Planet DDS has released its “2026 Dental Industry Outlook: Deep Dive,” a performance analysis based on data from more than 8,500 dental practices operating on the company’s platform during 2024 and 2025.
The report was introduced May 12 at the Dental Capital Forum, an invitation-only event held at the Union Club of New York City, before its public release the following day. According to Planet DDS, the analysis includes $6.79 billion in gross production across 497 dental support organizations, 3,294 same-store year-over-year comparisons, and more than 2,500 Cloud 9 orthodontic practices.
The report identifies six benchmarking findings related to growth, operational consistency, efficiency, scaling, case completion, and revenue cycle management.
According to the analysis, practices with 75 or more new patients per month posted 9.0% growth, nearly double the rate of mid-volume practices. Practices with fewer than 35 new patients per month showed growth rates that plateaued or declined.
The report also found a 9.5 percentage point performance gap between the most volatile practices and the most consistent practices. Planet DDS reported that the most volatile 10% of practices shrank by 3.4%, while the most consistent practices grew by 6.1%. Consistent practices also generated 28% more revenue per day.
The data further showed that smaller practices with stronger efficiency metrics outperformed larger practices with underutilized capacity. Nearly 1,050 practices in the dataset averaged 44 chairs while generating $56,000 in annual revenue per chair.
Among DSOs, organizations operating between 26 and 50 offices recorded 2.8% growth, which the report stated was less than one-third the growth rate of smaller peers. Planet DDS reported that only 55% of offices in that segment were growing.
The report identified case completion rather than case acceptance as a primary operational constraint. Practices with a gap of more than 50 percentage points between acceptance and completion rates averaged 77.2% acceptance but 19.7% completion, while practices with smaller gaps demonstrated faster growth.
Revenue cycle management was also highlighted in the report. Planet DDS estimated that a DSO producing $10 million in gross production could add approximately $890,000 in annual EBITDA by closing the average operational billing gap identified in the dataset.
“The industry is splitting. One-third of practices grew by more than 10% last year. Nearly 14% declined by more than 10%. The middle is getting squeezed. The practices that are winning figured out the fundamentals. That is what is making the difference,” said Eric Giesecke, CEO of Planet DDS.
The findings were presented during the inaugural Dental Capital Forum, which was co-hosted by Planet DDS, Aquiline Capital Partners, Dykema, and West Monroe. According to the company, the event brought together DSO executives representing more than 8,000 dental locations in North America, along with institutional investors and private equity professionals overseeing more than $1 trillion in assets under management.
Planet DDS said the Deep Dive report expands on the “2026 Dental Industry Outlook” released in March at Orbit. The new report includes sections on same-store growth, production benchmarks by specialty, appointment operations, accounts receivable aging benchmarks, and revenue cycle performance metrics.
Planet DDS provides cloud-based dental software products including Denticon Practice Management, Cloud 9 Ortho Practice Management, and Apteryx Cloud Imaging. The company said its platform supports 14,500 practices and 175,000 users.
The report is available at planetdds.com.
