# Surgery hourly rate calculator: what each booked hour must earn for a dental practice to break even

> Enter running costs, surgeries, opening hours and the share of hours booked to see the fee income a booked hour needs, and what an empty hour costs.

- Page to cite: https://aeolookup.com/clinics/surgery-hourly-rate-calculator-dental-practice-break-even/
- Publisher: AEO Lookup (https://aeolookup.com/)
- Section: Dental, physio and aesthetics clinics, Running the practice
- Published 1 October 2026
- Key fact: A three-surgery practice with £310,000 of running costs, open 37.5 hours a week for 48 weeks, has 5,400 surgery hours a year at £57.41 each. With 80% booked and the clinician keeping 45% of the fee, a booked hour must bring in £130.47 to break even, and a 30-minute appointment £65.24. At 85% booked the figure falls to £122.80.
- Sources: Our own arithmetic, shown in full on the page and checked by hand. No fee guidance is implied. The test record is in tests/chairside/tools-check.txt.

A dental practice pays for its surgeries by the hour whether or not a patient is in the chair. The calculator turns the yearly running costs into a figure for each open hour, then into the fee income a booked hour has to bring in for the practice to cover those costs.

**Free tool on the page:** Surgery hourly rate calculator: what each booked hour must earn to cover the practice, and what an empty hour costs. It runs in the browser at https://aeolookup.com/clinics/surgery-hourly-rate-calculator-dental-practice-break-even/#tool and asks for no sign-up.

## The sum

Four steps, with the figures the calculator opens with.

| Step | Sum | Result |
|---|---|---|
| Surgery hours open a year | 3 surgeries × 37.5 hours × 48 weeks | 5,400 |
| Running cost for each open hour | £310,000 ÷ 5,400 | £57.41 |
| Running cost for each booked hour | £57.41 ÷ 80% | £71.76 |
| Fee income needed for each booked hour | £71.76 ÷ (1 − 45%) | £130.47 |
| For a 30-minute appointment | £130.47 ÷ 2 | £65.24 |

**Running costs** are everything the practice pays to open the doors: nurses and reception, rent, materials, laboratory bills, equipment leases, software, insurance, the principal's management time if it is paid. Leave out the pay of clinicians who take a share of the fees they generate, because the last step deals with them.

**The share booked** is the proportion of open surgery hours with a patient in the chair. Count it from the diary for a normal month: booked hours divided by hours the surgery was staffed and available. Gaps, failed appointments and cancelled sessions all bring it down.

**The clinician's share** is the percentage of the fee paid to an associate or self-employed hygienist. If the clinician keeps 45%, the practice keeps 55%, so the fee has to be large enough that 55% of it covers the hour. For a salaried clinician, put their pay in the running costs and enter 0.

## What the figure is for

It is a break-even line, not a price list. Use it three ways.

**To look at appointment lengths.** If a 30-minute slot has to bring in £65.24 to break even, an appointment type that brings in less is being carried by the others. That may be the right decision. A new-patient examination that leads to a treatment plan earns its place. But it should be a decision, not something nobody has looked at.

**To look at the diary.** The same practice at 85% booked needs £122.80 an hour, not £130.47. Five points of occupancy is 270 more booked hours a year. If those hours earn the break-even figure of £130.47, that is about £35,000 of fee income, of which the practice keeps 55%, about £19,400. No fee has changed and the rent, wages and leases are the same; the surgery has simply stood empty less often.

**To look at a new surgery or a new session.** Adding a fourth surgery adds open hours and running costs. Enter both and see what share of the new hours must be booked before the fourth chair stops costing the other three money.

## An empty hour costs £57.41

The running cost of an open hour is paid whether a patient attends or not. That is the figure to hold against a failed appointment or a gap that was never filled: on the example, £57.41 gone, before counting the fee that was not earned.

Three things move the share booked more than anything else:

- **Reminders that ask for a reply.** A reminder two working days ahead that asks the patient to confirm gives the front desk time to refill the slot. Our [failed-to-attend cost calculator](https://aeolookup.com/clinics/failed-to-attend-cost-calculator-dental-practice/) puts a yearly figure on failed appointments and on what reminders recover.
- **A short-notice list.** Patients who have said they can come at a few hours' notice, kept as a list the front desk can ring or message when a slot opens.
- **Recalls sent on time.** A patient who is not recalled is a gap six months from now. The [recall and reminder planner](https://aeolookup.com/clinics/recall-reminder-planner-dental/) works out the dates.

A written cancellation policy helps as well, if it is shown to patients before they book and applied evenly. Our [cancellation policy template](https://aeolookup.com/clinics/dental-cancellation-policy-template-private-practice/) sets out what a private practice may fairly charge.

## Reading the result with care

The calculator spreads costs evenly across every open hour. Real practices are not even. A surgery used by a hygienist carries lower material and laboratory costs than one used for restorative work. If the difference matters to a decision, split the running costs between the surgeries and run each one separately.

It also knows nothing about the mix of NHS and private work. If part of the practice's income is a fixed contract value, the fee income a booked hour "brings in" for that work is the contract value divided by the hours it takes to deliver, and the practice manager will need the contract figures to work that out. We give no figure for it here.

Nothing in this calculator says what a fee should be or what treatment a patient should be offered. Those decisions belong to the registered dental professional and the practice owner. A GDC-registered professional or the practice manager reviews anything a tool drafts before it reaches a patient, and this page is general information, not clinical or legal advice.

Overlyft ![](https://aeolookup.com/img/d/ours-badge.png) can set up an AI assistant that drafts recalls, reminders and booking replies for the front desk to approve. Its effect on a practice shows up in one input above: the share of hours booked.

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General information for UK small firms, not legal, tax or financial advice.