There is no price list. There is only what you negotiate.
Ask a laser distributor or a dental equipment supplier for a price list and you will not get one. You get a discovery call, a demo, a bespoke quote, and a number that expires on Friday. That is not an accident — it is the business model. When nobody knows what anybody else paid, every negotiation starts from zero and the supplier is the only person in the room who knows the range.
SupplyIndex is where independent UK practices pool what they actually paid, verified against the invoice, so you walk into that meeting knowing the number before they say it.
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verified purchase reports
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categories with a published range
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practices needed to unlock one
Why equipment pricing works against you
Consumables you buy weekly, so you learn the price. Capital equipment you buy once every seven to ten years — and by the time you buy the next one, the market has moved and you have forgotten. Four things follow from that, and all four favour the seller.
The quote is built around you, not the machine
Discovery calls are priced discovery too. How busy is the clinic, how many rooms, are you expanding, did you just take on finance. A supplier who knows your turnover knows what you can bear — and the quote reflects it.
The headline price is the part they let you see
Deposit, APR, term, balloon payment, annual servicing, consumable tips or handpieces, training days, install and decommissioning. Two quotes with the same sticker price can differ by five figures over the term once the service plan is counted.
The discount is anchored to a number that is not real
"Normally £78,000, but for you £52,000" only sounds like a win if £78,000 means something. Nobody pays £78,000. The 33% off is the offer, and it was always the offer.
The clock is a tactic
End of quarter, the demo unit, the show price, the last one at this rate. Urgency exists to stop you doing exactly what this page helps you do — check the number against what your peers paid.
What you get as a member
Not a price list of our own — the thing a price list would never have given you anyway. Evidence of what the negotiated number actually is.
The range for the category
The middle half of what practices paid — P25 to P75 — plus the median. You learn whether the quote in front of you sits at the good end or the expensive end before you respond to it.
Same-model comparisons
Where enough practices report the same manufacturer and model, you see that model on its own, not just its category. The strongest position in any negotiation is a peer who bought the identical machine for less.
The total cost, not the sticker
Finance structure, deposit, APR, term, annual service cost and contract length, warranty months, whether training and install were included. The questions to ask, and the answers other practices got.
How it held up afterwards
Reliability, manufacturer support and training quality, rated by the practices that own the machine. Cheap and unsupported is not a saving — it is a room that cannot treat.
A good/fair/renegotiate signal
Log a machine you already own and see how your price sits against peers. Useful before a service contract renewal, and useful evidence when you go back to the supplier.
Anonymity, both directions
Your price is never shown to another practice in identifiable form and never shown to suppliers at all. You contribute one figure and get everyone else's range back.
Walking into the negotiation prepared
You do not need to be a hard negotiator. You need to be the buyer who is clearly not guessing — the tone of the conversation changes the moment a supplier realises you have seen real numbers.
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Check the category range before the first meeting, so the opening figure lands against something.
- 2
Ask for the price of the machine separately from finance, install, training and the service plan. Anything bundled cannot be compared.
- 3
Get the annual service cost and the contract term in writing. Over seven years it is often a third of what you pay in total.
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Name the range, not a demand. "Practices like mine are paying between X and Y" is harder to argue with than "that is too expensive".
- 5
Be willing to wait a week. Every urgency device in equipment sales fails against a buyer who is prepared to buy next month instead.
How the equipment benchmark works
Invoice-verified only
A report counts only once an admin has checked it against the purchase invoice or completed finance agreement. Unverified reports never reach the range.
Five practices minimum
A category publishes nothing until 5 different practices have reported it. Below that you see the count and nothing more.
A range, not a price
We publish the interquartile range — the middle half of what practices paid — plus the median. Never the minimum, never the maximum, so no one purchase is exposed.
The whole cost, not the sticker
Reports capture finance terms, deposit, APR, annual servicing, warranty, training and install — because a cheap machine on a punishing service contract is not cheap.
Why capital equipment is treated differently from consumables: a practice buys gloves weekly and a laser once. Holding equipment to the same 20-submission floor as consumables would mean 20 separate practices before anything published, so the equipment benchmark keeps the five-practice privacy bar and publishes percentile ranges only. Read the full methodology.
The next quote you get should not be a surprise
Join SupplyIndex and see the equipment ranges as they unlock. If you have bought in the last few years, report what you paid — it is what sets the number the next independent practice negotiates against, and it stays anonymous.