How Much Do Custom Cabinets Cost? Price Per Linear Foot and Kitchen Totals
Custom cabinets cost $500 to $1,200 per linear foot installed for most fully custom work, which puts a 20-foot kitchen between $10,000 and $24,000. Nationally, the average custom cabinet project comes in at $7,472, with most jobs falling between $2,808 and $12,980, a figure that covers everything from a single vanity to a full kitchen. Where your kitchen lands depends on how many feet of cabinet you need, what wood it is made from, how it is finished, and how complicated the room is.
This guide comes from the pricing desk at our Cerritos cabinet shop, where every quote starts with a laser measure of the actual room. The ranges are national and apply anywhere in the US; the process notes are ours. Use it to set a realistic budget before you sit down with any cabinet maker, including us.
The Headline Numbers
Three figures answer the question for most people:
- Per linear foot, installed: $500 to $1,200 for fully custom cabinetry.
- A 20-foot kitchen: $10,000 to $24,000 at those rates.
- National project average: $7,472, with a range of $2,808 to $12,980.
That per-foot range is not a local quirk. A shop a few miles from us in Fullerton publishes the same $500 to $1,200 per foot for standard custom work, with a high-end tier at $1,200 to $2,500 per foot for exotic species and elaborate detailing. Across the industry, the published spread for custom work runs as wide as $100 to $1,500 per foot once you include bare-bones paint-grade builds at one end and furniture-grade work at the other.
Custom Cabinets Price Per Linear Foot
A linear foot measures the run of cabinets along the wall. Walk the room with a tape, add up every stretch that will hold a base cabinet, and you have the base footage. Most shops, ours included, fold the uppers into the same per-foot figure for a standard kitchen with both rows, then adjust for tall pantry units and islands.
Here is how the custom figure stacks up against the two factory tiers you will see at showrooms and big-box stores:
| Cabinet tier | Price per linear foot | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Stock | $100 to $300 | Fixed sizes in 3-inch increments, filler strips wherever the room does not match |
| Semi-custom | $150 to $650 | A factory line with limited door, finish, and size modifications |
| Fully custom | $500 to $1,200 | Built from scratch to your measured walls, any species, any dimension |
Some sources push the semi-custom ceiling as high as $900 per foot and the stock floor as low as $60, so treat the tiers as overlapping bands rather than hard steps. What the custom premium buys is fit: no fillers, no dead corners, no soffit gap above the uppers.
Where Your Kitchen Falls in the Range
Toward $500 per foot: paint-grade maple or birch, flat or shaker doors, a straight galley or L-shaped run, standard soft-close hardware, no interior fittings.
Toward $1,200 per foot: stain-grade white oak, cherry, or walnut, inset or beaded doors, an island with seating, tall pantry runs to the ceiling, pull-outs in most base cabinets, and glass or lighting details.
Most Cerritos kitchens we build land somewhere in the middle. Homeowners usually pick one or two upgrades that matter to them and keep the rest simple.
What Moves the Price
Five levers set the number on your quote. Species is the largest, so it comes first.
Wood Species
The wood you choose moves the per-foot price more than any other single decision. Species-driven pricing runs from paint-grade hardwoods at one end to walnut and exotics at the other:
| Species | Price per linear foot | Typical use |
|---|---|---|
| Birch or maple | $300 to $400 | Painted shaker doors; maple takes paint and stain evenly |
| White oak | $400 to $600 | Stained, grain-forward modern and transitional kitchens |
| Cherry | $500 to $700 | Stain only; darkens with age into a deep red-brown |
| Walnut and exotics | $700 and up | High-end stained work and statement islands |
Oak's prominent grain telegraphs through paint, which is why painted kitchens usually start with maple. The two tables overlap at the low end on purpose: a paint-grade maple kitchen is what makes a $500-per-foot custom build possible.
Door Style and Finish
A flat slab or plain shaker door is the least labor. Raised panels, inset doors that sit flush inside the face frame, beaded edges, and glass fronts each add shop hours. Finish works the same way. A painted finish takes more coats and more sanding between them than a clear coat or stain, so painted kitchens generally cost more than stained ones in the same species. Painted door panels are often MDF rather than solid wood, since MDF is grain-free and stable and will not crack the paint at the joints. The boxes behind those doors should still be plywood for strength, screw-holding, and moisture resistance.
Hardware and Interior Fittings
Blum soft-close hinges and full-extension drawer slides are standard on every cabinet we build, so they never show up as an upcharge. Specialty hardware and interior fittings do. A pull-out spice rack runs $200 to $500 or more, and a corner lazy Susan can reach $600 or more. Trash pull-outs, tray dividers, drawer organizers, and lift-up hardware for uppers are all line items. Pull-outs in every base cabinet add up fast, so decide which ones you will actually use.
Layout Complexity
Straight runs are cheap to build and cheap to install. Corners, islands, angled walls, tall runs to a 9-foot ceiling, and appliance garages all take more material and more shop time per foot. Cerritos homes add a wrinkle of their own: most of the city went up between 1963 and the early 1970s, and the walls in those houses are rarely square. That is why we laser-measure before quoting instead of pricing from a sketch.
Installation
Fully custom quotes usually include installation, but not always, and this is the single most common reason two quotes look far apart. Ours are installed prices, labor included. Our kitchen cabinet installation crew levels and scribes every run to the wall, and most kitchens take a single day, or three to five for large or complex layouts.
A Worked Example: A 20-Foot Cerritos Kitchen
Take a layout we see constantly: an L-shaped kitchen with roughly 20 linear feet of base cabinets and a matching run of uppers. Here is how the budget assembles at the low and high end of the custom range.
| Line item | Low end | High end |
|---|---|---|
| Cabinet run, 20 linear feet, installed | $10,000 (at $500 per foot) | $24,000 (at $1,200 per foot) |
| Pull-out spice rack | Not included | $200 to $500+ |
| Corner lazy Susan | Not included | Up to $600+ |
| Estimated cabinet total | About $10,000 | About $24,800 to $25,100 |
The low-end column is a painted maple shaker kitchen with standard soft-close hardware and no fittings. The high-end column is stained cherry or walnut with inset doors and a couple of interior upgrades. Push into exotic species, a large seated island, or furniture-grade detailing and the per-foot rate can climb into the $1,200 to $2,500 tier, which would put the same 20 feet at $24,000 to $50,000.
Countertops, plumbing, electrical, flooring, and appliances are separate budgets. A cabinet quote, ours included, covers the cabinets and their installation.
How to Read a Cabinet Quote
Two quotes for the same kitchen can differ by thousands of dollars and still describe similar cabinets. Check four things before comparing.
Installed or cabinet-only. Ask directly. A cabinet-only price that looks several thousand dollars cheaper may cost the same once you hire an installer.
What the linear foot includes. Some shops quote base and upper cabinets as one per-foot figure. Others price base and upper runs separately, and a few publish separate rates by cabinet type. Confirm that the footage on each quote was measured the same way.
Box construction. Ask what the boxes are made of. Ours are 3/4-inch plywood with CNC-cut dado-and-dowel joinery, never particleboard. A lower per-foot price built on particleboard boxes is a different product, not a better deal.
Hardware, warranty, and timeline. Confirm the hinge and slide brand, whether soft-close is standard, what the workmanship warranty covers and for how long, and the lead time. Published lead times for fully custom work run 8 to 12 weeks. Our shop schedules about six weeks from design approval, and every job carries a 5-year written workmanship warranty from a licensed CSLB contractor.
When Refacing Is the Better Answer
Not every kitchen needs new cabinets. If the boxes on the wall are square, solid, and still doing their job, refacing replaces the doors, drawer fronts, and visible surfaces while keeping the structure. It typically costs 50 to 70 percent less than replacement, with most projects running $4,000 to $9,500 against $10,000 to $25,000 or more for new cabinets. We build full custom kitchens, so we have no reason to steer anyone toward the smaller job. If your boxes pass our assessment, we will say so, and you can weigh cabinet refacing costs against new construction with real numbers for both.
Other Rooms Price Differently
The linear-foot model fits kitchens and long built-in runs, but not every room. A custom bathroom vanity is priced by the piece, from around $700 for a single-sink unit up to $15,000 for a large primary-bath build. Commercial cabinets and casework are priced from drawings: laminate grade, ADA counter sections, and phasing around other trades set the number more than footage does, and most packages in this metro land between $5,000 and $30,000.
FAQs
How much do custom kitchen cabinets cost?
Fully custom kitchen cabinets run $500 to $1,200 per linear foot installed, so a 20-foot kitchen costs roughly $10,000 to $24,000. The national average across all custom cabinet projects is $7,472, with a typical range of $2,808 to $12,980, a figure that also includes small jobs like single vanities.
What is the custom cabinets price per linear foot?
Expect $500 to $1,200 per linear foot for fully custom cabinetry with installation included. Species sets most of the spread: birch and maple run $300 to $400 per foot, white oak $400 to $600, and walnut $700 and up. Always confirm whether a quote is installed or cabinet-only before comparing rates.
How much do custom cabinets cost for a 10x10 kitchen?
A 10x10 kitchen is the industry benchmark, with about 20 linear feet of cabinets along two walls. At $500 to $1,200 per foot installed, custom cabinetry for that room runs $10,000 to $24,000. Refacing the same kitchen typically costs $7,000 to $12,000 if the existing boxes are sound.
Why do custom cabinets cost so much more than stock?
Stock cabinets run $100 to $300 per linear foot because they are mass-produced in fixed 3-inch sizes. Custom is built to your measured walls in any species and dimension. The premium buys exact fit, plywood boxes, and a finish chosen for your kitchen instead of filler strips and dead corners, and it should last decades rather than a single remodel cycle.
Is it cheaper to reface cabinets or replace them?
Yes, refacing is cheaper when the cabinet boxes are structurally sound. It runs 50 to 70 percent less than replacement, typically $4,000 to $9,500 versus $10,000 to $25,000 or more for new cabinets. If the boxes are failing, new doors are money burned, which is why we inspect the structure before quoting either option.
Ready to put a real number on your kitchen? We offer a free in-home consultation across Cerritos and the surrounding cities, laser-measure the room, and return a firm written quote with installation included. Call (562) 262-5720 to schedule.
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