The dental lab industry isn’t “changing.” It’s splitting.
On one end, industrial mega-labs win by running high volume at the lowest cost.
On the other, niche boutiques win by commanding premiums with specialization.
And in the middle?
The “we do everything” mid-sized generalist lab is getting crushed.
This report calls it The Great Bifurcation, a strategic roadmap for lab owners and operators navigating the split inside the ~$9.2B global dental lab market.
The median age of dental technicians exceeds 50, training pipelines are shrinking, and labs “cannot hire—period.” The implication is blunt: outsource labor or eliminate labor through automation.
Digital impressions are now 60%+ of case submissions and labs often juggle 8–15 scanner portals, each with its own login/workflow. The work didn’t disappear. It moved from dentists to labs.
PE-backed DLOs are acquiring labs rapidly, but many roll-ups are “distressed” because they didn’t integrate operations, destroying EBITDA via administrative overhead. That creates an opening for well-run independents… if they can match industrial operational excellence.
The report’s key insight: the market is “barbelling”, and value is concentrating at two extremes:
The report lays out two viable strategies:
Automate intake, design, and communication to reduce labor cost per unit and process 2–3x case volume without proportional staffing.
Automate routine work to free expert capacity and command 20–40% price premiums on complex restorations—using systems to protect quality and service.
Either way, the core message is the same:
You must pick a lane. The worst strategy is trying to be everything to everyone while getting squeezed.
This blog is a high-level summary. The full PDF includes the industry split framework, the barbell model, and a step-by-step set of operational recommendations (portal fatigue → case creation → AI-assisted design → client comms → lane selection).
