Medit’s Next Chapter – The Free Era Is Ending and Orthodontics Is the New Frontier

Two pieces of pretty significant Medit news landed this week, and I think they are more connected than they appear at first glance. Together, they tell you something important about where Medit is going, and probably where the rest of the industry is heading too.

Firstly, Medit has announced the "Essential App Bundle" launching June 9, 2026. Starting that date, non-Medit scanner users who want access to Medit's app ecosystem will need to pay $99.99 / €99 per month for a bundled app subscription.

Medit scanner owners retain free access, as they have confirmed will remain the case. This is a significant expansion of what they began with, following the Model Builder and ClinicCAD pricing changes back in March 2025, which I covered here.

Second, Medit has acquired Progressive Orthodontics and simultaneously announced the establishment of a new Global Orthodontic Business Division, headquartered in Newport Beach, California. Not sure if anyone was expecting that one. Progressive Orthodontics has been educating dental professionals in orthodontics for over 40 years across more than 60 countries. This is not a small bolt-on acquisition. It is a strategic platform.

Let me share my thoughts on both.

The End of the Free App Era

I wrote about this last year when Medit first started transitioning Model Builder and ClinicCAD to paid tiers for non-scanner users. My position was simple: it had to happen eventually. What I did not fully anticipate was how quickly Medit would move to bundle the entire app ecosystem.

Here is the thing: the "free everything" model that made Medit famous was brilliant marketing, but it was never a sustainable long-term business strategy. Hosting infrastructure, engineering teams, software updates, cloud storage, and ongoing support... these are not free to provide. For years, many scanner companies like Medit have absorbed those costs as a user acquisition tool. It worked spectacularly. Medit, in its golden age, quickly grew a global user base that competitors struggled to match in terms of community engagement and brand loyalty.

But we are now in a different phase. Medit was acquired and is clearly building toward something much larger than a scanner company. The company that acquired Medit for 2.1 billion USD (yes, billion) back in 2022 needs to recoup its investment, and software monetization is a logical place to look.

What Is Actually in the Essential App Bundle

Before getting into the broader implications, it is worth being specific about what is changing and what is not, because the details matter here.

The following apps will be bundled into the Essential App Bundle subscription for non-scanner owners from June 9:

• Medit Design
• Medit Smile Design
• Medit Ortho Simulation
• Medit Crown Fit
• Medit DCM Converter
• Medit Splints
• Medit Checkpoint (Medit scan data only)
• Medit Margin Lines (Medit scan data only)
• Medit Occlusion Analyzer (Medit scan data only)

That is a broad range of clinical tools, from smile design and ortho simulation through to splints and occlusion analysis. For non-scanner users who rely on even a few of these, the $99.99 per month price is unavoidable if they want to keep their existing workflows. Worth noting: apps marked as Medit scan data only will function with data captured from a Medit scanner.

Medit is also maintaining a separate tier of individually priced apps that are not part of the bundle. These remain available as standalone purchases:

• Medit Model Builder
• Medit ClinicCAD
• Medit Orthodontic Suite
• Medit AuraVue (scanner owners only)

This is an important distinction and kind of makes things a little confusing. Model Builder and ClinicCAD were already moving to paid tiers as of March 2025. The Orthodontic Suite falls under a different clinical category and has its own pricing. So does AuraVue (the cloud AI diagnostic platform Medit is developing - available in the USA only).

One practical point worth noting - automatic updates are not supported for apps in the bundle. After June 9, users will need to manually update each app through Medit Link. If you are a non-Medit scanner user and you have case data stored in any of these apps, Medit has confirmed that data will become inaccessible after the effective date if you are not subscribed. Export anything you need before then.

The Broader Picture

Medit continues to price apps individually, but it has also consolidated most of the ecosystem into a single subscription tier for non-scanner users. At $99.99 per month, it is not exactly cheap and is a big jump from before. Whether the breadth of what is included justifies that number depends entirely on how many of these tools are part of your workflow. It is worth noting that some of these apps are actually decent. Such as Medit Splints. But at $100 per month, there are a number of competing cloud CAD options on the market that let you design and pay per export. To me, the message is clear - you want free access to the apps? Buy a Medit scanner. 

For Medit scanner owners, the message is also clear - your loyalty is valued, your access is protected. That is a sensible strategy for protecting hardware sales and making your users feel special. If owning a Medit scanner increasingly means free access to an expanding software ecosystem, that becomes a genuine differentiator at the point of purchase and something that the rest of the industry no longer gets free access to.

For non-Medit users, the calculation has changed. Some workflows were built around Medit's free apps and the assumption that you can use them at no cost, because there was no comparable alternative free of charge on the market. That leverage is now being converted into subscription revenue, or the suggestion to go buy a Medit scanner.

Although I imagine there will be some frustration after this announcement, this is not unique to Medit. Almost every other major IOS manufacturer locks their apps to their users like iTero and TRIOS for example. It is just the change from free to paid that is going to annoy some people. 

I also think charging for these services is not unique to Medit either. I believe we are watching the beginning of an industry-wide shift. Companies in digital dentistry spent years offering free cloud storage, free apps, and free case portals to drive scanner and hardware sales. Those costs compounded as user bases scaled. Many of these companies dont have significant recurring revenue (excluding 3D printer companies with their resins) and many companies are still absorbing the costs, but I expect more software pricing updates across the industry over the next 12 to 24 months. It is simply unsustainable to keep offering this for free, forever.

It will be interesting to see the dental community's response to this.

The Progressive Orthodontics Acquisition

This is the piece that I think deserves a lot of attention.

Progressive Orthodontics is not a random acquisition. Medit has been quietly building orthodontic capabilities for some time now. The Medit Orthodontic Suite (MOS) already impressed me enough to highlight it in our 2025 Scanner Awards, where I recognized Medit as Most Innovative Company, partly because of how their orthodontic software had matured into a genuine ortho treatment planning and simulation tool, developed in close collaboration with Progressive Dental.

Now they have taken that relationship and formalized it with a full acquisition.

Think about what Medit actually gets here. They gain access to a clinical education platform that has trained tens of thousands of practitioners in more than 60 countries, a loyal practitioner community, seminar infrastructure, and decades of orthodontic credibility. In a single move, Medit goes from being a scanning company with good ortho software to a company with a complete orthodontic ecosystem: hardware, software, planning, and now education. Don't forget that Progressive Orthodontics also has a complete e-shop that sells everything orthodontics as well, from brackets to wires and elastics, and everything in between.

The orthodontic space is one of the highest-value segments in dentistry. Clear aligner volume continues to grow, and the practices doing the most cases are precisely the ones that are likely to invest in digital infrastructure. A dentist who completes a Progressive Orthodontics training program and begins taking cases is exactly the kind of customer Medit wants in its ecosystem. Getting them early, training them on Medit-powered workflows, and integrating the planning and scanning experience into the acquisition funnel is a powerful approach.

The CEO of Medit, Han Ryu, framed this as "reshaping" the orthodontic space. If Medit can execute, this acquisition represents a genuine change in their market position.

What This All Means

Put it together, and you start to see Medit's strategy.

They are building a closed-loop ecosystem: scan with a Medit scanner, use Medit apps for free, plan ortho cases through Medit's orthodontic suite, learn the workflows through Progressive Orthodontics education, and submit cases through Medit Aligners. At each stage, switching costs increase and loyalty deepens.

The pricing shift for non-scanner users is not just about software revenue. It is also a quiet but effective push toward scanner ownership. If you are already paying $99.99 a month for the Essential App Bundle and you are on the fence about buying a Medit i700 or i900, the calculation suddenly shifts.

This is a company that is evolving fast. The free, open, democratising Medit of 2020 served its purpose brilliantly. It disrupted an overpriced market, grew a global community, and built brand equity that money cannot easily buy. They had a shaky period after acquisition but appear to have found their footing and have started making some big moves again.

Unfortunately for us, that early foundation is now being monetized, and the orthodontics acquisition suggests Medit's ambitions extend well beyond the scanner category on which they built their name.

Whether they can execute across scanning, software, education, and orthodontic treatment delivery simultaneously is the real question. That is a lot to manage. That said, if any company in the current digital dentistry landscape has the momentum and community to pull it off, Medit is in a strong position to try.

It will be interesting to watch how this unfolds over the next few years.

For those wanting to understand the full Medit app ecosystem and pricing structure in detail, we will update our existing coverage on the iDD blog as more information becomes available. If you have questions or thoughts on this, leave them in the comments below.

Thanks for reading.