Anyone who has priced a crown in London and then in Istanbul has had the same thought: something must be wrong with the cheap one. Usually there is not. Occasionally there is, and it is worth knowing which is which.
Where the saving genuinely comes from
Four things, and they account for almost all of it.
- Salaries. A dental nurse in Istanbul is paid a fraction of one in Munich. Dentistry is labour, and labour is most of the cost.
- Rent. A clinic on a good street in Şişli costs a fraction of an equivalent in Zone 1.
- The exchange rate. The lira has fallen a long way against the pound and the euro. That moves the price before anyone picks up an instrument.
- Utilisation. A CBCT scanner costs the same in both countries; a scanner used forty times a week costs less per scan than one used ten times.
None of that touches the titanium. A Straumann fixture is manufactured in Switzerland and sold at a global price; the clinic in Istanbul pays roughly what the clinic in Manchester pays for it. That is the part of the bill that does not shrink, which is exactly why it is the part to check.
Where a low price does mean something is missing
Three places, in the order you are most likely to meet them.
- The fixture. Budget fixtures work. The risk is not that they fail immediately; it is that in twelve years you need a component and the manufacturer no longer exists, and the only remedy is removing an integrated implant from your jaw.
- The time. A full arch done properly is not one appointment. A price that assumes one appointment has priced a different treatment from the one you were reading about.
- The aftercare. Almost every complication happens after you have flown home. A price with no answer to “who do I call, and who pays” has moved that cost onto you and called it a discount.
What the saving looks like by treatment
It is not a flat percentage. It scales with how much clinical time the treatment takes, because time is what is cheaper.
| Treatment | Roughly where the saving sits |
|---|---|
| A single crown | Real, but small enough that the flights matter |
| A single implant with crown | Substantial; usually worth the trip on its own |
| Full arch, one jaw | Large — five figures in many cases |
| Full mouth reconstruction | Largest, and the case where travelling is most obviously rational |
The question that actually matters
Not “why is it cheap” but “what am I buying”. Get the fixture brand, the crown material, the number of visits and the warranty in writing. If those four match a quote at home and the price does not, the saving is the economics above. If they do not match, you are comparing two different treatments and the price difference is telling you nothing.
