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Night Guard Cost in Singapore: Prices, How Long One Lasts, and What You Actually Pay
Written by NoFrills Dental clinical team
Reviewed by our clinical advisory board
Updated 14/09/2026
A custom night guard in Singapore costs roughly $300 to $1,000. Ours are $350 to $700 before GST depending on the material, and a pharmacy boil and bite mouthguard is $10 to $30 for something quite different. The spread across the market is wide because a night guard is one of the few dental items with no MOH fee benchmark, no CHAS subsidy and no MediSave claim behind it, so nothing anchors the price except what each clinic decides to charge. Here is what sits inside the number, how long each type lasts, and the cost per year that actually decides which one is cheaper.
- Nothing anchors that range. A night guard is not one of the 18 procedures MOH publishes a fee benchmark for.
- No card helps. CHAS subsidises 18 dental services and a guard is not among them. MediSave covers surgical procedures only.
- Ours are $350 to $700 before GST, which is $381.50 to $763 at the counter. The examination that decides which one you need is $50.
- A hard guard that lasts four years usually works out cheaper per year than a soft guard replaced every eighteen months.
- Cochrane found insufficient evidence that splints reduce teeth grinding, with possible benefit for tooth wear. You are buying protection, not a cure.
How much does a night guard cost in Singapore?
Between roughly $300 and $1,000 for a custom guard made from an impression or a scan of your own teeth. The table below is what published prices at Singapore private clinics looked like when we checked them on 14 September 2026.
| What you are buying | Typical Singapore price |
|---|---|
| Boil and bite mouthguard from a pharmacy | $10 to $30 |
| Custom soft guard, vacuum formed | $300 to $450 |
| Custom hard acrylic or dual laminate guard | $450 to $800 |
| Milled or 3D printed guard | $600 to $1,000 |
| Sports mouthguard (a different appliance, see below) | $130 to $450 |
Indicative ranges compiled from published price lists and price pages at Singapore private dental clinics, checked 14 September 2026. Named examples on that date: Smilepoint Dental Centre published $350 for a soft mouthguard and $500 for a hard one; i.Dental published $381.50 to $654 for custom mouth guards and night guards, inclusive of GST; Dentalis published custom night guards from $450 before GST. These are other clinics' prices, not ours.
Ours sit inside that range: $350 to $700 before GST, depending on the material and how much wear there is to work around. The full breakdown, including the examination fee and what it comes to with GST, is further down this page. Our other fees are on the treatment fees page.
One thing to check before you compare any two quotes. Some clinics publish prices before GST and some publish them including GST, and almost nobody says which on the page itself. At 9 per cent, a $600 guard quoted before GST is $654 at the counter. Two quotes that look $54 apart may be the same price. Ask which one you are being given.
The second thing to check is what the quote covers. A guard fee on its own is not the cost of getting a guard. There is an examination first, usually an x-ray, an impression or a scan, a fitting visit, and normally one or two short adjustment visits after that. Clinics bundle those differently, and a lower headline price that excludes the fitting can total more than a higher all in one.
What you pay, by what you are buying
Bars are scaled by the top of each range against the highest, $1,000. Compiled from published Singapore clinic prices checked 14 September 2026. Which type suits a given patient is a clinical decision based on how much wear is present and what dental work is already in the mouth, not a matter of picking the most expensive bar.
How long a night guard lasts, and the cost per year that actually matters
This is the part most price comparisons leave out, and it usually reverses the answer. A guard is not a one off purchase. It is a consumable that you replace, and the cheap one is replaced far more often.
| Type of guard | Typical service life |
|---|---|
| Boil and bite from a pharmacy | 6 to 12 months |
| Custom soft guard | 1 to 2 years |
| Dual laminate guard | 2 to 4 years |
| Hard acrylic guard | 3 to 5 years |
Service life is clinical convention and manufacturer guidance rather than trial data, and it varies a great deal with how hard you grind. A heavy grinder can chew through a soft guard in months. i.Dental publishes 6 months to a year for stock and boil and bite guards and 1 to 2 years for custom ones; other clinics quote longer for hard acrylic. Treat these as planning figures, not promises.
Put the two tables together and the arithmetic is straightforward. Taking our own prices: a $350 soft guard replaced every 18 months costs about $233 a year. A $700 hard acrylic guard that lasts four years costs about $175 a year. The guard that costs twice as much on the day is about a quarter cheaper to own, and it protects better while you own it.
That calculation flips if you are not sure you can tolerate sleeping in an appliance at all, which is a real and common problem. In that case the cheaper guard is genuinely the sensible first purchase, because a guard you take out at 2am protects nothing regardless of what it cost.
Looking after it. Rinse it in cold water every morning, brush it gently with a soft brush and plain soap rather than toothpaste, which is abrasive enough to scratch the surface and make it cloudy, and let it dry fully before it goes back in its case. A damp guard in a closed case is how they start to smell. Bring it to your check-ups and we will look at the wear marks, which are also the most honest record of how hard you are actually grinding.
What drives the difference between a $300 guard and a $900 one
Four things account for most of the spread.
The material and how it is made
The largest single variable. A soft guard is a sheet of thermoplastic vacuum formed over a plaster model, which is quick and cheap. A hard acrylic splint is processed in a laboratory and adjusted to the way your teeth actually meet, which takes far more technician time. A milled or 3D printed guard adds machine time and material cost on top, and is more precise again.
Impression or digital scan
A physical impression and a plaster model sent to a laboratory is the traditional route. An intraoral scan sends a digital file straight to a mill or printer, which is more accurate and faster, and usually costs more. Some clinics bundle the scan into the guard fee and some bill it separately, which is one of the commonest reasons two quotes are not comparable.
What the quote includes
Examination, x-rays, records, fitting and adjustments. Ask how many adjustment visits are included and what happens after that. Fitting is not optional and it is not quick: a guard almost never seats perfectly first time, and the marking and grinding back is the part that decides whether you can sleep in it.
How much work is already in your mouth
A guard designed around crowns, bridges, veneers or implants needs more careful occlusal design than one made for an untouched set of teeth, because it has to load the restorations correctly rather than lever them. Heavy wear and a collapsed bite add more work again.
Night guard, mouth guard, sports mouthguard or retainer: which one you need
These names get used interchangeably and they are not interchangeable appliances. Buying the wrong one is a common and expensive mistake.
| Appliance | What it is for |
|---|---|
| Night guard (occlusal splint, bite guard) | Worn during sleep. Hard or dual laminate, thin, calibrated to your bite. Absorbs the sustained force of teeth grinding so the plastic wears instead of the enamel. |
| Sports mouthguard | Worn during sport. Soft, thick, shock absorbing, covers the gum margins. Built for one sudden impact, not for hours of grinding. Too bulky to sleep in and it will not protect your bite. |
| Retainer | Worn after braces or Invisalign to hold teeth in position. Thin and not built for grinding forces. A heavy grinder will crack one, which is why people who grind and have just finished orthodontics often need both. See the types of retainer and how to clean one. |
| Mandibular advancement device | Worn during sleep for snoring and obstructive sleep apnoea. Holds the lower jaw forward to open the airway. A different design from a night guard and prescribed for a different reason. See the caution near the end of this article. |
If you play contact sports and you also grind, you need two appliances. A sports mouthguard worn overnight is uncomfortable and does nothing useful for bruxism, and a night guard on a rugby pitch will not survive the first collision.
Will a night guard stop me grinding my teeth?
Probably not, and you should be wary of anyone who promises it will. This is the most important thing on this page and the thing most likely to be glossed over when you are being sold one.
A guard is a physical barrier. It puts a layer of plastic between your upper and lower teeth so that when the jaw muscles fire at night, the plastic takes the wear instead of the enamel. That is a real and worthwhile thing, because enamel does not grow back and a worn dentition eventually needs restoring with fillings, crowns or veneers.
What a guard does not reliably do is reduce the grinding. Cochrane reviewed the randomised trials of occlusal splints for sleep bruxism and concluded that there is not sufficient evidence to state that the occlusal splint is effective for treating sleep bruxism, that its use is questionable with regard to sleep outcomes, but that there may be some benefit with regard to tooth wear. Nothing published since has overturned that.
Under the current international consensus, reported by an expert panel convened at the 2024 IADR meeting and published in 2025, bruxism is not classed as a disorder at all. It is a motor behaviour that can be a risk factor, a protective factor or a neutral one depending on the outcome you are looking at, and clinicians are advised to assess it rather than diagnose it. In plain terms: nobody is trying to switch your jaw muscles off. The goal is to stop them costing you teeth.
So the honest case for spending the money is a narrow one, and it is enough on its own: a guard is cheap insurance against wear that is permanent and expensive to repair.
Why no scheme pays for a night guard
Most dental prices in Singapore now sit inside a published range. Since 1 October 2025 the Ministry of Health has published fee benchmarks for 18 common dental procedures, and CHAS dental clinics must display them next to their own price lists. We walk through the whole list in our guide to the MOH dental fee benchmarks.
A night guard is not on that list, and no splint is. The benchmarks were built around the procedures CHAS subsidises, and CHAS subsidises 18 dental services: consultation, scaling, polishing, topical fluoride, x-rays, extractions, fillings, re-cementation, denture reline and repair, permanent crowns, removable dentures and root canal treatment. A guard is absent there too. MediSave is a separate question with the same answer: it applies to dental work only where the procedure is a surgical one listed in MOH's Table of Surgical Procedures, and taking an impression and fitting an appliance is not surgery.
| Scheme | Towards a night guard |
|---|---|
| CHAS Blue | $0 |
| CHAS Orange | $0 |
| Merdeka Generation | $0 |
| Pioneer Generation | $0 |
| MediSave | $0 |
| Employer or private dental insurance | check your policy |
| What you pay | the full clinic fee |
If a clinic tells you MediSave or CHAS can be applied to the guard itself, that is wrong, and it is worth asking what else on the quote has been described loosely.
The examination is a different matter. The consultation and any x-rays taken at the same visit are CHAS procedures, so if you hold a card the assessment part of the visit can be subsidised even though the guard is not. Bring the card. Rates for each card are on our CHAS, Merdeka and Pioneer Generation page, with a fuller walkthrough in our guide to CHAS dental subsidies in 2026.
Insurance is the one route that sometimes works. Some employer dental plans and private policies reimburse part of a custom guard, usually under a general dental limit rather than as a named benefit. What helps a claim is an itemised receipt naming the appliance and, where the insurer asks for one, a short letter from the dentist explaining why it was clinically indicated. Ask for both at the fitting visit rather than months later. How to read a policy is set out on our dental insurance page, and we compared all three funding routes in dental insurance versus MediSave versus CHAS.
What teeth grinding costs you if you leave it
Here is the arithmetic that makes the guard question worth taking seriously. The guard has no benchmark and no subsidy. The damage does, because repairing a worn tooth is a CHAS procedure and MOH publishes what it should cost.
Grinding wears enamel flat, chips edges, cracks cusps off molars and, over years, can take a tooth down far enough that the nerve is involved. These are the published benchmark ranges, per tooth.
| What worn teeth eventually need | MOH fee benchmark |
|---|---|
| Filling, simple | $65 to $160 |
| Filling, complex | $80 to $180 |
| Root canal treatment, molar | $872 to $1,400 |
| Permanent crown | $750 to $1,400 |
| Night guard | no benchmark published |
Benchmarks published by the Ministry of Health, Guide to Dental Treatment Costs, in force from 1 October 2025, page last updated 28 November 2025. Ranges exclude GST and are per tooth.
Per tooth, what restoring a worn tooth is benchmarked at
Bars are scaled by the top of each range against the highest, $1,400. MOH fee benchmarks for CHAS dental procedures, in force 1 October 2025, excluding GST. These are per tooth, and a heavy grinder rarely damages one tooth in isolation. A cracked cusp on a back tooth frequently needs a root canal and a crown together rather than either alone, which is most of a thousand dollars before the guard is even discussed.
A guard does not guarantee none of this happens. It shifts the odds, and it does so on the one part of the problem where the evidence is least unkind to it. Against a single crown, the sums answer themselves. Where teeth have already been lost or broken down, the conversation widens to root canal treatment, full mouth rehabilitation or replacement with dentures and implants, and the numbers get considerably larger.
We will chart the wear, tell you which guard suits your case and give you the price before anything is made.
What a night guard costs with us, and how it gets made
A night guard with us is $350 to $700 before GST. A soft guard sits at the bottom of that range and a laboratory processed hard acrylic splint at the top, with dual laminate in between. Where you land depends on the material, how much wear there is to work around and how much existing dental work the guard has to be designed around, and it is confirmed in writing before anything is ordered.
The examination comes first and is charged separately, at $50, with a single tooth x-ray at $80 if one is needed. Every examination includes an oral cancer screening. GST has been 9 per cent since 1 January 2024, and like everything on our treatment fees page these are before it.
| Consultation and examination | $50.00 |
| X-ray, single tooth, only if needed | $80.00 |
| Night guard, soft through to hard acrylic | $350.00 to $700.00 |
| GST at 9 per cent | $43.20 to $74.70 |
| Total, examination and guard, with an x-ray | $523.20 to $904.70 |
Fitting and the usual adjustment visits are included in the guard fee. The low end of the total assumes a soft guard and the high end a hard acrylic one. Without an x-ray, deduct $87.20. If you hold a CHAS card the examination and x-ray can be subsidised, though the guard cannot. Prices current at 14 September 2026.
If you would rather have a figure before you come in, ask us and we will give you the range over WhatsApp. What we will not do is name the exact number before anyone has looked in your mouth, because until somebody has seen how much wear is there it would be a guess dressed up as a quote.
The process is usually two visits, sometimes three.
- Examination. We chart which teeth are worn and how badly, check the joint and the muscles, look for decay and gum disease, and ask about your sleep, your stress and your medication. Sensitive teeth and cheek ridging are clues rather than separate problems. You get the written quote at this point.
- Anything urgent first. Active decay, a broken tooth or untreated gum disease is dealt with before an appliance is made, because a guard moulded to a mouth that is about to change will not fit for long.
- Records. An impression or a digital scan of both arches, plus a bite registration. About fifteen minutes.
- Laboratory. Usually one to two weeks, depending on material and technician.
- Fitting. The guard is seated, the bite is marked, and the high spots are ground back until it meets evenly. Expect it to feel strange for a few nights.
- Review. A short visit a few weeks later to check the fit and read the wear marks.
Assessments and guards are available at Suntec City, Marina Square, Marine Parade and Tanjong Katong. Addresses and opening hours are on our clinics page, and if it is your first visit with us, allow a little longer.
Five questions to ask before you agree to a night guard
Because there is no benchmark to check a quote against, the questions do that job instead. These work at any clinic, including ours.
- What material is it, and why that one for me? A soft guard and a laboratory processed hard splint are different products at different prices. You should be told which you are getting and what it is expected to last.
- Is that price before or after GST, and does it include the fitting? The two commonest reasons quotes are not comparable. Ask how many adjustment visits are included and what they cost after that.
- What is the examination charged at separately, and can CHAS be applied to it? The consultation and x-rays are CHAS procedures even though the guard is not.
- What happens if I chew through it? Heavy grinders do. Ask about remake cost before, not after.
- What are we protecting, exactly? Ask to be shown the worn teeth. If nobody can point to what the guard is for, ask why you need one.
One caution if you snore
Tell your dentist if you snore heavily, if you have been told you stop breathing in your sleep, or if you have been diagnosed with obstructive sleep apnoea. It can change the recommendation. A splint that opens the bite without bringing the lower jaw forward can rotate the jaw back slightly and reduce the space behind the tongue. In a small pilot study by Gagnon and colleagues, published in the International Journal of Prosthodontics in 2004, ten patients with confirmed sleep apnoea wore an occlusal splint for one night: the apnoea-hypopnoea index rose by more than half in five of them and time spent snoring rose by about 40 per cent. Ten patients is a small study and the wider evidence is mixed, but the risk is one sided enough to be worth raising at the chairside.
It runs the other way too. The 2025 consensus report notes that grinding is sometimes suggested to be protective in obstructive sleep apnoea, because the muscle activity may help keep the airway open. If apnoea is suspected the sensible order is a sleep assessment first and an appliance decision second, and the answer may be a mandibular advancement device rather than a plain guard. Worth mentioning at the same time: heavy caffeine or alcohol use, smoking, and any new medication, since some antidepressants are associated with grinding. We cover jaw pain and TMJ and the causes of bruxism separately, and what smoking does is set out in what smoking does to your teeth and gums.
Frequently asked questions
How much does a night guard cost in Singapore?
Roughly $300 to $1,000 for a custom guard, with most published clinic prices sitting between about $350 and $650. A custom soft guard is typically $300 to $450, a hard acrylic or dual laminate guard $450 to $800, and a milled or 3D printed guard $600 to $1,000. A pharmacy boil and bite mouthguard is $10 to $30 but is not fitted to your bite. At NoFrills Dental a night guard is $350 to $700 before GST depending on the material. Check whether any quoted price is before or after GST, and whether it includes the examination and the fitting visits, because those are the two commonest reasons two quotes are not comparable.
Does CHAS or MediSave cover a night guard?
No, and no card changes that. CHAS subsidises 18 dental services, including consultation, scaling, x-rays, fillings, crowns, dentures and root canal treatment, and a splint or night guard is not among them. That is true for CHAS Blue, CHAS Orange, Merdeka Generation and Pioneer Generation alike. MediSave covers dental work only where the procedure is a surgical one in MOH's Table of Surgical Procedures, and fitting an appliance is not surgery. The consultation and x-rays at the same visit are CHAS procedures, so bring your card even though the guard itself is not subsidised.
How long does a night guard last?
A custom soft guard typically lasts 1 to 2 years, a dual laminate guard 2 to 4 years and a hard acrylic guard 3 to 5 years, while a pharmacy boil and bite guard usually needs replacing every 6 to 12 months. How hard you grind matters more than the material: a heavy grinder can wear through a soft guard in months. Work out the cost per year rather than the sticker price. A $350 soft guard replaced every 18 months is about $233 a year, while a $600 hard guard lasting four years is about $150 a year.
Will a night guard stop me grinding my teeth?
Probably not. The Cochrane review of occlusal splints for sleep bruxism concluded that there is not sufficient evidence to state that the splint is effective for treating sleep bruxism, and that its use is questionable with regard to sleep outcomes, although there may be some benefit with regard to tooth wear. The reason to have a guard is to protect the teeth from the consequences of grinding, not to switch the grinding off. Be cautious of any clinic that promises otherwise.
Is a pharmacy boil and bite mouthguard good enough?
As a short trial it is reasonable, and there is one good use for it: if you are not sure you can sleep with anything in your mouth, spending $20 to find out is sensible before spending several hundred. As a long term answer it is poor. It is bulky, it is not adjusted to the way your teeth meet, and it wears through quickly. If you already have crowns, veneers or implants, it is not adequate protection for them.
Is a sports mouthguard the same as a night guard?
No. A sports mouthguard is soft, thick and designed to absorb a single sudden impact, and it covers the gum margins. A night guard is thinner, harder and calibrated to your bite to absorb hours of sustained grinding force. Wearing a sports guard overnight is uncomfortable and does little for bruxism, and a night guard will not survive contact sport. If you grind and you play, you need both.
Does insurance cover a night guard in Singapore?
Sometimes, partly. Some employer dental plans and private policies reimburse part of a custom guard, usually under a general annual dental limit rather than as a named benefit. Coverage is entirely plan specific. Ask the clinic at the fitting visit for an itemised receipt that names the appliance, and where your insurer asks for one, a short letter from the dentist explaining why it was clinically indicated. Requesting both at the time is much easier than chasing them later.
What does a night guard cost at NoFrills Dental?
A night guard is $350 to $700 before GST, with a soft guard at the bottom of that range and a laboratory processed hard acrylic splint at the top. The examination that decides which one you need is charged separately at $50, with a single tooth x-ray at $80 if one is needed, and every examination includes an oral cancer screening. With GST at 9 per cent, an examination, an x-ray and a guard comes to between $523.20 and $904.70 in total. Fitting and the usual adjustment visits are included in the guard fee, and you get the figure in writing before anything is ordered.
Grinding your teeth, or been told that you do?
Book an examination at Suntec City, Marina Square, Marine Parade or Tanjong Katong. The examination is $50 before GST and guards are $350 to $700. We will chart the wear, tell you which one your case actually needs, and give you the figure in writing before anything is made.
Sources: Ministry of Health, Guide to Dental Treatment Costs; CHAS, dental services covered; Cochrane Oral Health, Macedo and colleagues, occlusal splints for sleep bruxism, 2007; Verhoeff, Lobbezoo and colleagues, Updating the Bruxism Definitions, Journal of Oral Rehabilitation, 2025; Gagnon and colleagues, aggravation of respiratory disturbances by an occlusal splint, International Journal of Prosthodontics, 2004. Singapore price ranges compiled from published clinic price pages checked 14 September 2026 and reviewed against our own fees. Prices change; confirm before you book.
