Dentists in Sacramento, CA: Local Guide

Quick answer: Sacramento, CA has 799 dental practices in the Dental.me directory. 438 are rated on Google, averaging 4.38★ across 51,063 reviews. Top by independent Dental.me Score: James R Silverman Inc, D2O Dental, Lush Dental Studio. Compare them below, with the review count behind each rating.

Sacramento is a dental market where it pays to slow down. The city lists 799 dental practices, but only 438 of them — about 55% — carry a public star rating, and across those rated offices the average sits at 4.38 stars. That average reflects real range: 263 rated offices sit at 4.8 or above and 86 sit below 4.0. With ratings spread that widely, a shortlist is worth building deliberately.

Here is the shape of the whole market before we get into who is who.

The spread is the story

Start with how Sacramento’s ratings are distributed. Of the 438 rated practices, 263 (60%) sit at 4.8 stars or higher — a large top tier, though 105 of those 263 rest on ten or fewer reviews. But look at the tail: 86 rated offices, nearly one in five, come in under 4.0 stars. Another 41 land in the middling 4.0–4.49 range. Put plainly, roughly three in ten rated offices sit below 4.5.

None of this should scare you off — it should focus you. A 60% top tier means high Google ratings are common; they just sit next to a sizable middle and bottom. The practical takeaway is simple: in Sacramento, an explicit rating floor does more work than it would in a market where nearly everyone clusters at 4.7. Start your search at the Sacramento dentist hub, where offices are ranked by Dental.me Score, and drop that gold tail from your shortlist before you ever pick up the phone.

Sacramento’s ratings rest on a large pool of reviews. Those 438 rated offices have collectively drawn 51,063 reviews — an average of roughly 117 per practice. The average hides a skew: the median rated office has 23 reviews, and six offices pass 1,000. In the 4.8-and-up tier the median is 38, and 62 of the 152 offices at 5.0 rest on three or fewer reviews. Low scores can be just as thin: 51 of the 86 offices below 4.0 rest on ten or fewer reviews. Read every rating next to its review count.

High ratings on deep review bases

At the top of the Score order, the leading names are backed by hundreds of reviews each, a much larger sample than a 5.0 built on a handful. Lush Dental Studio has drawn 1,292 reviews at a 4.9 average, the deepest record among the top five by Score. The deepest record in the city belongs to Sheila Harris, at 4.8 across 2,465 reviews; of the six offices past 1,000 reviews, two sit below 4.5.

Two practices hold a 5.0 with serious volume behind it: James R. Silverman Inc. (748 reviews) and D2O Dental (664 reviews). An office listed under emergency dentistry also sits near the top of the Score order: Emergency Dental of Sacramento holds a 4.9 across 1,019 reviews, a deep review record for an office listed under emergency dentistry; call to ask about its hours before you need it. Rounding out the top of the Score order are Kathryn Shimizu (4.9, 781 reviews) and Paul Phillips (4.9, 751 reviews). Each of these six pairs a 4.9 or 5.0 with more than 650 reviews.

Reading a Sacramento listing the right way

Because the field ranges so widely, how you read a listing matters more here than the raw star number. Two filters do most of the work. First, weigh the rating against the review count: a 4.9 earned over a thousand reviews, like Lush Dental Studio or Emergency Dental of Sacramento, is a far better-documented choice than an untested 5.0 with a dozen reviews. Second, notice that only 347 of the 799 listed practices — about 43% — publish a website. A missing website is not a disqualifier; it just means you will check scheduling and front-desk details by phone. When two offices are otherwise tied, the one that makes its hours, insurance, and services easy to find online is the easier one to check before you call. Dental.me does not publish prices, and our national guide to dental costs gives no price ranges either; it lists what a quote depends on (the procedure, exam findings, insurance and materials), so ask each office for a written, itemised estimate.

Matching the right specialist to the job

Sacramento’s depth varies a lot by specialty, and knowing where the field is deep versus thin saves you dead-end calls. Cosmetic and restorative work is well covered: 153 practices list cosmetic dentistry, 153 handle dental implants, and 82 offer teeth whitening. Orthodontics is solid too, with 94 orthodontists. Urgent needs are served by 85 emergency dentists; an emergency tag is a listed service, not a promise of after-hours availability.

The most widely listed services — whitening, implants, cosmetic work, braces — have dozens of practices each, the largest categories 153. The more specialised the procedure, the shorter the list, and that is where widening your search radius helps.

The scarcer specialties are worth planning around. Sacramento lists only 12 prosthodontists and 37 oral surgeons, so complex reconstruction or surgical extractions are worth planning ahead for, and you may want to widen the search radius. Families should note the 77 pediatric dentists on the list, and anyone facing a root canal has 53 endodontists to choose from. Filtering by the exact service you need — before you dial — is the single fastest way to skip past practices that technically appear in search but do not actually do the procedure you are after.

Looking just past the city line

Sacramento is the anchor of a larger metro. If you want more names on the shortlist, it is worth scanning nearby West Sacramento, Rancho Cordova, Carmichael, Gold River, North Highlands, and Rio Linda. Commuters especially should treat the metro as one search area rather than boxing themselves into a single ZIP code.

The bottom line for Sacramento

Sacramento hands you two facts at once: highly rated practices are plentiful, and low-rated ones are present too. Both are true, and both point to the same habit — build a short list on purpose. Set a rating floor, weigh stars against review volume, match the specialty before you call, and glance at the neighboring towns if you want more room. Do that and the wide spread works in your favor: the top tier is large, and the review counts tell you how much stands behind each rating. Start with the full Sacramento dentist directory, and if you want to understand how these ratings are gathered and weighted, our ranking methodology lays it out.

Dental.me organizes dental directory data so patients can compare offices with confidence. Use each practice profile and its available website, map, and phone details for current appointment, payment, and care decisions.