What drives the price of a kitchen remodel
A kitchen remodel is the job most likely to either build your reputation or bury your margin, because it stacks every trade, every selection decision, and every hidden surprise into one project.
Here are the cost drivers that decide whether this job makes money — build each into your quote:
Cabinetry and the selection spread
Cabinets often drive the budget, and the gap between stock and custom is enormous. Price from the actual cabinet line, and put everything else on written allowances.
Multiple trades to coordinate
Demo, plumbing, electrical, drywall, counters, flooring, paint — you're managing a mini-GC job. Your coordination time is a real cost, not a freebie.
Hidden conditions behind the old kitchen
Old wiring, undersized supply lines, and water damage hide behind cabinets. A contingency or a clear 'price what we find' clause protects you.
Countertop templating and lead time
Stone is templated after cabinets are set, then fabricated — a schedule gap where the job sits. Build the timeline and the deposit structure around it.
A method that protects your margin
- Separate hard costs (materials + subs) from your labor and supervision.
- Put cabinets, counters, tile, and fixtures on written allowances so upgrades are documented changes.
- Price your project-management time explicitly — a kitchen needs real coordination.
- Add a contingency sized to the home's age.
- Price to the margin you need to keep, not a markup that feels normal.
A worked example
A kitchen with $34,000 in hard costs isn't a 'mark it up 20%' job — that's only a 17% margin and it ignores the 60–90 hours of coordination a kitchen demands. Price the supervision in, set allowances for selections, and target the margin you actually need; the surprises then become approved change orders, not losses.
Numbers are illustrative to show the method — your real costs and local market differ. Price from your own books.
Common mistakes pricing a kitchen remodel
- Quoting before selections are locked, then eating every upgrade.
- Coordinating five trades for free instead of pricing supervision.
- No contingency on a kitchen in an older home.
- Promising a finish date that ignores countertop templating lead time.
Stop pricing from memory
The Contractor Authority System™ turns this into a repeatable process — burdened labor & overhead, change-order protection, and client-ready proposals. One-time $97.
FAQ
You set a written dollar figure for items the client hasn't finalized — tile, fixtures, cabinet line. If they choose above it, the difference is a documented change order. It protects both sides from a padded 'just in case' quote.
If you're coordinating all the trades, you're the GC — and you should be paid for that coordination and the risk you carry on every sub. Pricing it as 'just labor' is the fastest way to lose money on a kitchen.