Countertop Cost in Ontario (2026): Quartz, Granite, Quartzite and Porcelain, Installed

The short version!

Installed, per square foot of finished top, 3 cm, including template, fabrication, a plain edge, delivery and install, before HST. The reference kitchen used across this site has about 59 square feet of counter: 18 feet of wall run at 25.5 inches deep and a 6-foot by 42-inch island. Put your own numbers in the countertop cost calculator and it prices the extras too.

Reference kitchen figures are stone only, plain edge, before cutouts and removal. Add roughly $150 for a sink cutout, $75 for faucet holes, $500 to remove the old top, and 13% HST. Two honest fabricators will land 10 to 15% apart on the same job.

What is in a fabricator’s quote, line by line

A good Ontario fabricator’s quote has eight to twelve lines. A bad one has two: material and total. Here is what each line is, what it should cost, and which ones get left off to make the first number look good.

Template

A technician comes with a laser or a sheet of strips and records the exact shape of your cabinets, walls and openings. Usually included in the per-square-foot price. It happens after the cabinets are installed and level, never before, and that sequencing is where most countertop disasters start.

Material

The slab, priced by the square foot of finished top or by the whole slab. Quartz slabs are about 10 feet by 4.5 feet, granite a little bigger, porcelain up to 10.5 by 5. A fabricator who prices by the slab charges you for what they buy, including the offcut; one who prices by the square foot has built the waste into the rate. Ask which, because a small kitchen pays for a whole slab either way.

Fabrication

Cutting, polishing the edges, cutting the holes, mitring a waterfall. Included in the rate for a plain edge and one sink. Everything fancier is a line: $12 to $30 per foot for an edge profile, $150 a cutout, $1,200 a waterfall end.

Delivery and install

Two or three people, a truck, suction cups, epoxy at the seams, silicone at the wall, shims to the cabinets. Included in a reputable rate. An “installation extra” line on a per-square-foot quote means the per-square-foot number was never comparable to anybody else’s.

Removal

Taking out the old top and hauling it away, $400 to $700. Often extra, sometimes forgotten, occasionally the homeowner’s problem the morning of install.

Plumbing

Almost never the fabricator. The sink comes out before template or before install, and goes back in after, with the drain, supply lines and dishwasher. A plumber charges $250 to $450 for the reconnect. Budget it or do it yourself, but do not assume it is in the quote.

Seams: where they go and what they should look like

A quartz slab is about 120 inches long. If a run of counter is longer than that, it has a seam. Islands over 10 feet have a seam. L-shaped kitchens have a seam at the corner, and where exactly in the corner is a decision worth having before the saw starts.

A good seam on quartz is a straight line about the width of a credit card, filled with colour-matched epoxy, flush to the touch, placed away from the sink and the cooktop and out of the main sight line from the doorway. A bad seam is wider than that, stepped so you feel it with a fingernail, or sitting under the dishwasher opening where the stone has no support. Ask to see the seam placement on the shop drawing and sign it. If a shop will not show you, that is the answer.

Granite hides seams better than quartz because the pattern is busy. Marble and designer quartz with long veins hide them worst, which is why book-matching costs what it does. Porcelain seams are the hardest to do well and the easiest to see, and it is the main reason to ask a porcelain fabricator how many they have installed.

2 cm or 3 cm?

Three centimetres, about 1 1/4 inches, is the Ontario standard for quartz and granite. It spans a dishwasher opening without a sub-top, takes any edge profile, and overhangs 10 inches without support. Two centimetres saves roughly 10% on the stone and needs a laminated front edge, a second strip glued under the front so it looks like 3 cm, which eats some of the saving. It is the sensible choice for a waterfall end, where the lighter mitre matters, and for a full-height slab backsplash, where 3 cm is overkill on a wall. It is not the sensible choice for a long unsupported span.

Porcelain is 12 mm or 20 mm and needs a plywood sub-top at either, which is included in a competent quote and absent from an incompetent one.

The hidden costs

1. Cutouts: $150 each for a sink or cooktop, $250 for a farmhouse sink. One undermount sink is usually in the rate. A second sink, a cooktop and a farmhouse apron are not.
2. Edges: $12 to $30 per linear foot. Eased and pencil edges are included. Bevels, bullnoses, ogees and the 2-inch mitred “thick” look are lines, and a reference kitchen has about 40 feet of edge.
3. Waterfall ends: about $1,200 each. A full slab drop, mitred at the corner, polished on three sides. Two of them on an island is a $2,400 decision that adds nothing to how the kitchen works and a lot to how it looks.
4. Full-height slab backsplash: doubles the stone on the wall runs. Eighteen feet of wall at 18 inches high is another 27 square feet. At $105 that is $2,800 before the outlets are cut.
5. Removal: $400 to $700. Old laminate glued to the cabinets takes two people and a day. Old granite takes two strong people and a dumpster fee.
6. Plumbing: $250 to $450. Reconnecting the sink and dishwasher after install. Nobody’s line, everybody’s surprise.
7. Overhang support: $150 to $400. Steel brackets or a flat bar let into the cabinet for any overhang past 10 inches. A 15-inch seating overhang needs them, full stop.
8. The minimum charge: $1,500 to $2,500. A bathroom vanity top at $105 per square foot is $900 of stone and a $1,800 invoice, because the shop still templates, cuts, drives and installs. This is why vanity tops are priced by the piece and why pre-made ones exist.
9. HST, 13%. On all of it. A $7,000 top is a $7,910 top.

Choosing between them, in one paragraph each

A word about the dust

Cutting engineered quartz makes very fine silica dust, and Ontario’s Ministry of Labour has an active alert on silica exposure in countertop fabrication because workers at shops that cut it dry have developed silicosis. Australia banned engineered stone outright in 2024 for this reason. It is not a hazard to you once the top is in your kitchen. It is a reason to prefer a fabricator with a wet shop and proper ventilation, which the good ones have and will show you, and to not let anyone cut quartz dry in your driveway on install day.

Does Toronto cost more?

The slab does not. The install does: GTA fabricators run 10 to 15% above Simcoe County, London or Kingston on the same job, and condo installs add elevator bookings and a longer carry. Delivery to cottage country adds the kilometres. The bigger regional difference is lead time: the good GTA shops run two to three weeks from template to install year-round; the good shops up here run that in winter and double it in June.

How to save money without regretting it

1. Level 1 granite or builder-tier quartz. Same shop, same install, $20 a foot less than the mid tier, and under your lights you may not see the difference.
2. Skip the waterfall. $1,200 to $2,400 for a look. If the budget is tight, that is the line.
3. Eased edge. Included, clean, and the one most designers specify anyway.
4. Tile backsplash, not slab. A tiled backsplash is $800 to $1,500; a slab one is $2,500 to $3,500. Unless the slab is the point.
5. Remnants for the vanity. Every fabricator has a rack of offcuts. A 24 by 60 vanity top from a remnant is a few hundred dollars instead of the minimum charge.
6. Three quotes on one scope. The calculator writes it; hand the same scope to all three and compare the last line, not the per-foot number.

If the countertop is part of a bigger kitchen job, the cabinet cost guide and the guide to comparing kitchen quotes cover the rest. For the trade’s own standards on seams and installation, the Natural Stone Institute publishes the fabrication guidelines most reputable Ontario shops work to.