Interiors
Kitchen cabinet installation cost
Measure the walls, add them up, order cabinets for the total — and two of them arrive with nowhere to go. At an inside corner the two runs overlap by the depth of a cabinet, so 27 inches of base run disappears before anything is chosen, and a U-shaped kitchen loses that twice. Then the appliance gaps, then the three-inch size grid. This builds the schedule of boxes first and prices it second.
Written and edited by Pablo Ruiz Quintero
Last reviewed 2026-09-21 · Nothing you type leaves your browser
The walls are not the cabinets
At an inside corner the two runs overlap by the depth of a cabinet — two feet of base run, gone before anything is ordered. Add the appliance gaps and the three-inch size grid, and the wall you measured is not the cabinet you can buy.
Two runs meeting at one inside corner. That corner costs you two feet of base run and needs a corner unit, and it is the commonest layout there is.
Wall to wall, along the cabinets.
This one starts two feet out from the corner.
Appliance gaps
These take wall without taking a cabinet. Where they sit does not change the totals — only which run each box lands in.
What you are buying
Fixed sizes in fixed finishes, boxed and on a shelf. Everything about a stock kitchen is decided by the three-inch grid, which is why stock layouts end up with more filler than any other kind. Lead time: off the shelf to 2 weeks.
A square corner cabinet with rotating shelves. It reaches the whole corner, which nothing else here does, and the carousel costs about half as much again as the box.
A pantry or a wall-oven stack. Full height, so it replaces both a base and a wall cabinet.
It decides the wall cabinet height — yours takes 30 in.
Closes the gap between the cabinets and the ceiling. It is what makes them look built rather than placed.
Unscrewing and removing the existing boxes, charged per box like the fitting.
Base cabinets are levelled to each other, not to the floor. An out-of-level floor is shimmed before anything goes up.
Hanging cabinets is careful rather than hard. Getting the first one level is the whole job — everything after it follows.
Used only to pick a regional labour rate. It stays in your browser.
12 cabinets, fitted
$4,323
12.3 ft of base · $360 a box · $186 a foot in cabinets
22 ft of wall gives 12.3 ft of base cabinet
2.3 ft disappears into 1 inside corner, where the two runs overlap by the depth of a cabinet and need filler between the doors. The appliance gaps take the rest. It is the arithmetic that decides whether a quote is right, and almost nobody does it.
Where the wall goes
12 in left above the wall cabinets. That becomes a soffit, a dust shelf or crown on a build-out — and only the last one looks deliberate.
The same kitchen in three grades
Identical box count and identical labour. Only the boxes change.
| Grade | Lead time | Fitted |
|---|---|---|
| Stock · yours | off the shelf to 2 weeks | $4,323 |
| Semi-custom | 4 to 8 weeks | $6,393 |
| Custom | 8 to 16 weeks | $10,263 |
The case for semi-custom is rarely the finish. It is that a box can be built to an odd width, which removes the filler and gives you back the inches the three-inch grid took — on an awkward room that is worth more than the doors are.
Every run, inch by inch
To scale. The numbers on the blocks are cabinet widths.
The cabinet schedule
- Base cabinets — 3 × 36 in, 1 × 21 in, 1 × 18 in
Filled largest-first, because a 36 in drawer bank holds more and costs the same to hang as a 12 in filler cabinet.5 - Wall cabinets, 30 in high — 5 × 36 in, 1 × 33 in
The old standard on an eight foot ceiling, leaving a soffit or a foot of dusty shelf above. It is why so many nineties kitchens look short.6 - Lazy susan corner base
A square corner cabinet with rotating shelves. It reaches the whole corner, which nothing else here does, and the carousel costs about half as much again as the box.1 - Filler strips
Matching material scribed to the wall and at the corners. Every kitchen needs some and no quote lists them.2
What it costs
National average. 12 stock cabinets with crown, fitted with the old kitchen taken out. Not included: the worktop, the appliances, and any plumbing or electrical that moves.
$360 a box, which is the number to compare quotes on — a price per linear foot hides how many separate cabinets the run breaks into. And when you do see a foot price, check what is in it: the industry’s $100 to $300 a foot for stock is cabinets only. Yours are $186 a foot on that basis and $353 with everything. The worktop is separate and it is usually the second largest line in the kitchen: price it by the slab. If the boxes are sound and it is only the doors you dislike, the trim and the worktop may be all that needs changing.
Worth knowing
- 1 inside corner takes 2.3 ft out of the base run before anything is ordered — 24 in of overlap where the two runs meet, plus 3 in of filler so the doors can open past each other. You have 22 ft of wall and 12.3 ft of cabinet. Adding the walls up and ordering for that total is the commonest way a kitchen arrives two cabinets over.
- Cabinets are built in three-inch steps from 9 to 36 in — there is no 37 in cabinet. Your runs fill to within 0 in, and the rest is filler strip scribed to the wall. 2 of them here, at about $26 each, and no quote you receive will list a single one.
- 1 run leaves more than 3 in to fill, which is too wide to look like a scribe and starts to look like a mistake. Drop one cabinet a size — a 30 for a 27 — and the gap redistributes into two narrow fillers instead of one fat one. It is also exactly what semi-custom solves by building one box to an odd width.
- 12 boxes: 5 base, 6 wall, 1 corner. Fitting is charged per box rather than per foot, which is why two kitchens with the same linear footage can differ by a thousand dollars — narrow cabinets are the same work to hang as wide ones and there are more of them.
- With a 8 ft ceiling and 30 in wall cabinets there is 12 in left above them. That gap becomes either a soffit, a dust shelf, or crown moulding carried up on a build-out. Decide which now, because the third option is the only one that looks deliberate and it has to be ordered with the kitchen.
- Careful comparing this against a price per linear foot. The industry figure — the $100 to $300 a foot you will read for stock — is the CABINETS ONLY. Yours are $186 a foot on that basis, and $353 once fitting, removal, crown and the trimmings are in. Two very different numbers, and quotes move between them without saying so.
- Not included here: the worktop, which is priced by the slab rather than by the cabinet and is usually the second largest line in the kitchen.
On this page — 5 sections
The corner takes two feet before anything is ordered
The short version
- An inside corner costs 27 in of base run — the two runs overlap by the depth of a cabinet, plus filler so the doors clear each other.
- Cabinets come in three-inch steps. There is no 37 in cabinet, so every run ends in a filler strip.
- Fitting is billed per box, not per foot. Narrow cabinets are the same work to hang as wide ones, and there are more of them.
- The worktop is not in this. It is priced by the slab and it is usually the second largest line.
Here is the sequence that goes wrong, and it goes wrong in almost exactly the same way every time.
Somebody measures their kitchen. Twelve feet on one wall, ten on the other — twenty-two feet of run. They look up a price per linear foot, multiply, and get a number. Then the cabinets arrive and two of them have nowhere to go.
The problem is the corner. A base cabinet is 24 inches deep. Where two runs meet at an inside corner, the second run cannot begin until it has cleared the first one — so the first 24 inches of that wall have a cabinet beside them, not on them. Add about 3 inches of filler, without which the two sets of doors collide when both are opened, and the corner has taken 27 inches.
An L-shaped kitchen loses that once. A U-shaped kitchen loses it twice — 4.5 feet of base run, gone before a single cabinet is chosen.
27 in
Lost per inside corner
Base: depth plus filler
15 in
And up top
Wall cabinets are shallower
30+24+36 in
Range, dishwasher, fridge
Wall taken, no cabinet gained
3 in
The size grid
From 9 to 36, nothing between
National Kitchen and Bath Association, Kitchen Planning Guidelines with Access Standards · checked 2026-09-21
Three-inch steps, and the filler nobody quotes
Cabinets are built to a grid: 9, 12, 15, 18, 21, 24, 27, 30, 33, 36 inches, and nothing in between. It is a manufacturing decision that became a standard, and it is why almost no kitchen run fills exactly.
Take a run of 93 inches. Fill it largest-first and you get a 36, a 36 and a 21 — which is exactly 93, and that is a lucky run. Take 95 inches instead and you get the same three cabinets plus two inches of nothing. That two inches becomes a filler strip: a piece of matching material scribed to the wall so the gap reads as a deliberate line rather than a mistake.
Every kitchen needs several. They cost about $26 each, they take real time to scribe, and in twenty years of quotes I have yet to see one listed. They are discovered on fitting day.
What else comes out of the run before cabinets go in
- The range gap — 30 in, with worktop landing space either side of it under the NKBA guidelines.
- The dishwasher — 24 in, next to the sink because that is where the plumbing is, with the worktop running straight over it.
- The fridge — 36 in and full height, so it takes the wall cabinet as well as the base one, plus an inch of air each side.
- The sink base, which is a cabinet but a specific one — no drawers, and a cut-out in the back for the waste.
- Any tall unit, which occupies base and wall together and is priced as its own thing.
- A dead end against a wall, where the last cabinet needs filler so its door can open past the plaster.
- A run that stops at a doorway, where the end panel is finished rather than raw.
- The corner, twice over, if the kitchen is a U.
Kitchen Cabinet Manufacturers Association, ANSI/KCMA A161.1 — Performance and Construction Standard for Kitchen and Vanity Cabinets · checked 2026-09-21
Priced by the box, which is why footage misleads
Cabinet fitting is charged per cabinet — around $92 a box, from $58 to $165 depending on the market and the complexity. That is how the trade bills it and it is how it should be compared.
It matters because two kitchens with identical linear footage can break into very different numbers of boxes. A twelve-foot run of three 48-inch cabinets is four boxes; the same twelve feet as 24s and 18s is seven. Same wall, same worktop, several hundred dollars apart in labour — and a quote given per linear foot shows none of it.
| Labour line | Typical | What it is |
|---|---|---|
| Per cabinet fitted | $92 | Levelled, screwed to studs, joined to its neighbour and the doors adjusted. A narrow box is the same work as a wide one. |
| Per cabinet removed | $26 | Taking the old kitchen out and away. Cheap per box and it adds up over twenty of them. |
| Crown, per foot | $11 | Compound mitres on a run that is already up in the air. It is the same cut as any crown, done from a ladder. |
| Levelling, per foot | $6 | Shimming a floor that is out. Nothing about a kitchen recovers from starting out of level. |
Stock, semi-custom, custom — and the real reason to upgrade
The three grades are usually presented as a ladder of quality, and that is only partly what they are. The more useful way to read them is as three different relationships with the three-inch grid.
| Stock | Custom | |
|---|---|---|
| 30 in base cabinet | $195 | $705 |
| Lead time | off the shelf to 2 weeks | 8 to 16 weeks |
| Sizes | The grid, and only the grid | Any dimension you like |
| Filler needed | Several, always | None |
| Where it wins | A square room and a budget | An awkward room |
| Interior fittings | Basic, retrofit later | Anything |
And then there is semi-custom in the middle, at about 1.9 times stock, which is where the interesting argument lives. People choose it for the door style. The reason worth choosing it for is that a single box can be built to a width that is not on the grid.
On a square, generous room that is worth very little. On a room where a run comes out at 94 inches and the grid wants 93, it means the difference between a clean run and a three-inch plank of filler at eye level. The upgrade buys you inches, not doors — and inches are what an awkward kitchen is short of.
One scheduling note that catches people whatever grade they pick: the worktop cannot be templated until the base cabinets are physically in place. The worktop lead time starts after the cabinets land, not in parallel with them. A custom kitchen at 8 to 16 weeks plus three weeks of worktop is four months from order to a working sink, and that is worth knowing before the old kitchen comes out.
MaterialsEstimator, Cabinet price survey — stock, semi-custom and custom, by the box · checked 2026-09-21
What goes wrong
01Adding the walls up and ordering for the total
An inside corner takes 27 in of base run — the runs overlap by the depth of a cabinet and need filler so the doors clear. A U-shaped kitchen loses that twice.
Instead — Take the corners and the appliance gaps out first, then fill what is left. The difference is typically two cabinets, and they arrive with nowhere to go.
02Comparing quotes per linear foot
Fitting is billed per box, and the same footage can break into four cabinets or seven. The foot price hides the number that sets the labour.
Instead — Ask for the box count and compare on price per box — around $92 fitted is the benchmark.
03Forgetting the filler strips
Cabinets step in threes, so runs almost never fill exactly. Every kitchen needs several strips at about $26 each, and they are absent from essentially every quote.
Instead — Count them yourself from the schedule and ask whether they are included. It is a small sum and a reliable sign of how carefully the rest was estimated.
04Choosing a blind corner to save money
It is the cheapest box and the least usable, and the space behind the blind is effectively lost. Fitting a pull-out to reach it usually costs more than the better cabinet did.
Instead — Price the lazy susan corner base first. It reaches the whole corner, and against a blind box plus a mechanism it is often the cheaper of the two.
05Levelling from the lowest point of the floor
Every cabinet after the first is set to the first one. Start at the low point and the cabinet at the high point has to be cut into the floor, which cannot be done.
Instead — Find the highest point of the floor, strike the level line from there, and shim everything else up to it. Fix the floor before the cabinets if it is out by a lot.
06Choosing wall cabinet height without checking the ceiling
Worktop at 36, backsplash gap at 18, then the cabinet. What is left is a gap, and an awkward leftover becomes a dust shelf that nobody chose.
Instead — Work the arithmetic down from the ceiling. If the leftover is more than a few inches, plan a build-out so the crown reaches the ceiling and it reads as deliberate.
07Assuming the worktop is in the cabinet price
It is priced by the slab, not by the cabinet, and it is usually the second largest line in the kitchen. A single quoted figure that seems good often turns out not to include it.
Instead — Price it separately and by the slab, because how the runs nest into a slab is what decides both the cost and where the seams fall.
08Taking the old kitchen out before the new one has shipped
The worktop cannot even be templated until the new base cabinets are in place, so the worktop lead time starts after delivery. A custom order at 8 to 16 weeks can leave a household without a sink for months.
Instead — Get a confirmed delivery date in writing, add the worktop lead time to it, and demolish a week before that — not before.
- 01Measure each wall separatelyCorner to corner, at worktop height rather than at the floor. A run is a wall, and adding them together is where the error starts.
- 02Take the corner out firstAt each inside corner the two runs overlap by the depth of a cabinet — 24 in for base, 12 for wall — plus 3 in of filler so the doors can open past each other.
- 03Take the appliance gaps out nextThe range, the dishwasher and the fridge occupy wall without occupying a cabinet. The worktop runs over the dishwasher; the fridge is full height and takes the wall cabinet with it.
- 04Fill what is left with real sizesLargest first, in three-inch steps. A wide drawer bank holds more and costs the same to hang as a narrow filler cabinet.
- 05Count the leftovers as fillerAnything under the narrowest cabinet is a filler strip. If it is more than three inches, drop one cabinet a size and split the gap in two.
- 06Count the boxes, not the feetFitting is charged per box. That is what a quote should be compared on, and it is why two kitchens with the same footage can differ by a thousand dollars.
- 07Check the ceiling before choosing wall cabinetsWorktop at 36, backsplash gap of 18, then the cabinet. What is left over becomes a soffit, a dust shelf, or crown on a build-out.
Worktops are bought by the slab and not by the foot, so a ten-foot run does not come out of a nine-foot slab however much surface area says it should. That page nests your runs into real slabs and shows where the seams have to fall.
The worktop, which is not in this price- Box
- One cabinet. It is the unit cabinets are built, sold and fitted in, and the unit a fitter bills in — which is why a price per linear foot hides the thing that decides the labour.
- Blind corner
- A base cabinet where part of the box disappears behind the run that meets it. Cheapest corner solution and the least reachable — the space behind the blind is for things you have forgotten you own.
- Lazy susan
- A square corner cabinet with rotating shelves that reach the whole corner. About half as much again as a plain box, and cheaper than a blind corner with a pull-out fitted to it.
- Filler strip
- A piece of matching material scribed to the wall or to a corner, closing the gap the three-inch size grid leaves behind. About $26 each, and absent from every quote until one is missing.
- Toe kick
- The recessed strip along the bottom of the base cabinets, finished to match the doors. It is also where the shims live once the floor turns out not to be level.
- Scribe
- Cutting a piece to follow a wall that is not straight. Everything that meets a wall in a kitchen is scribed, because no wall in any house is straight.
- Stock
- Fixed sizes in fixed finishes, on a shelf. Everything about a stock kitchen is decided by the three-inch grid, which is why stock layouts carry the most filler.
- Semi-custom
- The same grid with real choices of door, finish and interior — plus the option to have one box built to an odd width, which is what quietly removes the filler.
- Tall unit
- A full-height cabinet — a pantry, or a stack holding wall ovens. It replaces both a base and a wall cabinet in the run and is priced accordingly.
- Landing area
- Worktop next to a range, a sink or a fridge, so there is somewhere to put the hot pan down. The NKBA guidelines set minimums and they are the reason a run cannot be all cabinet.
- Build-out
- A frame above the wall cabinets so crown moulding can run to the ceiling on a wall where the cabinets stop short. It is the only way that gap looks deliberate.
- Nominal width
- The size a cabinet is sold as. They step in threes from 9 to 36 inches, and there is nothing in between — which is the whole reason filler exists.
Common questions
- How much does it cost to install kitchen cabinets?
- Fitting runs about $58 to $165 a box, typically around $92 — so a normal kitchen of eighteen to twenty-five boxes is roughly $1,700 to $2,300 in labour. The cabinets themselves are the larger number: stock works out near $195 for a 30 in base cabinet, semi-custom about $372, custom about $705. Compare quotes per box rather than per linear foot, because the box is what gets hung and billed.
- How do I work out how many cabinets I need?
- Measure each wall separately, then take out what is not cabinet before you count anything. At every inside corner the two runs overlap by the depth of a cabinet plus filler — 27 inches of base run, gone. Then take out the appliance gaps. Only what is left gets filled, in three-inch steps from 9 to 36 inches, and whatever is under the narrowest cabinet becomes a filler strip.
- Why do my walls add up to more than the cabinets I can fit?
- Because of the corner, and it catches almost everybody. Base cabinets are 24 inches deep, so where two runs meet at an inside corner, the second run cannot start until it clears the first one — that is 24 inches of wall with no cabinet on it, plus about 3 inches of filler so the two sets of doors can open without hitting each other. An L-shaped kitchen loses 27 inches; a U-shaped one loses twice that.
- What sizes do kitchen cabinets come in?
- Three-inch steps, from 9 to 36 inches wide: 9, 12, 15, 18, 21, 24, 27, 30, 33, 36. There is nothing in between, which is why almost every run ends with a gap that has to be closed with a filler strip. It is also the strongest practical argument for semi-custom, where one box can be built to an odd width and the gap simply stops existing.
- What is the best corner cabinet?
- A lazy susan corner base in nearly every case. A blind corner base is the cheapest box on the list and the least usable — the space behind the blind is reachable only by somebody prepared to lie on the floor. And if you intend to fit a pull-out to reach it, price the lazy susan first: it usually costs less than the blind box plus the mechanism, and it reaches further.
- Stock, semi-custom or custom cabinets?
- Stock is roughly a third of custom and arrives off the shelf to 2 weeks. Custom is built to your dimensions with no grid and no filler, at 8 to 16 weeks. The interesting one is semi-custom in the middle, and the reason to choose it is usually not the door style — it is that a single box can be made to an odd width, which recovers the inches the three-inch grid took. On an awkward room that is worth more than a nicer finish is.
- How high should wall cabinets be?
- It comes out of the ceiling. Worktop at 36 inches, then an 18 inch backsplash gap, then the cabinet. On an eight foot ceiling that leaves room for 30 inch cabinets with a foot of space above; on a nine foot ceiling you can run 42 inch cabinets to the ceiling. Whatever is left becomes a soffit, a shelf that collects dust, or crown carried up on a build-out — and only the last of those looks deliberate.
- Do appliances need their own cabinets?
- Mostly the opposite — they take wall without taking a cabinet. A range is 30 inches of gap, a dishwasher 24 with the worktop running straight over it, and a fridge 36 of full-height gap that takes the wall cabinet with it too. The exception is a wall oven stack, which is a tall cabinet with the ovens built into it and is priced as a cabinet rather than as a hole.
- Can I install kitchen cabinets myself?
- Yes, and the difficulty is not where people expect. Hanging a cabinet is a few screws into studs. What decides whether the kitchen looks right is the first cabinet being dead level and in the right place, because every box after it is levelled to that one and the worktop sits across all of them. Find the highest point of the floor, work from there, and expect to spend the first hour on one cabinet.
- Is the countertop included in a cabinet price?
- No, and it is the second largest line in most kitchens. Worktops are priced by the slab rather than by the cabinet, so the arithmetic is completely different — it depends on how the runs nest into a slab and where the seams have to fall. Price it separately and do not let a single kitchen quote hide it.
- What is not in a cabinet quote?
- Filler strips, nearly always — about $26 each and every kitchen needs several. Then: shimming an out-of-level floor, moving plumbing or electrics for a changed layout, the worktop, the backsplash, and removing the old kitchen if that was not asked about. The filler is the smallest of those and the most reliably missing.
- How long do kitchen cabinets take to arrive?
- Stock is off the shelf to 2 weeks. Semi-custom is 4 to 8 weeks, and custom is 8 to 16 weeks. This matters more than it sounds, because the worktop cannot be templated until the base cabinets are physically in place — so the worktop lead time starts after the cabinets land, not alongside them. A custom kitchen can easily be four months from order to a usable sink.
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About the author
Pablo Ruiz Quintero — Editor
Editor of MaterialsEstimator. Decides which documents count as a source, what every default value is, and where the line sits between what the reader parses and what the engines compute.
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