What to Pay an Orthodontist
Orthodontists get paid a national median of $289,140 a year — $139.01 an hour — with the middle 50% between $146,580 and $342,300 (BLS OEWS, SOC 29-1023, May 2025).
Before you budget from that, know what it contains: it is a wage survey — BLS's OEWS does not cover the self-employed or owners and partners in unincorporated firms — and many orthodontists own or partner in practices, so the earnings that come with ownership sit largely outside these figures, not inside them.
At a glance
BLS OEWS, SOC 29-1023, May 2025 — employees only; excludes self-employed owners
National median
$289,140/yr
the median expressed as an hourly rate (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
Median pay rate
$139.01/hr
25th to 75th percentile, national
Middle 50%
$146,580–$342,300
Looking for your own pay rather than what to budget for a hire?
This page is the employer's side of the question.
If you're the orthodontist, the orthodontist salary guide has the state figures BLS publishes plus the full percentile spread, and what orthodontists make as owners vs. associates lays out the owner and associate pay anchors — and why ADA HPI publishes no owner-versus-associate split for orthodontists.
For an employed associate, that band is the relevant one: it is a survey of wages paid to employed orthodontists, associates among them.
It is still worth setting a state figure against the national one where BLS publishes one for your state.
The structure matters as much as the number, and it is worth saying plainly that there is no dental-specific survey figure we can point you to for what percentage of production orthodontic associates are paid.
General-dentist associate percentages circulate widely and do not transfer — the case values, chair time per patient and treatment length are all different.
What follows describes the structures in use and what each one is good for; the numbers on this page are the BLS percentiles and nothing else.
Ways to structure the pay
Daily-rate guarantee
Best for: A new associate, or a referral column still building
A flat guaranteed amount per clinical day, sometimes as a floor under a percentage formula (the associate is paid the higher of the two).
Trade-off: You carry the risk while the column fills instead of the associate.
In a specialty fed by referrals rather than by your own recall, that risk is real and largely outside the associate's control in month one.
When to use: You are handing over a column that is not yet full, or opening a second location where the referral base is still forming.
Percentage of production or collections
Best for: An established referral base and a full column
A share of what the associate produces or collects.
Treatment runs months to years per patient, so a case that starts this year can be collected across several — which is what makes the production-versus-collections distinction matter.
Trade-off: Aligns pay with output, but pays badly against a thin referral column, and the timing mismatch between starting a case and collecting for it can make early months look worse than the work was.
When to use: The column is full on day one and the candidate is confident in their own throughput.
Define production versus collections in writing, including how a case that starts under one doctor and finishes under another is credited.
Ambiguity there is expensive in a specialty where treatment runs months to years.
Employed salary with a stated partnership track
Best for: Competing against practice ownership, which is the real alternative
A salary or daily rate, plus a written outline of what a buy-in would look like and when it becomes available.
Trade-off: It commits you to a conversation you may prefer to defer, and a track you outline should be one you mean.
The upside is that it competes with the option many orthodontists actually take.
When to use: You are recruiting someone you want to keep for a decade rather than two years — which, given how long the specialty's treatment relationships run, is usually the point.
The Orthodontist Hiring Market Right Now
The orthodontist openings you are competing with, from the 65 active listings on DentistryHires as of November 13, 2026.
Employers with the most openings
- Pacific Dental Services6
- Smile Brands4
- Orthodontic Experts3
- Children's Dental FunZone2
- Heartland Dental2
- Ideal Dental2
Where the openings are
Pay employers post
- 15% of orthodontist listings state any pay at all, so posting a range helps yours stand out.
Benefits listings name
- Paid or provided CEnamed in 34%
- Health insurancenamed in 31%
- Dental or vision coveragenamed in 31%
- 401(k) plannamed in 29%
- Malpractice insurancenamed in 20%
- Advancement opportunitiesnamed in 18%
- Paid time offnamed in 15%
- Flexible schedulingnamed in 14%
Source: active orthodontist listings on DentistryHires, updated daily. Pay figures use only listings that state pay (midpoint of each posted range) and are hidden when one employer posted most of them. Benefits count listings that name the benefit; a listing that doesn’t mention one may still offer it.
See the listings →Questions employers ask
How much do orthodontists get paid?
Orthodontists get paid a national median of $289,140 a year — $139.01 an hour — with the middle 50% between $146,580 and $342,300 (BLS OEWS, SOC 29-1023, May 2025).
Those are wages paid to employed orthodontists — BLS's survey does not cover the self-employed or owners and partners in unincorporated firms — and many orthodontists own or partner in practices, so ownership earnings sit largely outside these figures rather than inside them.
The states BLS publishes a figure for are on our orthodontist salary page.
What is an orthodontist's hourly pay rate?
BLS publishes a median hourly rate of $139.01 for orthodontists (OEWS, SOC 29-1023, May 2025).
Read it as a comparison figure, not a number to offer: it is the occupation's wage median, and BLS's survey does not cover the self-employed or owners and partners in unincorporated firms, so an owner's practice profit is not fully in it.
The structures in use for an employed orthodontic associate are a daily rate, a share of production or collections, or a salary — the three structures on this page cover how each works.
Why is the published range so wide?
Because it is one national band — from $146,580 at the 25th percentile to $416,000 and above at the 90th (BLS OEWS, SOC 29-1023, May 2025).
It is also wages only: OEWS wages leave out self-employed owners, so practice profit sits outside these figures, not inside them.
What percentage of production should I offer an orthodontic associate?
We are not going to give you a number for that, because there is no dental-specific source for one we would stand behind.
The percentages quoted for general-dentist associates do not transfer — case values, chair time and treatment length all differ.
Build the offer from your own case values and column, and use the BLS band as the sanity check on where it lands.
Do I have to offer a partnership track?
No, but decide before you post.
Many orthodontists own or partner rather than associate indefinitely, so an employed-only role competes against practice ownership and not merely against other jobs.
Stating plainly that there is no track is a perfectly good answer — it sorts candidates early, which is far cheaper than discovering the mismatch in year two.
Post the role
Put your listing in front of orthodontists who are actively looking.