Dental Lab Guru Alternative

Dental Lab Guru alternative — payments, accounting and a production board

Dental Lab Guru is a solid, low-priced plan. SimpleLabOS is worth a look if you also want doctors to pay by card, your invoices in QuickBooks or Xero, and a production board where a barcode scan moves the case along.

From $29/mo$0 setup fees14-day free trial

Price at a Glance vs Dental Lab Guru

Starter vs its monthly plan
$360/yr less
$29/mo vs $59/mo
Starter yearly vs its yearly plan
$150/yr less
$299/yr vs $449/yr
Standard vs its monthly plan
$120/yr more
$69/mo vs $59/mo

Dental Lab Guru sells one plan with unlimited cases. Our Starter includes 150 cases a month and Standard 500, so a busy lab should compare against Standard or Pro. Its prices are as published on dentallabguru.com, checked 2026-09-30.

Head-to-Head Comparison

FeatureSimpleLabOSDental Lab Guru
Pricing$29/mo, $69/mo or $149/mo by plan$59/mo or $449 a year, one plan
Cases150 (Starter), 500 (Standard), unlimited (Pro)Unlimited
Free Trial14 days, card required to start14 days, no payment method required
Doctor PortalAll plansIncluded
Mobile QR ScanningAll plansIncluded
Online Card Payments and AutoPayStripe payments on every plan, saved-card AutoPay (US & Australia today, more on request)Not listed on its site
QuickBooks and XeroExport to QuickBooks and XeroNot listed on its site
Production Board with Barcode Scan-to-AdvanceProduction scheduling; scan-to-advance not listed
Roles and PermissionsOwner, Manager and Designer rolesNot listed on its site
REST APIPro ($149/mo)Not listed on its site

Why Dental Labs Switch from Dental Lab Guru

SimpleLabOS is built for the way modern dental labs actually work — visual, mobile, and fast.

Get Paid Inside the Case Flow

Doctors can pay invoices by card through Stripe, and saved-card AutoPay charges when a case ships. Online payments are on every plan, not a higher tier, currently live for US and Australian labs, with other countries on request.

Books That Reach QuickBooks and Xero

Invoices export to QuickBooks and Xero, so your bookkeeper is not retyping what the lab already entered. Dental Lab Guru's site lists invoices but no accounting integration.

A Production Board That Follows the Bench

Each production step is a column. Scan a case barcode to mark the step done, and the last step sends the case to QC.

Roles and an API as You Grow

Owner, Manager and Designer roles keep staff to what they need to see. The customer API comes with Pro at $149/mo.

Detailed Comparison

Pricing

Dental Lab Guru sells one plan: $59/mo, or $449 a year (about $37.42/mo), with unlimited cases and clients and every listed feature included, plus a 14-day trial that asks for no payment method. That is a good, simple deal and we would rather say so. SimpleLabOS Starter is $29/mo ($299 a year) with 150 cases a month, Standard is $69/mo with 500 cases and 10 lab staff seats, and Pro is $149/mo with unlimited cases and lab staff seats. For a lab that needs unlimited cases and nothing else, Dental Lab Guru at $59/mo is well below our Pro. The real question is what else you need.

Payments and Accounting

Dental Lab Guru's site lists invoices but does not list online card payments or an accounting integration. SimpleLabOS lets doctors pay invoices by card through Stripe (live for US and Australian labs today; other countries on request), supports saved-card AutoPay, and exports to QuickBooks and Xero. If chasing payments and re-keying invoices are where your week goes, this is the difference that matters.

Production Floor

Both tools cover case tracking, QR or barcode scanning and scheduling. SimpleLabOS adds a production board where each step of your workflow is a column and one scan marks the step done; the final step moves the case to quality control. Dental Lab Guru lists production scheduling, and we could not find scan-to-advance on its site.

Scan Intake, Roles and API

SimpleLabOS's Scanner Inbox takes scan files that arrive by email and turns them into cases. It is email-based, not a direct scanner integration, and Dental Lab Guru does not list scanner integrations either. Owner, Manager and Designer roles control what each person sees, and the customer API comes with Pro.

You should switch if...

  • Your doctors would rather pay by card, and you want it built into the invoice
  • You send your books to QuickBooks or Xero
  • You want a production board where a barcode scan moves the case to the next step
  • You want roles, so designers and staff only see what they should
  • You are a small lab and Starter at $29/mo fits your case volume

Dental Lab Guru might be better if...

  • You need unlimited cases and every listed feature at one flat $59/mo, with no tiers to think about
  • You want employee work and salary tracking or inventory, which its site lists
  • You want a multi-language interface for your team
  • You would rather not enter a card to trial it: its 14-day trial requires no payment method
  • Your team already uses it and it does the job

What switching actually involves

We have no data-import tool for Dental Lab Guru, and no onboarding team that migrates your records for you. Here is the path labs actually take instead.

Closed case history stays in Dental Lab Guru. That is the honest trade-off, and it is worth knowing before you start rather than after.

1

Bring your price list in from Excel

Products, prices, quantity tiers, and per-doctor pricing import from a spreadsheet. This is the one importer SimpleLabOS has, and it is the part that would otherwise take you a weekend.

2

Add doctors and open cases

Your doctor list and the cases still in production get entered directly. There is no importer for these, so how long it takes depends on how much work is on your bench right now.

3

Run Dental Lab Guru alongside during the trial

Keep your old system live through the 14-day free trial and cut over only once SimpleLabOS is carrying your day-to-day work. Pull your Dental Lab Guru exports before you cancel anything.

Still running your lab on Excel?

Spreadsheets are great for calculators, but terrible for running a business. See why small labs are upgrading to SimpleLabOS.

Feature
Excel / Paper
SimpleLabOS
Case Management
Find any case in 3 seconds
Manual entry, hard to search history
Instant search, barcode scanning, history log
Client Notifications
Reduce "Is my case ready?" calls by 80%
Manual email or phone call required
Automated SMS & Email updates
Invoicing
Save 5+ hours of billing time per month
Manual calculation, easy to make mistakes
One-click generation from case data
Access
Check schedule from home or mobile
Stuck on one computer/laptop
Cloud-based, access from any device
Photos & Files
Never lose a patient photo again
scattered in folders or email
Attached directly to the case

Frequently Asked Questions

Is SimpleLabOS cheaper than Dental Lab Guru?

It depends on the plan. Starter at $29/mo is below Dental Lab Guru's $59/mo, and $299 a year is below its $449, but Starter has a 150-case monthly limit. Standard at $69/mo and Pro at $149/mo cost more than its single plan, which has unlimited cases. What SimpleLabOS adds is online payments (live for US and Australian labs today; other countries on request), accounting export, a production board, roles and an API.

Does Dental Lab Guru have online payments or a QuickBooks integration?

Not on the pages we checked on 2026-09-30: its site lists invoices but no online card payments or accounting integrations. Please confirm with the vendor. SimpleLabOS takes card payments through Stripe on every plan (live for US and Australian labs today; other countries on request) and exports to QuickBooks and Xero.

Does SimpleLabOS integrate directly with scanners?

No. Scan files arrive by email into the Scanner Inbox (Standard and up) and become cases; there is no direct connection to scanner software. Dental Lab Guru does not list scanner integrations on its site either.

How do I switch from Dental Lab Guru to SimpleLabOS?

We would rather be straight with you than sell a switch we cannot deliver. SimpleLabOS has no data-import tool for Dental Lab Guru and no migration service that moves your case history. The one importer we have is an Excel price-list import. Most labs enter their doctor list and open cases by hand, keep the old system running during the 14-day free trial, and leave closed case history where it is.

Ready to upgrade from Dental Lab Guru?

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