Dental Laboratory Revenue Benchmark

Average Dental Laboratory Revenue per Year 2022 Economic Census

The 2022 Economic Census counts every dental laboratory with paid employees and publishes their combined annual receipts. Dividing that total by the number of laboratories gives the average annual revenue per employer establishment shown below.

≈$1,257,000 /year

Average annual gross revenue per employer establishment

How this is calculated: about $6.3 billion in combined annual receipts divided by 5,038 employer establishments works out to an average annual revenue of $1,257,000 per employer establishment.

Scope: Dental Laboratories, NAICS 339116. The category covers dental laboratories making crowns, bridges, dentures and orthodontic appliances to dentists' orders. Dental offices and dental equipment manufacturers are counted in separate categories. Classified separately in group 3391: 339112 Surgical and Medical Instrument Manufacturing; 339113 Surgical Appliance and Supplies Manufacturing; 339114 Dental Equipment and Supplies Manufacturing, and 1 further code. Nothing outside that code is counted on this page.

Source US Census Bureau, 2022 Economic Census, Summary Statistics (ECNBASIC): ESTAB, RCPTOT and PAYANN by NAICS · Vintage 2022 Economic Census · Calculation BusinessNES · Accessed September 2026

Employer Establishments at Year Five Smaller cohort

Medical Equipment and Supplies Manufacturing, NAICS 3391, the 2018 starting count compared with the count of five-year-old establishments in 2023.

Across the 2014 to 2018 cohorts, five-year results ranged from 54.0 to 60.6 percent. This benchmark covers Medical Equipment and Supplies Manufacturing, NAICS 3391, as a whole, and this category accounts for 5,038 of the 8,949 employer establishments in it. A count by age is not a survival rate, because the figures compare two headcounts rather than follow one set of businesses.

Payroll as a Share of Revenue Official data

Payroll divided by receipts, both as published for the same year.

Payroll share of receipts, Dental Laboratories, United States, 2022 Economic Census.

Approximately 35.0 percent of every revenue dollar goes to annual payroll, a substantial share because skilled dental technicians are the product, with materials such as alloys, ceramics and resins carrying much of the rest.

Payroll here excludes benefits, employer taxes and owner compensation, and it excludes alloys, ceramics, resins, digital equipment and shipping, which together carry a large part of what a laboratory spends on each case.

Business Scale and Ownership Structure Official data

How large the average establishment is, and whether the population is independent operators or multi-site companies.

Scale and ownership, Dental Laboratories, United States, 2022 Economic Census.

The average establishment employed about 8.8 people, and the industry averaged 1.1 employer establishments per firm, which confirms that multi-establishment ownership exists in the published population without showing how establishments are distributed across firms. As an illustration, that headcount could be a bench team of technicians with a small office, often with the owner working cases as well.

These are arithmetic industry averages. They state the size of the average establishment and show that multi-establishment ownership exists. They do not show the distribution of business sizes and they do not measure market concentration.

Explore More on BusinessNES

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Data Source Notice

This product uses the Census Bureau Data API but is not endorsed or certified by the Census Bureau.

Figures above are from the 2022 Economic Census reference year, released by the Census Bureau in 2024 and 2025; markets have moved since.

Questions Worth Asking BusinessNES analysis

Dental Laboratory: what technicians, digital equipment and offshore competition do to a lab's average.

Before you rely on this benchmark

• Crowns, dentures or aligners? Fixed restorations, removable dentures and orthodontic appliances need different skills, materials and equipment, and a lab's specialty decides its pricing and its customers. The census counts all dental lab work in one category.
• How digital is the lab? Scanners, design software, milling machines and printers raise output per technician and change what a small lab can offer, but they cost capital and training. The level of digital investment behind a figure varies from bench to bench.
• Where do the cases come from? A lab depends on a roster of dentists sending cases, and losing a large practice to an in-office milling machine or a cheaper lab can cut volume quickly. Dependence on a few practices is a risk that no average can reveal.
• How does offshore work compete? Crowns and dentures made abroad at lower prices compete with domestic labs, and some domestic labs outsource part of their work. A lab's position on that spectrum shapes both its revenue and its margins.
• Who are the technicians? Skilled ceramists and denture technicians take years to train and are scarce in many regions, so labor availability caps growth. Technician retention shapes the payroll share on this page.
• What do materials cost? Precious metal alloys, zirconia, ceramics and resins move with commodity and supplier prices, and a fixed fee schedule to dentists adjusts slowly. Material cost per case is a quiet pressure outside a receipts figure.