Metal braces cost $3,000 to $7,000 across five Canadian practices that publish figures. There is $500 off eligible braces treatment at the moment. It comes off the fee in your written estimate. Ask us to confirm that your case qualifies when you book.
Removable trays handle a large share of cases. In the limited research that measured it, 17.2% of aligner cases were converted to fixed braces to finish the job.
Want to know where you stand? Book your consultation online, or ring (905) 821-8632. We are on Britannia Road West with free parking.
Where braces have the most control
Every orthodontic appliance tips teeth. The difficulty is everything beyond tipping.
A bracket gives the wire a fixed grip on the tooth. The wire then controls the tooth's angle, its rotation and its position in the bone, not just the tilt of the crown. That control lets fixed braces close large gaps, upright a tilted tooth, correct a deep bite and move roots instead of crowns.
A 2026 scoping review of 119 studies on clear aligner treatment measured where trays fall short. Rotations landed about five degrees short of the plan. Front-tooth angulation was expressed at 35% to 58% and deep bite correction reached 28% to 55%.
Refinements were needed in more than half of cases and 17.2% were converted to fixed appliances. The review's authors say those estimates come from a limited set of studies and should not be treated as universal benchmarks.
That does not make trays a bad choice. It makes braces the appliance that finishes what the others start.
What happens at your braces consultation
- An examination. Teeth, gums, bite and jaw joints. Any decay or gum disease gets treated before a bracket goes on.
- X-rays. The roots, the bone, the unerupted teeth and the jaw relationship.
- Photographs and a scan or impressions, which become the record the plan is drawn from.
- The plan and the options. Metal, ceramic or removable trays, with the trade-offs for your case laid out instead of sold.
- A written estimate. What the fee covers, whether retainers are in it and what happens if treatment runs longer than planned.
You leave with the plan in writing, and nothing is decided for you on the day.
Fitting day and the first fortnight
The teeth get cleaned and dried, a bonding material goes on and each bracket is placed. The wire threads through and gets tied in.
Nothing is cut or drilled. You will feel your cheeks held back and pressure as each bracket is set. We will tell you how long to allow when we book the appointment.
The ache arrives later that day and peaks over the next two. Teeth feel tender to bite on, so soft food for a few days is sensible. A pain reliever you already use handles it.
Follow the label. Check with a pharmacist if you are pregnant, take other medication or are buying it for a child.
Lips and cheeks rub against the brackets for the first week or two until the tissue settles down. Orthodontic wax pressed over the offending bracket stops it.
Cover a poking wire end with wax and ring us for an appointment. Do not push or bend it yourself. Ring us too about any sore spot or ulcer still there after a week.
Living with braces
Adjustments through the course. The wire gets changed to a stiffer or differently shaped one and elastics get replaced. How often depends on your plan and the stage of treatment. Expect a day or two of tenderness after each.
Elastics, where your plan uses them. Small rubber bands hooked between the upper and lower braces help correct how the jaws meet, alongside the wires and anything else the plan calls for. They work only when they are in your mouth and that part depends on you.
Food rules for the whole course. Hard food breaks brackets: ice, nuts, hard crusts, popcorn kernels, boiled sweets. Sticky food pulls them off: toffee, chewing gum, caramel. Apples, carrots and corn get cut off the core or the cob instead of bitten.
Breakages happen. Call us. A loose bracket sitting on the wire is not an emergency, and it does need an appointment to rebond.
Sport needs a mouthguard. Ask us what will protect your teeth and lips over brackets. See our sports mouth guards page.
White spots: the risk worth taking seriously
White spots are the most common lasting mark fixed braces leave. The risk can be brought a long way down. Root shortening, gum damage and relapse are the other risks and each one is covered elsewhere on this page.
Plaque collects around a bracket where a toothbrush skips. The acid it produces pulls minerals out of the enamel underneath. When the brace comes off there is a chalky white square where the bracket was.
White spot lesions are a recognised effect of fixed orthodontic treatment, caused by enamel demineralisation from biofilm around brackets. They are normally non-cavitated: the surface stays intact with the damage below it.
A 2026 network meta-analysis pooled 70 randomised trials with 4,634 participants testing ways to prevent and treat them. That is a very large body of work for a single side effect.
The prevention evidence beyond basic hygiene is thinner than the volume suggests. A 2025 review looking at one specific preventive agent found only a single study meeting its criteria. It reported white spots on 9.52% of teeth after six months in the treated group.
One study is not a finding to plan around. We include it because the honest answer is that the add-ons are not well proven.
The dull part is what the evidence supports. Brush every surface around every bracket, use a fluoride toothpaste, get between the teeth daily with an interdental brush or a floss threader, cut the sugary drinks and keep your cleaning appointments. Fluoride varnish at your appointments has the strongest evidence of the products tested. Our teeth cleaning page covers the routine during orthodontic treatment.
Retainers, and what actually happens afterwards
The braces come off, the adhesive is polished away and the teeth get a proper clean. Retainers follow on the timing your plan sets.
Teeth drift. The fibres around each root remember where it used to sit and pull in that direction and the pull is strongest in the first months. Retention is the second half of orthodontic treatment, not an optional extra at the end of the first.
Fixed or removable? A 2026 network meta-analysis of 18 randomised trials covering 1,471 people compared them and found no statistically significant differences in gum health or in most stability outcomes.
The networks were sparse and the certainty low. No difference was measured, and that is not the same as proof the two are equal. The decision comes down to your bite, your teeth and whether a removable retainer will be worn.
Do you have to wear it all day forever? A 2026 randomised trial followed 30 adults after debonding on a part-time schedule of 8 to 12 hours a day for six months.
Every participant was on that schedule. The trial compared two retainer materials, not part-time wear against full-time wear. Your own wear instruction comes from whoever fits the retainer.
Some relapse is normal. A 2025 review of 10 studies covering 720 people asked whether taking teeth out during treatment changes how much comes back. It found no statistically significant difference in overjet, overbite or lower front tooth alignment between extraction and non-extraction cases.
The studies pooled were retrospective and varied. The review reports similar relapse rates and does not prove the two routes identical.
And the honest limitation. A review comparing relapse after aligner treatment against relapse after fixed appliances screened 522 articles and found only three that met its criteria.
Follow-up ran from six months to three years. One of the three found a significant difference at three years. The literature on what your teeth look like a decade later is thin. That is the strongest argument for keeping a retainer.
Braces against the other options
| Metal braces | Clear braces | Clear aligners | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Control over difficult movement | highest | highest | limited |
| Visibility | high | low | lowest |
| Bracket failures | lowest | higher | no brackets |
| Comes out to eat | no | no | yes |
| Depends on you | elastics only | elastics only | completely |
| Published price | $3,000 to $7,000 | $4,000 to $9,000 | $1,500 to $8,000 |
Our clear braces page covers ceramic brackets and their higher failure rate. Our clear aligners page covers the removable route and the Invisalign page covers that system.
Braces for adults
Adults make up a large share of orthodontic patients and the same appliances do the same job. Bone turnover slows with age. An adult case can move more slowly than a teenage one. Your plan allows for that.
Three things do change. Jaw growth has finished, so corrections that rely on growth need a surgical route or a compromise. Gum support already lost sets a limit on how far teeth can move. Gum disease gets treated and stabilised first.
Existing crowns, veneers and implants change the plan. An implant does not move at all and becomes a fixed point for everything else.
What braces cost in Mississauga
We publish no fee of our own. An eight-month case and a two-year case are different purchases. A number on a web page would misrepresent both.
Published Canadian pricing:
| Treatment | Published range |
|---|---|
| Metal braces | $3,000 to $7,000 |
| Ceramic or clear braces | $4,000 to $9,000 |
| Clear aligners in a dental office | $1,500 to $8,000 |
| Invisalign | $2,000 to $9,000 |
What moves your number: how much movement the case needs and how long it runs, one arch or both, whether extractions are part of the plan and whether retainers are inside the fee.
$500 comes off the fee on eligible braces treatment, one offer per course. It shows as a separate line on your written estimate and is unconnected to insurance or any government plan. Ask us to confirm your case qualifies before you commit.
Insurance
Orthodontic benefits are written differently from plan to plan. Where one exists it pays a share up to a ceiling set for orthodontics. Most plans set that ceiling for the whole benefit and not per year. Your own plan wording settles it.
Ask your insurer for a written pre-determination before treatment starts. Two questions matter: does the plan cover adult orthodontics, and does the ceiling refresh.
The Canadian Dental Care Plan
The CDCP is open to all ages. The income test is one of four conditions. You also need no access to private dental insurance, a filed tax return for the previous year and Canadian residency for tax purposes.
No orthodontic treatment is funded. The plan's own coverage page lists orthodontic services as not currently available and gives no date for review. That was the position on 21 September 2026.
Healthy Smiles Ontario and Ontario Works
Healthy Smiles Ontario covers children 17 and under in lower-income households at a threshold of $29,065 for a one-child household from 1 July 2026.
Braces are specifically excluded. The programme lists them alongside teeth whitening as cosmetic dentistry and does not fund them. Any suggestion that Healthy Smiles funds braces on medical grounds is not supported by the programme's own page.
Children 17 and under receiving Ontario Works are enrolled in Healthy Smiles automatically, so the same exclusion applies. Adults on Ontario Works should ask their caseworker what dental support is available.
Dentistry on Britannia is a general dental practice. Our dentists are general dentists, not specialists in any RCDSO-recognised specialty.