I’ll be honest, the cost put me off for two years. Here’s what I wish I’d known.
I want to be straight with you, because I think most people aren’t.
When a patient finally sits down in my chair and tells me they’ve had a missing tooth for three, five, sometimes ten years, there’s almost always the same reason they waited. It wasn’t the fear. It wasn’t the time. It was the price. They saw a number somewhere, took a sharp breath, and quietly decided it wasn’t for them.
I understand it completely. Implants are not cheap, and I’d never pretend otherwise. But in all my years doing this, the thing I hear most often at the end of treatment is not “I wish I’d saved more.” It’s “I wish I’d done this years ago.” So let me talk about the cost honestly, the way I would if you were sitting across from me.
So what does a dental implant actually cost?
A single dental implant with me starts from £2,550. That covers the whole thing: the scan, the implant itself, the part that connects it, and the crown that sits on top and looks like your own tooth. It’s one complete price, not a starting figure that quietly grows.
Full-arch treatment, where we replace a whole set of teeth, starts from £11,500 per arch. That’s a bigger number, and I won’t dress it up. But it’s also replacing something that affects how you eat, speak and feel every single day, often for the rest of your life.
The honest answer, though, is that I can’t give you your exact figure in a blog post. Every mouth is different. Some people need a little more preparation, some need less. That’s why the first appointment with me is free, and you leave with a written plan and the real number, in black and white, before you’ve committed to anything.
Why does it cost what it does?
This is the bit I think people deserve to understand, rather than just being quoted a price.
An implant isn’t a filling. It’s a small titanium post placed into the bone where your tooth root used to be, and then left to fuse with that bone over a few months. It involves a 3D scan, careful planning, the surgery itself, the materials, and the crown that’s made to match your other teeth. You’re paying for precision and for something built to last decades, not years.
I’ll say this too. You’ll see implants advertised far cheaper abroad, and I treat a steady stream of patients who went that route and came back needing corrective treatment to put it right. Sometimes that correction costs more than doing it properly would have in the first place. I’m not here to scare you off a holiday, but I’d be doing you a disservice if I didn’t mention it.
The thing almost nobody realises about paying for it
Here’s what I wish more people knew before they talked themselves out of it. You very rarely pay the whole amount in one go.
Through Tabeo, you can spread the cost over monthly payments with 0% finance, so the total doesn’t go up just because you’re paying bit by bit. For a lot of my patients, that’s the thing that turns “one day, maybe” into “actually, I could start now.” Your exact monthly figure gets confirmed in writing at your assessment, so there are no surprises.
Is it worth it? My honest view.
I’m biased, of course. But I’ve watched enough people go through this to tell you what actually happens on the other side. They stop covering their mouth in photos. They order what they want off the menu. They forget, for whole days at a time, that they ever had a problem. One patient told me she’d stopped laughing properly for years without even noticing, until she caught herself doing it again.
That’s what the number buys. Not teeth, really. The freedom to stop thinking about your teeth.
If you’ve been putting this off because of cost, I’d gently say this: don’t let a number you saw once make the decision for you. Come in, let’s look properly, and I’ll give you the honest figure and the honest options. No pressure, and no obligation to go ahead.
My door’s open whenever you’re ready.
The free 3D Smile Assessment is where it starts. Book yours here, or have a read of some real patient stories first if you’d rather.