“How much?” is the question we get asked first about crowns. “What kind?” is the one we get asked least — which is a shame, because the answer to the second question is usually what decides the first.
There is no single thing called a dental crown. There are several, made in different ways from different materials, and the right one depends on which tooth it is going on, how much of that tooth is left to build on, and how much of it anyone will ever see. Here is an honest walk through the types we work with, the ones we have stopped placing, and how we actually decide.
What types of dental crown are available in Dublin?
Most crowns fitted in Dublin today fall into three groups: milled high-strength ceramic at €1,050, hand-layered feldspathic porcelain at €1,200, and older metal-based crowns that we no longer place.
The first group covers the majority of what we do. A crown is designed on screen and milled from a solid ceramic block in our own unit here on Forbes Street, which is why it can be fitted the same day with no laboratory and no temporary crown in between.
The second is a different craft entirely. A ceramist builds porcelain up in thin layers by hand and fires it repeatedly, which is slower, more expensive, and better at one specific thing: disappearing next to a front tooth.
The third group is history, and we will come back to why. There is also a fourth option that often gets forgotten — the inlay or onlay, which is not a full crown at all and is frequently the better answer.
Which type of crown suits a back tooth?
For back teeth we almost always mill a monolithic zirconia or zirconia-reinforced lithium disilicate crown in the practice for €1,050, fitted in a single Dublin appointment of roughly 90 minutes to two hours.
Molars and premolars do the heavy lifting. They take chewing loads that front teeth never see, so the brief for that crown is strength first, and appearance second (though modern ceramics give you both — this is not a compromise the way it was twenty years ago).
Milled ceramic suits this beautifully because the crown is one solid piece of material. There is no porcelain layer bonded onto a core underneath, so there is no join for a layer to chip away from. The milling itself takes about 15 to 20 minutes while you sit there, which still feels slightly ridiculous to us, and we have been doing it for years.
We work with a range of materials rather than one house default — lithium disilicate, zirconia, composite — because teeth are not one-size-fits-all. If you want the full picture of how the one-visit route works, our guide to same-day CEREC crowns covers the process step by step.
Which type of crown suits a front tooth?
A front tooth is where we most often recommend the €1,200 hand-layered feldspathic crown, because a ceramist builds the porcelain in layers to match the translucency of the tooth sitting right beside it.
Here is the honest difference. A back tooth has to work. A front tooth has to work and vanish — and vanishing is a much harder brief. A natural incisor is not one flat shade. It is more translucent at the edge, more opaque near the gum, and it usually carries faint internal markings that catch the light in a particular way.
That is what hand layering buys you. Our ceramicist, Vladimir Savchuk, builds those optical layers up by hand, which is the same technique behind our feldspathic veneers — also €1,200 per tooth. If you want to understand how feldspathic porcelain differs from pressed ceramics, we go deep on that in our feldspathic versus e.max comparison.
We should be clear about something: this is not an upgrade we apply by default. On a molar nobody will ever see, that work is spent where it cannot be appreciated. We will tell you honestly which category your tooth falls into.
Is a stronger crown material always the better choice?
No. Zirconia is the strongest ceramic we use, but strength and optical realism pull in opposite directions, which is why we choose the material tooth by tooth rather than defaulting to one.
Look, we know “strongest available” sounds like the obvious answer. It usually is not. The properties that make zirconia so tough also make it more opaque, and opacity is precisely what gives a front-tooth crown that flat, slightly lifeless look you can spot across a room.
Go the other way and you get gorgeous translucency on a tooth that is grinding through 200 newtons of bite force every evening. Neither extreme is a plan. Matching the material to the job is the plan, and that decision is made per tooth, at the planning stage, with you in the room.
Do you still fit porcelain-fused-to-metal or gold crowns?
No — we stopped placing metal-based crowns entirely, because modern ceramics are strong enough for any case and there is no reason to accept a grey gum line ten years later.
Porcelain-fused-to-metal crowns were the workhorse for decades and plenty of them are still doing their job perfectly well. The problem is what happens later. The porcelain is bonded onto a metal substructure, so the metal has to be masked, and as gums recede a little with age that dark margin starts to show. Replacing old PFM crowns that have gone that way is a decent chunk of the crown work we do.
Gold is the one metal still carried on our price list, where the cost follows the material rather than a flat fee. It is a legitimate material with a genuinely long track record — we are not going to pretend otherwise — but it is not what we reach for, because ceramic now does the same job without the colour.
What type of crown goes on a dental implant?
A porcelain crown fitted onto a dental implant is €1,350, rising to €1,700 for a complex front tooth, and it is a separate item from the €1,650 surgical placement fee, which covers the surgery carried out at ISCD by specialist oral surgeon Dr Marie O’Neill.
An implant crown is a different design problem from a crown on a natural tooth. There is no root and no natural emergence through the gum, so the shape where the crown meets the tissue has to be built deliberately to create one. Get that wrong and the crown looks like it is sitting on the gum rather than growing out of it.
Those two figures are standalone stage prices — what each part costs on its own, for instance if we are restoring an implant that someone else placed. A single implant done start to finish with us, placement and porcelain crown together, is from €3,000 to €3,500. That is why the separate numbers do not simply add up to the all-in one. Our full dental implant cost breakdown sets out every component.
Do you always need a full crown, or will an inlay or onlay do?
Often an onlay is enough. An inlay or onlay costs the same €1,050 as a milled crown but keeps more of your own tooth, so where healthy structure remains it is the better restoration.
This is the bit we would most like people to take away. A crown covers the whole tooth, which means the whole tooth gets reshaped to make room for it. An inlay or onlay replaces only the damaged part and leaves the healthy walls of your tooth standing.
Same milling unit, same ceramic, same appointment, same price. There is no financial reason for us to steer you toward one or the other, and we would rather you knew that. Our philosophy is the minimum intervention that gets a reliable result — if an onlay will do the job, we are not going to recommend a full crown.
How much does each type of crown cost in Dublin?
Milled ceramic crown, inlay or onlay €1,050; hand-layered feldspathic crown €1,200; implant crown €1,350; temporary crown €350; re-cementing an existing crown €250 — all published openly on our price list.
| Type of crown | Cost | Usually used for |
|---|---|---|
| Milled ceramic crown, inlay or onlay | €1,050 | Back teeth, fitted same day |
| Hand-layered feldspathic crown | €1,200 | Front teeth — our usual choice for anterior work |
| Porcelain crown on an implant | €1,350 (€1,700 complex anterior) | Restoring a placed implant |
| Temporary crown | €350 | Interim cases where same-day is not possible |
| Re-cementing an existing crown | €250 | A sound crown that has come loose |
We publish these rather than holding them back until you are in the chair, because a crown is planned treatment and you should be able to think about it beforehand. We do not run discounts or limited-time offers on any of it. For the full picture of what moves these numbers, see our dental crown cost guide and our same-day crown cost breakdown.
Which type of crown lasts the longest?
The evidence favours well-made all-ceramic crowns: a study of 3,404 crowns recorded annual failure rates below 1%, roughly 92% to 97% survival at eleven years, with about 95% success reported at up to fifteen.
The research backs this up properly. A practice-based longevity study in the Journal of Dentistry followed 3,404 single-unit crowns in more than 1,500 patients and found annual failure rates under 1%, and a separate multi-centre study of all-ceramic crowns reported around 95% success at up to fifteen years.
What we find more useful than the headline number is what the same research says about why crowns fail. Root-treated teeth carried a measurably higher failure risk, which is one reason we try to catch problems before a tooth ever reaches that stage. And in our own experience, the crown material is rarely the thing that gives up first — grinding, an untreated bite problem, or new decay creeping in at the margin get there long before the ceramic does.
Which means the material choice matters less than what happens afterwards. A night guard is €180 (€250 for a hard/soft one) and hygiene visits are €95, and between them they protect a crown far more than picking one ceramic over another ever will. Our crown aftercare guide covers the day-to-day side.
Ready to find out which type of crown your tooth needs?
If a tooth is broken, heavily filled, or has been aching since a root canal, the useful first step is an examination (€80) so we can tell you what it actually needs — which is honestly sometimes less than you were expecting. You will leave knowing the type of crown we would recommend, why that one, what it costs, and what the alternatives are. No pressure, no hard sell, just a conversation.
We are one of the few practices in Ireland working as Key Opinion Leaders and trainers for Dentsply Sirona, so the digital scanning and milling side of this is something we teach as well as do. We really love this stuff — and it is the reason we can be confident about the fit of what we make.
You can also compare a crown against the alternatives in our crown versus veneer guide, browse the full crowns, inlays and onlays page, or see how crowns sit alongside everything else in our guide to cosmetic dentistry costs in Dublin.
Docklands Dental
1 Forbes Street, Grand Canal Dock, Dublin 2, D02 FN53
Phone: 01 636 0192
Book: book a consultation online
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 11 August 2026.
Frequently asked questions
Is an inlay or onlay cheaper than a dental crown?
No. An inlay or onlay is the same price as a milled crown at €1,050, because it is made from the same ceramic in the same milling unit. The difference is how much natural tooth is kept: an inlay or onlay replaces only the damaged part rather than covering the whole tooth, so where enough healthy tooth remains it is the better restoration.
