Types of Dentures, and What Each One Is For

The word "denture" covers several different appliances answering several different questions, and the terms get mixed up because they describe different things about the same object. Three of them describe how much is being replaced, two describe what it is made of, and two describe when it is fitted. Sort them into those three groups and the whole vocabulary stops being confusing.

Group one: how much is replaced

Complete, or full. Replaces every tooth in one arch — upper or lower — and rests on the gum ridge. The NHS describes complete dentures as the kind "used to replace all of your upper or lower teeth". Held by fit, and nothing else.

Partial. Replaces "1 or more missing teeth", in the NHS's words, and clips to the natural teeth that remain. More stable than a complete denture, because those teeth do the holding — and more demanding of them, because they take the load.

Overdenture. A complete denture that sits over something left in place underneath it, rather than on bare ridge. The ADA's patient page on dentures lists the overdenture among the options where some natural tooth structure can be kept. Where the thing underneath is an implant rather than a root, that is fixed-dentistry territory and not covered on this site.

Group two: what it is made of

Acrylic base. A pink plastic plate carrying the teeth. The cheapest of the options on every published schedule we read — Montana's denturist schedule effective 1 July 2025 prices an upper acrylic partial at $671.84 — and the bulkiest in the mouth.

Cast metal framework. A rigid metal skeleton with acrylic and teeth built onto it. Thinner across the palate because metal holds its shape at a thickness acrylic cannot, and dearer everywhere: $1,185.60 for an upper one on the same Montana schedule.

Flexible. A bendy gum-coloured base, no metal clasps on show. Montana prices an upper flexible partial at $841.78; the Washington Department of Corrections schedule effective 1 January 2025 prices it at $1,085.04; Pennsylvania's Medical Assistance schedule has no line for it at all, which on a fee schedule means it is not a paid item rather than a cheap one.

Those trade-offs are not a matter of taste. A flexible base is discreet and it flexes, which changes how load reaches the supporting teeth; a cast metal frame is rigid and it shows. Which of those a particular mouth should have is a clinical judgement, and it is made from an examination.

Group three: when it is fitted

Conventional. Made after the extractions have healed. The ADA describes it as "made and placed in your mouth after the remaining teeth are removed and tissues have healed, which may take several months". You are without those teeth for that stretch.

Immediate. Made in advance and fitted the same day the teeth come out, so there is no gap. The trade is that it was made to a shape that is about to change — the ADA notes such a denture "may need to have the denture relined or remade after your jaw has healed". Montana prices an immediate full upper denture at $1,086.80 against $988.00 for a conventional one.

Temporary, or interim. A stopgap appliance meant to be worn for a limited stretch while something else is happening — healing, or waiting for definitive work. Both the Montana and Washington schedules carry separate interim partial denture lines, at $395.20 and $484.88 respectively, which is the clearest sign that a temporary appliance is treated as its own product and not as a cheap version of the real one.

The terms that belong to something else

Two phrases turn up constantly in denture searches and neither describes a removable denture.

"Permanent dentures" is what people generally mean when they search for arches fixed in place with implants. They are not removable, the work is surgical, and it is priced on an entirely different scale. This site does not cover it, and does not price it.

"Snap-on" and similar terms are used for two quite different things — appliances that clip onto implants, and mail-order cosmetic shells that clip over natural teeth. The first is implant work. The second is a direct-to-consumer product we neither recommend nor link, for the reasons set out in why we will not link a mail-order denture kit.

Which one you end up with

Almost none of this is a choice made from a list. What decides it is how many teeth are left and what state they are in, what the gum and bone underneath look like, what the bite does, your general health, and — honestly — what can be paid for. A dentist who has examined you puts those together; a page cannot.

What a page can do is make the treatment plan readable. When one arrives, check which group each word on it belongs to: how much is being replaced, what it is made of, and when it is going in. Two quotes that look different often turn out to be quoting different answers to those three questions, and the prices on what dentures cost show how far apart those answers sit.

If cost is what is driving the choice, ask a dental school teaching clinic or a community health centre before anything else — they pay this site nothing, and they are the two routes worth ringing before you accept a private quote. Where you want to look at discount plans instead, DentalPlans.com lists them; a discount plan is not insurance — nobody underwrites one, and the yearly membership buys only a lower fee at a participating dentist. That link is paid.