This paper concerns the assessment of the dynamic stiffness of plates using non-contact excitation and non-contact measurements. In particular, a constrained-layer damping sandwich plate is considered, of which the apparent dynamic stiffness as function of frequency is determined. The experimental results compare very well with an analytical model that computes the frequency dependent apparent bending stiffness of the constrained-layer damping sandwich plate. A Nd:YAG laser is used for excitation of the plate and a laser Doppler vibrometer is used to measure its dynamic response along a line on the plate, thus reducing the measurement effort. Using advanced data acquisition and data processing techniques, a signal-to-noise ratio of up to 100 dB was obtained, yielding estimates of the flexural wavenumber and dynamic stiffness of the plate up to a frequency of 50 kHz. It is shown that the Prony method and the wavenumber fit method yield a much improved wavenumber resolution as compared to the spatial Fourier transform method. An additional advantage of the wavenumber fit approach is that it allows the accuracy of the fit to be determined. The accuracy was estimated at 1 rad/m (best relative wavenumber resolution 2‰).