Best Patient Financing Options for Dental Practices (2026)

A note on LendingPoint

LendingPoint offers personal loans up to $36,500 with terms from 24 to 72 months and APR ranging from 7.99% to 35.99%. We couldn't find dental-specific performance data — approval rates, practice penetration, or workflow case studies — to rank it alongside the four above. If a patient specifically asks about personal loan options, it's worth knowing LendingPoint exists. As a vendor you actively promote at your front desk, though, the four ranked options have more established track records in dental.

How to choose the right financing mix

Based on practitioner discussions across DentalTown and Reddit, practices offering two financing options consistently report higher case acceptance than single-option offices. The optimal combination depends on your case mix:

• General dentistry (average cases under $10K): CareCredit + Sunbit. CareCredit covers existing cardholders; Sunbit catches everyone else with 87% approval.
• Implant/cosmetic-heavy practices: CareCredit + Cherry. Cherry's $50K cap handles the large cases that Sunbit can't, and the true 0% Pay-in-4 is a strong patient incentive.
• Full-mouth rehab / high-value specialty: Add Proceed Finance as a third option for cases over $20K where longer terms (up to 144 months) make the monthly payment manageable.

Financing decisions don't happen in a vacuum — how your staff presents treatment plans and follows up with patients affects how many actually apply. For tools that handle that communication layer, including Weave and NexHealth integrations, see our best patient communication platforms ranking.

The merchant fee vs. approval rate trade-off

The lowest merchant fee is the wrong thing to optimize for. Here's why.

Example: On 100 financing applications with a $3,000 average case:

• CareCredit at 60% approval = 60 cases = $180,000 production, minus 10% (a typical promotional fee — the actual range is 5-14%, so run this with your specific rate) = $162,000 net
• Sunbit at 87% approval = 87 cases = $261,000 production, minus ~4% merchant fees = $250,560 net

Even if Sunbit's merchant fees run higher than advertised, the approval rate difference generates significantly more net revenue. Run this math with your own numbers before making a decision.

A note on vendor marketing

Sunbit and Cherry are engaged in aggressive attack marketing against each other. Both publish blog posts claiming the other's real fees are much higher than advertised. We've reviewed both companies' claims and counter-claims — the truth is that both companies use fee tiers that vary by credit tier, plan type, and volume, making apples-to-apples comparison impossible without getting your own custom quote.

Our recommendation: ignore the vendor-produced comparison content. Get quotes from both, compare your specific rate schedules, and calculate the total cost based on your actual case mix. For a head-to-head of the two newcomers, see our Sunbit vs Cherry comparison. For the full three-way breakdown, see our CareCredit vs Sunbit vs Cherry head-to-head comparison.

Does your financing option work with your PMS?

This is one of the first questions office managers ask — and one this page doesn't yet answer cleanly. Whether a treatment plan pushes directly to a financing application or requires your staff to switch to a separate tablet and re-enter patient information makes a real difference in front desk friction.

None of the vendors we reviewed publish current, specific integration documentation for Dentrix, Eaglesoft, Curve, or Open Dental. Before signing with any financing partner, ask them directly: does a treatment plan push to the financing application automatically, or is it a manual handoff? Get the answer in writing, and ask when the integration was last updated for your specific PMS. For context on how financing handoffs fit into the broader patient communication workflow, our patient communication platforms ranking covers tools like Weave and NexHealth that often sit in the middle of that workflow.

Contract terms, cancellation, and defaults

Contract terms for Cherry and Sunbit are not publicly documented. Before signing with either, ask specifically about: minimum commitment periods, volume minimums that trigger penalty fees, and whether adding or dropping a financing partner creates any contractual conflict. These aren't hypothetical concerns — they're the questions practices should have answered before the rep leaves the office.

CareCredit's setup is more established. Merchant fees per transaction are documented (5-14% depending on promotional period), and the process for adding the program is straightforward. One critical operational detail on defaults: if a patient stops paying CareCredit or disputes a charge, collections are handled by CareCredit, not your practice. You keep the payment you already received. That's meaningful protection. The risk runs the other direction — patient complaints about the deferred interest structure (32.99% retroactive APR if the balance isn't paid in full) can land on your Google reviews even though the billing relationship is technically between the patient and Synchrony.

CareCredit's consumer-facing brand is not BBB accredited and settled a $34.1 million consumer refund case (source: BBB). That doesn't disqualify it — it remains the most widely recognized healthcare financing brand in the country — but it means your front desk should brief patients clearly on how deferred interest works before they apply. For how we weigh reputation data in our rankings, see our methodology page.

What's negotiable

Merchant fee schedules aren't publicly listed for any of the four vendors above, which means the posted starting rates are exactly that — starting points. We don't have sourced data on whether high-volume practices can negotiate fees down or whether promotional rates exist for new signups. Ask your rep before signing. The specific questions worth asking: what triggers a rate change if your volume drops, whether there's a penalty for adding a second financing partner, and what the exit path looks like if the program isn't working at six months.