SICAT
SICAT is a German developer of 3D dental analysis and planning software whose AI-generated surgical guide designs arrive as print-ready STL files in under 20 minutes, for implantology and guided endodontics, from 19.90 EUR per design.
What is SICAT?
SICAT is a dental technology company based in Bonn, Germany, which presents itself as ‘THE 3D SOLUTION INVENTORS’ and works with dental practices, clinics and dental laboratories worldwide. It began in 2004 as a joint venture between HICAT and Sirona Dental Systems GmbH, built on Siemens technology; HICAT took over the full shareholding in 2019, and the company has operated independently since.
Its core product is the SICAT Suite, a 3D analysis and planning software split into four discipline-specific applications: SICAT Implant for implantology, SICAT Endo for endodontics, SICAT Air for sleep medicine, and SICAT Function for functional dentistry. Alongside the software, SICAT manufactures the physical objects it helps plan — surgical drill guides and therapeutic splints.
The artificial intelligence sits at one precise point in that chain: the guide design itself. Since 2021 SICAT has offered what it describes as the first AI-generated surgical guide design intended for direct 3D printing in the practice or the laboratory. RAPID DIGITALGUIDE covers implantology and RAPID ACCESSGUIDE, added in 2023, covers guided endodontics. In both cases the practitioner plans the case in the desktop software, submits the order through the online SICAT Portal, and receives a print-ready STL file in under 20 minutes — 19.90 EUR per design, or per tooth with all canals included for endodontics, with no manual design work involved.
The architecture is therefore split. The planning software runs locally on Windows, while design generation and ordering pass through the Portal and need an active internet connection. SICAT claims open hardware compatibility with all CBCT units and optical scanners, states optimisation for Dentsply Sirona, Dürr Dental, Vatech, zebris, Morita and W&H, and maintains direct interfaces to W&H ioDent and DS Core plus an optional Sidexis 4 module.
Commercially the model is dual: a SICAT Smart subscription at 99 EUR per month per application, plus per-unit purchases of the AI designs and the physical guides. Human services surround the software — Clinical Assist planning by a SICAT technician, SICAT eCademy video tutorials, and phone and email support. As a medical device manufacturer, SICAT's products are subject to country-by-country approval or conformity assessment.
What it does
- Generate an AI-designed, print-ready surgical guide as an STL file in under 20 minutes
- Plan dental implants in 3D with SICAT Implant
- Plan guided endodontic access canal by canal with SICAT Endo
- Analyse the upper airway and treat snoring and obstructive sleep apnoea with SICAT Air and OPTISLEEP
- Render patient-specific mandibular movement anatomically in a 3D volume with SICAT Function and SICAT JMT+
- Order, track and download cases through the SICAT Portal
- Hand implant planning over to a SICAT technician through Clinical Assist
When to use SICAT / When not to
A quick filter to help you decide if SICAT is the right fit.
When to use SICAT
- Dental practices already equipped with a CBCT unit and an in-house 3D printer
- Implantologists who want to plan in 3D and print the surgical guide chairside on the same day
- Endodontists doing guided access cavities, billed at a flat 19.90 EUR per tooth with all canals included
- Dental laboratories printing surgical guides on behalf of several referring practices
- Practices running mixed-brand hardware, since SICAT declares its software open to all CBCT units and optical scanners
When not to use SICAT
- Anyone expecting a browser or mobile tool: the SICAT Suite runs on Windows 10 64-bit only
- Practices on light hardware, since a dedicated GPU at NVIDIA GeForce 960 GTX level or above is mandatory and integrated graphics are unsupported
- Developers hoping to build on top of the platform, as there is no public API and no developer area
- Buyers who want to try before paying, because neither a free plan nor a free trial is advertised
- Teams needing several SICAT Suite applications on a tight budget, since the 99 EUR monthly subscription is charged per application
How to use SICAT
A typical end-to-end flow, from setup to results.
- Check the prerequisites: SICAT Implant V2.0.1 or later, the latest SICAT implant database and an active internet connection
- Acquire the patient's 3D X-ray on any CBCT unit, adding an optical scan where the case calls for one
- Plan the implants in SICAT Implant, select DIGITALGUIDE as the guide and pick the sleeve type matching your guided system
- Click ‘Bestellung vorbereiten’ to prepare the order from inside the software
- Sign in to the SICAT Portal and choose ‘RAPID DIGITALGUIDE bestellen’ in the ordering flow
- Enter the case-specific and printer-specific parameters, including your own printer offset, then submit the order
- Wait for the email notification — under 20 minutes — and download the STL from ‘Bestellungen’ in the Portal
- Inspect the STL file carefully before doing anything else with it
- Import the design into your 3D printer software, print the guide and fit the planned sleeve, bought from your implant manufacturer or from SICAT
- For endodontics, run the same loop from SICAT Endo: mark the root canals and drill paths, order through the Portal, and receive one printable STL per drill channel
Pros & Cons
Pros
- A surgical guide design in under 20 minutes, where an outsourced fabrication takes days
- A published and low unit price: 19.90 EUR per AI-generated design
- Print-ready STL output removes the shipping loop — the guide is made chairside or in the practice's own laboratory
- Declared open compatibility with all CBCT units and optical scanners rather than single-vendor lock-in
- Monthly subscription at 99 EUR, cancellable each month with 14 days' notice, updates and upgrades included
- A human fallback at a fixed price: Clinical Assist plans the case for 149.00 EUR with an online case review included
- An established German vendor since 2004, with website and customer portal hosted in certified EU data centres and a self-hosted Matomo instead of third-party tracking
Cons
- Windows 10 64-bit only, with a mandatory dedicated graphics card — integrated GPUs are not supported
- Heavy back office: SQL Server Express 2019 and 1 TB of free space for the patient database server
- No public API, no developer area and no mobile application
- Neither a free trial nor a permanent free plan is advertised
- The subscription is priced per application, so running several SICAT Suite modules multiplies the monthly cost
- No data processing agreement is published or offered, and no list of software interface languages is given
- Uneven site freshness — a 2021 footer copyright and page update stamps spread from 2021 to 2026 — while the DS Core interface is still limited to selected users holding a Dentsply Sirona voucher
Pricing & Plans
No free plan and no free trial are advertised. The lowest published entry point is the SICAT Smart subscription at 99.00 EUR per month for one SICAT Suite application, billed through the customer's SICAT Portal account. AI-generated guide designs are charged separately on a per-unit basis, at 19.90 EUR per RAPID DIGITALGUIDE and 19.90 EUR per tooth for RAPID ACCESSGUIDE with all canals included. The Clinical Assist planning service is a flat 149.00 EUR covering one implant. All prices are quoted ex works excluding statutory VAT, with insurance, packaging, shipping, medical device import levies and customs duties invoiced separately.
- SICAT Smart — 99.00 EUR per month per SICAT Suite application
- further application licences can be activated at any time
- SICAT eCademy access included
- updates and upgrades free
- one-month term with 14 days' notice before the due date
- otherwise renewed monthly
- an added licence is free bonus time until the initial subscription's due date
- access is blocked at the end of the paid period after cancellation
- SICAT RAPID DIGITALGUIDE — 19.90 EUR per AI-generated implant surgical guide STL design
- SICAT RAPID ACCESSGUIDE — 19.90 EUR per tooth
- all canals included
- with one printable STL per drill channel
- SICAT Clinical Assist — 149.00 EUR flat fee covering planning of one implant by a SICAT technician
- online case review included
- 50.00 EUR per additional implant
- charged for a maximum of two
- all further implants planned free of charge
- Perpetual SICAT Suite licences — referenced in the general terms through software key activation
- with no public price
Data, GDPR & hosting
A consolidated view of how SICAT handles your data.
GDPR overview
GDPR implementation is documented rather than merely claimed. SICAT GmbH & Co. KG in Bonn is named as controller and an internal data protection officer is reachable at datenschutz@sicat.com. Each purpose carries its legal basis: Art. 6(1)(a) for the newsletter, (b) for contracts and orders, (c) for sanctions screening and export controls, (f) for server logs, cookies and Cloudflare. The full set of rights is spelled out — access (15), rectification (16), erasure (17), restriction (18), portability (20), objection (21) and complaint to a supervisory authority (77) — with consent withdrawable at info@sicat.com or datenschutz@sicat.com. Art. 22 is addressed explicitly: no fully automated decision-making. The policy is dated 25 March 2026, last updated 23 April 2026. No Article 27 representative is designated, and none is required since the controller is established in the EU. No data processing agreement is published or offered.
Who owns the data?
Under the general terms the software stays SICAT's property: activating the software key grants the customer a non-exclusive, non-transferable right of use only, and copyright notices, serial numbers or other identifying marks may not be removed or altered. For personal data, SICAT GmbH & Co. KG in Bonn is named as the controller and has appointed an internal data protection officer, reachable at datenschutz@sicat.com. Order data for surgical guides and splints is kept for the periods set by German commercial law and medical device law. Portal customers can view and amend their own details in their account, and planning data sent to ioDent travels pseudonymised and encrypted, with SICAT stating it has no access to what ioDent stores.
Reuse rights
The terms grant a right of use, not ownership: the licence is non-exclusive and non-transferable, so a practice cannot resell it or pass its SICAT Suite activation to a third party. On the outputs themselves the published documents are silent — nothing in the terms or the privacy policy claims a licence over the STL designs, treatment plans or patient records produced with the software, and nothing spells out what the practice may do with them either. On its own side SICAT states that quality assurance and product improvement data are processed exclusively in pseudonymised or anonymised form, that no fully automated decision-making is used, and it never mentions using customer data to train AI models.
Data retention & training
Hosting summary
SICAT states that its website and customer portal are hosted in certified data centres located in the European Union, but names no country, so the jurisdiction is regional rather than specific. The controller is SICAT GmbH & Co. KG in Bonn, Germany, and processing is declared to follow German and European law. Web analytics run on Matomo hosted on SICAT's own servers, with the IP address anonymised before storage and no tracking cookies. Several third parties are named: Cloudflare (San Francisco, USA, Data Privacy Framework certified) for CDN and DNS, Brevo/Sendinblue for the newsletter and Friendly Captcha GmbH for the form captcha, both stated to be located in Germany, Google Ireland Limited in Dublin for Google Maps, Six Payment/Worldline for card and direct debit payments with the entered data not stored by SICAT, and Sanctions.io in the USA, also Data Privacy Framework certified, for sanctions screening. Note that the domain resolves to a Cloudflare anycast node in San Francisco: that address locates the CDN edge, not where the data lives.
Things to keep in mind
Risks and trade-offs to weigh before adopting SICAT.
- Every STL must be inspected before printing — SICAT says so explicitly, and an AI-generated design that looks plausible on screen is exactly the kind of output a busy clinician stops checking after the twentieth case
- Clinical responsibility stays with the practitioner: automation shortens the design step, it does not transfer liability for the implant position or the access cavity
- Deskilling is a real risk — a team that never designs a guide by hand gradually loses the ability to judge when a generated one is wrong
- Speed changes decisions: a same-day workflow makes it tempting to treat immediately, and a 20-minute turnaround removes the natural pause a plan used to get before being executed
- Tacit renewal and non-refundable balances: the subscription rolls over unless cancelled 14 days before the due date, and voucher balances are never paid out or carried over to a new voucher
- Cost creep — per-application subscriptions stacked on per-unit design fees make the real monthly spend hard to predict from the 99 EUR headline
- Cross-border friction falls on the buyer: SICAT products are medical devices approved country by country, deliveries outside the EU trigger export-control checks and customs formalities, and no data processing agreement is published to frame the relationship
Setup & Integrations
Technical difficulty
Demanding. This is a Windows desktop installation, not a sign-up. You need Windows 10 64-bit, a 2.3 GHz quad-core processor, 8 GB of RAM, a dedicated DirectX 11 card with 2 GB of video memory at GeForce 960 GTX level or above, 40 GB of free space and gigabit Ethernet. The patient database server adds SQL Server Express 2019 and 1 TB of storage. Optional Sidexis 4 and Hub modules need their own versions. On top of that sits the clinical side: CBCT acquisition, optical scanning and 3D printing, including working out your own printer offset. eCademy tutorials, manuals and TeamViewer support are available.
Deployment
Integrations
Behind SICAT
Fundraising
Social
Resources
All the official URLs gathered for verification and reference.
Frequently asked questions
Where exactly is the AI in SICAT?
How long does it take to get a design?
What does it cost?
What hardware do I need?
Do I need a scanner from a particular brand?
Is there a free trial or a free plan?
Is there a mobile app or a public API?
How do I cancel the subscription?
Where is the data hosted?
Is customer data used to train AI models?
Should you pick SICAT?
SICAT is not an AI startup that discovered dentistry; it is a twenty-year-old dental device maker that has put artificial intelligence at one well-chosen point in an existing workflow. That focus is its main strength. The AI does not diagnose, does not plan the treatment and does not replace the clinician — it designs the surgical guide once the practitioner has planned the case, and it does so in under 20 minutes for 19.90 EUR, where an outsourced guide used to take days. For a practice that already owns a CBCT unit and a 3D printer, that is a genuine change of rhythm rather than a marketing claim.
The trade-offs are equally clear. This is heavy desktop software: Windows only, a mandatory dedicated graphics card, SQL Server Express and a terabyte of storage for the patient database. There is no API, no mobile app, and neither a free trial nor a free plan, so the first real evaluation costs money. Pricing is layered — 99 EUR a month per application, plus per-unit fees for every design — which makes the true monthly bill harder to anticipate than the headline suggests.
On governance the picture is solid but incomplete. The privacy policy is detailed, names a data protection officer, gives a legal basis for each purpose and states that the site and customer portal sit in certified EU data centres, with a self-hosted analytics tool rather than third-party tracking. Against that, no data processing agreement is published, and the site says nothing at all about whether customer data feeds model training.
The verdict is narrow but favourable: an excellent fit for equipped dental practices and laboratories, and a poor one for anyone expecting a lightweight cloud product.
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