Balaay Research
Research published by Balaay on the dental AI receptionist category: the DARB benchmark and its methodology, transparency indices measured across seven vendors, the downloadable dataset, and the corrections log.
Research published by Balaay on the dental AI receptionist category. Balaay sells a product in this category, which is stated on every page here rather than in a footnote — the method is published instead, so the findings can be checked rather than trusted. Current release: DARB-1.0, published 2026-08-19.
Balaay is an AI voice receptionist for dental practices. It answers the practice’s phone calls, books the appointment and texts the patient a confirmation, and escalates urgent calls to staff using rules the practice defines.
This benchmark is published by Balaay, which competes in the market it measures.
Scoring weights were fixed on 2026-08-19, before any testing, and changing them requires a version bump and a changelog entry. No vendor is scored in this release — including Balaay. Where a competitor discloses more than Balaay, the tables below say so: Balaay ranks fourth of seven on customer-proof transparency and publishes no callable demo line, while two competitors publish named practices with production figures and Balaay publishes none.
What is here
- Dental AI Receptionist Benchmark (DARB 1.0)
The framework, the vendor set, the transparency indices and what has not been tested. - Benchmark methodology
Scenario design, scoring weights, evidence classes, sample gates, conflict of interest, correction policy. - Scenario library
All 40 scenarios with their success and safety-failure criteria. - Operational definitions
Verified appointment, false success, safe refusal — one definition per term, used across product, research and marketing. - Corrections log
Every correction, with the reason. Appended to, never rewritten. - Evidence and limits
How Balaay verifies its own claims — the registries, the gates, and what it cannot currently prove. - Dataset (JSON)
The complete machine-readable release: scenarios, methodology, indices, findings, corrections.
Findings from the current release
3 of 7 vendors publish a monthly price on their own site.
Fully published: balaay, dentina, tensorlinks. A further two publish a starting figure only.
2 of 7 publish a price for every named tier.
Four name tiers without pricing them, so a buyer comparing tiers cannot do so from public information.
1 of 7 vendors state clearly which scheduling operation their connector performs when an appointment is made.
Five assert booking in general terms without specifying the operation. This is the sample-level version of the Prompt 1C finding that PMS logos are published without operation detail — and the one place where Balaay scores well only because its honest answer is "no integration is production verified".
1 of 7 vendors publish the maturity of each named integration.
The rest present every named system uniformly, with no distinction between production, beta and planned.
2 of 7 vendors publish a phone number a buyer can ring to hear the product immediately.
Instant product access is contested, not white space. Balaay is not among them — it offers a browser demo instead of a callable line.
3 of 7 vendors publish named customers, and 0 of 7 publish how any outcome figure was measured.
Production-value figures are published without a period, a denominator or an attribution rule. Balaay publishes neither named customers nor outcomes, and scores worst of the seven on this index.
Sample: 7 vendors, read on 2026-08-19. The six vendors identified as Tier 1 dental-AI-receptionist competitors in the Prompt 1C market map, plus Balaay. Chosen before any criterion was scored. Not a random or exhaustive sample of the category — several smaller vendors exist and are excluded.
How to cite this
Balaay. Dental AI Receptionist Benchmark (DARB), Version 1.0. Published 19 August 2026. https://balaay.com/research/dental-ai-benchmark
Free to quote and cite with attribution and a link to the methodology. Not peer reviewed.
Related pages
- AI Dental Receptionist
- Pricing
- Missed Call Recovery
- Dental Answering Service
- Practice Management Blog
- Dental Receptionist Cost Calculator
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Balaay Research — Research published by Balaay on the dental AI receptionist category: the DARB benchmark and its methodology, transparency indices measured across seven vendors, the downloadable dataset, and the corrections log. Balaay is an AI voice receptionist for dental practices that answers calls, books appointments, and escalates urgent calls to staff.
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