Dental Membership Plans: Which Option Is Best for an Open Dental Practice?
Disclaimer — Updated September 5, 2026
The information presented on this page represents the most current information we were able to obtain from the websites and other publicly available materials of the products evaluated as of the date above. Features, pricing, integrations, and services may change and may vary by practice. Readers should verify all information directly with each vendor before making a purchasing or implementation decision. This comparison is not intended to include every dental membership-plan product or service that may be available.
Dental membership plans have become increasingly popular as an alternative for patients who do not have traditional dental insurance. They can provide patients with predictable costs while helping dental practices build loyalty and recurring revenue.
But for an office using Open Dental, choosing a membership-plan system involves much more than comparing monthly fees.
We evaluated seven options:
Open Dental Native Discount Plans
Clerri/Kleer
PatientXpress
DentalHQ/Flex
BoomCloud
illumitrac
Quality Dental Plan (QDP)
Our evaluation focused particularly on issues that matter to an Open Dental practice:
Cost
Open Dental integration
Whether information is actually written back into Open Dental
Recurring membership billing
Updating membership fees when the office changes its usual fees
Patient enrollment
Marketing support
Identifying uninsured patients
Staff time required to maintain the program
First Question: Do You Need Additional Membership Software at All?
This is an important question because Open Dental already includes its own Discount Plan feature.
For an office already using Open Dental, there does not appear to be an additional software charge to use this feature.
Open Dental allows a practice to create its own membership-style Discount Plans and associate each plan with a specific fee schedule.
The plan can be attached directly to the patient and can include:
Effective and termination dates
A specific Discount Plan fee schedule
Automatic discount adjustments
Annual discount maximums
Frequency limitations
Treatment-plan discounts
Reporting of enrolled patients
When treatment is completed, Open Dental can automatically record the difference between the office's regular fee and the membership fee as an adjustment.
This is particularly useful from an accounting standpoint because the practice can continue to record its normal gross production while separately tracking the discount given to membership patients.
For an existing Open Dental practice, Open Dental Native Discount Plans should therefore be the baseline against which paid membership programs are compared.
A commercial program should provide enough additional automation, billing, marketing, enrollment or management benefits to justify its additional cost.
Open Dental Integration: Not All "Integrations" Are Equal
One of the most important findings from our research is that the word integration can mean very different things.
Some membership programs can read information from Open Dental.
Others can display information alongside Open Dental.
A much smaller group can actually write membership information back into Open Dental.
That distinction can have a major effect on staff workload.
Ideally, when a patient enrolls in a membership plan, the software should be able to:
Identify the patient in Open Dental
Attach the appropriate membership plan
Assign the correct fee schedule
Record membership payments
Maintain effective and termination dates
Remove the membership when it expires or is cancelled
Document membership activity in Open Dental
Open Dental Native Discount Plans
Because Discount Plans are built directly into Open Dental, there is no synchronization issue. The membership information, fee schedule, effective dates and discount calculations live directly in Open Dental.
Open Dental integration: Excellent — completely native
Additional membership software cost: Essentially $0 for an existing Open Dental practice
The tradeoff is that the office is responsible for more of the enrollment, marketing, billing and ongoing administration.
Clerri/Kleer
Among the third-party systems we reviewed, Clerri/Kleer currently has the most completely documented Open Dental membership integration.
Clerri can read patient and scheduling information from Open Dental and can also write membership information back.
Its documented capabilities include:
Creating or mapping the membership plan in Open Dental
Attaching the plan to the patient
Associating the appropriate fee schedule
Posting membership payments and balances
Removing the plan when membership expires or is cancelled
Recording membership activity in the Open Dental CommLog
This is substantially more than simply having a bridge to Open Dental.
Open Dental integration: Excellent
Best feature: The strongest documented third-party membership write-back into Open Dental.
PatientXpress
PatientXpress is especially interesting because it is much broader than a membership-plan program. It includes patient communications, forms, payments, scheduling and other patient-engagement functions.
PatientXpress has a strong bidirectional Open Dental integration and can write several types of information back into Open Dental, including appointments, patient information, forms, communications and payment information.
PatientXpress also offers membership-plan enrollment and recurring billing.
However, one important question remains.
We were unable to verify from the publicly available information whether enrolling a patient in a PatientXpress membership plan automatically creates and maintains Open Dental's native Discount Plan records and fee schedule assignment.
That is something we would specifically ask PatientXpress to demonstrate.
Open Dental integration: Very good overall
Membership-specific Open Dental write-back: Needs confirmation
DentalHQ/Flex
DentalHQ has partnered with Flex Dental Solutions to provide Open Dental integration.
The combination offers membership enrollment, management, automated payments and renewals within an Open Dental-connected workflow.
However, the publicly available documentation does not clearly identify every Open Dental record that DentalHQ/Flex creates or changes.
Before purchasing, we would ask DentalHQ to demonstrate exactly what happens inside Open Dental when a patient enrolls, renews or cancels.
Open Dental integration: Very promising
Exact membership write-back: Needs confirmation
BoomCloud
BoomCloud explicitly supports Open Dental integration and offers extensive membership-management, billing, analytics and marketing capabilities.
Its integration can help identify uninsured patients, import patients and display membership information.
However, we could not verify that BoomCloud automatically creates and maintains the actual membership plan, fee schedule and related records inside Open Dental in the same manner documented by Clerri.
Open Dental integration: Good
Membership write-back: Needs confirmation
illumitrac
illumitrac offers practice-management-system connectivity and specifically discusses Open Dental.
Its documented integration appears particularly useful for reading practice information for analytics, membership opportunities and marketing.
We did not find public documentation demonstrating that illumitrac creates or maintains membership plans, fee schedules or membership payments directly inside Open Dental.
Open Dental integration: Primarily data, analytics and marketing oriented
Quality Dental Plan (QDP)
QDP is one of the older dental membership-plan systems and emphasizes practice ownership, implementation assistance and marketing.
However, we were unable to verify a current Open Dental API or comparable automated integration.
An Open Dental office considering QDP should therefore ask specifically how patient enrollment, fee schedules, payments and membership termination are transferred into Open Dental.
Open Dental integration: Not verified
What Happens When the Office Raises Its Fees?
This is an issue that is easy to overlook.
Most membership plans provide a discount from the practice's normal usual and customary (UCR) fees.
For example, suppose a practice charges $1,500 for a crown and its membership plan provides a 15% discount.
The membership fee would be:
Regular fee: $1,500
15% discount: $225
Membership fee: $1,275
Now suppose the practice increases its regular crown fee to $1,575.
The correct membership fee should also change.
If it does not, the practice is unintentionally giving a larger discount than originally intended.
Open Dental Native
With Open Dental Native Discount Plans, the office is responsible for updating the membership fee schedule when its regular fees change.
Changing the office's UCR fee schedule does not automatically recalculate the separate Discount Plan fee schedule.
Fortunately, this is relatively easy if the entire office fee schedule increases by the same percentage. Open Dental's Fee Tools can increase an entire membership fee schedule by a percentage.
It becomes more complicated when different procedure codes receive different increases.
In that situation, the new membership schedule needs to be recalculated code by code. This could be done relatively easily using Excel or another reporting tool and then imported into Open Dental.
What About the Commercial Programs?
This was a surprising finding.
For Clerri, PatientXpress, DentalHQ/Flex, BoomCloud, illumitrac and QDP, we were unable to find sufficiently detailed public documentation demonstrating that changing the UCR fee schedule in Open Dental automatically causes the membership software to:
Detect the new fees
Recalculate every membership fee
Update the membership fee schedule
Write the revised fees back into Open Dental
That does not mean these systems cannot do it.
It means the office should not assume that they do.
This should be demonstrated before purchasing any membership software.
Marketing: One of the Biggest Advantages of Commercial Membership Software
This is where the paid membership programs generally have a significant advantage over Open Dental Native.
Running the membership plan is only part of the job.
The practice also needs to convince eligible patients to join.
Useful marketing tools can include:
Patient brochures and handouts
Posters and office displays
Website membership pages
Online enrollment
QR codes
Email campaigns
Text-message campaigns
Social-media content
Identification of uninsured patients
Reactivation campaigns
Employer outreach
Staff scripts and training
Clerri/Kleer — Excellent Marketing Support
Clerri provides one of the strongest combinations of marketing materials and automation we found.
Its tools include brochures, personalized landing pages, social-media resources, direct-mail materials and digital advertising resources.
More importantly, Clerri can use practice-management data to identify potential membership patients, including uninsured patients, and use automated branded campaigns to market the plan.
This combination of Open Dental integration plus automated marketing is one of Clerri's strongest advantages.
DentalHQ — Excellent Marketing Support
DentalHQ provides extensive membership marketing through its Success Resources and Marketing Hub.
Resources include email templates, social-media materials and other plan-promotion tools.
DentalHQ also offers campaigns directed toward uninsured or cash-pay patients who have not enrolled.
For an Open Dental practice, we would want DentalHQ/Flex to demonstrate exactly how those target patients are identified from Open Dental.
BoomCloud — Excellent Marketing Support
BoomCloud provides a broad membership marketing toolkit including:
Brochures
Posters
Postcards
Digital templates
Website tools
Email campaigns
Text campaigns
Social-media resources
BoomCloud also emphasizes membership growth and recurring-revenue analytics.
The remaining question is how automatically its marketing system can identify the appropriate uninsured patients directly from Open Dental.
illumitrac — Very Good Marketing Support
illumitrac provides ready-to-use flyers, website and social-media graphics, waiting-room materials and email campaign sequences.
It also promotes a multi-touch marketing approach involving email, phone calls, appointment reminders, front-office staff, clinical staff, treatment coordinators, the website and social media.
For an office that wants a ready-made marketing program, this may be an important advantage.
Quality Dental Plan — Very Good Traditional Marketing Support
Marketing is one of QDP's stronger areas.
Its resources include customizable brochures, postcards, videos, advertising materials, sample letters and enrollment materials.
QDP also emphasizes marketing membership plans to local employers, which can provide another source of membership patients.
Its marketing capabilities appear considerably stronger than its documented Open Dental integration.
PatientXpress — Promising, but More Information Is Needed
PatientXpress already has substantial patient communication and reactivation capabilities, which theoretically makes it well suited to marketing membership plans.
However, we found less publicly available information describing a dedicated membership-marketing package comparable to Clerri, DentalHQ or BoomCloud.
We would specifically ask PatientXpress whether its membership product includes:
Membership brochures
Website landing pages
Automated uninsured-patient campaigns
Email and text campaigns
QR-code enrollment
Campaign tracking
Open Dental Native — Little Built-In Marketing
Open Dental provides the mechanics for administering a Discount Plan, but it is not a membership marketing company.
It does not provide the turnkey brochures, marketing campaigns, landing pages and growth coaching offered by many commercial membership platforms.
However, an Open Dental office can create much of this itself.
For example, a custom Open Dental report could identify:
Active patients + no current insurance + valid email address + not already enrolled in a Discount Plan
That list could then be used with the practice's existing email marketing program.
The practice could also create its own website membership page, brochure, email campaign and enrollment materials.
Therefore, the real question becomes:
How much is the convenience and automation supplied by a commercial membership company worth to the practice?
Our Overall Assessment
For an office already using Open Dental, we believe Open Dental Native Discount Plans should be evaluated first.
They cost essentially nothing beyond the Open Dental system the practice is already using, and all of the important membership information remains directly inside Open Dental.
The disadvantage is that the practice assumes more responsibility for plan design, enrollment, recurring payments, fee-schedule maintenance and marketing.
Among commercial products, Clerri/Kleer currently stands out for the strongest documented combination of Open Dental membership write-back and automated marketing.
PatientXpress is particularly interesting for practices that also want patient communications, payments, forms, scheduling and other automation, although we would want clarification regarding exactly how its membership information is stored inside Open Dental.
DentalHQ/Flex and BoomCloud both offer substantial membership-management and marketing capabilities, but we would want a demonstration of their exact Open Dental write-back and UCR fee-update workflows.
illumitrac and QDP provide substantial marketing and membership-plan support but currently have less clearly documented Open Dental automation.
Questions to Ask Before Purchasing Any Membership Software
Before signing a contract, we recommend asking the vendor to demonstrate the following using Open Dental:
When a patient enrolls, exactly what information is written into Open Dental?
Is the membership plan attached directly to the patient?
Is the correct membership fee schedule automatically assigned?
Are membership payments automatically posted into the patient's Open Dental account?
What happens in Open Dental when the patient cancels or the membership expires?
If we change our UCR fees, are all membership fees automatically recalculated?
Are those recalculated fees automatically written back into Open Dental?
Can the system automatically identify our uninsured patients?
Can it automatically market the membership plan to those patients?
What brochures, website materials, email campaigns and other marketing materials are included?
What work will our staff still have to perform every month and every year?
The answers to these questions are much more important than simply asking:
“Does your software integrate with Open Dental?”
Bottom Line
A paid membership platform should do more than simply administer a discount.
For an Open Dental practice, it should justify its cost by providing meaningful benefits beyond what Open Dental already provides—particularly automated enrollment, recurring billing, Open Dental write-back, fee maintenance, patient marketing and reduced staff workload.
For some practices, those additional services may easily justify the expense.
For others, Open Dental's native Discount Plans combined with the practice's existing website, email system and a few custom reports may accomplish most of the same objectives at very little additional cost.