Pricing for dental practices in Belgium
Tilcao does not publish a price. The product is early and pre-pilot, and the price is being set with the first practices rather than guessed at in advance, so any figure on this page today would be a figure we made up. What this page can give you is everything except the number: what the price will depend on, what is included whatever it turns out to be, what is not, and what a Belgian practice is really comparing this against. Seeing it work costs nothing: the demo practice on our home page is free to try, and so is the call where we look at your setup.
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Why is there no price on this page?
Because Tilcao has not yet run a real Belgian practice, and a price published before that would be a guess dressed up as a tariff. We would have to change it the moment we measured something, and a number that gets quietly revised is worth less than no number at all. The price is being set together with the first practices, from what their calls actually look like.
There is a commercial version of this page. It shows a low figure with the word “from” in front of it, sized to win a comparison rather than to describe an invoice, and the real number appears later in the conversation anyway. We would rather write the true thing here and let you decide whether it is worth a call.
So the rest of this page is the honest substitute: the cost drivers, the boundaries, and what happens in the conversation itself.
- No published price until we have measured one in a working practice.
- No “from” price that nobody ends up paying.
- No discount that expires on Friday.
- No results used to justify a price. Tilcao has no pilot results yet, so there are none to quote.
- No customer names, no logos and no ratings, for exactly the same reason.
What will the price depend on?
On how much of the practice the agent actually runs, and on how much work your particular setup takes to do properly. The same handful of questions comes up in every conversation, and they are the questions we answer before saying anything about money.
None of this is a rate card. It is the list of things that have to be known before a number means anything, and it is the same list whether you are a solo practice in Namur or a group practice in Antwerp.
| What the price depends on | Why it moves |
|---|---|
| Which agent roles you switch on | Receptionist, Scheduler, Recall, Treatment Coordinator, Back Office and Practice Manager are separate jobs. A practice that wants the telephone answered is buying less than one that also wants recalls chased and cancellations refilled, and every role needs its own rules written and checked before it runs. |
| Which channels you open | Telephone, WhatsApp and email behave differently underneath. A spoken call costs money per minute to carry and to run, a message thread does not, so the mix matters more than the total. |
| How many calls and messages you get | Every conversation has a real cost beneath it, so volume is part of any model. This is also the figure practices most often guess at, and the one your own telephone bill can settle. |
| How many practitioners, and how many locations | Each practitioner is a diary with its own availability, its own appointment types and, where convention status is partial, its own hours. More diaries means more configuration and more to keep correct. |
| What the integration with your system takes | This is the driver that varies most. Some practices sit behind an online agenda layer with a usable interface, others do not, and the difference in work is large. We find out before quoting rather than after. |
| How much of the practice is already written down | The agent answers from a knowledge base you control: opening hours, what to bring, how pain is routed, which practitioner is geconventioneerd or conventionné, meaning bound to the national tariff agreement with the mutualiteiten or mutualités, and at which hours. A practice that already has this written is quicker to set up than one starting from a blank page. |
What is included, whatever the price turns out to be?
Everything that makes the agent safe to put in front of a patient. None of it is an option, an add-on or a higher tier, because a version of Tilcao without these is not a version we would sell to anyone.
The languages deserve saying plainly. Belgium is not a market where a second language is a premium feature, and a Brussels practice asked to pay extra to answer in Dutch and French would be right to walk away.
- Dutch, French and English on the same line, including when the caller changes language halfway through a sentence.
- A structured summary and an audit trail for every conversation, with the booking outcome derived from what was actually written to the diary rather than from what the agent said.
- A knowledge base the practice writes and controls, and can change without asking us.
- Your own escalation rule. Pain, distress and anything else you flag go to a named person, and the agent makes no clinical judgement at any price.
- The disclosure at the start of the call that the caller is speaking to an AI agent, which the EU AI Act requires and which we would do regardless.
- A processing agreement in place before the first real patient call, with every sub-processor named in its annex.
- The ability to pause a workflow or take the line back yourself, without ringing us first.
What is not included?
Tilcao is a layer on top of the practice rather than a replacement for any part of it, so several things a practice might hope to fold into one bill stay exactly where they are. Tilcao is not a practice management system, it is not on the MyCareNet approved-software list, and it holds no eHealth certificate. It needs none of those to book an appointment, and it never attests, never invoices and never writes in the clinical record.
The last item on the list is where a quote usually goes wrong, so it is worth stating in full. No Belgian dental practice system publishes an open, documented booking API. The realistic route into a practice is the online agenda layer sitting in front of the practice system, and what is possible depends on which one you run. We look at your actual setup and tell you what we can do before there is a price attached to anything.
- Your practice management software. Tilcao works beside CareConnect Dentist, DentAdmin, Crossuite, Titanium and the rest of the Belgian field, and you keep paying your own vendor.
- Your telephone line and your number. Both stay yours, your operator contract stays yours, and you forward the line on whichever setting you choose.
- Anything RIZIV/INAMI touches. eAttest, eFact, eTarif, MyCareNet insurability checks and the GMD/DMG stay inside your own software, where the electronic invoicing obligation already put them.
- Clinical judgement. The agent never names a condition, never rates how urgent a complaint is and never recommends or doses a medicine. That is a boundary, not a tier you could buy your way past.
- A promise about your specific system before we have looked at it.
NIC/CIN register of MyCareNet-approved Belgian dental software, version of 10 March 2026
What is a practice really comparing this against?
Against the front-desk time it takes back, against a human telesecretariat, and against the revenue sitting in a chair nobody filled. Only one of those three arrives as an invoice, which is why the comparison is so often done badly. We are not going to put a figure on any of them here, because the accurate figures are yours and the published averages belong to somebody else’s marketing.
Hours are worth weighing separately from money. A staffed service covers the hours it staffs, and in Belgium those usually stop in the evening and on public holidays. The wachtdienst or garde dentaire, the dental on-call duty, falls on weekends, public holidays and bridge days, which is precisely when a human service is least likely to be open.
The reason we will not print the numbers is not coyness. Your payroll figure is exact and a national average is not. A telesecretariat rate quoted for your practice is exact, while one copied off a website this month is stale next month. And the value of an appointment in your diary is a figure only your own software holds.
| What you are comparing | How that cost behaves |
|---|---|
| The front-desk time this replaces | A fixed cost that does not move with how busy the telephone is. The honest figure is the gross salary plus RSZ/ONSS employer contributions, vakantiegeld or pécule de vacances, the eindejaarspremie or prime de fin d’année, and cover while that person is on leave. Your accountant already has it, and it is more accurate than anything we could publish. |
| A human telesecretariat (telesecretariaat, télésecrétariat) | Usually a monthly subscription with a bundle of calls included, a charge per call above the bundle, and a one-off setup fee. The bill follows how busy you are, and the cover ends when the shift does. Each Belgian provider publishes its own rates on its own site, and those rates move, so we do not republish them. |
| The revenue in an empty chair | Not a bill at all, which is why it is the one most often left out. A caller who does not get through rings the next practice, and nothing in your accounts ever records it. Only your own appointment value and your own missed-call count can put a figure on this, and neither of them is ours to guess. |
| An AI agent (Tilcao) | Priced per practice, on the drivers above, and not published yet. What differs in kind rather than in degree: the hours are not a staffing decision, and a caller does not wait because another caller got there first. |
What does a conversation about price look like?
It starts with you seeing the thing work, at no charge at all. The demo practice on our home page costs nothing to try. You play the patient, by voice or by typing, against fictional patients and a fictional diary, and you do not have to speak to anyone first.
There is no charge for any of the steps below. Seeing it work, and finding out whether it can work with your software, costs nothing.
- Try the demo practice on the home page. It is free, and it is the fastest way to decide whether the rest of this is worth your time.
- Book a call. We ask about your call volume, your opening hours, how many practitioners you have and which agenda you run.
- We tell you what is technically possible with your system, including when the answer is that it is awkward. This happens before money is discussed, not after.
- You decide which agent roles and which channels you actually want, which is usually fewer than the full set.
- We put a proposal for your practice in writing, saying what it covers and what it does not.
- If it does not fit your practice, we say so. A pilot that limps costs us more than one we never started.
Questions practices ask
How much does Tilcao cost?
There is no published price yet. Tilcao is pre-pilot, and a figure invented before a real Belgian practice has been measured would be a guess we would have to withdraw. Pricing is set per practice and discussed on a call, once we know which agent roles you want, which channels, roughly how many calls you get, how many practitioners you have, and what the integration with your software takes.
Why not publish at least a starting price?
Because a starting price is usually a number nobody pays. It gets chosen to survive a comparison page rather than to describe an invoice, and the real figure surfaces later in the conversation anyway. We would rather publish the cost drivers, which are true today and will still be true on the day the price exists.
Is there a free trial, and does the demo cost anything?
The demo practice on our home page is free and you can use it right now, with no appointment and nothing to sign. It uses fictional patients and a fictional diary, and you play the patient by voice or by typing. A pilot in your own practice, on your own diary, is a separate conversation, and what it involves is agreed in writing before anything runs.
Will it be a monthly subscription or a price per call?
The model is not fixed yet, and claiming otherwise would be inventing it. What is settled is that pricing is per practice rather than taken off a shelf, and that it is discussed on a call once your volumes and your setup are known. Whatever shape it takes will be built from the drivers listed on this page.
Does the price depend on how many dentists work here?
Yes, among other things. Each practitioner is a separate diary with its own availability, its own appointment types and, where convention status is partial, its own hours. A groepspraktijk or cabinet de groupe with several diaries takes more configuration than a solo practice, so the two are not the same piece of work.
Is Tilcao cheaper than a telesecretariat?
We cannot answer that honestly without both numbers, and we have not published ours. What we can say is that the cost behaves differently. A human telesecretariat sells a bundle of calls during staffed hours and charges for the ones above it, so the bill follows how busy you are and the cover ends with the shift. An AI agent answers at every hour and takes several callers at once, and it handles the unusual call worse, which is why those go to a person.
Do we pay separately for the integration with our practice software?
What the integration takes is one of the things that sets the price, so it belongs in the same conversation rather than arriving as a surprise invoice. No Belgian dental practice system publishes an open, documented booking API, so the realistic route is the online agenda layer in front of it. We look at your actual setup and tell you what is possible before quoting.
Are there setup or onboarding costs?
Nothing is published, and we are not going to pretend the setup effort is nil when it is not. Writing your rules, your knowledge base and your escalation routing is real work, and so is connecting to your agenda. How that is handled commercially is part of the written proposal for your practice, agreed before anything starts.
When will you publish a price?
When we have run real practices and know what delivering this actually costs. Publishing before that would mean revising in public, which is worse for a practice trying to budget than waiting for a figure that holds. This page carries the date it last changed, and the price will appear here when it is real.