If the tooth can be saved, root canal treatment is usually the better first option: it costs less, takes weeks rather than months, and keeps your natural tooth in place. A dental implant is the stronger choice when the tooth cannot be saved.
The Two Options Side by Side
- Root canal treatment: around $1,200 to $2,500 depending on the tooth, usually one or two visits, plus a crown at $2,200 where needed. Keeps your natural tooth and its root.
- Dental implant: the tooth is removed and replaced with a titanium post and a crown. Costs more, and treatment usually runs over several months to allow healing and integration with the bone.
Why Keeping the Natural Tooth Usually Wins
A natural tooth is held by a ligament that senses pressure and cushions the force of chewing, which an implant, fused directly to bone, cannot replicate. Keeping the tooth also preserves the surrounding bone, which begins to resorb once a tooth is removed. And it is faster: root canal treatment is typically complete within weeks, while implants involve healing time between stages.
When an Implant Is the Right Choice
Implants are an excellent solution where a tooth genuinely cannot be kept: a fracture extending below the gum line, too little healthy tooth structure to restore, advanced bone loss around the tooth, or a previously root-treated tooth that has failed and cannot be retreated. In those situations, an implant restores function and protects the bite better than leaving a gap.
What About a Failed Root Canal?
Root canal treatment does occasionally fail, sometimes years later. Retreatment is often possible, and where it is not, an implant becomes the sensible next step. Trying root canal treatment first does not close off the implant option; the sequence only runs one way.
Making the Decision
It comes down to what is left of your tooth and the health of the bone around it, which needs an examination and an X-ray to assess. We will show you what we see and set out both paths with real costs, and if the tooth cannot be saved we will say so rather than treat it and hope.
Book an appointment, or call (02) 8252 7677. See our root canal treatment page, our dental implants page, and our root canal cost guide.
