You have run your tongue over that new edge about thirty times since it happened, and underneath the worry there is a very practical question: what is this going to cost to put right? The honest answer runs from nothing at all to several hundred pounds, and which end you land on is decided in the first look a dentist gives it.
What decides the cost of a chipped tooth repair?
Three things, and you can work most of it out yourself in the bathroom mirror tonight.
The first is how much of the tooth has gone. A tooth is built in layers, a bit like a glazed mug: enamel on the outside is the hard shiny glaze, the dentine underneath is the softer clay, and the living nerve sits in the middle. A chip that stops in the glaze is about the cheapest thing in dentistry to put right, because there is nothing to treat, only a shape to rebuild. Go through into the dentine and you have uncovered the soft layer, the one that reports back to you about cold drinks.
Then there is which tooth it is. A front tooth is thin, and it turns up in every photograph you are in, so its repair is about shape and shade as much as strength. A back tooth is a different animal. Nobody ever looks at it, but it takes the full force of chewing, so a nick that seems like nothing can leave a wall of that tooth too thin to be trusted with a steak.
The third thing moves the price more than the other two put together: whether the nerve has been reached. Most chips stop a long way short of it and the tooth carries on as though nothing happened.
A small chip: what does composite bonding cost?
This is where most chipped front teeth land, and it is the good news end of the range. Composite bonding at Designer Smiles is from £200 – £250 a tooth on the current offer, against the fee guide’s standard figure of £400. It is charged per tooth, so one chipped tooth is one tooth on the bill. You are not buying a new smile because you caught a fork.
The reason it stays that cheap is that nothing is taken away. Tooth-coloured resin is added onto what is already there and set hard, so there is no drilling, and because the tooth is never cut, most bonding needs no injection at all. It is one visit: you arrive with a corner missing, you leave with it back, and you can eat on the way home.
Before any of that, the consultation is free and comes with a 3D scan of your face and teeth. There is a trial smile too, the new shape placed over your own teeth so you can change it in the mirror while changing it is still easy. What bonding fixes, and what it costs per tooth is set out on its own page.
Now the honest part. Resin stains a little faster than enamel does and lasts around five years or more rather than decades, because it wears the way natural enamel wears. A chip in the bonding is repaired rather than the whole thing redone, which is why that shorter life matters less than it sounds. And if you grind your teeth at night, the new edge goes the way the old one went unless it is protected, so a soft night guard at £150 comes into the conversation.
On a back tooth, where nobody is judging the shape, the same small repair is usually a white filling instead, from £76.60 here.
A bigger break: why a crown, and what does a crown cost?
Some breaks are past patching, and this is where the cost of repairing a broken tooth parts company with the cost of fixing a chip. If a large piece has gone, or a big old filling has left the walls around it thin, adding more material to the outside only gives the tooth something else to snap off. A crown covers the whole tooth instead, rather like a helmet, so every bite squeezes the tooth together rather than prising it apart.
A crown at Designer Smiles starts from £332.10 in metal, the same figure as an NHS Band 3 course of treatment, which is exactly where the NHS puts a crown, from £450 in white and from £800 in porcelain. Where the front of a healthy tooth is being changed for the long term, a porcelain veneer is £800 a tooth. The sorting between a crown, a veneer and bonding happens at the consultation, where people arrive asking for veneers and leave with bonding.
What if the nerve is involved?
You tend to know. A tooth that has only lost enamel behaves itself, while a tooth whose nerve has been disturbed throbs, wakes you at two in the morning, and goes on aching long after the cold drink has gone. It is a horrible night, and it is also completely routine: the first thing that happens at the appointment is that it stops.
Settling the nerve is its own step with its own price. Dressing or removing it is £76.60, which is both the first stage of a root canal and what gets you comfortable on the day. The root canal itself runs from £550 for a front tooth to £850 for a molar, and the gap between them is simply how many canals are inside: a front tooth has one, a molar has three or four, and every one has to be cleaned and sealed. A back tooth is usually crowned afterwards, because a root-filled back tooth cracks without one.
So the tooth that needed the most work is the tooth you got to keep. That is the trade behind those figures.
Is a chipped tooth an emergency?
Most are not, and there is no need to treat one as though it were. A small chip with no pain and no sharp edge waits happily for an ordinary appointment.
It becomes an emergency when the edge is sharp enough to cut your tongue, when it hurts enough to keep you awake or stop you eating, when a large piece has gone, or when the tooth feels loose after a knock. An emergency appointment here is £27.90 in practice hours, the same figure as the NHS urgent charge, and it covers the examination and getting you comfortable. A chipped front tooth is made smooth and safe the same day, and the rebuild is booked for a second visit once you are out of pain, priced in writing first. How the same-day appointment runs is on the emergency page, along with the one thing that belongs at a hospital instead: a blow to the face hard enough that the jaw itself might be hurt.
What do I do tonight?
Rinse your mouth with warm water first, because there may be fragments in there you cannot feel. Then find the piece that broke off and keep it somewhere safe to bring in, because it shows your dentist how much of the tooth has gone and which way it broke.
If the edge is sharp, press a piece of sugar-free chewing gum over it, or a little orthodontic wax if there is a pharmacy still open. That is only a cushion, and it stops the edge sawing at your tongue until morning.
Do not glue it back on. Household glue was never made for the inside of a mouth, and it has to be cleaned off before anything proper can be bonded there, so superglue tonight makes tomorrow’s appointment longer.
After that, chew on the other side, go gently on anything very hot or cold, and ring in the morning. 0121 709 3821.
Can a chipped tooth just wait?
Genuinely, often it can, and you deserve the straight answer rather than a scare. Enamel has no nerve in it, so a chip that stops at the glaze does not hurt and does not spread by itself. Plenty of people carry one for years and only mention it because they are in the chair anyway.
What changes the answer is the edge it left behind. A sharp one wears at your tongue. A rough one holds plaque in a spot the brush skates straight over, and plaque sitting in one place is how decay starts. A thin one has less tooth behind it than it had last week, so the next unlucky bite takes more than the first. And once dentine is showing, cold air on a January morning starts finding it.
The other thing worth saying out loud is that it will not grow back. Enamel has no living cells inside it to build the missing piece back, which is why every fix is something added on top, and why a chip is cheaper dealt with early: you are rebuilding a corner rather than half a tooth.
What would the NHS charge for the same repair?
This is rarely the comparison people expect. NHS dentistry in England is priced in three bands, and a whole course of treatment costs one band charge however many visits it takes. Repairing a broken tooth with a filling sits in Band 2, £76.60. A crown sits in Band 3, £332.10. Bonding for the look of a tooth is cosmetic, so it is private everywhere in England, in an NHS practice as much as here.
Designer Smiles is a private practice, and the everyday prices start from those band figures deliberately:
| The repair | NHS charge | At Designer Smiles |
|---|---|---|
| A chip rebuilt with a white filling | Band 2, £76.60 | From £76.60 |
| A crown over a badly broken tooth | Band 3, £332.10 | From £332.10 |
| The emergency visit itself | Urgent, £27.90 | £27.90 |
| A front tooth rebuilt with bonding | Not NHS work anywhere | From £200 – £250 a tooth |
The NHS charges set beside ours run through the rest of the list the same way. What the money buys here is the appointment: a time you picked, with a dentist who turns the screen round and shows you the scan of your own tooth.
So there is the whole range. Nothing at all for a chip in enamel that is not bothering you. From £200 – £250 a tooth to rebuild a front corner in one visit. From £332.10 when the tooth needs covering to stay in one piece, and the nerve settled first if a break has gone deep. The bonding consultation with the 3D scan is free, and it ends with the exact figure for your own tooth in writing. Ring 0121 709 3821 and we will take a look at that edge.
