Are Large Dental Practices More Valuable?

Not so much.  Dollar for dollar, investors do not pay much of a premium for larger practices over smaller ones. The US has 180,966 dental practices (i.e., defined as North American Industry Classification System code 621210). In 2024, they generated $190.4 billion in gross billing.  They paid $71.2 billion in wages and reported a profit of $28.9 billion.  Using September 2025, data from DealStats private transactions, for practices with gross billings under $1 million, for every $100 in gross billings, investors paid $73 to buy the practice.  For practices with gross billings between $1 million and $5 million, for every $100 in gross billings, investors paid $75 to buy the practice.  Finally, for practices with gross billings in excess of $5 million, for every $100 in gross billings, investors paid $90 to buy the practice.

It is common practice in most industries to pay a premium for larger businesses. The premiums paid for large dental practices does not appear out of the ordinary. The data seems to indicate that investors do not highly value scale in the dental industry. IBISWorld reports that the industry suffers from persistent labor shortages that hurts industry capacity.