What Are Screwless Dental Implants? A Marketing Term, Decoded
By Dr. Niels Oestervemb, DDS — Double Board-Certified: Implant Dentistry (ABOI/ID) & General Dentistry (ABGD)
“Screwless dental implants” is one of those phrases the internet invented faster than dentistry did. If you’ve seen it in an ad and wondered whether there’s a whole category of implants you’re missing — here’s the honest decoder. The term gets used to mean three genuinely different things, only one of which might matter for your case, and none of which is automatically better or cheaper.
Meaning #1: A crown attached without a screw (cement-retained)
This is what “screwless” means most of the time. Every implant tooth has to attach to its implant somehow, and there are two classic ways: a tiny screw through the crown (screw-retained — the access hole is sealed and hidden), or dental cement bonding the crown to the abutment (cement-retained — no hole at all, hence “screwless”). Both are legitimate, decades-old techniques. Cement-retained crowns can look marginally cleaner on certain front teeth; screw-retained crowns have a quiet superpower — retrievability. If anything ever needs adjustment, cleaning, or repair years from now, a screw-retained crown comes off in minutes without damage. That’s why much of modern implant dentistry, ours included, leans screw-retained where possible: the “screwless” version is often the harder one to maintain over a lifetime, and excess cement left under the gums is a known trigger for implant gum inflammation. The right choice is case-by-case — tooth position, bite, and gum line decide it, not marketing.
Meaning #2: Implant systems with no abutment screw
A small number of implant systems connect the abutment to the implant with a precision friction fit — a locking taper that’s tapped into place instead of screwed. These are real, respectable systems with their own literature and their own trade-offs, used by a minority of practices. If an office advertising “screwless implants” means this, the honest question isn’t whether the connection uses a screw — it’s whether the clinician has deep experience with that specific system, because technique familiarity predicts outcomes far better than connection design does.
Meaning #3: The hope that the implant itself isn’t a screw
Worth saying plainly: virtually every modern implant body is threaded — a precisely engineered titanium screw — because threads are what give an implant its initial grip in bone while osseointegration does its slow, permanent work. If the word “screw” itself is what unsettles you, take comfort in what the procedure actually feels like: you won’t see, hear, or feel anything resembling hardware-store imagery, and with sedation up to fully asleep, you won’t experience the appointment at all.
Are screwless dental implants cheaper?
No — not inherently. There’s no price tier called “screwless.” Cement-retained and screw-retained crowns cost about the same to make, and locking-taper systems sit in the same general range as conventional ones. What actually moves an implant quote is the stuff underneath the label: how many implants, whether bone grafting is needed, the type of final teeth, sedation, and the office’s overhead. Anyone using “screwless” as a price pitch is marketing, not planning. Our approach is simpler: published prices, in writing, before you commit — whatever retention method your case calls for.
The bottom line
“Screwless” is a description of one small design choice, not a better category of implant. What determines your result is diagnosis, planning, surgical skill, and the lab work on your final teeth. If you’ve been pitched something under this label and want a neutral read on it, that’s exactly what our free second opinion — with your own 3D scan — is for.