Dental booking is different
A salon can pick any booking tool. A dental practice cannot, because appointments live in the practice management system (PMS), alongside patient records, recalls, treatment plans and billing. Online booking that does not write into the PMS creates a second diary that reception has to reconcile by hand, which is worse than no online booking at all.
So the first question is not "which booking tool" but "does our PMS offer online booking, and is it good enough". For most practices the answer is yes and mostly. Here is how the main systems compare on the things that matter for a website, plus the standalone options for when the PMS falls short.
Dentally (UK, cloud)
Online booking: the Dentally patient portal. Patients choose treatment type, clinician and slot from live availability; bookings write straight to the diary. New and existing patients; existing patients matched by details. Supports deposits via Stripe. Reminders by SMS and email included.
On the website: a hosted booking page you link to, with practice branding; an embeddable button. Not a fully embeddable widget, so patients leave your site to book, which is acceptable.
Strengths: clean, modern, genuinely live. Recalls can drive patients to the portal. Weaknesses: limited control over which slots are exposed beyond clinician rules; portal design is Dentally's, not yours.
Software of Excellence (Exact / EXACT, UK and international)
Online booking: Online Booking module, part of the Patient Portal. Live availability from EXACT, treatment and clinician selection, new patient registration, deposits. Configurable rules for which appointment types and clinicians are bookable online and how far ahead.
On the website: an embeddable booking widget or a hosted page; configurable colours. Better embed story than Dentally.
Strengths: deep configuration, mature, widely used in larger practices; good reporting on online bookings. Weaknesses: the widget's front-end weight and design are dated; module licensing adds cost; setup needs SOE support.
Dentrix and Dentrix Ascend (US)
Online booking: Dentrix Ascend (cloud) has native online scheduling with live availability, patient forms and reminders. Dentrix (server) relies on Henry Schein's Patient Engage / Sesame or third-party integrations for online booking, which sync to the Dentrix schedule.
On the website: an embeddable scheduling widget for Ascend; a hosted request or booking page for server Dentrix via the engagement add-on.
Strengths: strong ecosystem, integrated forms and reminders on Ascend. Weaknesses: server Dentrix practices often end up with a "request an appointment" flow rather than true live booking; add-ons carry monthly fees.
Others worth knowing
Eaglesoft, Open Dental (US): Open Dental has a web scheduling feature via its eServices with live booking; Eaglesoft relies on partners. Carestream / Sensei Cloud: online booking within its patient engagement tools. Curve Dental: cloud PMS with integrated online scheduling. Praktika, Dental4Windows (AU/NZ): online booking modules or partner integrations. Check your system's current offering; this area moves.
Standalone and layer-on tools
When the PMS's online booking is missing or poor, a layer sits between the website and the PMS:
Zesty, Doctify, Dentaly and similar: marketplace-style patient acquisition with booking that integrates with some PMSs. Useful for new-patient discovery; the same ownership questions as any marketplace.
Local Med, NexHealth, Weave, RevenueWell (US): patient engagement platforms that read and write the PMS schedule and provide an embeddable real-time booking widget plus reminders, forms and reviews. NexHealth in particular integrates with most US PMSs and has a good website widget. Monthly fees; genuinely live.
Generic tools (Acuity, Setmore, Calendly): do not integrate with a PMS. A second diary. Only for a practice small enough to reconcile by hand, or as a "request a callback" form rather than real booking.
What matters for the website
Whichever system, the website needs:
- A Book button on every page, above the fold on a phone, going to the booking flow in one tap.
- Treatment-specific entry points. "Book a hygiene appointment" from the hygiene page pre-selecting the treatment, where the system supports deep links.
- New-patient path clearly separate from existing, since many systems handle them differently.
- Speed. If the widget is heavy (SOE's can be), load it on the booking page rather than embedding it on every page.
- Tracking. A
booking_clickevent on the button, and if the system reports completed bookings by source, that too. - A fallback. Phone number and a callback form for patients who do not want to self-book. Dental patients skew older than salon clients.
- Testing on a phone, end to end, monthly, because PMS updates change portal behaviour.
Choosing
- If your PMS has live online booking with deposits and reminders (Dentally, SOE, Ascend, Curve, Open Dental): use it. Configure which appointment types are online-bookable, expose the right slots, and make the website's job getting patients to it.
- If your PMS has only request-based booking: consider a layer like NexHealth for true live booking, if the fee is justified by volume; otherwise make the request form excellent and reception's response fast.
- If you are choosing a PMS: the quality of its online booking and website integration is now a legitimate selection criterion, not an afterthought.
Where this sits
Integrating whichever system a practice has, and building the website so patients reach it in one tap, is the core of what we do on dental practice websites. The system is the practice's choice. The website's job is to make it easy to use and to measure whether it is.