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Kitchen Cabinet Cost Calculator (Ontario, 2026)
Kitchens & BathroomsFree Calculator
What Should Your Kitchen Cabinets Cost? Run the Numbers Before a Showroom Does.
An Ontario installed-price estimate for cabinets, trim and countertops, with HST. No email address required to see your number.
I have sat across the table from a lot of kitchen quotes in forty years. The ones that go wrong almost never go wrong on the cabinets. They go wrong because nobody told the homeowner what a reasonable number looked like before they walked into the showroom. This fixes that.
Step-by-step
Kitchen Cabinet Cost Calculator (Ontario)
1
What kind of project is this?
2
Measure your cabinet runs (in feet)
Measure wall to wall at counter height. Count the sink and stove gaps as cabinet footage; count the fridge gap as zero.
Usually a bit less than the base run. Leave out the window and the range hood.
Floor-to-ceiling units: pantries, oven towers, fridge surrounds. A standard pantry is 2 to 3 ft wide.
Enter 0 if there is no island. A seating island needs about 42 in. of depth; the price allows for that.
3
Pick the grade of cabinet
4
Options that move the price
5
Countertop
Area is worked out from your base and island footage. You can override it.
Leave blank to use the estimate: base run x 2.1 plus island x 3.5.
Stone only. Each end is a full slab drop, mitred, about $1,200 installed.
6
Where is the kitchen?
Used only to tell you whether this is in our direct service area or a region where we would introduce one vetted shop.
Enter a postal code to see service coverage.
BuildersOntario.com
Your Kitchen Budget Summary
Illustrative Ontario installed-price estimate
| Item | Estimate |
|---|
Estimated total with HST
$0
Example only, using BuildersOntario budgeting rates checked October 2026. Excludes appliances, sinks, faucets, backsplash, flooring, electrical and plumbing changes, painting, permits and design fees. A shop’s written quotation is the only binding number.
Request a Real Quotation
Your estimate above becomes a written scope that a cabinet shop can actually price. Fill in the rest and press Send. Your email program will open with everything filled in; attach photos, a sketch or your plans to that email before you send it.
What this calculator does, and what it will not do!
It gives you an installed budget range for cabinets, trim and a countertop, in Ontario, in today’s money. That is all. It does not know your walls are out of square, that your sink is moving three feet, or that your ceiling is nine feet six and you want the uppers to the top. Those things cost money and a shop will find them. The point is that when the shop finds them, you already know what the rest of the kitchen should cost, so you can tell a fair extra from a creative one.
The rates behind it are what I would use to set a client’s cabinet allowance on a new house, cross-checked against Ontario shop quotes and published guides like the HomeStars Canadian cabinet cost guide. Where guides disagreed, I went with what the invoices I have actually seen say. If your three quotes all land 25% above or below this, trust the quotes. If one is wildly different from the other two, trust this and ask questions.
A rule of thumb worth memorizing: a mid-grade Ontario kitchen runs roughly $600 to $700 per linear foot of wall for base and uppers together, installed, before trim and countertop. If someone says $300, ask what the box is made of. If someone says $1,200, ask what you are getting for the extra that a $700 kitchen would not give you. Sometimes there is a good answer. Often there is a shrug.
How I price it
Installed, delivered, before HST, per linear foot. Install is included at roughly 18% of the cabinet price, which is what a competent two-person crew in Ontario costs for a typical kitchen when the room is ready for them.
| Grade | Base run | Upper run | Pantry / tall | Island |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Builder Stock, flat-pack or stock-plus, melamine boxes, standard sizes | $230 | $170 | $480 | $330 |
| Mid-grade Semi-custom, painted MDF shaker or wood doors, soft-close standard | $380 | $280 | $750 | $500 |
| Premium Custom sizes, plywood boxes, Blum-type runners, factory-sprayed finish | $600 | $440 | $1,050 | $800 |
| Luxury Full custom, inset or beaded doors, veneers, appliance panels, drawers included | $900 | $650 | $1,450 | $1,200 |
Rates checked October 2026. The calculator shows a range of plus or minus 12% around these because two honest shops will not land on the same number and neither one is lying.
Countertops, installed, per square foot
Laminate
$45Modern laminate is better than you remember. It is also the only countertop you can swap in an afternoon five years from now when you change your mind.
Butcher block
$95Warm, repairable, and it will show every wet glass left on it. Oil it or regret it.
Granite
$85Natural stone, every slab different, needs sealing once a year. Cheaper than quartz again in 2026 because fashion moved on and granite did not.
Quartz, mid-range
$105The default Ontario countertop. Consistent, low maintenance, and it will crack if you put a hot roasting pan on it. Designer brands run $130 and up.
Quartzite
$140Real stone that looks like marble and behaves better. Harder to fabricate, which is where the money goes.
Porcelain slab
$150Thin, heat-proof, nearly stain-proof, and unforgiving of a fabricator who has only done it twice. Ask how many they have installed.
Area is estimated at 2.1 sq ft per foot of base run (25 in. deep) and 3.5 sq ft per foot of island (42 in. deep). One sink cutout is included. A cooktop cutout adds $150. A waterfall end adds about $1,200. Demolition and disposal of an existing kitchen is carried at $1,200; a reno in a condo with a freight elevator will cost more.
Where homeowners go wrong
- Comparing a supplied price with an installed price. Showrooms love to quote cabinets only. The install, the trim, the delivery and the countertop template are three more invoices. Make every shop quote the same list, installed, or the comparison is worthless.
- Letting the showroom measure first. Walk in with your own footage and a budget range. The person at the desk is paid on what you spend, not on what you need. They are usually lovely. They are also usually on commission.
- Buying the box you cannot see. Doors are what you look at; boxes are what you live with. Ask what the sides and back are made of and how thick. A 5/8 in. melamine box and a 3/4 in. plywood box look identical with the doors closed and age very differently under a leaking dishwasher.
- Forgetting the room has to be ready. Cabinets go in after rough electrical and plumbing, after drywall and paint, and usually after flooring. If a shop quotes install on a room that is not ready, that is a change order waiting to happen.
- Paying a big deposit. Ontario’s consumer guidance says get written estimates, keep deposits small, and have a written contract with a schedule. The province spells it out on its home renovation rights page. A shop that wants 50% down before it has measured is telling you something about its cash flow.
- Skipping the layout check. A cabinet quote cannot tell you that your fridge door will hit the island or that you have 34 in. of walkway where the NKBA planning guidelines want 42. Expensive cabinets in a bad layout are still a bad kitchen. If you want a second set of eyes on the drawing, that is what the layout review on this site is for.
What a shop needs from you to quote properly
Most kitchen websites ask for your phone number and nothing else. Then a salesperson calls and asks you twenty questions you cannot answer standing in the grocery store. The quotation request above does the opposite: it hands the shop a written scope. Footage, grade, door style, finish, countertop, timing, budget, postal code. That is enough for an honest shop to tell you within a day whether they can do your kitchen for your money, and enough for you to compare three answers to the same question.
If you are in Simcoe County, Muskoka or the Georgian Bay area, the request comes to us and we quote it ourselves or with the shop we work with. If you are elsewhere in Ontario, we pass it, with your permission and only one shop at a time, to a shop we have checked out. We do not sell your name to five companies. We have all been on the receiving end of that and it is miserable.
For the longer background on choosing cabinets, the guide to choosing kitchen cabinets in Ontario covers box construction, door materials and hardware in more detail than a calculator page should.
Questions people ask
How much do kitchen cabinets cost in Ontario in 2026?
For a typical 18 ft base and 14 ft upper run with a 6 ft island and a pantry, installed before countertop: builder grade about $10,000 to $12,000, mid-grade $16,000 to $19,000, premium $25,000 to $30,000, luxury $36,000 and up. Add 13% HST and $6,000 to $9,000 for a quartz countertop. Run your own footage above; kitchens vary more than people expect.
Are IKEA cabinets really cheaper once they are installed?
On the boxes, yes, by a lot. On the finished kitchen, less than you think. Assembly, install, fillers, panels and the delivery dance typically bring a Sektion kitchen to within 20 to 30% of a mid-grade semi-custom price, and the boxes are 3/4 in. particleboard with a thin fibreboard back. Good value for a rental or a tight budget. Not the bargain the box price suggests.
What does kitchen cabinet installation cost on its own?
In Ontario, roughly $100 to $300 per linear foot depending on grade and how fussy the trim is, or 15 to 20% of the cabinet price. A straight run of stock cabinets is at the bottom. Crown moulding to a nine-foot ceiling with scribed end panels is at the top.
Why do quotes vary so much?
Because they are quoting different things. One includes install, one does not. One has soft-close, one does not. One has 3/4 in. plywood, one has 5/8 in. melamine. One priced your drawing, one priced a drawing they prefer. Make them all quote the written scope from this page and most of the variation disappears. What is left is the real difference in price.
Is the estimate an offer or a price?
Neither. It is a budgeting allowance so you walk into the conversation informed. Only a shop’s written quotation, after measuring, is a price.
Do I need a permit to replace kitchen cabinets in Ontario?
Not for swapping cabinets in the same spots. You do need one if you move plumbing, add or move electrical circuits, remove a wall, or change the layout in a way that touches structure or ventilation. Your local building department is the final word, and most of them answer the phone.
Before you sign anything
Get three installed quotes on the same scope. Keep the deposit small. Read the box spec, not the brochure. And if you want someone who has built three hundred houses to look at the quotes or the drawing before you commit, that is a service on this site and it costs less than one cabinet.
