A discount-only membership is an annual plan where the patient pays a set yearly fee and, in return, gets a fixed discount on every treatment you provide. There are no free check-ups or cleans built in. The whole value sits in the discount. This guide shows you exactly how to build one in SmilePass, and why a growing number of practices are running this model alongside their traditional plans.
It is written for practice owners and managers deciding how to package the business side of their clinic. You will finish with a working plan you can offer at the front desk this week.
What discount-only actually means
Most in-house membership plans bundle two things: a few included services (say two scale and cleans plus an exam a year) and a discount on everything else. A discount-only plan keeps the second half and drops the first. The patient pays an annual fee and receives a reduced price on treatment, but nothing is given away up front.
The best known version of this model in Australia is smile.com.au, which sells an annual dental cover membership from about $79 a year and gives members capped, reduced fees at participating dentists rather than any free treatment. There are no waiting periods, no treatment exclusions and no claim forms. It is a discount, applied on the spot.
You can run the same idea inside your own practice, on your own terms, and keep the membership fee and the patient relationship yourself. The appeal is simple. Because no treatment is included, the plan carries no per-visit cost to deliver. You are selling certainty and a better price, not free dentistry.
Why this model works
Cost is the single biggest reason Australians put off the dentist. Around 3 in 10 adults avoided or delayed dental care due to cost in 2021, and individuals fund about 61% of all dental spending out of their own pockets. A membership that visibly lowers the price of every visit speaks directly to that hesitation.
It also fills a gap left by private health insurance. Only about half of Australians hold general treatment (extras) cover, and even then a typical extras policy refunds only part of the fee on selected item numbers. For the patient with no extras, or one whose limit runs out by mid-year, a flat practice discount is easy to understand and easy to use.
For your practice, the quieter benefit is recurring revenue. Subscription businesses have grown faster than the broader economy, and healthcare subscriptions tend to show some of the lowest cancellation rates of any sector, according to Zuora’s Subscription Economy Index. A member who has paid for a year of discounts has a reason to come back to you, which matters when winning a new patient can cost five to twenty-five times more than keeping an existing one. Lower the price barrier and you tend to see more of the treatment you recommend actually go ahead.
Before you build: decide your numbers
Two decisions do most of the work.
First, the annual price. A discount-only plan is usually priced low, because the patient is buying access to a discount rather than treatment. Pick a round annual figure that feels like an easy yes at the front desk.
Second, the discount itself. SmilePass groups treatment into ten standard categories, and you set a percentage for each. Many practices set one baseline rate across the board, then lift it on a couple of categories they want to make more accessible. There is no national fixed price list in Australian dentistry, so you are free to choose rates that suit your practice and your item numbers.
Here is a simple worked example you can adapt.
Diagnostic, Preventive and General: 15%
Restorative and Endodontics: 10%
Prosthodontics and Periodontics: 10%
Orthodontics: 20%
Cosmetic and elective: 20%
Keep it readable. A patient should be able to repeat the headline (“15% off most things, more on braces”) without checking a chart.
Building it in SmilePass, step by step
Once your price and discounts are set, the build takes a few minutes.
Step 1: Open the Membership Builder
Go to Settings, then Membership Builder, and choose Create New Plan. This opens the plan editor with three tabs: Profile, Benefits and Terms.
Step 2: Profile tab, name and annual price
Give the plan a clear name your team will recognise, such as “Practice Savings Plan”. Set the price to your annual figure and the frequency to yearly, so the patient is billed once a year and renews automatically. Add a short description that spells out the promise in plain language.
Step 3: Benefits tab, leave Included Services empty
This is the step that makes the plan discount-only. The Benefits tab has two halves. On the left is “Included Services and Benefits”, where you would normally add free treatments. Leave it empty. Do not add a single row. With nothing included, the plan has no treatment to deliver and no per-visit cost to you.
Step 4: Set the discounts
On the right side of the Benefits tab is “Discounts on services and Products”. Type your baseline rate into “Apply discount to all categories” and press Apply to all, which sets every category at once. Then fine-tune the categories you want to treat differently and make sure the Include toggle is on for each category you are offering. The ten categories are Diagnostic Services; Preventive, Prophylactic and Bleaching Services; Periodontics; Oral Surgery; Endodontics; Restorative Services; Prosthodontics; Orthodontics; General Services; and Miscellaneous. If you want the detail on how the discount tiers map to your treatments, the Membership Builder walkthrough covers it.
Step 5: Terms tab, then save
On the Terms tab, add your plan conditions: the membership runs for twelve months, the discount applies to treatment provided during the membership, and it cannot be combined with a health fund rebate on the same item unless you allow it. Press Save, and the plan is ready to offer.
Step 6: Enrol your first members
From here you sign patients up the same way as any plan, at the desk or with a signup link. The annual fee is collected, the membership starts, and the discount is ready to apply on their next visit.
How SmilePass runs the plan for you
Building the plan is the easy part. Keeping a year-long, auto-renewing membership running cleanly across hundreds of patients is where it usually falls down on a spreadsheet. This is the job SmilePass is built for. It is a membership and payments platform for dental practices that handles the recurring billing, the renewals and the reporting on your behalf, so a discount-only plan does not become an admin burden.
In practice that means the annual fee is charged and renewed automatically, the discount tiers you set are attached to the plan and travel with the member, and your dashboard shows you how many members you have and what they are worth. If a yearly renewal fails, SmilePass marks it overdue, retries the charge on a schedule and sends the patient a secure link to pay or update their card, so a lapsed membership does not slip through quietly. The result is a plan you can set once and trust to run, rather than one your front desk has to chase every renewal.
Frequently asked questions
Is a discount-only membership the same as insurance?
No. Insurance pays a rebate after a claim. A membership is a direct discount you set and apply yourself, with no claim, no waiting period and no third party. That is also why it is simpler for patients to understand and for your team to explain.
What if I want to add free check-ups later?
You can. The included-services side of the Benefits tab is always there. If you decide to move from a pure discount plan to one that bundles a couple of cleans, you add those rows to the same plan whenever you like. Many practices start discount-only to keep things simple, then layer in included services once the membership proves itself.
What discount percentage should I offer?
There is no single right answer, because you set your own fees. A common approach is a modest baseline across the board, lifted on the categories where price is the main thing stopping patients from saying yes, such as orthodontics or cosmetic work. Model it against your real fees before you launch so the plan is attractive to patients and still sustainable for you.
Can patients use it as often as they like?
Yes. Because no treatment is included, there is no annual cap to track. The discount applies to eligible treatment every time the member visits during their twelve-month term, which is part of what makes the plan easy to sell.
A discount-only membership is the lowest-friction way to put your own affordable-care offer in front of patients without giving treatment away. Set your price, leave the included services empty, dial in the discounts, and you have a plan your front desk can offer with one sentence.
