Implant vs bridge vs denture

The price on day one is only part of the story. A removable partial denture is the cheapest to start with. At national figures, one implant tooth ($4,000) comes in below a three-unit bridge ($5,197), though our reading rests on two different surveys, so a quote can easily reverse it. The order can also change once you count what has to be redone. The calculator above draws all three lines year by year for your state.

The day-one prices

Sources: Dental Economics, Feb. 2026; CareCredit procedure costs. The implant figure comes from a different survey than the other two, so treat a gap of a few hundred dollars as noise.

The ADA's consumer site describes a bridge as artificial teeth attached to the surrounding teeth for support, and notes that a fixed bridge can only be removed by a dentist (MouthHealthy, bridges). A partial denture comes out for cleaning.

What has to be redone, and how often

Implants. A systematic review in Clinical Oral Implants Research (2012, vol. 23 suppl. 6, pp. 2–21) pooled long-term studies of single crowns on implants. It estimated that 95.2% of implants were still in place after 10 years, and 89.4% of the crowns on them (PubMed 23062124). We turn those into yearly rates: about 0.49% a year for losing the implant (which means doing it all again), and a further 0.63% a year for remaking just the crown at the porcelain-crown average of $1,399.

Bridges. A systematic review of conventional bridges in the same journal (2004, vol. 15, pp. 654–666) put survival at 89.1% after 10 years (PubMed 15533126). That's about 1.15% a year. We price a replacement as a new bridge of the same kind.

Partial dentures. We found no published survival rate we could verify. The American College of Prosthodontists names more than five years in use as one reason to evaluate a denture for replacement, and says the evidence doesn't fix how often to remake one (its wording is quoted on the denture cost page). The calculator therefore uses five years as the starting assumption and lets you change it.

Worked example: national prices

The average cost of repairs is spread smoothly over the years, because nobody knows which year a crown will chip. The partial denture jumps each time it is remade (years 5, 10 and 15 inside a 20-year window). Each row shows the total paid up to the start of that year, so the remake due in year 5 first appears in the year-10 row. With an eight-year remake cycle instead of five, the partial's 20-year figure falls to $5,214, still above the implant. With a metal partial at $2,229, it reaches $8,916.

How much to trust the result

• These are averages over many people. One person's implant either lasts or doesn't. The averaged cost is useful for comparing options, not for predicting your bill.
• Checkups, cleanings and X-rays are left out because you need them whichever option you choose.
• A bridge involves the teeth next to the gap, and a partial denture clasps onto them. If those teeth later need work, that's a cost the model doesn't include for either.
• Not everyone can have an implant. The FDA says smoking and uncontrolled diabetes raise the risk of failure (FDA). A dentist decides whether you're a candidate.
• Insurance changes the picture. Some plans pay for a bridge or denture but not an implant, or pay the cheaper option's price. Run the result through the insurance planner.

Worked example: when the plan pays for one option and not another

Take the plan used in the examples on the insurance page: 50% of major work after a $50 deductible, up to $1,500 a year. Suppose it pays for bridges and partials but excludes implants, or pays toward an implant only what it would have paid for a cheaper option, which the ADA calls an alternate benefit or a least expensive alternative treatment clause (explained on the insurance page).

Each line can be checked in the insurance planner by typing the treatment the plan is paying for as the total ($5,197, $4,000 or $1,738) with a $1,500 maximum, 50% and a $50 deductible, then subtracting what it pays from the price of what you actually have done. Our reading: which cheaper treatment the plan picks as the "alternative" is worth more than the percentage it pays, so ask the plan, in writing, what it would allow toward an implant before you choose.

A fourth option: keeping the tooth

If the tooth is still there, saving it may cost less than replacing it. The ADA's statement on implant practices says preserving healthy teeth is always a consideration (ADA, Nov. 1, 2024). For a molar, using the 2024 study's averages for the root canal, crown, extraction and scan, plus the $4,000 median implant tooth from the Dental Economics survey (Sept. 2025), the two paths compare like this:

Root canal line: CareCredit procedure costs, read 7 Nov 2026. The second path is what the estimator shows for one molar with a surgical extraction and the scan, at national prices, about $4,830. Whether a tooth can be saved, and how long it would then last, is a clinical question this page can't answer; we found no survival figure for root-canal-treated teeth that we could verify, so the 20-year calculator above doesn't include this path. Ask the dentist to price both if both are possible, and ask whether a core build-up or a post to hold the crown would be billed on top of the root canal and crown, since neither is in the two lines above.

When the gap is bigger

For several teeth in a row, or a whole arch, the options change: a bridge held by implants, an implant-retained ("snap-in") denture, or a fixed full-arch bridge. Switch the calculator to "Whole arch" or see full-arch implant costs.