Ask a room of practice owners what they pay per crown and you will get quick, confident answers. Ask what their remake rate is and the room goes quiet.
That gap is the whole story of choosing a dental lab. The unit price is the easiest number to compare and the least useful one for predicting whether the relationship will work. A lab that is cheaper per unit and produces more remakes is not cheaper. It is a discount on the crown and a surcharge on your schedule, your chair time, and your patient's patience.
The Quick Answer
Judge a lab on four things: how consistently the work seats, how predictable the turnaround is, how they behave when something is wrong, and how well they fit the way you actually produce cases. Price matters, but it is the fifth item on that list, not the first.
The practical test is simple. A good lab asks you questions. A lab that takes whatever you send without comment and ships back whatever it can make from it is not being accommodating, it is being indifferent, and you will find that out at the seat appointment.
Domestic Versus Offshore, Honestly
This topic generates more heat than light, so let us be straight about it.
Offshore production is real, widespread, and produces a substantial volume of the restorative work placed in the United States. Some of it is very good. The cost difference is genuine and it is large enough that it changes a practice's margin on restorative work in a meaningful way. Pretending otherwise is not useful.
The tradeoffs are also genuine. Communication is harder across a time difference, which matters most when a case needs a conversation rather than a form. Turnaround includes shipping in both directions, which adds days and adds a customs variable that occasionally becomes a week. Fixing a problem case takes longer, and case by case adjustments are less practical. And quality control depends heavily on the intermediary, because many offshore arrangements run through a domestic company that outsources the fabrication.
That last point is the one most owners miss. A lab that markets domestically and produces offshore is a perfectly legitimate business model, but you should know which model you are buying. Ask directly where the work is fabricated. A lab that answers plainly is telling you something good about how they operate generally.
There is also a disclosure dimension. Requirements around informing patients about the origin of dental devices and about the materials used vary, and some states have specific rules here. Check what applies to you rather than assuming, and treat that as a compliance question rather than a marketing one.
The useful framing is not domestic versus offshore. It is which cases go where. Plenty of practices run a domestic lab for anterior aesthetics, complex cases and anything with a shade challenge, and a lower cost option for straightforward posterior units. That is a deliberate strategy rather than a compromise, and it usually beats forcing everything through one relationship.
Turnaround, and the Number That Actually Matters
Every lab quotes a turnaround. The quoted number is the marketing number. The one that matters is the variance.
A lab that reliably delivers in a consistent window lets you schedule seat appointments with confidence. A lab that is sometimes fast and occasionally late forces you to pad every appointment, and that padding costs you more across a year than the difference in unit price almost ever recovers. Worse, the late case is the one where you call the patient to reschedule, and rescheduled seat appointments have a habit of turning into no shows.
Ask specifically: is the quoted turnaround in business days, and does it start when the case arrives or when it is entered into their system. Does it include shipping. What happens when a case needs an additional step. These sound pedantic. They are the difference between a stated seven day turnaround and an actual twelve.
Then verify it yourself. Track your first ten cases with a new lab: date sent, date received, and whether it seated. That is fifteen minutes of recordkeeping and it produces a better answer than any reference call. This is exactly the kind of thing that belongs in your practice systems rather than in someone's memory.
The Remake Policy Is the Real Contract
Here is where I would slow down.
Every lab has a remake policy and most of them sound generous in the sales conversation. What you want to know is the specific mechanics, because that is what governs the day something goes wrong.
Ask these, and get the answers in writing:
- Under what circumstances is a remake free, and what circumstances make it chargeable?
- Is there a time limit from the delivery date?
- Who decides whether the fault was the lab's or the impression or scan?
- Does a remake get priority in the queue, or does it go to the back of the line?
- Is there any credit or consideration for the chair time, or is the policy strictly about the unit?
That last one is worth understanding clearly. Almost no lab compensates you for chair time, and that is the industry norm rather than a red flag. But it explains why remake rate matters so much more than unit price: the lab's exposure on a remake is the cost of fabrication, and yours is an appointment slot, a second anaesthetic, and a patient who now has an opinion about your practice. The costs are not symmetrical, which is why you should select for low remake rates rather than for generous remake policies.
Some warranty and remake terms depend on the case being fabricated from a specified material and being seated within a defined window, and terms can also hinge on whether the prescription was complete. A remake denied on a technicality is a genuinely bad surprise. Confirm the conditions before you have a case that needs them, and keep the written terms on file.
Communication and Case Documentation
The best predictor of a smooth lab relationship is how the lab handles an ambiguous case.
A good lab calls you. They flag a margin that is difficult to read, a shade selection that looks inconsistent with the photographs, an occlusal clearance concern, or a prescription that is missing something they need. That phone call is not the lab being difficult. It is the lab preventing a remake, and it is the single most valuable service they provide beyond fabrication.
A lab that never calls is either receiving perfect cases every time, which is unlikely, or making assumptions on your behalf. Assumptions arrive at your seat appointment.
The flip side is on you. Labs consistently report that incomplete prescriptions are the largest single cause of preventable problems. Shade information, photographs where shade matters, clear indication of the material requested, opposing information, and a note about anything unusual in the case take very little time to provide and dramatically change the result. If you want a lab to treat your cases carefully, send cases that look like someone cared about them.
Ask how you reach a technician. Not customer service, a technician. Labs where a clinician can get a technician on the phone tend to produce better work, because the person fabricating the case understands what you were trying to achieve. Our overview of the lab technician's side of the work is worth reading if you want to understand what you are actually asking them to do.
Digital Workflow Compatibility
If you scan, this section can override everything else on the list.
The question is not whether a lab accepts digital cases, because at this point essentially all of them say yes. The question is how smoothly your specific scanner talks to their specific setup.
Things to confirm before you commit:
File format and export. Whether your scanner exports open format files or requires going through the manufacturer's portal, and whether there is a per case fee attached to that export. That fee is a real line item and it is easy to overlook when comparing labs.
Case submission path. Whether cases go through a portal you already use or require a separate account and a separate workflow. Every extra step is a step someone forgets on a busy Thursday.
Design software compatibility. Whether they can work with your files natively or need to convert, and whether anything is lost in that conversion.
Model handling. Whether they print models, work modelless, and what that means for your seat appointment.
Chairside interaction. If you mill or print in house for some cases, whether the lab can support the cases you do not do yourself without a completely separate process.
If you are still choosing a scanner, lab compatibility belongs in that decision rather than after it. Our intraoral scanner guide covers the open versus closed system question, which is usually the crux of it.
What a Good Lab Asks You For
Turn the evaluation around for a moment. During the first conversation, notice what they want to know.
Strong labs ask what materials you prefer and why, what your typical case mix looks like, how you handle shade communication, what your seat appointment schedule looks like so they can plan turnaround around it, what has gone wrong with previous labs, and whether you want to be called about borderline cases or want them to use their judgment.
Weak labs ask for your address and your case volume.
The first conversation is a fair sample of every conversation you will have with them.
Before You Switch
Switching labs is disruptive, so do it deliberately.
Start with a trial run of a handful of straightforward cases rather than moving everything at once. Keep the existing lab active during the trial so you have somewhere to go if the trial goes badly. Track turnaround and seat results on the trial cases specifically. Ask about how they handle a case that is in progress if the relationship ends, because unfinished cases in a lab you are leaving are an unpleasant loose end.
Clarify billing terms up front: statement timing, payment terms, whether there are volume tiers, and what is billed separately from the unit price. Attachments, custom shading, additional try ins and expedite fees are common add ons and they should not be discovered on an invoice. Lab work is one of the larger controllable line items in a practice, and it deserves the same scrutiny as your supply costs.
One more thing. If a change in lab cost is going to change what you quote patients, handle that carefully and consistently, because treatment estimates that move around erode trust faster than almost anything else in a practice.
THE CHAIRSIDE TAKE
Pick your next lab on remake rate, turnaround consistency and whether they call you about questionable cases, then negotiate price from there. Run ten trial cases and actually track them before you move your volume, because a reference call tells you about someone else's practice and your cases tell you about yours. If you scan, confirm the full digital path end to end with your specific scanner before you commit, including any per case export fees.
And send complete prescriptions. The cheapest quality improvement available to any practice is a photograph and a clear note, and it costs nothing but thirty seconds.
Educational content only. It is not legal, financial, tax, or clinical advice. Prices and ranges are approximate and vary by region, condition, and year. Verify current rules with your state dental board and qualified professionals. ChairsideSource is not affiliated with any manufacturer, the ADA, or the DAT.