How every figure is sourced, dated, and computed
InvisibleBraces exists to be trusted. Every price, safety status, and score on this site traces to a named public or first-party record, carries a confidence tier, and is stamped with when we retrieved it. This page is the full account of how that works, so you never have to take a number on faith.
What a confidence dot means
Every figure carries one of four tiers. The dot's color is the same on every surface, so a claim's KIND is always legible at a glance. Color is never used alone: a text label always accompanies it.
Direct from an authoritative FDA, NLM, or CMS source.
Published by the manufacturer about its own product.
From a reputable secondary source.
Derived by InvisibleBraces from primary sources; shown with a leading ~.
What is checked by hand, and what updates itself
Some figures are re-verified by hand against their source; others come from automatic feeds that run on a schedule. Each date below is the real one, and a figure past its re-check window is marked as possibly out of date rather than shown as current.
The formula behind every order
The homepage board never hides a brand; its sort only re-orders them. These are the exact rules each order uses.
Best (the default). A fixed score per brand: 100 points if it is available to new patients (so a brand no longer sold always ranks below one you can buy), plus up to 30 for price (the cheapest comparable price scores 30, the most expensive 0, a brand with no comparable price 6), up to 30 for treatment speed (the shortest typical treatment scores 30, the longest 0, no published length 15), and 15 for a clean FDA record (3 when a recall is on file or the brand is no longer sold). Price and speed are scaled across every brand on the board, so the scale is the same for all of them.
Cheapest. By the lowest cited monthly price. Brands that charge in another currency are placed on an approximate US-dollar monthly equivalent so they can be ordered, and their price is always shown in the currency they charge. Brands whose price is set by the treating provider come last.
Fastest. By the midpoint of the typical treatment length the brand's source states (4-6 months counts as 5); brands that publish no length come last.
Your goal. When you describe a goal, the AI only turns your words into preferences (for example cheapest first, or at-home only). A fixed formula then scores every brand on the same cited facts, and each match score opens to show its parts. A partner never changes a price or the order.
Recent updates to the data
A dated record of material changes to the curated catalog, so you can see the reference is actively maintained, not frozen.
Published the brand catalog as an open dataset on Zenodo (DOI 10.5281/zenodo.23182811): CSV tables of every brand, every listed plan price and the FDA recalls, with a README documenting each column. Free to reuse non-commercially under CC BY-NC 4.0.
Corrected 2USmiles' safety note: the FDA closed out the June 2023 Warning Letter to its maker in July 2024, after evaluating the company's corrective actions. The note had said there was no public evidence the violations were resolved.
Re-checked every brand's status, price and FDA record against live sources. Strayt, EZ Smile, SmileStyler, Reveal and DrSmile moved to 'no longer available' (each closed, stopped taking new patients, or was discontinued, with the evidence cited on its page), and their prices were removed. Updated plan prices for many brands, including NewSmile, Smileie, Aligner32, 2USmiles, Straight Teeth Direct, Dr WonderSmile, Basma, Moons and Aligneurs Français; SouSmile's figures were corrected because the brand does not publish plan prices.
Refreshed the FDA adverse-event counts (product code NXC, 18,543 reports in total), confirmed the two open aligner recalls (Byte and 3M Clarity Precision Grip Attachments), added a safety note on the Clarity attachment recall, recorded the FDA's July 2024 close-out of the 2USmiles warning letter, and replaced the adverse-event summary's source with a peer-reviewed analysis of those reports.
Rebuilt the catalog around at-home clear aligners: the active US and UK direct-to-consumer brands (AlignerCo, NewSmile, Smileie, Strayt, and the UK hybrid Diamond Whites) plus a 'no longer available' set (Byte, SmileDirectClub, Candid, SnapCorrect, Smilelove) that documents the market's contraction.
Switched the data sources to the FDA device databases (recall, enforcement, MAUDE adverse events, 510(k), and classification under clear-aligner product code NXC) plus ClinicalTrials.gov, Europe PMC, and PubMed for clinical evidence, and each brand's own pricing and financing pages for cash-price comparison.
Added cited safety signals: the ADA and AAO cautions on unsupervised direct-to-consumer treatment, the FDA adverse-event record for clear aligners, and the October 2024 FDA-driven suspension and Class II recall of Byte's at-home system.
How each live column is built
Most of these are read from an authoritative record or each brand's own stated terms. One, the evidence score, is the only value we derive, and we show exactly how.
Price & financing
StatedPlan prices and financing come from each brand's own published terms: list price, any promotional 'from' price, and monthly options such as Affirm or in-house plans. Because a brand publishes them about its own product, they are marked Stated and re-verified on a cadence, not streamed live. We label list versus promotional price and never present a promotional 'from' price as the full cost.
Source: Brand pricing & financing pages
Device safety & recalls
VerifiedSafety is read from openFDA device recalls and enforcement for sequential clear aligners (FDA product code NXC, Class II, 21 CFR 872.5470). We display the FDA's own recall status, reason, classification, and dates, with adverse-event context from MAUDE. A brand reads 'no recall on file' only when it is absent from the FDA's list of every recall under that product code, and that phrase links to the list. We never infer safety beyond what the FDA record states.
Clinical evidence & guidance
VerifiedEvidence comes from two authoritative places: registered trials on ClinicalTrials.gov and the peer-reviewed literature (systematic reviews of aligner efficacy and studies of unsupervised, remote treatment). We also cite the ADA and AAO positions on direct-to-consumer orthodontics. We quote the source's own findings and link each one back to the study or position that states it.
Source: ClinicalTrials.gov API v2
Literature counts
ComputedWe count randomized controlled trials and systematic reviews in Europe PMC for aligner-care topics (retainers, whitening, attachments and the like) and map each count onto a 0 to 100 scale with a logarithmic curve: a transparent proxy for how much has been studied, not a verdict on how well anything works. We do not score individual brands this way: a brand name on its own (Reveal, Spark, Motto) matches unrelated papers, so a per-brand count said nothing about the brand. Studies are shown for the clear aligner category as a whole, and on a brand's page only the studies that name it.
Source: Europe PMC
The source registry
Every fact on the site names one of these sources. A Primary mark means the source is free, open, and an authoritative primary driver behind the live board.
Device safety & identity
Device recall records for clear aligners (product, recalling firm, reason, status), including the Byte Aligner System recall.
U.S. Food & Drug Administration
Recall enforcement reports with severity classification (Class I/II/III), status, distribution, and reason; search by product_description or recalling_firm.
U.S. Food & Drug Administration
Post-market adverse-event reports for clear aligners (injuries and malfunctions) by brand and product code NXC.
U.S. Food & Drug Administration
Premarket 510(k) clearances (K-number, applicant, device name, decision date) confirming which aligner systems are FDA-cleared.
U.S. Food & Drug Administration
The device taxonomy: clear aligners are product code NXC ('Aligner, Sequential'), Class II, 21 CFR 872.5470, dental panel. Used to filter every other device feed.
U.S. Food & Drug Administration
Pricing & availability
Each brand's current package price, day/night tiers, impression-kit cost, add-ons, and named financing partner (for example Affirm), extracted from public pages.
Aligner brands (AlignerCo, NewSmile, Smileie, and others)
Historical snapshots of brand pricing and product pages, for price-history and for back-filling defunct brands (SmileDirectClub, Smilelove) whose live sites are gone.
Internet Archive
Clinical evidence & trials
Registered clinical trials on clear-aligner and remote-orthodontics treatment: status, sponsor, interventions, conditions, and outcomes.
U.S. National Library of Medicine
Biomedical literature on clear aligners and direct-to-consumer orthodontics: abstracts, open-access full text, citations, and RCT/review filtering.
EMBL-EBI
MeSH-indexed peer-reviewed literature on aligner efficacy, remote-monitoring outcomes, and DTC adverse effects (systematic reviews, RCTs, surveys).
U.S. National Library of Medicine
Industry news
Keyword news search per brand and for the category (recalls, lawsuits, shutdowns, launches), returning title, link, source, and date.
Google (aggregator)
Ecosystem
A brand's site favicon by domain, as a zero-setup fallback icon for the comparison grid when no higher-resolution logo is available.
Google (unofficial endpoint)
Download the data, and cite it
The catalog behind this site is published as an open dataset on Zenodo, CERN's research repository, with a permanent DOI. This version is a snapshot taken on Oct 6, 2026; the pages on this site stay more current.
One row per brand: whether it takes new patients, supervision model, countries treated, headline price, treatment length, conditions treated, retainer, refinement and guarantee terms, and its FDA report and recall counts with the queries that return them.
One row per listed plan price, exactly as the brand states it, with the page that states it and the date it was checked.
Every FDA device recall filed under the clear aligner product code NXC, as the FDA records it.
Every column, how the data was collected, how to read the FDA counts, and the limitations.
DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.23182811. A later snapshot is published as a new version of the same record, and this DOI always opens the newest.
License: CC BY-NC 4.0: free to share and adapt for non-commercial work, with credit to InvisibleBraces and a link to the record. Commercial reuse needs our permission (write to us).
Cite as: InvisibleBraces (2026). Clear aligner brands: FDA reports, recalls, supervision models and listed prices (snapshot 2026-10-06) [Data set]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23182811
Neutrality, and the caveats we never hide
InvisibleBraces compares by the underlying data (price, financing, treatment length, oversight model, safety and recall status, and clinical evidence), and a partner never changes a price or a fact. Partner status is one bounded, disclosed signal in how results are ordered: all else equal it can lift a partner above a comparable option, but never above one that is clearly cheaper or safer and better supported, and every partner is labeled. We show a figure only when we have a real source for it; when we do not, we show an honest gap, never an invented number.
What this data does not cover
Cash self-pay prices and financing terms change often and are re-verified on a cadence, not streamed live. Insurance and HSA/FSA coverage, regional pricing (for example UK versus US), and time-limited promotions are not modeled. Confirm the current price and plan with the brand before you buy.
Recall, enforcement, and adverse-event data come from the FDA's device databases (openFDA) under the clear-aligner product code (NXC). Adverse-event reports are unverified counts, not incidence rates, and a regulator action that appears first outside the US may lead the US device record.
Treatment-length ranges are typical estimates from each brand's own materials (all-day roughly 4-6 months, night-only roughly 6-10 months), not guarantees. How much straightening is possible depends on the individual case, and at-home aligners address only mild-to-moderate crowding, spacing, or minor relapse.
We index a bounded, decision-relevant subset of the published literature and registered studies on clear aligners and remote orthodontics. The registered total is shown and linked, but the indexed set is not the whole literature, and much of the aligner evidence base covers dentist-supervised rather than at-home treatment.
Authorship and expertise
Every figure on InvisibleBraces is drawn from primary sources (the FDA's device databases via openFDA, the U.S. National Library of Medicine, and each brand's own published terms) and links back to the record that proves it. We publish what the sources say, cite where it came from, and stamp when we retrieved it.