Somebody has quoted you a number for a root canal, and what you actually want to know is whether it is a fair one. The short answer is that the price follows the tooth, because a front tooth has one canal inside it and a molar has three or four, and the figure most quotes quietly leave out is the crown that comes afterwards.
How much does a root canal cost in the UK?
Privately, a root canal is priced per tooth. At The Dental Barn in Balsall Common it is £350 for a front tooth, £450 for a premolar and £550 for a molar, and you are told the figure for your own tooth before anything begins. Look around the country and you will find private prices that differ by hundreds of pounds for what sounds like the same treatment, which looks like chaos until you know what moves the number. What moves it is which tooth it is, whether a crown follows, and who ends up doing the work.
The NHS counts it up in a completely different way, because it does not price by the tooth at all. It prices by the course of treatment, in bands, and a root canal falls in Band 2 at £76.60. One band charge covers the whole course, so if you need a couple of fillings alongside the root canal, they ride along inside that same charge. That is real value, and if you are entitled to free NHS treatment or you already have an NHS place, an NHS practice will cost you less than we do. We would rather say so here than let you work it out afterwards.
Why does a molar cost more than a front tooth?
Picture the inside of a tooth as a set of narrow tunnels running down the middle of each root, with the living nerve threaded through them. A front tooth has one tunnel. A premolar has one or two. A molar, sitting right at the back where all the chewing force lands, has three or four, and they curve. Every single one has to be found, cleaned along its whole length, shaped, disinfected and then sealed so nothing can creep back in.
So comparing a molar with a front tooth is comparing four chimneys with one, and some of the four are bent. That, and only that, is the reason for the gap in the price.
| The tooth | Canals inside it | Root canal here | A crown afterwards |
|---|---|---|---|
| Front tooth, incisor or canine | One | £350 | Often just a filling |
| Premolar | One or two | £450 | Usually, from £332.10 |
| Molar | Three or four | £550 | Usually, from £332.10 |
Now, a lot of people land on a page like this because one practice said one figure and another said something wildly different. Before you decide that somebody is fleecing you, check which tooth each quote was written for. An enormous amount of the argument on the internet about root canal prices turns out to be a front tooth being compared with a molar.
Does the quote include the crown?
Here is the part that separates an honest quote from a pretty one. A root canal takes the middle out of the tooth. What is left is a thinner, drier shell, and a back tooth then has to go on taking the full force of chewing for the rest of your life. A crown goes over it the way an iron hoop goes round a barrel, holding the staves together so the tooth does not split. Back teeth usually need one. Front teeth often do not, and a filling finishes them off nicely.
A crown at The Dental Barn starts at £332.10, which is the NHS Band 3 charge to the penny, because we set our check-up, filling and crown prices at the NHS band figures. Our page on crowns, bridges and dentures sets that figure out beside the bridges and the dentures, if the gap next door is on your mind as well.
And since you are probably wondering: how much is a crown on the NHS? It is Band 3, £332.10, and that one charge swallows everything else done in the same course of treatment. Have the root canal and the crown together and you pay the single Band 3 charge, rather than Band 2 and then Band 3 on top.
So when you are holding two quotes up against each other, add the crown on to both. A molar root canal at £550 and a crown from £332.10 are one job in two parts, and a quote showing you only the first part has not really priced the thing you came in for, which is keeping the tooth. Ask for both figures at the start. Any practice worth the money will put them in writing before it picks up an instrument.
What makes one quote cheap and another expensive?
Three things, mostly, and none of them is mysterious once you have seen them named.
The first is which stage you are being quoted for. When somebody walks in with a tooth that is genuinely keeping them awake, the nerve can be dressed on the day to stop the pain, which here is £76.60, and the full treatment is planned from there. That is a proper piece of treatment and it does end the pain, and it is also the smallest number anybody will say to you that week. It is the opening stage of a root canal, so read it as that.
The second is whether your tooth needs someone with a special interest. Some teeth are simply hard: a canal that curves sharply, a canal that has calcified and narrowed over the years, or a tooth that was root treated once before and has flared up again. Root canals here are done by our own dentists, Dr William Tarn-Chapman, Dr Sarah Lynn and Dr Amelia Reed, and an awkward tooth goes to a dentist who does difficult canals every week. The consultation for that is £50 and the treatment is then priced to the case. When a quote sits at the top of the range, this is usually why, and the extra is buying you the pair of hands.
The third is private against NHS, and it deserves a straight sentence. It is the same procedure to the same standards either way. What a private fee buys you is time, an appointment when you need one, a say in who does the work, and a specialist for the tooth that turns out to be awkward. The NHS figure is lower. Both of those things are true at once.
What does doing nothing cost?
More than the treatment, which is the line the price comparisons never include.
A tooth that needs a root canal has a nerve that has died or become infected, and a dead nerve does not recover. The inside of that tooth has lost its blood supply, and blood is how antibiotics travel, so a course of tablets reaches the bone around the tooth and never reaches the place the infection is actually living. It is rather like posting a letter to a house with no letterbox. Things go quiet for a week or two, and then the course ends and the tooth speaks up again.
In money, that pattern looks like an emergency appointment every time it flares, £27.90 in hours here and £150 outside them, and eventually the tooth comes out anyway. Extraction is the cheaper day, from £76.60, or from £250 where it has to be taken out surgically. The gap is where the real bill has been waiting. Closing it means a bridge from £400 a unit, a denture from £332.10 a jaw, or an implant with its crown from £1,700. Leave it open and the teeth either side lean in over the years, which makes whatever comes next bigger again.
Set beside all of that, paying £550 and a crown to keep your own molar starts to look like the thrifty choice, because it is.
There is an honest exception. Some teeth really are too broken down to be worth saving, and when that is the case your dentist should say so plainly and take it out. An x-ray and a couple of simple tests at the examination are what settle that question, and nobody can do it from a photograph or over the phone.
What should you ask before you say yes?
Three questions, and they will tell you almost everything. Which tooth is it, and how many canals does it have? Is a crown needed afterwards, and if so, what does that cost? And will the dentist do the treatment, or refer it on, and at what price? A practice that answers all three in writing before starting is a practice with nothing to add on later.
The Dental Barn is on Balsall Street East in Balsall Common, run by the team behind Designer Smiles in Solihull, a practice rated 4.9 from 132 Google reviews. If you would like the rest of the story before you book, what a root canal actually involves is set out step by step, and the full fee guide has every figure in one place. And if a tooth is tender for a few days after the work, that is the usual way of it, and we have written about when it is worth a call.
