Two questions in one
"Do we have to?" is a regulatory question. "Should we?" is a commercial one. The answers are: in several countries, partly yes; and commercially, almost always yes. Here is both halves, and how to publish prices for treatments whose cost genuinely depends on the patient.
This is general guidance, not legal advice. Check your regulator's current standards.
The regulatory half, by country
UK. The General Dental Council's standards require that patients are given clear information about costs before treatment, and the Competition and Markets Authority has pressed practices on price transparency. In practice, practices are expected to make a price list available, and displaying at least standard fees (examination, hygiene, common treatments) on the website is widely treated as the baseline. NHS practices display NHS band charges.
United States. No federal requirement to publish dental fees online. State boards and the FTC prohibit misleading pricing; if you advertise a price it must be accurate and its conditions clear. Many practices publish new-patient special pricing and membership plan pricing; fewer publish full fee schedules, though the trend is toward more transparency.
Canada. Provincial colleges publish suggested fee guides and expect practices to inform patients of fees before treatment. Online publication is not universally mandated but is increasingly expected, and advertising rules require accuracy.
Australia. The Dental Board under AHPRA requires that advertising not be misleading and that patients receive cost information; the Australian Consumer Law applies to any published price. Publication online is not mandated for all fees but is common and encouraged for informed financial consent.
EU. National rules vary widely, from strict fee schedules in some countries to liberal advertising in others. Consumer protection law requires that any advertised price be accurate and inclusive. Check the national dental chamber's rules.
The pattern: nowhere forbids publishing prices; several places expect at least the standard ones; everywhere requires that what you publish is accurate and not misleading.
The commercial half
Patients comparing private practices search for prices. When they find them on one site and not another, they assume the one hiding them is more expensive, and they book with the one that told them. "Contact us for prices" is a filter that removes the price-conscious majority and keeps the few who were going to phone anyway.
Practices that publish fees report fewer price-only calls to reception, fewer awkward conversations at the desk, and more bookings from patients who arrived already knowing and accepting the cost. The fear that competitors will undercut published prices is real and small: they can already phone and ask.
What to publish
- Standard items with fixed prices: new patient exam, hygiene visit, emergency appointment, X-rays, simple extractions, whitening. Exact figures.
- Treatments that vary: fillings, crowns, root canals, implants, orthodontics. A "from" price and a short note on what affects it ("depends on the size and location of the filling"), with the consultation price stated.
- Membership or payment plans: monthly price and what is included.
- Finance: whether it is available and on what terms, if you offer it.
- NHS or insured charges, where applicable, alongside private.
Publish the effective date and update the same day fees change.
How to present it
- A fees page in the main menu, as a table generated from price fields on each treatment, so it cannot drift from the treatment pages.
- The price on each treatment page, beside the Book button, because that is where the patient decides.
- Structured data with the price on each treatment so search results can show it.
- Plain words for what the price includes and excludes. "Includes X-rays and a treatment plan" prevents disputes.
Avoid PDFs (they go stale), images of price cards (invisible to search and screen readers), and prices in free text in three places (they diverge).
Handling variation honestly
"From £X" is legitimate when X is the price a real patient actually pays for the simplest case, not a teaser nobody qualifies for. State what moves it. Offer the consultation price so the patient knows what committing to find out costs. This satisfies both the regulator's "not misleading" and the patient's "roughly how much".
The decision
If your regulator expects it, publish. If it does not, publish anyway, because the patients you want are the ones who look. The only practices with a case for hiding prices are those at full capacity who want fewer enquiries, and they can say so instead.
Where this sits
Prices as fields with a generated fees page is how every dental practice site we build handles this, and moving a practice from "contact us" to published fees is one of the fastest conversion improvements a diagnosis recommends. The regulatory check for your country is part of the content stage.