“Can you not just fill it?” It comes up almost every week, usually the moment we mention the word crown. And it is a completely reasonable question — a filling is quicker, cheaper and less of a production. If a filling will genuinely do the job, we will fill it.
Look, we know how this can sound from the other side of the chair. Nobody wants to feel they are being talked into the bigger treatment. So here is the honest answer, including the part where a filling is the right call and a crown is not.
The real question is never “crown or filling?” in the abstract. It is: how much healthy tooth is still standing, and will it survive being loaded for another ten years? Everything below flows from that one thing.
Do you need a dental crown or will a filling do?
A white filling at Docklands Dental costs €160 to €250 and a ceramic crown €1,050, but the deciding factor is how much sound tooth is left — not which treatment sounds better.
The rough rule we work to is this. If the damage sits within the tooth and there is a good rim of solid tooth around it, a filling is usually the answer. If the damage has taken out one of the cusps — the biting corners — or the remaining walls are thin enough to flex when you chew, a filling is being asked to do a job it was not designed for.
A filling sits inside a tooth. A crown wraps around it. That single difference is the whole decision. One relies on the tooth to hold it together; the other holds the tooth together.
What actually decides whether a tooth can hold a filling?
The number of tooth surfaces being rebuilt is the strongest predictor: research tracking 2,816 back-tooth composite fillings found failure risk rose significantly as more surfaces were restored.
The research backs this up. A meta-analysis in the Journal of Dental Research pooled the original patient data from twelve long-term studies of posterior composite fillings — 2,816 restorations, each followed for at least five years. The two main reasons fillings eventually failed were decay and fracture, and the risk of failure went up significantly for fillings that had to rebuild more surfaces of the tooth (and in people at high risk of decay).
Which matches what we see day to day. A small filling on one surface of a molar is a repair that tends to be quietly forgotten about for years. A filling wrapping around three or four surfaces of the same molar is doing structural work, and structural work is where fillings start to lose.
So when we look at a tooth we are counting walls, not counting decay. How many are intact? How thick are they? Is anything already cracked?
When is a filling genuinely enough?
Most decay we treat in Dublin needs nothing more than a white filling at €160 to €250 — small and medium cavities with intact biting surfaces do not need a crown.
We really do mean that. A filling is the right treatment when the cavity is small or medium, the cusps are intact, there is no crack running through the tooth, and the tooth has not already been filled and refilled several times. That describes the large majority of the decay we treat.
It is also the right treatment when a tooth is borderline and there is no urgency. Teeth do not get better on their own, but a well-placed filling buys real time, and time is not nothing. If a tooth might need a crown in five years, we would usually rather spend those five years with your own tooth structure intact than crown it today.
Our white fillings page covers how we place them and why we use composite rather than amalgam.
When does a tooth really need a crown?
Four situations genuinely call for a crown in Dublin: a lost or undermined cusp, a cracked tooth, a heavily filled tooth on its third or fourth repair, and most root-treated back teeth.
A lost cusp is the clearest one. Once a biting corner has gone — to decay, to a fracture, to an old filling that took it with it — there is nothing left to hold a filling against the force of chewing. Put a filling there and you are usually back within a couple of years, often with more of the tooth broken away than before.
A cracked tooth is the second. If a tooth is sharply tender on releasing a bite, or aches on cold in a way that lingers, a crack is a real possibility. A filling can wedge a crack wider. A crown squeezes it closed and holds it there.
The third is the tooth on its third or fourth filling. Every time a filling is replaced, a little more tooth goes with it — the drill has to remove sound tooth to get clean margins. At some point the honest thing to say is that the next repair is not another filling.
And the fourth is root-treated teeth, which deserve their own section.
Does a root-treated tooth always need a crown?
Not always, but back teeth usually do. A systematic review found pooled tooth survival after root canal treatment of 86% to 93% over two to ten years, with a crown afterwards the strongest predictor.
That review, in the International Endodontic Journal, pulled together fourteen long-term studies and identified four factors that improved a root-treated tooth’s odds. Top of the list was having a crown placed after treatment. The authors were careful to say the evidence for those prognostic factors was not strong overall, and we will be equally careful — but the direction of it is consistent, and it matches the failures we see.
The reason is mechanical rather than mysterious. A root canal (€595 for an incisor, €695 for a premolar) leaves the tooth hollowed out from the inside and, by then, usually heavily broken down from the outside too. It is a shell being asked to chew.
Front teeth are a different story. A root-treated front tooth that is otherwise fairly intact often does perfectly well with a bonded filling in the access hole, and crowning it would mean cutting down a tooth that did not need it. We would rather not.
Is there anything between a filling and a crown?
Yes — an inlay or onlay, €1,050 in Dublin. It rebuilds and covers the damaged part of a back tooth while leaving the healthy walls standing, unlike a crown, which reduces the whole tooth.
This is the option most people have never heard of, and it is often the best answer for a tooth that is too broken for a filling but not broken enough to justify a full crown. Instead of trimming the tooth all the way round, we remove only what is damaged and bond a milled ceramic piece over the part that needs protecting.
Same price as a crown here, same appointment, and it keeps more of your tooth. We are not going to pretend it suits every case — it needs enough sound enamel to bond to. But when it fits, it is the treatment we would want in our own mouths, and it is why our crowns page is a crowns, inlays and onlays page rather than just a crowns page.
What do a filling and a crown cost in Dublin?
Fillings run €160 to €250 depending on size, a milled ceramic crown, inlay or onlay is €1,050, and a hand-layered feldspathic front crown is €1,200. An examination is €80.
Here is the full picture, straight from our price list:
- Small filling — €160 to €180
- Medium filling — €190 to €210
- Large filling — €220 to €250
- Temporary filling — €95
- Milled ceramic crown, inlay or onlay — €1,050
- Hand-layered feldspathic front crown — €1,200
- Examination €80 · small X-ray €30
- Root canal — €595 incisor, €695 premolar
Yes, the gap between a large filling and a crown is roughly fourfold, and we are not going to dress that up. What we will say is that the comparison people usually have in their heads — €250 now versus €1,050 now — is not quite the real one. The real comparison is €250 now against €250 again in three years and €1,050 anyway, with less tooth left to work with by then.
We do not run discounts or limited-time offers on any of it. You will get the exact figure in writing before anything starts. If you want the wider view, our guide to crown costs in Dublin breaks down everything that moves the price, and the cosmetic dentistry cost guide puts it alongside everything else we do.
Why would a dentist replace a filling rather than crown the tooth?
Because a crown is irreversible. Preparing a tooth for a crown removes roughly 1.5 to 2mm of tooth structure all the way round, and that tooth structure never comes back.
This is the part that rarely gets said out loud. Crowning a tooth is not a neutral act — it is the removal of a significant amount of healthy tooth, permanently, in exchange for protection. When the tooth genuinely needs that protection, it is a very good trade. When it does not, it is a poor one, and it starts a tooth down a road it did not need to be on.
So if a tooth is on its second filling and still has solid walls, replacing the filling is usually the better call, even though it means seeing us again sooner. We would rather do the smaller thing twice than the bigger thing too early. No pressure, no hard sell, just a conversation about which stage the tooth is actually at.
How long should a filling or a crown last?
A practice-based study of 3,404 single-unit crowns found annual failure rates under 1%, roughly 92% to 97% still in service at eleven years — and crowns on root-treated teeth failed more often.
That study, in the Journal of Dentistry, is the one we quote most often because it followed crowns in ordinary practice rather than in a university trial. The 92–97% figure at eleven years is genuinely good. The detail worth knowing is the second half: crowns placed on root-treated teeth carried a higher failure risk (a hazard ratio of 1.31 to 1.89). The crown is rarely what fails. The tooth underneath is.
Fillings are harder to give a single number for, because size dominates everything — a small one-surface filling and a four-surface rebuild are not the same restoration. What the evidence is clear about is the direction: more surfaces, shorter life. Which is exactly why the crown conversation starts when the filling gets big.
Either way, what happens afterwards matters. Our crown aftercare guide covers how to look after one properly, and it applies to large fillings more than most people think.
Ready to find out what your tooth actually needs?
If a tooth has broken, feels sharp on biting, or you have been told it needs a crown and you would like a second opinion, the useful first step is an examination (€80) with an X-ray (€30) and a scan. We will tell you which stage that tooth is genuinely at — filling, onlay or crown — and if the answer is the cheapest one, that is what we will say.
You will leave knowing what we would recommend, why, what it costs and what the alternatives are. No pressure, no hard sell, just a conversation.
You might also want to read about the different types of crown and which suits which tooth, how same-day CEREC crowns are made in a single visit, or how a crown compares with a veneer on a front tooth.
Docklands Dental
1 Forbes Street, Grand Canal Dock, Dublin 2, D02 FN53
Phone: 01 636 0192
Email: hello@docklandsdental.ie
Written by Dr. Gregg Barry, BDS (UCC, 2008), Docklands Dental, 1 Forbes Street, Grand Canal Dock, Dublin 2, D02 FN53. Published 27 August 2026.
Crown or filling? You can book an appointment online.
Frequently asked questions
How much does a filling cost compared with a crown in Dublin?
At Docklands Dental a white filling costs €160 to €180 for a small one, €190 to €210 for a medium one and €220 to €250 for a large one. A milled ceramic crown, inlay or onlay is €1,050, and a hand-layered feldspathic crown for a prominent front tooth is €1,200. An examination is €80 and a small X-ray is €30. A temporary filling is €95. Every figure is quoted in writing before treatment starts.
Is an inlay or onlay better than a full crown?
For a back tooth that is too damaged for a filling but not damaged enough to need a full crown, an inlay or onlay is often the better option because it replaces only the damaged part and leaves the healthy walls of the tooth standing. Preparing a tooth for a full crown removes roughly 1.5 to 2mm of tooth structure all the way round, permanently. An inlay or onlay costs €1,050 at Docklands Dental, the same as a milled ceramic crown, and is fitted in a single visit. It needs enough sound enamel to bond to, so it does not suit every case.
