Root canal cost in Lahore ranges from PKR 18,000 to PKR 45,000 for a single tooth at Dental Specialists in DHA Phase 6, with the crown afterwards priced separately at PKR 25,000 for PFM or PKR 45,000 for zirconia. Where your tooth lands inside that range comes down to its anatomy, not to haggling: front teeth usually have one canal, molars commonly have three or four. Most people searching this question have already been quoted a number somewhere and want to know whether it was fair. Fair enough. Here's the whole picture, including the part that gets left out of most quotes.
How much does a root canal cost in Lahore?
These are our published prices. Everything else on this page is built from them.
| Treatment | Price at Dental Specialists, DHA Phase 6 (PKR) |
|---|---|
| Root canal treatment, single tooth | 18,000–45,000 |
| PFM crown | 25,000 per tooth |
| Zirconia crown | 45,000 per tooth |
| Dental filling | 14,000 |
| Simple extraction | 10,000 |
| Surgical extraction | 45,000 |
| Scaling and polishing | 12,000 |
| Single implant with crown (if the tooth can't be saved) | 150,000–380,000, includes bone grafting where needed |
Prices are indicative ranges at Dental Specialists, DHA Phase 6, Lahore, current as of July 2026. Your exact treatment plan and cost are confirmed after clinical examination. Prices may change without notice.
Now do the addition, because nobody else will. A root canal plus a PFM crown comes to somewhere between PKR 43,000 and PKR 70,000. A root canal plus a zirconia crown lands between PKR 63,000 and PKR 90,000. That's the number you should be comparing when you ring around, and it's the number that makes a quoted "root canal fee" on its own close to meaningless.
What actually changes the price
Five things, roughly in order of how much they matter.
- How many canals the tooth has. An upper central incisor has one. A lower first molar usually has three, sometimes four, occasionally more. Each canal has to be found, cleaned, shaped and sealed to the tip. Three canals is not three times the work of one, but it isn't the same work either.
- Whether it's a first treatment or a retreatment. Redoing a root canal means dismantling the old filling material before you can even start. It takes longer and it's harder.
- The state of the canals. Curved, calcified, or blocked canals in an older patient can turn a 45-minute appointment into two long ones.
- Whether there's an established infection. A tooth with an abscess at the root tip may need a dressing and a second visit before it can be sealed.
- Who does it, and with what. Rotary nickel-titanium instruments, an apex locator, and good radiographs cost money and they change the outcome. So does the operator's experience.
What doesn't change the price much: your postcode within Lahore, and how sore the tooth feels on the day. If you'd like the appointment-by-appointment version of what happens in the chair, we've written it out in root canal treatment: what to expect.
The crown is not optional, and it's the bigger number
This is the section I'd keep if I had to delete the rest.
A root-treated back tooth has had its roof drilled through and its nerve removed. It is drier, more brittle, and it flexes under load in a way an intact tooth doesn't. Left with just a filling, molars crack. The published evidence on this is unusually blunt for dentistry: in an eight-year study of posterior root-treated teeth, those crowned within four months had 85% survival, against 68% where the crown came later, and teeth restored with only a composite or amalgam build-up were extracted at more than twice the rate of crowned teeth. A separate registry analysis put the gap even wider for teeth that had lost most of their crown structure.
So when a tooth cracks eighteen months after a root canal and someone says "the root canal failed", it usually didn't. The restoration did. Long-term data backs the procedure itself up well: one study following primary root canals in private practice for up to 37 years reported 97% of teeth still present at 10 years and 93% clinical success at that point, with survival easing to around two-thirds by the 37-year mark.
Here's the honest caveat. Not every root-treated tooth needs a crown. A front tooth with a small access cavity and all its walls intact often does fine with a bonded composite, and reviews of teeth with only minor structural loss show little difference between a crown and a well-done direct filling. The argument is about back teeth and about teeth that have lost a lot of structure, and there the evidence points one way. Your dentist should tell you which category your tooth is in and why. If you want the reasoning in plain terms, see crown vs filling: when do you need each?, or read about our crowns and bridges.
How our quote is built
Two line items, both published above. The root canal figure covers the endodontic treatment on that tooth. The crown is quoted separately at PKR 25,000 for PFM or PKR 45,000 for zirconia, so you can add the two yourself before you ever sit in the chair. If the tooth turns out not to be savable, the alternatives come off the same published list rather than out of the air.
The plan and the final figure are confirmed after an examination and radiographs, because there is no honest way to price a canal system you haven't seen. What we won't do is quote you a low number today and discover a second line item next month. Root canal treatment at our DHA Phase 6 clinic is done by our dentists in-house, and the crown that follows is designed by Dr. Uzair Ahmed, our FCPS-qualified prosthodontist. We're open daily, noon to 10pm, which matters more than it sounds when a tooth starts throbbing on a Sunday.
Flexible payment options are available on select treatments — discuss with our team at consultation.
Root canal or extraction? The real maths
A simple extraction is PKR 10,000. That is genuinely the cheapest thing on this page, and for about a week it feels like a bargain.
Then the gap has to be dealt with. Replacing a single missing tooth with an implant and crown runs PKR 150,000–380,000 at our clinic, which is roughly two to six times what saving the tooth would have cost. The full breakdown is in our guide to dental implant cost in Pakistan, and the treatment itself on our dental implants page. Leaving the gap empty isn't free either: neighbouring teeth drift, the opposing tooth over-erupts, and you chew on one side for years.
The clinical evidence lines up with the arithmetic. A large systematic review comparing root canal treatment and restoration against extraction with an implant crown found both approaches gave good long-term survival, with bridges behind them and extraction without replacement carrying the worst outcomes for patients. Neither option wins on survival alone. One of them costs a fraction of the other.
None of which means every tooth is worth saving. A tooth split vertically down the root, or one with almost no structure left above the gum, has to go, and stretching a doomed tooth for another year usually costs more in the end. That's a call for an examination, not a price list.
One visit or two, and does it change the bill?
Not at our clinic, and the research says it shouldn't change your outcome either. The 2022 Cochrane review on this question found no evidence that finishing a root canal in one visit works better or worse than spreading it over two, while noting moderate-certainty evidence that more people report pain in the first week after single-visit treatment. Convenience has a small price, paid in paracetamol rather than rupees.
So if a clinic charges extra for a "single-visit root canal", ask what you're buying. The number of appointments is a clinical decision about that tooth, mainly driven by infection and how the canals behave once they're opened.
Why a cheap root canal is rarely cheap
Two things drive the cost of a toothache in Lahore, and neither is the clinic's fee.
The first is waiting. Pain that wakes you at night usually means the nerve is inflamed beyond recovery, and the standard care for that is removing the pulp. Antibiotics from the pharmacy don't do it. A Cochrane review looking at antibiotics for exactly this kind of toothache found no reliable evidence that they reduce the pain at all, and there's a wider cost to taking them when they won't help. Every week of delay is a week for the infection to reach the bone, and a tooth with an abscess is a longer, dearer, less predictable case than the same tooth a month earlier. If it's already swelling, or the swelling is spreading toward your eye or making it hard to swallow or breathe, that's an emergency, not a budgeting question — see our guide to infection after a root canal for the warning signs.
The second is the crown that never happened. So when you compare quotes, ignore the headline and ask for both numbers. The clinic charging PKR 18,000 and the clinic charging PKR 40,000 might be quoting the same tooth, or they might not be quoting the same job at all.
Frequently asked questions
How much does a root canal cost in Lahore?
At Dental Specialists in DHA Phase 6, Lahore, root canal treatment ranges from PKR 18,000 to PKR 45,000 for a single tooth. Front teeth sit lower in that range because they have fewer canals. Molars sit higher. A crown afterwards is priced separately, at PKR 25,000 for PFM or PKR 45,000 for zirconia.
Does the root canal price include the crown?
No, and almost nowhere does. The root canal and the crown are two separate treatments with separate prices. Ask any clinic for both numbers before you start, because a headline price that looks cheap usually means the crown has not been quoted yet.
Why is a molar root canal more expensive than a front tooth?
Front teeth usually have one canal. Premolars often have two. Molars commonly have three or four, and they sit at the back where access is harder. More canals means more time, more instruments and more X-rays, so the fee rises with the anatomy rather than with the clinic's mood.
Can I skip the crown after a root canal to save money?
You can, but the evidence advises against it on back teeth. In one eight-year study, posterior root-treated teeth crowned within four months had 85% survival, against 68% when the crown was delayed. Teeth left with only a filling were extracted at more than twice the rate of crowned teeth.
Is a root canal cheaper than an implant?
Considerably. A root canal plus a zirconia crown at our clinic totals roughly PKR 63,000 to PKR 90,000. Extracting the tooth and replacing it with an implant and crown ranges from PKR 150,000 to PKR 380,000. Saving a tooth that can be saved is almost always the cheaper route.
Will antibiotics fix my toothache instead?
No. A Cochrane review found no reliable evidence that antibiotics reduce the pain of irreversible pulpitis, the inflamed-nerve toothache that keeps people awake. They do not remove the damaged pulp. Only treatment does that, and delaying it can turn a simple case into a costly one.
References
- Pratt I, Aminoshariae A, Montagnese T A, Williams K A, Khalighinejad N, Mickel A. (2016). Eight-year retrospective study of the critical time lapse between root canal completion and crown placement: its influence on the survival of endodontically treated teeth. Journal of Endodontics, 42(11), 1598–1603.
- López-Valverde I, Vignoletti F, Vignoletti G, Martin C, Sanz M. (2023). Long-term tooth survival and success following primary root canal treatment: a 5- to 37-year retrospective observation. Clinical Oral Investigations, 27(6), 3233–3244.
- Mergoni G, Ganim M, Lodi G, Figini L, Gagliani M, Manfredi M. (2022). Single versus multiple visits for endodontic treatment of permanent teeth. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, Issue 12, CD005296.
- Agnihotry A, Thompson W, Fedorowicz Z, van Zuuren E J, Sprakel J. (2019). Antibiotic use for irreversible pulpitis. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, Issue 5, CD004969.
- Bhuva B, Giovarruscio M, Rahim N, Bitter K, Mannocci F. (2021). The restoration of root filled teeth: a review of the clinical literature. International Endodontic Journal, 54(4), 509–535.
- Torabinejad M, Anderson P, Bader J, et al. (2007). Outcomes of root canal treatment and restoration, implant-supported single crowns, fixed partial dentures, and extraction without replacement: a systematic review. Journal of Prosthetic Dentistry, 98(4), 285–311.
Dr. Sarwar Naseer
Dr. Sarwar Naseer is a PMDC-registered dental surgeon with around four years of clinical experience, qualified from Akhtar Saeed Medical & Dental College. He is known for aesthetic dentistry, smile makeovers, and a gentle, painless approach to treatment.
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Dr. Uzair Ahmed
Dr. Uzair Ahmed has more than 12 years of clinical experience in restorative and prosthetic dentistry in Lahore, with BDS and FCPS specialisation from CMH Lahore Medical College. He is PMDC-registered and leads crown, bridge and full-mouth rehabilitation cases at the clinic.
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