EstimatorKitFree kitchen remodel cost calculator
Price a kitchen the way the cabinet shop quotes it
Measure the base, wall and tall runs and this builds the take-off a supplier works from: linear feet of each cabinet run, the countertop that follows at template depth, the finished edge, the cutouts, the backsplash and the floor. Appliances and the island’s drain, gas and circuits sit in blocks of their own. Enter your rates and it reports what percentage of the subtotal each group takes — which is how you find out that the argument worth having is about cabinets.
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- No signup
- Cabinets by linear foot
- Cutouts billed apart
- Group shares reported
Wall length, not box count — 13' 9" and 165 in read the same. Wall run is shorter than base run wherever a window or the range hood interrupts it, and pricing it as if it matched is the commonest over-order here.
Depth starts at 25.5 in — 24 in of box plus a 1 1/2 in overhang — the depth a fabricator templates to. It moves with a full-overlay door and a thicker overhang push it to 26 in, so use whatever your fabricator templated. Backsplash starts at 18 in because 54 in to the wall cabinet less the 36 in counter — the gap the backsplash fills; raise it wherever tile runs to the underside of a hood.
Cabinet run to quote
27.1 lin ft
- Countertop at 25.5 in
- 47 sq ft
- — of that, island
- 18 sq ft
- Finished edge
- 31.7 lin ft
- Backsplash
- 15.6 sq ft
- Floor, bare
- 154 sq ft
- Floor, with waste
- 166 sq ft
Boxes come in 3 in steps, so this base run wants 2 in of filler and the wall run 2 in. Filler is cheap; discovering you need it on install day is not.
Module sizes behind those figures: a base box is 34.5 in tall and 24 in deep, so with a top it finishes at 36 in; the 1.5 in overhang is what the usual countertop overhang past the door face means in practice, and it varies with 1 to 1 1/2 in depending on door style and whether the boxes are inset. Wall boxes hang at 54 in — 42 in boxes to a 9 ft ceiling raise the whole run change that, and with it the backsplash above.
The take-off is done; the pricing is yours. Enter a rate per linear foot for the boxes and a rate per square foot for the stone in the panel below, and the split appears.
Rates and counts
Cabinet shops quote per linear foot, fabricators per square foot plus edge and cutouts, and appliances are simply what the sticker says. Enter yours in the same shape.
Cabinets — per linear foot
Countertop and backsplash
- Undermount sink cutout
- Cooktop cutout
- Faucet and dispenser holes
Cutouts and edge are billed apart from the slab rate. A quote that shows only a dollars-per-square-foot figure has three charges hiding inside it.
Appliances
- Range or slide-in cooker
- Cooktop
- Wall oven
- Refrigerator
- Dishwasher
- Hood or downdraft
- Microwave or drawer
Island services
- Drain and vent run to the islanda sink out in the floor means a loop vent or an air admittance valve, and a slab makes it a saw cut
- Hot and cold supply to the islandsame trench, same floor, different inspection
- 240 V circuit or gas line for an island cooktopand a hood above 400 cfm brings makeup air with it
- Countertop receptacles and GFCI protectionthe island is where the panel schedule usually runs out of spaces
- Blocking and floor build-up under the islandan island cabinet gets screwed to something, and stone needs a flat, level base
IRC M1503.6 — an exhaust hood rated above 400 cfm requires makeup air, and NEC 210.52(C)(1) — no point along a countertop may be more than 24 in from a receptacle — both are the island’s doing, and both are reference here rather than a sign-off. Your inspector rules.
Trades and everything else
- Strip-out, dumpster and disconnects
- Electrician: circuits, lighting, GFCI
- Plumber: sink, dishwasher, gas
- Drywall patching and skim
- Painting, trim and toe kick
How to take off and price a kitchen remodel
Three measurements, three billing conventions, one split at the end.
Measure the three cabinet runs along the wall
Base, wall and tall are quoted and installed separately, so they are measured separately. Run the tape along the wall the cabinets occupy rather than counting boxes, and expect the wall figure to come out shorter than the base — a window, a hood and an open corner all interrupt the upper run while the counter below carries straight on. Pricing the two as equal is the commonest over-order on a kitchen.
Let the countertop follow from the run, then add the extras that get billed apart
The perimeter top is the base run at 25.5 inches deep, which is the 24 inch box plus the overhang a fabricator templates to; the island is its own rectangle. On top of the square-foot rate come the finished edge by the linear foot and each cutout as a separate charge — the sink, a drop-in cooktop, the faucet and dispenser holes. A quote that shows only a rate per square foot has all three of those hidden inside it.
Price each group and read the share it takes
Enter your rates and the result splits into cabinets, countertop and backsplash, appliances, island services and everything else, each as a dollar figure and a percentage of the subtotal, with a second cut showing goods against work billed on site. Cabinets are almost always the largest block, and knowing by how much turns a vague sense that the kitchen is too expensive into a decision about door style, box construction or how much of the run is drawers.
Technical specifications
| Cabinet unit | Linear feet of base, wall and tall run, each priced and installed as its own line |
|---|---|
| Countertop depth | 25.5 in — a 24 in base box plus a 1.5 in overhang, the depth a fabricator templates to |
| Backsplash gap | 18 in, being the 54 in wall-cabinet height less the 36 in finished counter |
| Box increments | 3 in steps from 9 to 48 in wide, so the filler each run needs is computed and shown |
| Countertop extras | Finished edge by the linear foot plus sink, cooktop and hole cutouts counted one by one |
| Island services | Five lines: drain and vent, supply, 240 V or gas, receptacles, and blocking under the box |
| Splits reported | Five groups — cabinets, countertop, appliances, island, trades — plus goods against work billed on site |
| Prices held | None. Cabinet, stone and appliance figures stay in this tab and are not stored |
Frequently asked questions
Why are cabinets quoted per linear foot when the rest of the job is per square foot?
Because a cabinet is a box of fixed depth and height, so only its width varies — which makes a foot of run a real unit of production rather than a convenience. A base box is 24 inches deep and 34.5 inches tall whether it is 12 inches or 36 inches wide, so the shop's cost tracks the width alone. The consequence worth knowing is that a linear-foot price is only comparable between quotes that assume the same mix: a run that is mostly drawer banks costs far more per foot than the same run in door-and-shelf boxes, and no linear-foot figure carries that information on its own.
What does a countertop fabricator charge on top of the square-foot rate?
The finished edge, every cutout and usually the template visit. Edge is priced by the linear foot of exposed perimeter and jumps sharply from an eased or beveled profile to a bullnose or a mitered apron. Cutouts are each their own line: an undermount sink costs more than a drop-in because the opening is polished, a cooktop opening is billed separately again, and faucet and soap-dispenser holes are counted individually. On a modest kitchen those extras routinely add a fifth to a figure that was quoted as a single rate per square foot.
How much countertop does a run of base cabinets make?
About 2.1 square feet for every linear foot of run. The depth a fabricator templates to is 25.5 inches — a 24 inch base box plus a 1.5 inch overhang past the door face — so a 14 foot run is roughly 30 square feet before the island is counted. Full-overlay doors or a deeper overhang take it to 26 inches, which is worth checking before the slab is cut rather than after. The page uses 25.5 and shows the resulting area so you can compare it against what the fabricator templated.
Why does my wall cabinet run come out shorter than the base run?
Because uppers stop where the base cabinets carry on. The sink window, the range hood, the fridge surround and any open wall all interrupt the upper run, and a corner that takes a lazy-susan base often takes nothing above it. Measuring the room once and applying the number to both is why kitchens get quoted with two or three feet of wall cabinet nobody ordered. Enter the two lengths separately here; the calculator never derives one from the other.
What does putting a sink or a cooktop in the island really add?
Five separate pieces of work, which is why the island has its own block on this page. A sink out in the floor needs a drain run and a vent — a loop vent or an air admittance valve — plus hot and cold supply, and in a slab-on-grade house that means saw-cutting concrete. A cooktop needs either a 240 volt circuit or a gas line, and a hood over 400 cfm brings makeup air with it under IRC M1503.6. Add the countertop receptacles NEC 210.52(C)(1) governs and the blocking that fixes the cabinet down, and the island stops being a cabinet and becomes a trench.
How much filler will a cabinet run need?
Whatever your run is over the nearest multiple of three inches — the page computes it for the base and wall runs from the lengths you entered. Cabinet boxes are built in 3 inch steps from 9 to 48 inches wide, so a 148 inch wall takes 147 inches of boxes and 1 inch of filler, and a run between two walls normally wants a scribe at both ends anyway. Filler strips cost almost nothing; discovering on install day that the layout assumed an exact fit costs a return visit.
Is the cabinet quote I type in sent anywhere?
No. Everything on this page is arithmetic in your own browser, so the rate your cabinet shop gave you never leaves the tab and is gone when you reload. That matters more here than on most pages, because a linear-foot price is exactly the number a shop would rather its competitors did not have.
About cabinets, countertops and what an island triggers
Cabinets dominate a kitchen budget in a way nothing dominates any other room, and they are the one component quoted in a unit the rest of the job does not use. The reason is the module: a base box is 24 inches deep and 34.5 inches tall so the counter finishes at 36, wall boxes are 12 inches deep and hung at 54 inches above the floor, and only the width changes — in 3 inch steps from 9 to 48 inches. A linear foot of run is therefore a genuine unit of manufacture. It is also a treacherous one to compare between quotes, because it carries no information about what is inside the boxes. Drawer banks, soft-close hardware, plywood carcasses instead of particleboard and a full-overlay door all move the per-foot figure without changing a single dimension on your drawing.
The countertop is the second block and the one most often under-quoted, because it is sold as a rate per square foot and billed as three or four separate charges. The area itself follows from the run at 25.5 inches deep, which is the box plus the overhang. On top of that comes the finished edge by the linear foot, and then each cutout — polished for an undermount sink, separate again for a drop-in cooktop, and counted individually for faucet and dispenser holes. Where the surface is tile rather than slab, the same geometry feeds a different take-off: the tile calculator turns the backsplash area into whole boxes at the layout you have chosen, and the joint volume behind it comes off the grout calculator, where a narrow joint on a large-format tile uses far less than a mosaic sheet at the same square footage.
Then there is the island, which is where a kitchen quietly changes trade. A run of cabinets against a wall is joinery. An island with a sink is a drain and a vent out in the middle of the floor, a supply run in the same trench, and — in a slab-on-grade house — a saw cut and a re-pour. Put a cooktop in it and there is a 240 volt circuit or a gas line as well, plus makeup air if the hood is rated above 400 cfm, which IRC M1503.6 requires. None of that is proportional to anything you measured; it is a set of fixed jobs, which is why they sit as five separate lines here rather than inside a rate. That same distinction between counted work and measured work is what the bathroom estimate is built on, and it is why reducing either room to a single figure — which the cost per square foot page will do for you — is a last step and never a first one.
Where your cabinet and stone quotes go
Every number on this page is worked out by JavaScript running in the tab you are reading it in. Nothing you type — measurements, quantities, the prices your supplier quoted you — is uploaded, logged or kept, which is also why the calculators carry on working on a site with no signal.
No appliance model, cabinet brand or fabricator name is asked for anywhere on this page, which is deliberate: the moment a calculator collects those it becomes a lead form, and this one has nowhere to send them.