It's the question every seller Googles before they call anyone: what is my used dental equipment actually worth? As full-time dental equipment buyers, here's the honest version of the answer, the same math we walk sellers through on the phone every week.
The five things that drive every offer
- Brand. A-dec, Midmark, Pelton & Crane, DCI Edge: the strong brands hold value for decades because parts and demand stay strong.
- Age. Not a verdict by itself: a clean 15-year-old A-dec chair can outsell a rough 8-year-old budget unit.
- Condition. Working, complete, and clean beats everything. Upholstery, hoses, and missing covers all show up in the number.
- Completeness. A delivery unit with its handpiece tubing, foot control, and light is one product. Without them, it's a parts donor.
- Removal difficulty. A countertop sterilizer takes ten minutes. A ceiling-mounted ceph in a third-floor suite is an engineering project. Buyers price the labor in.
Category by category
Chairs & delivery units
The backbone of every buyout. Late-model chairs from major brands are the strongest category we buy; older units still sell to startups, students, and export markets. Matching sets of three or more are worth proportionally more than singles. Buyers love uniform operatories.
Imaging & X-ray
Digital sensors, phosphor plate scanners, and recent imaging units hold value well, and CBCT can be the single most valuable item in an office. Film-era equipment, by contrast, has little resale value, but we still remove it.
Sterilizers & autoclaves
Midmark M9/M11 and SciCan Statim units are always in demand. They're the equipment we get asked for most. Even non-working units have core value.
Compressors & vacuum pumps
Solid, condition-dependent value. Run hours, tank condition, and whether the unit was maintained on schedule matter more than age.
Handpieces & small equipment
Individually modest, valuable in volume. A drawer of high-speeds, scalers, curing lights, and electric motors adds real money to an offer. This is also where instruments purchased in bulk come in.
Cabinetry, furniture & supplies
Modest value on their own, but sealed in-date supplies and modern cabinetry add up in a full-office buyout, and taking them saves you disposal costs either way.
Broken equipment is still worth something
This surprises sellers most: we buy broken, incomplete, and obsolete equipment on purpose. Motors, boards, valves, and upholstery keep other units alive. You're not paying a hauler to dump it. Someone is paying you for parts.
What kills value
- Waiting. Equipment sitting in an unheated storage unit for two years loses more value than two more years of clinical use would have cost.
- DIY removal. Cut hoses and snapped mounts turn a sellable chair into a parts donor. Let the buyer disconnect it. We do that for free.
- Separating the package. Selling the two newest chairs to an out-of-state buyer makes the rest of the office harder (and more expensive) to clear. One offer for everything usually nets more in total.
The fastest way to a real number
Skip the forums and the guesswork: text photos of each item (include the model sticker if you can find it) to (224) 500-8130, or submit a sell form. You'll have a real offer, not a range, usually within one business day. Free, no obligation, and you'll know exactly what you're sitting on.