Craft PodiumShort answer: in 2026 a UK dental practice pays roughly £150–£800 a month for an AI receptionist, plus a one-off setup fee of £500–£3,000, according to Motics' pricing guide. A text assistant that answers patients from your own price list and takes booking requests costs much less: at Craft Podium it starts at $750 one-off, delivered from 14 days, and a ready Telegram version is $330 plus $55 a month. Below is what those numbers include, what they do not, and how to tell the two kinds of product apart.
Two different products share one name
"Chatbot" is used for two things that cost very differently.
An AI phone receptionist answers calls, speaks to the patient, and usually plugs into your practice management system. That is where most of the monthly fees come from. Published UK examples: Intavia from £349 a month with PMS integration, Softomate from £3,500 setup plus £300–£600 a month, ReceptionPal at £120 a month. Per-minute call charges of £0.15–£0.40 are common on entry plans.
A chat assistant works in text: on your website, in WhatsApp or in Telegram. It answers the questions reception answers forty times a day ("how much is a check-up", "do you take new patients", "I have toothache, what do I do") and collects a booking request. No calls, no voice, no telephony bill. That is the product this article is about.
Why practices look at this at all
Vendor studies put the share of unanswered dental calls at 20–40% during busy hours and after closing (AInora, Attainment Labs), and estimate that roughly 45% of calls arrive outside 9–5 (AgentZap). We have not found an independent UK study with its own numbers, so treat these as vendor figures. The pattern behind them is familiar to any practice manager: the enquiry that comes at 8 pm, gets an answerphone, and books elsewhere by morning.
A chat assistant does not fix the phone. It gives the 8 pm patient a second door: an immediate answer from your real price list and a confirmed-by-reception booking request, instead of silence.
What drives the price
1. Where the answers come from. The cheap, honest way is to answer only from your approved materials: fee list, opening hours, FAQ, treatment pages. Anything missing gets "I don't know, reception will call you back", not an invented price. Building the knowledge base from your existing documents is most of the work. 2. What the assistant may do. Answering and taking a request (name, contact, preferred time) for reception to confirm is simple. Writing directly into your diary, checking live availability, sending SMS reminders, taking deposits: each is an integration with its own cost, and each is where the £3,000 setup fees in the market come from. 3. Channel. Telegram is the cheapest to launch; a website widget and WhatsApp Business take longer and WhatsApp carries Meta's own messaging fees. 4. Who runs it afterwards. Hosting, the AI usage bill, and refreshing the knowledge base when your fees change. That is the monthly fee, and it is the number to compare across vendors.
What $750 buys at Craft Podium
A website or Telegram assistant for one practice, from 14 days, includes:
- answers strictly from your approved price list and practice information; no diagnosis and no treatment advice;
- a booking request flow: appointment type, name, phone, preferred days or times, passed to reception to confirm;
- an "I don't know" hand-off to a person for anything outside your materials;
- a daily question limit per visitor, so a spam burst does not become an AI bill;
- English and a second language if your patients need one;
- 14 days of free bug fixes after launch.
Not included, quoted separately when you need them: live diary or PMS integration, automated reminders, WhatsApp Business setup, phone calls. We do not promise what we have not built for you yet.
If you want the ready version instead of a custom one, the AI consultant for your documents is $330 to launch and $55 a month, running in Telegram on your own documents.
Try it before you email anyone
We built a demo for a fictional practice, BrightSmile Dental in Leeds: ask it how much a check-up costs, whether it takes children, what to do with toothache at night, then ask for an appointment. It is live in Telegram: t.me/cp_demo_dental_bot. The practice, the fees and the address are invented; the behaviour is exactly what your assistant would do with your real numbers.
To get a fixed quote, send your fee list and the questions reception hears most often to dmitry.zhdanov@craftpodium.com or Telegram. You will get a price and a delivery date before any work starts. Details of the service: AI assistant on your knowledge base.