Why is Invisalign so expensive?

Invisalign costs what it does because you are paying for three things at once: a custom-manufactured medical device made in Align Technology’s lab, several months of a dentist’s planning and supervision, and the retainers that keep the result for life. None of those is cheap to provide. What makes the question confusing is that UK clinics quote anything from under £1,500 to over £5,000 for what is often the same aligner system, and most of that gap has nothing to do with the plastic.

This page sets out where the money goes, why quotes vary so much, and how Toothi arrives at its fixed prices of £1,495, £2,495 and £2,995.

• ✓  The lab fee. Every Invisalign case is manufactured to order by Align Technology from your 3D scan: the ClinCheck planning software, the SmartTrack material and every aligner in the series. The clinic pays Align a fee per case that rises with the size of the course, and it is the single largest cost in any Invisalign price.
• ✓  The dentist’s time. A consultation, the design and approval of your ClinCheck plan, the fitting with attachments and any IPR, a review roughly every eight weeks for the length of treatment, and the fitting of retainers at the end. Over a nine-month case that is a lot of chair time with a GDC-registered dentist.
• ✓  The equipment. An iTero scanner is a significant capital purchase for a practice, and it is what makes putty impressions a thing of the past and lets you see a preview the same day.
• ✓  Refinements. Many cases need a short extra set of aligners at the end to finish one or two teeth. They are an additional lab order and an additional visit.
• ✓  Retainers. Removable retainers and a fixed wire retainer, made and fitted at the end. Without them the teeth drift back, so they are part of the treatment, not an optional extra.
• ✓  Running a dental practice. Premises, nursing staff, decontamination, indemnity, regulation and compliance. The same overheads sit behind every treatment a practice offers.

If the lab fee and the dentist’s time are broadly similar everywhere, why does one clinic quote £2,500 and another £5,500? Published central London prices for Invisalign typically run from £2,500 to £5,500. The gap comes from five things:

• ✓  Which Invisalign product. Invisalign Go and Go Plus are scoped for the front teeth and premolars; Invisalign Comprehensive covers unlimited aligners and complex bites, usually with a specialist orthodontist, and carries a higher lab fee. A Comprehensive quote and a Go quote are not the same treatment.
• ✓  What is in the quote. Some headline prices are for the aligners only, with retainers, refinements, whitening and even review visits added afterwards. Others, like Toothi’s, include all of them. Compare the final bill, not the first number.
• ✓  Location. A clinic on a central London high street pays a very different rent from one in a suburb, and that lands on the price list.
• ✓  Who treats you. A specialist orthodontist’s time is priced differently from a general dentist’s, and both are different from a chain where a sales consultant does the first appointment.
• ✓  Marketing. Some practices spend heavily on advertising and offers, and that cost is recovered somewhere.

Toothi is in Edgware, at the top of the Northern line, not on a central London high street. We provide Invisalign Go and Go Plus, which cover the front-teeth cases that most adults ask about, and we refer on the complex cases that need full Invisalign with an orthodontist rather than pricing them in. And we publish one fixed price per package with the retainers, refinements, whitening, hygiene clean and reviews already included, so there is nothing to add after your scan. That is how the prices below are possible, and why they are the same for every patient.

Included in every Invisalign package: iTero 3D scan and ClinCheck · all review appointments · refinement aligners if needed · removable and fixed retainers · Airflow hygiene clean · Boutique teeth whitening. There are no add-ons. The full price list is on our fees page, and UK and London comparisons are in our Invisalign cost guide and London Invisalign prices compared.

Price alone tells you very little, but there are things to check whenever a quote looks far below the rest. Is it genuine Invisalign from Align, or a different aligner brand described loosely? Is the person treating you a GDC-registered dentist? Are reviews, refinements and retainers included, or will they appear on a later invoice? And are you seeing a dentist at the consultation, or a sales team? We go through this in more detail in is cheap Invisalign safe.

Any treatment over £250 can be spread over up to 10 months at 0% interest, or over up to 60 months at 12.9% APR representative (fixed). Finance is provided by Tabeo and is subject to status. Representative example (Invisalign Go Express only): £1,495 over 60 months = 12.9% APR fixed, £33.06 a month, cost of credit £488.71, total to pay back £1,983.71. This is the only monthly figure we publish. More in our monthly payments guide.