Quick answer: Salem, MA has 52 dental practices in the Dental.me directory. 27 are rated on Google, averaging 4.7★ across 5,656 reviews. Top by independent Dental.me Score: Kyle Edmonds, North Shore Oral Surgery and Implant Center, North Shore Oral Surgery Group PC. Compare them below and shortlist two or three near you to call.
| # | Practice | Google rating | Reviews |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Kyle Edmonds | 5★ | 700 |
| 2 | North Shore Oral Surgery and Implant Center | 4.9★ | 982 |
| 3 | North Shore Oral Surgery Group PC | 4.9★ | 652 |
| 4 | John P Fisher DDS PC | 5★ | 175 |
| 5 | Dentist Salem – Smiles of Salem | 4.9★ | 297 |
There is a tell in Salem’s dental numbers that most North Shore towns don’t have. Of the 52 offices operating inside the city, 27 carry enough review history to earn a real score on Dental.me — and every single one of those 52 has a working website. Not most. All of them. In a profession where a surprising number of good clinicians still hide behind a dead Facebook page and a voicemail box, a 100% online rate among Salem’s rated practices signals a market that competes on visibility, not just chairside skill.
Stack the reviews on top of that and the picture sharpens. Those 27 scored practices hold 5,656 Google reviews between them — roughly 209 apiece — at a citywide average of 4.7 stars. For a city Salem’s size, that is an unusually deep and unusually flattering track record. It tells you the strong offices here are not being judged on a thin sample. They have been photographed, rated, and re-rated by hundreds of neighbors, and they’ve held their ground.
This guide reads Salem’s market the way it actually behaves, then hands you the shortlist. Start from the Salem dentist hub if you’d rather browse the full roster yourself.
The first thing to understand: Salem is the North Shore’s surgical hub
Before you pick a family dentist, notice what the data does not hide. Two of the busiest practices in the entire city are not general-dentistry offices at all — they are oral-surgery groups. North Shore Oral Surgery and Implant Center carries 982 reviews at 4.9 stars, and North Shore Oral Surgery Group PC adds another 652 at the same 4.9. Together those two surgical practices account for nearly 1,634 reviews — close to 29% of every review in the city.
That concentration is not an accident. Salem functions as a referral magnet for the surrounding towns; when a general dentist in Marblehead, Beverly, or Swampscott needs a wisdom-tooth extraction, an implant placed, or a bone graft done, the patient often ends up in Salem. If your reason for searching is surgical — an extraction, implants, or a jaw problem — you are already in the right city, and you have two heavily-reviewed, near-perfectly-rated options before you look anywhere else.
The universal-website figure is worth dwelling on for a second, because it changes the mechanics of booking here. When every rated office maintains a live site, you can almost always check hours, confirm which insurances are accepted, and request an appointment online without a single phone call — a real convenience if you work daytime hours or are moving to the area from out of town. It also tends to correlate with practices that answer messages, keep their listings current, and treat the patient experience as something that starts before the first visit. Salem clears that bar across the board, which is not something you can say of every small city on the North Shore.
What the star ratings really look like
Averages lie by smoothing. The honest way to read a market is the distribution, and Salem’s is lopsided in the direction you want. Of the 27 scored practices, 19 sit at 4.8 stars or higher, another 4 land in the strong 4.5–4.79 range, and only 4 fall below 4.5 — with just 2 dropping under 4.0. In plain terms: roughly 85% of the offices patients actually rate here are performing at 4.5 stars or better.
That density of high scores changes how you should shop. In a weaker market, finding one good dentist is the whole battle. In Salem, the top tier is crowded, so the deciding factors shift to fit — location within the city, whether they take your insurance, evening hours, and whether they do the specific work you need in-house. The floor is high enough that you can afford to be picky about everything else.
The names that keep coming up
Six practices anchor the top of Salem’s directory, and they split cleanly by what they’re for. If you want a general dentist with a spotless record, Kyle Edmonds holds a perfect 5.0 across 700 reviews — the deepest flawless score in the city. Smiles of Salem (4.9, 297 reviews) and Burba Dental Partners (4.9, 277) round out the general-practice tier with review counts approaching 300 apiece.
For surgical and implant work, the two North Shore Oral Surgery groups already named are the volume leaders. And if you need endodontics or a smaller, high-touch practice, John P. Fisher DDS PC holds a perfect 5.0 across a tighter 175 reviews. The full, sortable list — including the offices below the top six — lives on the Salem hub.
Match the office to the job
Salem is well covered for restorative and cosmetic work and thinner on the alignment side, and the specialty counts show it plainly. There are 16 practices offering dental implants, 14 doing cosmetic dentistry, and 14 offering teeth whitening — the three deepest benches in town. Emergency dental care is available at 11 offices, which is reassuring for a walkable, tourist-heavy downtown. Orthodontics and Invisalign, by contrast, sit at just 6 practices each, so if you’re chasing straight teeth you’ll be choosing from a shorter list.
Jump straight to the service you need: implant dentists, cosmetic dentists, emergency dentists, pediatric dentists, oral surgeons, or orthodontists.
A three-step way to choose, tuned to this market
Because Salem’s floor is high, the usual advice (“just find a 4-star office”) wastes the advantage. Use the depth instead. Filter first by the work you need — general, surgical, cosmetic, or alignment — then by review volume as a proxy for experience, and only then by the logistics that actually govern whether you’ll keep going back.
Step two deserves a word of caution, because Salem’s data makes it easy to over-index on a perfect score. A lone 5.0 built on nine or a dozen reviews is a much softer signal than a 4.9 earned across several hundred. Both John P. Fisher DDS PC and Kyle Edmonds carry perfect ratings, but Edmonds’ 700-review base is the sturdier bet for most patients simply because so many more people have tested it. When you’re comparing two offices that both look flawless on the star line, let the review count break the tie — volume is the closest thing you have to a larger sample.
None of this speaks to price, and cost varies more by procedure and insurance than by which Salem office you pick. A cleaning, a filling, an implant, and a full-arch case live in wildly different budgets, and the same treatment can be quoted differently depending on whether it’s done in-house or referred out to one of the oral-surgery groups. 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.
One Salem-specific note on that last step: downtown parking is genuinely tight, especially in October when the city fills with visitors. If you’re booking a lengthy procedure, ask where patients park before you commit — it’s the kind of small friction that quietly decides whether you keep your six-month cleanings.
If Salem doesn’t have your fit
The North Shore is dense, and a five-minute drive opens up dozens more options. Neighboring Marblehead and Beverly both hold their own directories, as do Swampscott, Peabody, Danvers, and Lynn. Because Salem already draws surgical referrals from these towns, crossing the line usually makes the most sense for routine or alignment care rather than for implants or extractions.
Whatever you decide, know how the scores are built before you lean on them — our ranking methodology explains exactly what goes into a Dental.me score, and the Salem hub keeps the full, current roster in one place.
How many dentists are in Salem, MA?
Dental.me tracks 52 dental practices in Salem, MA — 27 carry a public star rating that averages 4.7 stars, and 27 list a website. Compare the full ranked list on the Salem dentists page.
Which is the top-rated dentist in Salem?
By Dental.me Score, Kyle Edmonds currently leads the Salem list (5.0 stars, 700 reviews). Rankings update as ratings and profile data change, so compare a few offices before deciding.
How do I choose a good dentist in Salem?
Compare the Dental.me Score alongside review volume, location, office hours, provider names, and website details, then shortlist three to five Salem offices that fit your schedule, budget, and the care you need.
How does Dental.me rank Salem dentists?
By an independent Dental.me Score built from each practice's Google star rating out of 100, held to a confidence level by its review volume, with exact review counts breaking ties and a verification lift that lets confirmed practices reach a perfect 100. Featured placements are paid, clearly labeled, and never change the organic order.
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.