How DentalDex arrives at its valuation ranges
Every market figure on this site is a planning range assembled from publicly available 2026 commentary by dental transaction advisers, buy-side M&A firms and practice lenders, then reviewed quarterly. DentalDex has not yet closed transactions of its own; when it has, aggregate offer data will replace these third-party benchmarks. The ranges describe where published sources say most deals land. Any individual practice can fall outside them.
Sources reviewed for the current ranges
| Source | Type | What it reports (2026) |
|---|---|---|
| McLerran & Associates, "Dental Practice Valuation for DSO Sale" (July 2026) | Sell-side dental transition adviser | DSO multiples applied to normalized EBITDA, varying by size and specialty; typical structures of 60–75% cash at close, 15–30% rollover, 5–15% earn-out |
| McLerran & Associates, "Dental Practice Buyer Pool" (July 2026) | Sell-side adviser | Roughly 5–7x under $1M EBITDA, 7–9x at $1–3M, higher for platforms; doctor-to-doctor sales at 60–80% of collections; 3–5 year post-close employment; 20–40% rollover |
| CT Acquisitions, "How to Sell a Dental Practice to a DSO" (May 2026) | Buy-side M&A advisory | 3–5x SDE single-doctor, 4–6x profitable single location, 5–7x multi-location, 6–8x regional platforms, 7–9x+ premium scale; 20–35% rollover; 4–7 month process |
| CT Acquisitions, "M&A Advisor for Dental Practice Sales" (July 2026) | Buy-side M&A advisory | 5–7x solo general, 7–9x two-to-four doctor groups, 8–11x five-to-nine location groups |
| CT Acquisitions, "How to Sell a Dental Practice" (May 2026) | Buy-side M&A advisory | 5–7x EBITDA to DSOs versus 60–80% of collections to solo buyers; 3–5 years post-close as associate |
| Practice Exchange, "Complete Guide to Selling Your Dental Practice" (June 2026) | Dental M&A advisory | Buyer-type breakdown; specialty premium; large-DSO structures of cash plus rollover plus multi-year employment |
Links are provided for attribution. DentalDex is not affiliated with these firms and does not endorse their services.
How the DentalDex ranges relate to those sources
| Figure used on this site | Basis | Confidence |
|---|---|---|
| DSO multiples of 4.0x – 9.0x adjusted EBITDA, by profile | Envelope of the ranges above. Sources disagree at the edges (one puts solo general at 5–7x, another at 4–6x); DentalDex uses the wider band because the definition of "EBITDA" differs between them. | Directional. Published ranges are advisers' generalizations, not transaction records. |
| Private-buyer range of 60% – 80% of collections | Reported directly by two sources. DentalDex shows this on a collections basis rather than converting it to an EBITDA multiple, because the implied multiple depends on margin (at an 18% margin, 60–80% of collections is roughly 3.3x–4.4x EBITDA; at 25% it is 2.4x–3.2x). | Directional. |
| Post-sale doctor compensation of 28% – 35% of collections | Range commonly described in adviser commentary and DSO employment terms; not separately tabulated by the sources above. | Directional; verify against each specific offer. |
| Cash at closing of roughly 60% – 80% of enterprise value | One source reports 60–75% cash with the balance in rollover and earn-out; DentalDex widens to 80% to cover cash-heavy regional and dentist-owned buyers. | Directional. |
| Calculator adjustments for scale, specialty, capacity, dependence and transition | DentalDex model, described on each tool page. The direction of each adjustment follows the sources; the size of each step is a modeling choice. | Model assumption. Not a market statistic. |
| Effect of EBITDA normalization on a stated-margin estimate | Stated as directional only. DentalDex does not yet have its own transaction sample to quantify it. | Unquantified. |
What the calculators do and do not do
The Price My Practice calculator applies the ranges above to a stated collections figure and EBITDA margin. It does not see your financials, so it cannot normalize EBITDA, verify collections, assess your lease, or evaluate hygiene retention and payer mix. Those factors routinely move a real offer outside the calculator's range. The DSO Compatibility Index, Provider Dependency Risk Estimator and Sale Readiness Score are directional scoring models built on the same assumptions.
How the ranges will change
As practices are listed and offers are received through DentalDex, this page will report DentalDex's own aggregate data: asked, indicated, LOI and closed multiples with the EBITDA basis at each stage, cash and rollover percentages, employment terms and time to each milestone, segmented by practice type and EBITDA band, never identifying a practice or buyer. Until that dataset exists, treat every figure here as a benchmark for a conversation, not a price.
Corrections
If you believe a figure is out of date or wrong, email [email protected] with the source and we will review it.