New kitchen cabinets usually run somewhere between $5,000 and $30,000, and that spread isn’t a dodge. It’s the whole story. The same kitchen can cost three or four times as much depending on one early choice: stock, semi-custom, or full custom cabinetry. Where you land comes down to how the boxes are built, what the doors are made of, and how far the layout has to bend to fit your room. Cabinets are usually the single biggest line item in a kitchen, so the number you settle on here sets the tone for the whole budget. Here’s what actually moves it.
What New Kitchen Cabinets Cost by Grade
Cabinets are priced by the linear foot, which is the run of cabinetry measured along the wall, not the square footage of the room. The ranges below are typical national planning numbers, not a McDaniels quote, and they assume an average kitchen with roughly 20 to 30 linear feet of cabinets. Your real figure shifts with the choices in the sections that follow.
| Cabinet grade | Typical price per linear foot | Typical cabinetry total, average kitchen | What you’re paying for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Stock | $100–$300 | ~$4,000–$9,000 | Preassembled boxes in fixed sizes and a short list of finishes. Fast to get, least flexible. |
| Semi-custom | $150–$650 | ~$8,000–$20,000 | Stock cabinet lines with real modifications: more sizes, door styles, wood species, and finishes. |
| Full custom | $500–$1,200+ | ~$18,000–$40,000+ | Built to your exact walls, in any size, species, and configuration you want. |
Read the table one way and it looks like a huge markup. It isn’t. The jump from stock to custom buys a different product, built a different way, sized to a different standard.
Why the Grades Split So Far in Price
Stock cabinets come preassembled in three-inch size jumps. If your wall is 34 inches wide, you drop in a 33-inch cabinet and fill the gap with a filler strip. That’s why stock is cheap and quick, and also why it rarely uses every inch of a room.
Semi-custom starts from those same factory lines but lets you change things: a deeper drawer bank, a painted finish, a different door profile, a cabinet sized to the half inch. Each change nudges the price. Full custom throws out the size chart entirely. In a full custom kitchen remodel, the cabinets are drawn to your walls, so a tricky corner or a ceiling-height pantry stops being a compromise and starts being the plan. You pay more because nothing is off the shelf.
What Actually Moves Your Cabinet Number
Two quotes for the same kitchen can differ by thousands, and it’s rarely about brand. It’s about four choices you make, mostly without realizing how much each one costs.
Wood species and door style
The material and the door profile are the biggest lever most people control. A simple slab or shaker door in a common wood sits at the low end. Intricate raised panels, exotic species, and heavy grain-matching climb fast. And tastes are pulling back toward wood: in the NKBA’s 2026 kitchen trends research, wood grain surpassed painted cabinets, named a growing look by 59% of respondents, with white oak the most popular wood type at 51%. A trending species like white oak often lands above a paint-grade maple, so the look everyone wants can quietly raise the bid.
How the box is built
This is the part you can’t see on a showroom floor but live with every day. Plywood boxes cost more than particleboard. Dovetailed, solid-wood drawers with soft-close guides cost more than stapled ones. The difference shows up in how the cabinet holds up over fifteen years. Cabinets that carry the KCMA A161.1 Quality Certification pass over a dozen tests in five categories, including 25,000 open-and-close cycles on the doors and hinges. That engineering is a real slice of the price gap between a bargain box and one built to last.
Finish and storage extras
A factory paint finish is an upcharge over a stain. Glazes and distressing add more. Then come the inside upgrades that add up quietly, one drawer at a time: pull-out trash cabinets, spice racks, tray dividers, and deep pot drawers. None of it is required. All of it moves the number.
How a Real Cabinet Number Gets Built
A range like the one above is a starting point, not a quote. The real figure comes from your actual layout: how many linear feet of cabinets, which door and species, how many upgraded pull-outs, and how the odd corners get solved. That’s why two kitchens the same size can price hundreds of dollars a foot apart.
At our Lansing-area showroom, that’s exactly how a McDaniels quote gets built. Because we design and build under one roof, clients see full door samples, wood species, and finishes in person, then watch the estimate change as they trade a paint-grade door for white oak or add a bank of pot drawers. The number stops being a mystery once it’s tied to real choices. The fastest way to turn a rough range into a firm figure is to price your kitchen with a designer using your own measurements and the doors you actually like.
What’s in the Price, and What Costs Extra
A cabinet quote usually covers the boxes, doors, drawers, standard hardware, and delivery. Installation is sometimes bundled and sometimes billed separately, so it’s the first thing to confirm on any bid. The surprises tend to hide in the same short list of add-ons.
- Trim and detail: crown molding, decorative end panels, and a furniture-style toe kick are line items, not defaults.
- Glass, lighting, and specialty doors: mullion doors, interior cabinet lights, and glass fronts each carry their own cost.
- Panel-ready appliances: matching cabinet fronts for the fridge or dishwasher mean extra custom panels.
- Tear-out and disposal: removing and hauling the old cabinets is often quoted apart from the new ones.
One honest way to spend less is to keep what still works. If your current boxes are solid and only the doors and finish look dated, cabinet refacing can deliver a new look for a fraction of all-new cabinetry, without touching the layout.
Where Cabinets Fit in the Whole Kitchen Budget
Cabinets are big, but they’re one slice of a remodel. In a typical kitchen project they eat up roughly a third of the total, with countertops, appliances, flooring, plumbing, and labor filling out the rest. So a cabinet number alone won’t tell you what the finished room costs.
If you’re pricing a full renovation and not just the cabinetry, it helps to see what a full kitchen remodel runs from end to end before you set a cabinet budget. Working backward from the whole number keeps the cabinets from crowding out the counters and appliances you also care about.
Frequently Asked Questions About Cabinet Costs
Is it cheaper to reface or replace cabinets?
Refacing is almost always cheaper because you keep the existing boxes and change only the doors, drawer fronts, and visible finish. It’s the better value when your layout works and the cabinets are structurally sound. Once you want a new footprint, more storage, or you find damaged boxes, new cabinets usually make more sense.
Why are custom cabinets so much more than stock?
You’re paying for build quality and a perfect fit. Custom cabinets use better boxes and drawers, any wood species or finish, and sizes made to your exact walls instead of three-inch jumps. Nothing is preassembled and nothing is filler. That labor and material is the gap between a $150 and a $700 linear foot.
How much of a kitchen budget should cabinets be?
A common rule of thumb puts cabinets around a third of a full kitchen remodel. If cabinets are creeping toward half the budget, that’s a signal to check whether the door and species choices are pulling the number up faster than you meant them to.
Ready to Price Your Own Cabinets?
Ranges are useful for planning, but the only number that matters is the one built on your kitchen, your doors, and your storage. Bring your measurements and the look you keep coming back to, and a designer can turn all of it into a real figure you can budget around. Get your exact cabinet number and see where your kitchen lands between stock and custom.