Operating picture · measured 2026-09-07
250 US IT providers name dental — 0.64% of the market.
12,515 providers claim healthcare. 250 claim dental. For a practice buying IT, that is the difference between a list too long to read and one short enough to call.
of 39,188 US providers name dental as a vertical they serve
n = 39,188 published US providers, of which 250 name dental among the verticals they serve and 12,515 name the broader healthcare sector. Verticals are on file for 25,388 of the 39,188, so an unknown counts against the share. Shares within the dental group are quoted against those 250, a small base — treat them as indicative. Measured 2026-09-07 in one snapshot.
- Share of directory
- 31.9%
- Shows a Google rating
- 56.7%
- Shows a certification
- 31.3%
- Median headcount
- 11
- Share of directory
- 0.64%
- Shows a Google rating
- 58.4%
- Shows a certification
- 21.2%
- Median headcount
- 6
The published statistic behind this
Cybersecurity is the most common published service among IT providers: 16,425 firms of the 36,575 that list any service at all.
n = 36,575 providers listing at least one service · measured 2026-09-17. The figures on this page are frozen at their own measurement date and are not recomputed from that table.
Services offered prevalence ▸The narrowest claim we can measure
250 of 39,188 published US providers name dental among the verticals they serve — 0.64%, the narrowest named vertical on this site with enough firms to report at all.
12,515 providers, or 31.9%, name healthcare. Fifty times as many firms will tell you they serve healthcare as will tell you they serve dental practices, and healthcare is the single most-claimed vertical in US IT services.
A dental practice is a specific technical problem: imaging hardware, practice-management software that vendors certify against named configurations, and a HIPAA obligation carried by a business with no IT staff of its own. "Healthcare" as a claim does not tell a practice whether the provider has seen any of it.
Small firms serving small practices
The dental group is small and so are its members. The median dental-naming firm that publishes a headcount reports 6 staff, across the 149 that publish one, against 9 directory-wide and 11 among healthcare-naming firms.
146 of the 250 show a Google rating, or 58.4% — slightly ahead of the 56.7% among healthcare-naming firms and well ahead of the directory's 44.0% — at a median of 7 reviews. 53 show a certification, or 21.2%, which is below healthcare's 31.3%.
That last pair is worth reading carefully rather than as a quality gap. The certifications we record skew toward enterprise and security programs; a provider whose credentials are practice-management vendor authorizations may hold plenty and show us none.
Where they are
Texas 25, California 19, New York 13, North Carolina 13 and Florida 12 lead by provider headquarters. With 250 firms spread across the country, most states hold single digits, and 3 of the 250 publish a per-user, per-month rate.
The practical consequence is that a dental practice outside a large metro will often not find a local provider who names the vertical, and will be choosing between a nearby generalist and a specialist working remotely.
What this number can't tell you
- ·250 firms is a small base. Each single firm moves a within-group share by 0.4 points, so these figures are indicative and are not quoted to more precision than that supports.
- ·This measures what providers publish, not who they serve. Any provider with dental clients who never names the vertical is counted in the 99.36%.
- ·Verticals are on file for 25,388 of the 39,188 published firms, so directory-wide shares are floors and an unknown counts against them.
- ·"Dental" and "healthcare" are separate tags and a provider may carry both, so the groups overlap. The 250 are not a verified subset of the 12,515.
- ·The certification comparison reflects the certifications we record, which skew toward enterprise and security programs rather than practice-management vendor authorizations. It is not evidence about dental-specific competence.
- ·Only 3 firms in the dental group publish a per-seat rate, so no pricing median is given.
- ·State counts are provider headquarters, not service areas, and this is a vertical where remote service is common.
What to do about it
- ▸Buying: ask which practice-management platform a provider has migrated before, and how many dental clients they run now. 250 firms name the vertical; the ones with real experience will answer with software names.
- ▸Selling: at 0.64%, dental is the least contested vertical claim in the directory, and the group that holds it is made of six-person firms — so this is a position a small provider can take rather than one already owned by scale.
Questions this finding answers
- How many US MSPs serve dental offices?
- 12,515 providers claim healthcare. 250 claim dental. For a practice buying IT, that is the difference between a list too long to read and one short enough to call.
- How was this measured?
- n = 39,188 published US providers, of which 250 name dental among the verticals they serve and 12,515 name the broader healthcare sector. Verticals are on file for 25,388 of the 39,188, so an unknown counts against the share. Shares within the dental group are quoted against those 250, a small base — treat them as indicative. Measured 2026-09-07 in one snapshot.
- What can't this number tell you?
- 250 firms is a small base. Each single firm moves a within-group share by 0.4 points, so these figures are indicative and are not quoted to more precision than that supports.
Where does your firm sit on this?
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More findings
- 42.0%MSP stands for managed service provider. 16,455 of 39,188 US firms in this market are one.
- 4.8%Only 4.8% of US IT providers present as an MSSP — and the ones that do are more than three times as likely to show a SOC 2.
- 1,8971,897 US firms present as MSSPs — and only 7.4% of them name managed security services as a service.
- 9.1%Project work is listed almost twice as often as managed work: 53.0% of US IT firms name a project service, 28.6% name a managed one.