State of Dental Google Presence 2026
We studied 2,318 US dental practices on Google across 20 metros, and classified about 3,000 of their patients' reviews by theme. Patients praise the care. Where they push back is the treatment-plan conversation, and the Google profiles themselves are strong but quiet.
- Average rating 4.79★; a typical practice has 319.5 reviews, and 30.9% have 500 or more.
- Staff and bedside manner is 61% of what patients write about, 97.5% positive.
- Upselling is the one theme where complaints dominate: about 74% negative (46 mentions).
- Only 25.5% open on a weekend day; owners reply to about 49% of reviews.
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“They were able to get all my ideas and work with me over a period of three to four months and create this amazing website. It's super customized, very modern, and it incorporates all the elements that I had wanted — the patient portal, nice pictures, a very interactive website, patient reviews. I would highly recommend their company to anyone who wants to make an excellent website.”
US dental practices on Google, in six numbers
What dental patients write about, and how they feel
Short answer: the people. 61% of what patients write about is the staff and how they were treated, and it's 97.5% positive. The only theme where criticism dominates is upselling.
2,992 theme mentions from up to 50 recent reviews each in a 120-practice review subsample, classified with Google Gemini. Themes with fewer than about 150 mentions are signals, not precise rates.
The treatment-plan conversation is where trust is won or lost
Short answer: patients praise the care, but when a visit turns into a sales conversation they say so. Upselling mentions are 73.9% negative; price and value 42.5%.
The negative upselling reviews follow a recognisable pattern: a routine cleaning or first visit that turns into a long list of recommended work, a large treatment plan the patient didn't expect, pressure to add products, or charges that differ from what the patient understood their insurance would cover. Some end with advice to other readers to get a second opinion. Read more in the upselling mismatch.
Dental has the deepest review profiles we've studied
Short answer: a typical practice has 319.5 reviews, and nearly a third have 500 or more. Ratings are high everywhere, so depth and recency set practices apart.
New reviews arrive at a median of about 5.17 a month, and owners reply to 49% of reviews on average; half of practices reply to fewer than half of their reviews. See how many reviews a dentist needs and replying to reviews.
Only 1 in 4 practices opens at weekends
Short answer: 25.5% of US dental practices list a weekend day, from 10% in Nashville to 48.8% in New York. The basics are otherwise done: 97.2% list a website, 99.6% a phone number and 98.4% their hours.
Dental benchmarks for 20 US cities
Short answer: typical review counts range from 219 in Seattle to 441 in New York. See the city rankings.
| Metro | Studied | Avg rating | Typical reviews | Under 50 reviews | 500+ reviews | Open a weekend day |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Atlanta | 119 | 4.75★ | 357 | 13.4% | 37% | 10.1% |
| Austin | 112 | 4.84★ | 378 | 2.7% | 35.7% | 13.4% |
| Boston | 120 | 4.74★ | 231.5 | 16.7% | 18.3% | 32.5% |
| Chicago | 123 | 4.77★ | 356 | 8.9% | 37.4% | 42.3% |
| Dallas | 129 | 4.83★ | 316 | 3.1% | 33.3% | 27.9% |
| Denver | 120 | 4.78★ | 351.5 | 5.8% | 37.5% | 12.5% |
| Houston | 123 | 4.81★ | 408 | 10.6% | 38.2% | 38.2% |
| Las Vegas | 120 | 4.83★ | 424 | 3.3% | 43.3% | 30% |
| Los Angeles | 126 | 4.79★ | 240 | 11.1% | 23% | 48.4% |
| Miami | 127 | 4.85★ | 262 | 11.8% | 29.1% | 26.8% |
| Nashville | 90 | 4.81★ | 406.5 | 10% | 35.6% | 10% |
| New York | 127 | 4.78★ | 441 | 0.8% | 40.9% | 48.8% |
| Orlando | 117 | 4.78★ | 388 | 7.7% | 41% | 13.7% |
| Philadelphia | 116 | 4.77★ | 293.5 | 13.8% | 31% | 17.2% |
| Phoenix | 64 | 4.77★ | 379.5 | 9.4% | 34.4% | 26.6% |
| San Diego | 123 | 4.76★ | 250 | 14.6% | 22.8% | 18.7% |
| San Francisco | 114 | 4.73★ | 231 | 14.9% | 14.9% | 23.7% |
| Scottsdale | 103 | 4.86★ | 393 | 6.8% | 37.9% | 25.2% |
| Seattle | 117 | 4.78★ | 219 | 8.5% | 12.8% | 12.8% |
| Washington DC | 128 | 4.79★ | 259.5 | 9.4% | 18% | 21.9% |
| United States | 2,318 | 4.79★ | 319.5 | 9.1% | 30.9% | 25.5% |
US dental practices on Google, from verified city averages (data collected September 2026). "Typical reviews" is the median review count. Cities with fewer than 10 businesses are not shown. Smaller city samples swing more; read them as typical, not exact.
Five things the data says to fix first
- Make treatment plans feel like care, not sales. Explain why, show options and prices, and make "let me think about it" easy.
- Be clear about cost and insurance before treatment, in writing where possible.
- Keep a steady review routine and reply to every review within 48 hours, without confirming anyone is a patient.
- Consider weekend or early/late hours where local competitors don't offer them, and keep Google hours exact.
- Make booking easy: answered phones, fast replies and online scheduling. Booking and communication mentions are 40% negative.
Method: Google profile data for 2,318 US dental practices across 20 metros (September 2026); reviews from a 120-practice subsample. Every headline figure was re-derived from the raw data. Aggregates only; no practice is named. These are visible patterns, not Google's ranking formula. See the methodology & data.
What US dental practice patients expect, and where they don't get it
Findings from our study of 2,318 US dental practices across 20 metros and about 3,000 patient reviews. Read the findings below, or download the complete report.
Related pages from the US team
Methodology & data
How the numbers were produced, with the downloadable dataset.
Free PDF report
The full patient-experience report with city benchmarks.
Benchmarks for 9 specialties
Compare dental with med spa, dermatology and more.
Dental marketing, USA
How we help US dental practices grow.
Every practice welcome — Goals-Driven engagements from $499/mo
We benchmark your last 90 days, agree monthly goals with you, and track them live on Ichelon Agency OS with a report every Monday. Performance-Linked Payout Models are available. Our US leadership is based in Dallas, and strategy calls run in US business hours.
Common questions
What is the average Google rating for a dentist in the US?
In our study of 2,318 US dental practices across 20 metros, the average Google rating was 4.79 stars (median 4.9).
How many Google reviews does a typical dental practice have?
The median was 319.5 reviews. 9.1% had fewer than 50 and 30.9% had 500 or more.
What do dental patients complain about most?
Upselling: in about 3,000 classified reviews, 73.9% of upselling mentions were negative (46 mentions, so treat it as a signal). Price and value (42.5% negative) and booking and communication (40% negative) follow.
Are dentists open on weekends?
Only 25.5% of the dental practices we studied list at least one weekend day on Google. Practices average 4.8 open days a week.
Can I use this data?
Yes. The aggregate dataset is free to download and reuse under CC BY 4.0 with credit to Ichelon Consulting Group. No practice is named in the data.
A note on this guide: it explains marketing practice, not legal advice. Rules on privacy, advertising and insurance change and vary by state, so confirm anything compliance-related with your own counsel.
Want your practice benchmarked against the study?
A free 30-minute call with the US team. We'll compare your Google profile with your city's numbers and tell you what we'd fix first.
Key findings
- Across 2,318 US dental practices in 20 metros, the average Google rating is 4.79 stars and the typical (median) practice has 319.5 reviews.
- 30.9% of dental practices have 500 or more Google reviews.
- Staff and bedside manner make up 61% of what patients write about, and 97.5% of those mentions are positive.
- Upselling is the one theme where complaints dominate: about 74% negative across 46 mentions.
- Only 25.5% of practices open on at least one weekend day, and owners reply to about 49% of reviews.
How to cite this report
State of Dental Google Presence 2026, Ichelon Consulting Group, 2026. https://ichelonconsulting.com/us/dental-google-presence-report-2026
Free to quote and reuse with attribution and a link to this page.
Related research
Questions this report answers
What is the average Google rating for a dental practice in the US?
4.79 stars. Ichelon Consulting US studied 2,318 dental practices on Google across 20 metros in September 2026. The typical practice had 319.5 reviews, and 30.9% had 500 or more, so a high rating alone rarely sets a practice apart.
How many US dental offices are open on weekends?
Only 25.5% of the 2,318 dental practices in the study open on at least one weekend day. The report treats weekend access as one of the few visible differentiators left on dental Google profiles, where ratings and review counts are already high.
Do dentists reply to their Google reviews?
About half the time. Owners replied to roughly 49% of reviews on average, based on a 120-practice review subsample within the 2,318-practice study. The median practice also gained about 5.17 new reviews a month.
What do patients criticize most in dental reviews?
Upselling. It is the only review theme where negative mentions dominate, at about 74% negative across 46 mentions, which the study treats as a signal rather than a verdict. By contrast, staff and bedside manner mentions were 97.5% positive.
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Questions people search for, answered with figures from this report.