How to Compare Kitchen Renovation Quotes in Ontario (Without Getting Played)

Why three quotes are usually three different kitchens

You call three shops. Each one sends a designer, or asks you to come in, and each designer draws the kitchen the way their line builds it. Shop A has a 33-inch sink base, so your sink wall gets a 3-inch filler. Shop B does not carry a 15-inch cabinet, so the end of the run changes. Shop C decides you need a blind corner and the other two gave you a lazy susan. Then A quotes cabinets only, B quotes installed, and C includes the countertop template but not the install.

You now have three numbers that differ by $8,000 and no idea why. That is not dishonesty, mostly. It is three people solving your kitchen three ways and nobody asking them to solve it the same way. The fix is to write the scope yourself and hand all three the same piece of paper.

Step one: write the scope before anyone measures

Half a page is enough. The cabinet cost calculator on this site builds it for you and you can print it, but the contents are simple:

• Footage: base run, upper run, pantry or tall units, island length. Measured by you, wall to wall.
• Grade: builder, mid-grade, premium or custom, in the words from the Ontario cabinet cost guide, so everybody knows what tier you mean.
• Box spec you want quoted: material and thickness for sides and back. If you do not state it, each shop quotes its own.
• Door style and finish, by name if you have picked one.
• Drawers: how many base cabinets are drawer stacks. This alone moves a quote 15%.
• Hardware: soft-close hinges and undermount runners, stated as required.
• Trim: crown, light rail, fillers, finished ends, toe kick. Say “include all” so nobody leaves them off.
• Installation: included, with levelling, scribing and hanging. Say what is excluded: sink, dishwasher, hood, electrical.
• Countertop: material and whether the shop is supplying it or you are. If they are, template and install as a line.
• Demolition and disposal of the old kitchen, if it is a renovation.
• Delivery.
• Timing: when you want it installed.

Send that to all three with one sentence: “Please quote this scope, installed, before HST, as a line-item list. If you recommend changes, price them separately.” You will be amazed how much the numbers tighten up.

Step two: put the three quotes on one grid

Print this page and fill it in by hand, or copy the rows into a spreadsheet. Every quote gets a column. Every line gets a number or the word “excluded.” The last row is the only one you compare.

The ten lines that hide the difference

1. Installation. Fifteen to twenty percent of the price. The most common reason a cheap quote is cheap.
2. Trim. Crown, fillers and panels are 6% and are the easiest thing to leave off a first number. “Trim as required” means “not priced.”
3. The box. A 5/8-inch melamine box with a 1/8-inch back and a 3/4-inch plywood box look the same in a quote that says “cabinets.” Make them write it down.
4. Drawers. A quote with four drawer stacks and a quote with nine are different kitchens by about $1,500.
5. Hardware. “Soft-close available” is not “soft-close included.” Undermount runners are a line, not a given.
6. Handles. Forty-five pulls at $8 to $15 each is $400 to $700 that one quote includes and the next does not.
7. Countertop template. A fabricator’s measure-and-install is $500 to $1,200 and sometimes appears on the cabinet quote, sometimes on the stone quote, sometimes nowhere.
8. Demolition. $800 to $1,800. Shops that do not install usually do not demolish either, and the line is silent.
9. Delivery. Free from the shop in your town. Not free from the one two hours away with the better price.
10. “Allowances.” Any line that says “allowance” is a number the shop picked so the total looks good. Door hardware allowance $300. Countertop allowance $4,000. Ask what the allowance actually buys and what you want actually costs.

A worked example: the cheapest quote was not

Three real-style quotes on the reference kitchen used across this site (18 ft base, 14 ft upper, 3 ft pantry, 6 ft island, mid-grade painted shaker, quartz). As received, then normalized to the same scope.

Quote A, the “cheap” one, is the most expensive kitchen and has the worst box. Quote C wins on price by $1,000 with a thinner back than B. Whether $1,000 buys you a better cabinet back for twenty years is a decision you can now actually make. Before the grid, you were about to sign A.

Red flags

What the law gives you in Ontario

Three things worth knowing before you sign, from the province’s own renovation rights page. A renovation contract over $50 has to be in writing. If a written estimate is part of the contract, the final price cannot be more than 10% over it unless you agree to new work or a new price in writing. And a contract signed in your home comes with a 10-day cooling-off period.

For installed work, the Construction Act’s 10% holdback applies, which is the legal reason a good shop’s payment schedule keeps the last 10% until after substantial completion. The Act itself is not bedtime reading, but a shop that has never heard of the holdback has not done much installed work.

What the law does not do is tell you whether $19,800 is a fair price for the kitchen on the drawing. That is the grid’s job, and the cost guide’s, and if you want a second opinion, mine.

Questions to ask every shop, in the same words

1. What is the box made of, how thick are the sides, and how thick is the back?
2. Is installation in this price, and what does install exclude?
3. Are crown, fillers, finished ends and toe kick in this price?
4. Which hinges and drawer runners, by brand, and are they soft-close?
5. What is the deposit, what is the schedule, and when is the final measure?
6. What is the lead time from final measure to install, in weeks, in writing?
7. Who fixes a damaged door, a crooked run or a peeling finish, and for how long?
8. Can I see a kitchen you installed two years ago?

Ask them in that order. The shop that answers the first one without blinking is usually the one to hire.