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Stock vs. Semi-Custom vs. Custom Cabinets: What the Three Words Actually Mean
Kitchen Cabinets
Stock, Semi-Custom, Custom: Three Words Every Showroom Uses and None of Them Define
A salesperson once told me a line was “semi-custom” because you could pick the handles. That is not what it means. The three grades are about one thing: how much the factory will change the box for you, and therefore how closely the kitchen fits the room. Everything else, including the price, follows from that.
The short definitions
Stock
Made in advance, in fixed sizes, in a handful of styles, sitting in a warehouse. You buy what exists. Widths in 3-inch steps, one depth, one or two heights. Nothing can be changed. In Ontario, $230 a foot of base run installed, give or take.
Semi-custom
Made to order from a catalogue. The factory starts cutting when you order. Widths in 3-inch steps but more of them, two or three depths, several heights, dozens of door styles, a colour deck, and a list of modifications they will do for a fee: reduce a depth, add a drawer, make a cabinet 2 inches taller. $380 a foot, mid-grade.
Custom
Made from a drawing. Any width to the inch, any depth, any height, any door, any finish. The box can be plywood, the drawers can be dovetailed, the oven tower can fit your oven. The shop may be two people or two hundred. $600 a foot and up.
The prices are the installed, mid-grade rates from the cost guide. The grades overlap: a premium semi-custom line can cost more than a plain custom one, and a stock line with a good box beats a semi-custom line with a bad one. The word on the brochure is a starting point, not a verdict.
Where the difference actually shows up
Fillers
This is the giveaway. A stock kitchen in a 19-foot-4 room has a 4-inch filler somewhere, because 19-4 is not a multiple of 3 inches. Semi-custom gets it to an inch or two with a reduced-width cabinet. Custom has no filler at all; the last cabinet is 22 and 3/8 inches wide because that is what the wall needed. Walk into any kitchen and count the fillers. That is the grade.
Corners
Stock gives you a lazy susan or a blind corner with a dead zone behind it. Semi-custom gives you the same plus a few pull-out corner mechanisms. Custom can build a corner cabinet that uses the whole corner, or angle it, or make the corner a 45-degree sink base, which is the only way a corner sink does not feel like a punishment.
Heights
Stock uppers are 30 or 36 inches tall. A nine-foot ceiling wants 42-inch uppers with crown, or 30-inch uppers with a stacked 12-inch row above them. Semi-custom does both. Stock does neither, so the stock kitchen in the nine-foot room has a 15-inch gap above the cabinets that collects grease and nobody can reach.
The box
Stock is 5/8-inch melamine over particleboard with a thin back, nearly always. Semi-custom is 5/8 or 3/4 melamine with a proper back, and plywood for 15 to 25% more on the better lines. Custom is whatever you specify, and a shop that does not offer plywood is not custom in any sense that matters.
Lead time
Stock: this week, from the warehouse. Semi-custom: six to ten weeks from order. Custom: ten to sixteen, and longer for a small shop in spring. The cabinet order date sets the whole renovation schedule, which is the first lesson in the order of work.
What semi-custom will and will not do for you
Semi-custom is where most Ontario kitchens land and most should. The useful modifications, which each carry a fee of $50 to $200 per cabinet: reduce depth (for a tight walkway or a wall with a pipe chase), increase height (for a stacked upper or a counter-depth fridge surround), add a drawer in place of a door, make a cabinet a specific width within the line’s range, finish an exposed side. Those five cover 90% of what a real room needs.
What it will not do: change the box construction, make a door style that is not in the catalogue, match a colour that is not on the deck, or build an odd shape. If you want a 45-degree island end or a walnut interior, that is custom, and no number of modifications on a semi-custom order gets you there.
Which one your kitchen needs
- Stock, if the room is new or square, the ceiling is eight feet, the layout is a simple L or galley, the budget is under $12,000 installed, and it is a rental, a flip, a cottage or a basement suite. Pay the extra for soft-close. Expect fillers.
- Semi-custom, if it is the family kitchen for the next twenty years, the house is older than 1990, you want a specific door and colour, the ceiling is over eight feet, or the room has one awkward wall. This is the right answer for most people and the salesperson will not be lying when they say so.
- Custom, if the room has no straight walls, the layout is unusual, you want plywood boxes and dovetailed drawers because you have lived with the other kind, there is a designer involved, or the kitchen is the centrepiece of a house that will carry the cost at resale. Or because you want it, which is a fine reason.
Three ways showrooms blur the lines
“Semi-custom” on a stock line because it has three door colours. Ask what modifications they offer; if the answer is none, it is stock. “Custom” on a semi-custom line because the shop will modify anything for a fee. Ask whether they can make a 22-and-3/8-inch cabinet; if the answer is 21 or 24, it is semi-custom. And “fully custom” on a line that is built in a factory from a catalogue of parts, which is a fine thing to be and is semi-custom.
None of this is dishonest, exactly. It is a trade with three words and no referee. The quality checklist gives you the questions that sort it out in five minutes at the showroom desk.
Questions people ask
Is semi-custom worth the extra over stock?
Usually. On a typical kitchen it is about $5,000 more installed, and it buys sizes that fit the room, a door you chose, soft-close as standard and a box with a real back. On a rental or a flip, no. On the kitchen you will cook in for twenty years, yes.
Is custom worth the extra over semi-custom?
If the room needs it, yes; a custom kitchen in an odd room is cheaper than a semi-custom one with a dozen fillers and a wasted corner. If the room is square and the catalogue has your door, the extra $8,000 to $12,000 buys plywood boxes and dovetails, which are nicer and not necessary.
Are IKEA cabinets stock or semi-custom?
Stock, with an unusually good warranty and hardware. Fixed sizes, fixed heights, fixed door lines. The third-party door companies that make fronts for IKEA boxes push it toward semi-custom on the doors only. The IKEA comparison prices all of it.
What does a custom cabinet shop look like?
Anything from a retired finish carpenter with a CNC router in a barn to a 40-person millwork plant. Size does not predict quality. A kitchen they installed two years ago does. Ask to see one.
If you take one thing away
Count the fillers. A kitchen that fits the room has none. A kitchen that was fitted to the room has a few. A kitchen the room was fitted around has one every six feet. Buy the grade that gets your room to the first or second, and do not pay for the third.
