Patientell vs Swell (2026)
Full disclosure: we make Patientell, so yes, we're biased. Swell is our closest competitor and a good product. It's dental-focused, it's built for multi-location groups, and it does more than we do. Here's where each one fits.
TL;DR
Swell does reviews plus patient surveys, employee feedback and AI-drafted replies, across Google and other sites. Patientell does one thing: getting more and longer Google reviews. Both connect to the major dental systems. If you want a full patient-experience program, Swell does more. If you want the best Google reviews you can get, that's our whole focus.
- Pick Swell if: you want surveys, employee feedback and non-Google review sites on the same platform
- Pick Patientell if: Google review volume and depth are the thing you care about
- Fair point for Swell: it often offers 30 days free, and its dental offers are cheaper than most
Side by side
| Patientell (ours) | Swell | |
|---|---|---|
| Best for | More, longer Google reviews | DSOs that want reviews, surveys and replies rolled up by location and provider |
| Price | Quote. No contracts, no setup fees. | Per location. Dental association offers have run $179–$249/mo, often with 30 days free. |
| Contract | None | Monthly or annual |
| Connects to | Dentrix, Dentrix Ascend, Dentrix Enterprise, Open Dental, Oryx, Eaglesoft, Denticon, Curve Hero, eClinicalWorks and many more. | PMS/EHR integration included in every plan. |
| Review sites | Google, Facebook, Healthgrades and more | |
| Also does | Reviews only: automated review texts, QR at checkout, AI reply drafts, multi-location dashboard | Patient surveys, employee feedback, AI reply drafts, texting, webchat |
Where Swell is better
- Built around DSO hierarchies. Region, brand, clinic and provider roll-ups are core to Swell. We have a multi-location dashboard, but Swell goes deeper for big org charts.
- More than reviews. Patient surveys and employee feedback on the same platform. If your ops team wants to know why one office scores lower, that's useful.
- More review sites. Google, Facebook, Healthgrades and others. We're built around Google.
- Easy to try. Dental association offers have included 30 days free. We do a live demo instead.
- HIPAA language. Swell markets HIPAA-compliant replies and workflows. Patientell is designed not to handle protected health information, so if your compliance team needs a BAA, talk to us before you assume.
Where Patientell is better
- The review itself. Swell's strength is timing and follow-through: the text goes out right after the visit. Ours is what happens after the patient taps the link. Our patent-pending flow is built to get a detailed review, not just a star rating.
- No contract, no setup fee.
- Custom questions per location, so patients mention the providers and services each office cares about.
- Review depth. In the one practice we've published, switching to Patientell from a large review vendor meant 2.1× more reviews per month, reviews 2–10× longer, and 12× more mentions of staff by name. That's one practice, not a study, and we don't name the previous vendor, so don't read it as a benchmark against anyone on this page. See the data.
The honest call
If your ops team wants patient surveys, employee feedback and every review site in one place, buy Swell. We don't offer employee feedback or a full survey program, and we're not going to pretend otherwise.
If you've already tried a review tool and plateaued at short, generic Google reviews, try us at a few offices. That's exactly the gap we built for.
What we'd do today
- List every practice management system across your offices and check it against both of our integration lists.
- Read 20 recent reviews at your busiest office. If they're short and generic, that's the problem to solve, whichever tool you pick.
- Ask both of us for numbers from a practice like yours. Not averages across all customers: one practice, before and after.
Questions
Is Swell only for DSOs?
No, single practices use it too, but its product is clearly built around multi-location groups: location, provider and brand roll-ups.
Does Patientell do patient surveys?
Not as a separate survey program. Patientell is built around Google reviews, with AI-drafted replies and insights from them. If you want a full patient and employee survey program, Swell has one.
Does Patientell work with my practice management system?
Very likely. Patientell connects to Dentrix through a direct on-prem agent, Open Dental through its API, and Oryx through a cloud report sync. We also support Eaglesoft, Dentrix Ascend, Dentrix Enterprise, Denticon, Curve Hero, eClinicalWorks and many more. If your system isn't listed, ask us. Where there's no integration, the QR flow at checkout works on any system.
Can we only send review requests to happy patients?
No, and you shouldn't want to. Google's review policy says businesses must not selectively ask happy customers for reviews (called review gating), and the FTC's 2024 rule on consumer reviews cracks down on suppressing negative ones. Ask every patient. Any vendor that offers to filter unhappy patients away from Google is putting your profile at risk.
Where do Patientell's numbers come from?
One real dental practice that switched to Patientell from a large review vendor: 2.1× more reviews per month, reviews 2–10× longer, 12× more staff mentions, and 82% fewer one-star reviews year over year. It's one practice, not a controlled study, and we don't name the previous vendor. See the full data.
Try Patientell
Patent-pending review system for dental practices. Works with Dentrix, Open Dental, Oryx, Eaglesoft and many more. No contracts, no setup fees, live in under 24 hours.
We checked prices and features for every product here in October 2026. Most of these vendors don't publish prices, so ranges come from third-party reports. This stuff changes constantly, so confirm with each vendor before you sign anything. And we're not your lawyer or compliance officer.