontists (Rodeo Dental). The AAE's March 2009 release promoting Root Canal Awareness Week said fear of the dentist affects more than 80 percent of adults, with no sample size or survey described (American Association of Endodontists). Use instead: a census-matched survey of 1,003 U.S. adults published in the Journal of the American Dental Association in September 2025 found 72.6% afraid of going to the dentist (JADA via ADA News), 26.8% severely (JADA via ADA News).
"One more star brings 9% more patients"
It is a restaurant study. Birdeye's dental blog says a one-star rise in rating can increase patient visits by 9% (Birdeye). The finding comes from Michael Luca's 2011 Harvard Business School working paper, which found a one-star rise on Yelp brought a 5-9 percent rise in revenue for independent restaurants in Seattle (Harvard Business School). It did not study dentists or patients.
"A minute of video is worth 1.8 million words" and "viewers retain 95%"
Neither is a measurement, and our other research pages have traced both. A dental trade site still credits Forrester with finding a minute of video worth 1.8 million words (Dental Compare); it was an analyst's arithmetic (1,000 words times 30 frames a second times 60 seconds). The same article says people keep 65 percent of information when visuals are added (Dental Compare), the picture memory figure popularized by John Medina's book Brain Rules, about pictures, not video. A dental video page says viewers retain 95% of a message in video against 10% in text (Cine Salon), a claim credited to marketing agencies with no study behind it.
We started from the questions people search for about dental video statistics and looked for the organization that actually produced each answer. Every figure on this page sits in an evidence ledger with its source, the exact table or paragraph it came from, the measurement period, the population measured, and the date we checked it. This edition holds 237 figures from 55 publishers.
On November 1, 2026, each sourced figure on this page was re-fetched with the fetch cache cleared and matched against the recorded wording: BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (through the BLS data API), the Occupational Outlook Handbook (through Internet Archive copies, because bls.gov refuses automated requests) and the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages open data; Census County Business Patterns, the 2022 Economic Census, Nonemployer Statistics and the Annual Integrated Economic Survey (through the Census data API); the ADA Health Policy Institute's own reports and panel results; CMS, NCHS and the National Cancer Institute; the 10-K filings of Align Technology, Henry Schein, Envista, Dentsply Sirona, SmileDirectClub, Patterson, Weave and Birner Dental on EDGAR; HHS Office for Civil Rights announcements (through Internet Archive copies); the eCFR, the Federal Register and the U.S. Code; Florida's statutes and Board of Dentistry rule; the ADA Code of Ethics; KFF, Pew Research Center, Software Advice, BrightLocal and Dentaly survey releases; peer-reviewed studies through PubMed; and the pages behind each popular claim. The homepage figures are our own measurement: 400 dental practice websites sampled at random from OpenStreetMap and opened in a headless browser on November 1, 2026. We left out AHRQ's 2015 spending figures as too old, ADA spreadsheets the checker cannot read, ADA survey results we found only second-hand, and paid market-size reports.
We only cite the producer: government agencies, regulators, company filings and official posts, and the survey owner's own report. We do not cite statistics roundups, Statista-style aggregators, or salary sites without a public method. We did not bypass paywalls or sign-up forms; where a full report was gated, we used only the figures its publisher states publicly.
Figures marked "our calculation" are arithmetic on the cited numbers, and anyone can reproduce them:
8496 Overpass elements -> 8492 with a usable URL -> minus 13 on directory/social hosts {'facebook.com': 9, 'healthgrades.com': 2, 'yelp.com': 1, 'webmd.com': 1} -> one row per registrable host = 7628
119 / 340 readable homepages with video_player = true in homepages.csv; rule: video player: a <video> element or player iframe/placeholder (YouTube, Vimeo, Wistia, Vidyard, Brightcove, Loom, Facebook video ...) at least 150x80 px, or a labelled click-to-play control or hidden player embed
77 / 340 readable homepages with video_self_hosted = true in homepages.csv; rule: video player that is a native <video> element (file served by the site or its site builder/CDN, incl. background videos)
53 / 340 readable homepages with video_embedded = true in homepages.csv; rule: video player from a third-party host (YouTube, Vimeo, Wistia, Facebook, TikTok ...)
52 / 340 readable homepages with youtube_channel_link = true in homepages.csv; rule: link to a YouTube channel or handle (not a single video; template placeholders excluded)
147 / 340 readable homepages with instagram_link = true in homepages.csv; rule: link to an Instagram profile (template placeholders such as instagram.com/wix excluded)
277 / 340 readable homepages with online_booking_or_request = true in homepages.csv; rule: online booking or appointment request: a link/button labelled book/schedule (online, now, today, [a/your] [word] appointment/visit/consultation/exam), request (an) appointment, appointment request, make an appointment or online scheduling/booking (not "call to schedule", not emergency-appointment info, not mailto/tel), or an appointment URL path (book-online, request-appointment, schedule-appointment ...), or a third-party booking tool
86 / 340 readable homepages with online_booking_tool = true in homepages.csv; rule: third-party online booking/scheduling tool: a link, button or iframe to a scheduling vendor (NexHealth, LocalMed, Zocdoc, Flex/flexbook.me, Modento, Weave, Dentrix Ascend, Lighthouse 360, Solutionreach, CareStack, Simplifeye, Adit, Jarvis, Axle, PatientsReach, Doctible ...), a widget request to a widget-only vendor (e.g. NexHealth, Zocdoc), or a booking-labelled link to any other third-party host
This edition contains no Mark Studios customer data.
Limitations
Nobody counts dental video directly. Statistics agencies count dentists, offices, revenue and advertising spend, not what practices publish. Our homepage read covers practices mapped in OpenStreetMap with a website, a volunteer-built list that is not a random sample of all U.S. practices.
Many sources sell into the market. Align, Henry Schein, Weave, Software Advice, BrightLocal, Spear Education and the dental marketing agencies quoted in the myths section all sell to dentists or patients. Dentaly is an ad-funded consumer site.
Patient surveys are few and small. The only dentist-specific choice survey we found has 1,099 respondents and no published weighting; the national health surveys do not ask about dentistry separately.
Advertising spend leaves things out. Census counts purchased advertising only, not staff time spent on social media or video, and a DSO's head-office marketing can sit outside the dental-office industry code.
Studies of online dental video are snapshots. Each content study looked at a set of videos at one time, often outside the U.S., and platform results change.
How to cite this page
For a single figure, cite the original publisher named next to it, and link here if the verification trail is useful to your readers. Each figure has its own anchor, so you can link straight to it, for example https://www.markstudios.com/research/dental-video-statistics#DRV-003. To cite the page as a whole:
Mark Studios. "Dental Video Statistics." Last verified Nov 1, 2026. https://www.markstudios.com/research/dental-video-statistics
APA
Mark Studios. (2026, November 1). Dental video statistics. https://www.markstudios.com/research/dental-video-statistics
MLA
“Dental Video Statistics.” Mark Studios, 1 Nov. 2026, www.markstudios.com/research/dental-video-statistics.
Chicago
Mark Studios. “Dental Video Statistics.” Last modified November 1, 2026. https://www.markstudios.com/research/dental-video-statistics.
BibTeX
@misc{markstudios_dental_video_statistics_2026,
author = {{Mark Studios}},
title = {{Dental Video Statistics}},
year = {2026},
month = nov,
url = {https://www.markstudios.com/research/dental-video-statistics},
note = {Last verified 2026-11-01}
}
Our calculations and the evidence table are free to reuse with attribution and a link to this page. Each underlying figure remains the claim of its original publisher, and some publishers ask for a link when their figures are reused.
Software Advice (Gartner Digital Markets; sells software-comparison services to medical and dental practices), How Patients Use Online Reviews (2016) (2016). Accessed 2026-11-01.
Birdeye (sells review-management software to dental practices; repeater), Marketing strategy for dental clinic (Not stated). Accessed 2026-11-01.
BrightLocal (sells local SEO and review-management software, including to dental practices), Local Consumer Review Survey 2017 (2017-12-02). Accessed 2026-11-01.
American Association of Endodontists (via PR Newswire, reprinted on Dentaltown), Getting to the Root of Dental Phobia (2009-03-30). Accessed 2026-11-01.
We re-verify every figure quarterly and when a major source publishes a new edition. The next scheduled review is February 2027. Corrections go to contact@markstudios.com.
Nov 1, 2026: First published with 237 figures from 55 publishers, each checked against its original source.
Frequently asked questions
How many dental practices use video on their website?
About one in three. In our read of 340 U.S. dental practice homepages on November 1, 2026, 35.0% showed a video player, but 21.2% played a muted background clip and only 9.1% embedded a YouTube player.
How much do dentists spend on marketing?
U.S. offices of dentists spent $2.29 billion on purchased advertising and promotion in 2024, 1.3% of their revenue (our calculation from the Census Bureau's Annual Integrated Economic Survey). That excludes staff time and DSO head-office marketing.
How many dentists work for a DSO?
16.1% of U.S. dentists were affiliated with a dental service organization in 2024, up from 7.2% in 2015, per the ADA Health Policy Institute. Among dentists less than 10 years out of school the share was 27 percent.
How many dentists and dental offices are there in the U.S.?
The ADA counted 205,088 professionally active dentists in 2025, and BLS counted 137,612 private offices of dentists in 2025.
Do patients choose a dentist from online reviews?
Reviews matter: in Dentaly's October 2023 survey of 1,099 Americans, 83% said they use online reviews to evaluate a dentist. The often-quoted 77% is Software Advice's 2016 survey about finding a doctor, not a dentist.
Do patient education videos increase case acceptance?
We found no study that measured it. The repeated "up to 35%" figure is attributed to HubSpot, which has published no such dental study; trials of dental video measure anxiety, recall and hygiene instead.
Can a dentist reply to online reviews?
Yes, but not with patient details. HHS settled with Elite Dental Associates for $10,000 in 2019 and New Vision Dental for $23,000 in 2022 over replies to online reviews that disclosed patient information.
What share of Americans are afraid of the dentist?
A census-matched survey of 1,003 U.S. adults in JADA (September 2025) found 72.6% afraid of going to the dentist and 26.8% severely. The repeated 80% comes from a 2009 press release with no survey method.
