Kitchen Remodel Cost Calculator
A kitchen remodel costs about $30,000 in Atlanta with new stock cabinets, in a range of $18,923 to $41,078. But the useful number is the split, not the total: 26% of it is cabinets and 25% is appliances, so two decisions settle most of the budget. Keeping the cabinets and changing everything else is $17,058; refacing them is $27,096. This calculator prices all of it and runs backwards from a budget too.
Estimate the cost for your home
Estimated cost of the finished kitchen
$30,446
typical · range $19,353 to $41,539 · 160 sq ft · 20 linear ft of cabinet · 97 trade hours
Labour priced at national wages. Enter a ZIP code to price it for your area. 82% of this figure comes from modelled material prices — each line shows its own uncertainty.
Priced from bls.gov Aug 2026epa.gov Aug 2026and 3 more, all listed below
The one input that changes the answer for you.
Standard sizes off a shelf or on a short lead time. The commonest choice in America and the one most quotes assume. Gaps get filled with fillers.
Engineered stone: consistent slab to slab, never needs sealing. ⚠️ Up to 95% crystalline silica, which matters for whoever cuts it rather than for you.
Where most kitchens land. Quieter dishwashers, better door seals, and a fridge that will still be running in twelve years.
Waterproof, warm underfoot, down in a day. The most forgiving floor for a room with a dishwasher in it.
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The figure above is already calculated. Each step just makes it more yours, and you can stop at any of them.
Where this lands on the budget people search for
Most people arrive with a number already decided. This is the same calculation read backwards.
This one is a $40,000 kitchen — the model puts it at $30,446, in a range of $19,353 to $41,539. The lever that moves it most is the first row of the breakdown below, and the second lever is the row under it.
⚠️ These are trade prices. A general contractor coordinating the four trades adds a margin on top of all of them, and it is not in this figure.
Where the money actually goes
Calculated from the line items below, not asserted. It re-sorts as you change things.
- Cabinets
- 26%
- Floor, walls and finishing
- 26%
- Appliances and hood
- 24%
- Countertop and backsplash
- 19%
- Plumbing and electrical
- 6%
On this configuration the biggest single group is cabinets, at 26%. In an ordinary remodel that is the cabinets, and deciding what happens to them — keep, reface, or replace, and at which grade — settles more of the budget than everything else put together. Appliances are the only group that can overtake them, and they do it the moment you go to professional or integrated.
| Line item | Qty | Cost | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Strip out the kitchen6 h + 0.5 h per linear foot where the cabinets come out | 16hour | $704–$756 | sourced |
| Skip and disposal1 where the kitchen is stripped | 1job | $320–$880 | estimated±47% |
| Permit and inspection1 where a permit is pulled | 1permit | $180–$780 | estimated±63% |
| New stock cabinets (allowance)linear feet where the cabinets are new stock | 20allowance | $4,600–$11,200 | estimated±42% |
| Quartz countertop (allowance)1 where the countertop is quartz | 1allowance | $3,000–$7,300 | estimated±42% |
| Plumber: sink, waste and appliance connections6 plumber hours | 6hour | $357–$384 | sourced |
| Electrician: circuits, GFCI and lighting14 electrician hours | 14hour | $826–$887 | sourced |
| Cable, breakers and devices1 per job | 1job | $280–$820 | estimated±49% |
| Mid-range appliance set (allowance)1 where the appliance set is mid | 1allowance | $4,100–$9,200 | estimated±38% |
| Ducted extractor hood and duct run1 where the hood is ducted outside | 1job | $320–$1,100 | estimated±55% |
| Backsplash tile and setting materialsbacksplash area where one is tiled | 15sq ft | $60–$270 | estimated±64% |
| Set the backsplash tilebacksplash area × 0.4 hours per sq ft | 6hour | $312–$335 | sourced |
| Luxury vinyl plank flooringfloor area where the floor is lvp | 160sq ft | $512–$1,152 | estimated±38% |
| Lay the floorfloor area × hours per sq ft for the chosen floor | 19.2hour | $1,012–$1,087 | sourced |
| Sink and tap1 set | 1set | $280–$1,400 | estimated±67% |
| Board, compound and paint1 where the cabinets come out | 1job | $180–$560 | estimated±51% |
| Board, tape and paint14 h + 0.1 h per sq ft where the cabinets come out | 30hour | $1,650–$1,773 | sourced |
| Light fittings and under-cabinet lighting1 where lighting is included | 1set | $260–$1,100 | estimated±62% |
| Caulk, adjust and final clean1 per job | 1job | $60–$190 | estimated±52% |
| Snagging and cleaning hours6 hours | 6hour | $339–$364 | sourced |
| Total | $19,353–$41,539 | ±36% |
Where these numbers come from
- The decision that settles the budget
- Almost everyone frames a kitchen as keep it or replace it. There are four options and the two in the middle are the ones nobody prices: $17,058 keeps the cabinets and changes everything around them, $27,096 refaces them, $30,000 replaces them with stock, and $52,736 goes semi-custom with professional appliances. That is a spread of nearly six to one on the same room. The test for which belongs to you is not the price: it is whether you would still choose this layout if somebody handed you an empty room. If yes, the two middle options are live. If no, only the last two are.
- Labour rates by area
- BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025, for carpenters, plumbers, electricians, floor layers, tile setters, drywall installers and labourers, adjusted to your metropolitan area. Retrieved 2026-08-20. Benefit load from BLS Employer Costs for Employee Compensation. ⚠️ Tile and stone setters are published for only 141 of the 530 areas in our index, so on a tiled floor or backsplash that hour often comes from the broader construction group for the same area.
- What moving the sink really costs
- About $1,228 on this kitchen — twelve more plumber hours plus pipe. A kitchen waste needs fall and a vent, and both have to be found in a floor or a wall that already has other things in it. Moving the sink to an island is the hardest version and it usually means opening the floor. It is a question worth settling before falling in love with a drawing, and it is the one difference between two otherwise identical quotes that nobody asks about.
- The order things have to happen in
- Appliances are chosen before cabinets, because their dimensions decide the cabinet sizes around them. Cabinets go in before the countertop, because the top cannot be templated until they are set and level. The sink is chosen before the top is cut, because the cutout is made to it. And the floor goes down before the cabinets in a full remodel, so appliances can be pulled out later without meeting a step. Each of those is a fortnight of delay if it happens in the wrong order, and none costs anything to get right. ENERGY STAR, Dishwashers is worth a look while choosing, since a dishwasher runs for a decade. Retrieved 2026-08-23.
- Three regulated things in a kitchen
- Cabinet boxes are composite wood products under the standards the EPA administers following the Formaldehyde Standards for Composite Wood Products Act of 2010 — EPA, Formaldehyde Emission Standards for Composite Wood Products. Cutting an old tiled splashback is respirable crystalline silica work under OSHA 1926.1153, Respirable crystalline silica. And removing painted cabinetry in a house built before 1978 is far above the threshold in EPA, Lead Renovation, Repair and Painting Program, so paid work has to be done by a certified firm. All retrieved 2026-08-23.
- And one about the people making your countertop
- CDC NIOSH, Silica and countertop work states that some engineered stone products — quartz — are made of up to 95% crystalline silica, and names countertop work as a primary exposure concern for workers. It is not a hazard to you once the top is in and it does not change the price on this page. It is a reason to ask a fabricator whether they cut wet and extract, and to be wary of the quote that is far below everyone else’s. Retrieved 2026-08-23.
- Material prices
- Modelled estimates, not sourced prices. No public, machine-readable source of US residential material prices exists, and we would rather say so than pretend otherwise. Each line carries its own uncertainty band. How we estimate them.
Contractor overhead and profit applied at 33–43% over direct cost. Data last reviewed 2026-08-23.
What this figure does not include
- A general contractor's margin
- Every figure here is a trade price: what the carpenter, the plumber, the electrician and the tiler charge, each already including their own overhead and profit. A general contractor who coordinates them, holds the schedule and carries the risk adds a further margin on top of all of them, typically in the low tens of percent. That is real work and it is not in this number.
- Moving or removing walls
- Opening a kitchen into a dining room is framing and often structural, and it changes the electrical, the heating and sometimes the floor above. It is a different project with a different price and it needs an engineer rather than a calculator.
- What is found once the units are out
- A slow leak under a sink cabinet, a floor that is not level, old wiring with no ground, or a wall that turns out to be plaster over lath are all normal findings, and none can be priced beforehand. Agree an hourly rate for repairs in writing before the strip-out.
- Windows, doors and heating
- A new window over the sink, a wider doorway or a radiator that has to move are each separate jobs. Whatever heats the room today is assumed to stay.
- Asbestos and lead in older houses
- Sheet flooring and mastic from before the eighties can contain asbestos, and removing painted cabinetry in pre-1978 housing is far above the federal lead threshold. Testing comes first and neither is priced here.
Questions people actually ask
Can I remodel my kitchen for $10,000?
Yes, and only one version of it. At trade prices in Atlanta the cheapest job that still changes the kitchen comes to $8,844: a laminate countertop, a builder-grade appliance set, the sink and tap and the connections that go with them. The cabinets, the floor, the backsplash and the lighting all stay. Move up to a quartz countertop, a tiled backsplash, a mid-range appliance set, a ducted hood and new lighting — still keeping the cabinets and the floor — and it is $17,058. What $10,000 does not buy is any change to the cabinets, and that is the honest limit rather than a compromise: touching the cabinets is what takes a kitchen past $27,096.
Is $25,000 enough for a kitchen remodel?
It is enough for a real one, and it is just short of a full replacement. Refacing the cabinets and putting in a new quartz countertop, backsplash, appliances, floor and lighting comes to $27,096 in Atlanta, in a range of $16,724 to $37,468 — so $25,000 lands inside it depending on how the choices fall. Stripping the kitchen out and fitting new stock cabinets is $30,000. The gap between those two is not quality, it is whether the layout changes: refacing keeps the boxes where they are, and if you have ever wished the kitchen were arranged differently, that is the thing $25,000 will not buy.
What is a realistic budget for renovating a kitchen?
Start from where the money goes rather than from a total. On a standard remodel with new stock cabinets this model splits $30,000 as 26% cabinets, 25% appliances and hood, 19% countertop and backsplash, 25% floor, walls and finishing, and 6% plumbing and electrical. Two of those five decide nearly everything: settle what happens to the cabinets and what grade of appliance you want, and the budget is mostly settled with them. A realistic range for a whole kitchen runs from $17,058 keeping the cabinets to $52,736 with semi-custom cabinets and professional appliances, and every figure on this page is a trade price with no general contractor's margin in it.
What is the 30% rule for renovations?
It is a rule of thumb rather than a rule, and it is worth knowing that before using it. There is no authoritative source for it and no single definition: it circulates as "spend no more than 30% of your home's value on a renovation", as "a kitchen should be 10 to 15% of the home's value", and as "keep 30% of the budget back for contingencies" — three incompatible claims sharing one number. We do not publish guidance on what share of a home's value anyone should spend, because that is a financial question about your situation rather than a construction one, and it is not what this site measures. What we can give you instead is the thing those rules are all approximating badly: an itemised figure for the kitchen you are actually describing, with the assumptions written out so you can check them. The one version of the rule with an obvious grain of truth is the contingency: on this model a kitchen's range runs from $18,923 to $41,078 around a typical $30,000, so holding money back for what is found behind the units is not folklore.
Taken from Google’s “people also ask” results for this search on 21 August 2026, not invented.
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- The full kitchen remodel cost dataset
Every unit price, every quantity rule and the reasoning behind each estimate, as a plain table.
- How we calculate
The formula, the sources, and an honest account of which parts of the model are weak.