Walk-In Shower Cost Calculator
A walk-in shower costs about $4,601 in Atlanta at 60 by 36 inches, tiled, with sliding glass, in a range of $2,821 to $6,381. Converting an existing tub alcove is cheaper than most people expect — about $3,745 with panelled walls — because the opening, the drain and the pipework are already there. This calculator prices your own dimensions and then checks them against the published ADA shower sizes, which is the only objective answer to whether a shower is accessible.
Estimate the cost for your home
Estimated cost of the finished shower
$4,799
typical · range $3,012 to $6,586 · 60 × 36 in · 15.0 sq ft of floor · 77 sq ft of wet wall
Labour priced at national wages. Enter a ZIP code to price it for your area. 67% of this figure comes from modelled material prices — each line shows its own uncertainty.
Priced from bls.gov Aug 2026osha.gov Aug 2026and 1 more, all listed below
The one input that changes the answer for you.
The cheapest starting point there is, and it is geometry rather than luck: an American tub alcove is 60 inches long, its drain is already at one end and its supplies are already in the wall.
One piece, one seam at the wall, and nothing to leak inside it. The cheapest reliable base and the one a plumber can set in a morning — but it comes in fixed sizes, so the shower has to suit the pan rather than the other way round.
Every joint is a joint someone has to make. It is the dearest wall here and the only one you can size, shape and repair piece by piece.
Needs no swing space, which is why it survives in small bathrooms. The track is the part that collects everything and eventually the part that fails.
A raised lip holds the water in. Standard, cheap, and the thing people trip on.
1 / 5
The figure above is already calculated. Each step just makes it more yours, and you can stop at any of them.
Does this size count as an accessible shower?
Measured against the two shower sizes defined in the 2010 ADA Standards, §608.2 — the only published dimensions there are.
- Transfer shower36 × 36 in clear inside
- meets it
- Standard roll-in shower30 × 60 in clear inside, 60 in entry
- meets it
Sized so somebody can move across from a wheelchair onto a seat, with the controls and bars reachable from it.
Sized so a shower chair can be wheeled straight in without transferring at all.
At 36 by 60 inches this clears both. Worth knowing why that is so common: a standard American tub alcove is 60 inches long, and 60 inches is exactly the entry width the roll-in standard asks for. The tub you already have is sitting in an opening that already meets it.
⚠️ These standards govern public buildings, not private homes. Nothing here is required in a house — it is simply the only published definition of what “accessible” means in inches, and it is what a contractor builds to when asked for one.
| Line item | Qty | Cost | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Strip out the existing shower or tublabourer hours by what is being taken out | 5job | $220–$236 | sourced |
| Skip and disposal1 where anything is taken out | 1job | $140–$420 | estimated±50% |
| Moulded acrylic or solid-surface pan1 where the base is a moulded acrylic or solid-surface pan | 1base | $240–$720 | estimated±50% |
| Set and slope the basehours by base type | 3.5hour | $182–$195 | sourced |
| Plumber: drain, supplies and valve rough-in4 plumber hours, 9 where the drain moves | 4hour | $238–$256 | sourced |
| Mixing valve and shower trim1 valve and trim set | 1set | $150–$520 | estimated±55% |
| Backer board and waterproof membranewetted perimeter × tiled height | 77sq ft | $177–$416 | estimated±40% |
| Wall tilewetted wall area where this surface is chosen | 77sq ft | $200–$1,001 | estimated±67% |
| Set the wall surfacewall area × hours per sq ft for the chosen surface | 13.1hour | $681–$732 | sourced |
| Recessed niche: frame, waterproofing and trim1 where a niche is built | 1niche | $70–$210 | estimated±50% |
| Build and tile the niche1.8 hours where a niche is built | 1.8hour | $94–$101 | sourced |
| Sliding or bypass doors, supplied and fittedone enclosure where this glass is chosen | 1enclosure | $430–$1,450 | estimated±54% |
| Grout, silicone and sealer1 per shower | 1job | $60–$190 | estimated±52% |
| Grout, seal and final clean2.5 hours per shower | 2.5hour | $130–$140 | sourced |
| Total | $3,012–$6,586 | ±37% |
Where these numbers come from
- The only published definition of an accessible shower
- The Department of Justice, 2010 ADA Standards for Accessible Design, §608 set two sizes and no others. A transfer shower is 36 by 36 inches clear inside with a 36-inch entry; a standard roll-in is 30 inches wide minimum by 60 deep minimum with a 60-inch entry. US Access Board, Guide to the ADA Standards — Bathing Rooms explains what each is for. ⚠️ Both govern public buildings and neither applies to a private house — we use them because they are the only numbers anybody has published, and because a contractor asked for an accessible shower will build to them. Retrieved 2026-08-23.
- Why this gets asked at all
- CDC, Older Adult Falls Data reports that over 14 million adults aged 65 and over — one in four — report falling each year, and that about 37% of those who fall reported an injury needing medical treatment or restricting activity for at least a day. That is the reason a step over a tub wall becomes a question, and it is why the curb and the grab bar blocking are their own lines here rather than upgrades. Retrieved 2026-08-23.
- Labour rates by area, and one honest caveat
- BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025, for plumbers, carpenters, electricians, labourers and tile setters, 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 — the thinnest coverage of any trade here, and the trade that does most of the hours in a tiled shower. Outside those 141 that hour is priced from the broader construction group for the same area, which is a real approximation and the largest single source of error on this page.
- Cutting the old one out is regulated work
- Breaking up a mortar bed or cutting old tile is respirable crystalline silica exposure under OSHA 1926.1153, Respirable crystalline silica, which requires engineering controls and a written exposure control plan. In practice that means the saws run wet and the room is contained. A crew cutting tile dry in your bathroom is telling you something about the rest of the job. Retrieved 2026-08-22.
- The head, which is the cheapest decision here
- EPA WaterSense, Showerheads states that a showerhead earning the WaterSense label must use no more than 2.0 gallons per minute, against the 2.5 gpm federal maximum. Over a ten-minute shower that is five gallons, every day, for the life of the fitting — and it costs nothing extra to specify at the point where you are already choosing one. 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
- The rest of the bathroom
- This page prices a shower, not a room. Floor tiling outside the shower, the vanity, the toilet, the lighting and the painting are a bathroom remodel, and there is a separate calculator for that.
- Rot or damage found behind the old shower
- Studs and subfloor soaked by a shower that leaked for years are the commonest surprise in this job, and nobody can price them before the wall is open. Ask for the hourly rate for repairs in writing before the strip-out starts, because that is the moment you lose the ability to compare quotes.
- Moving walls, windows or the room itself
- Making the shower bigger by taking space from a cupboard or a bedroom is framing, and possibly structural. It is a different job with a different set of trades.
- Anything that makes this a medically necessary installation
- This is a construction estimate. It is not an assessment of what somebody needs, and the accessible dimensions quoted here are a published federal standard for public buildings rather than a recommendation for any particular person. An occupational therapist assesses that, and does it properly.
- Lead and asbestos work in older houses
- Sheet flooring, mastic and some wall boards from before the eighties can contain asbestos, and painted surfaces in pre-1978 housing bring the federal lead renovation rule into play above its own threshold. Testing comes first and neither is priced here.
Questions people actually ask
How much does the average walk-in shower cost?
About $4,601 in Atlanta for a 60 by 36 inch shower, tiled, with sliding glass and a niche, in a range of $2,821 to $6,381. But an average is the least useful number here, because three choices move it more than anything else does and none of them is about quality. The glass is the first: going from an open entry to frameless hinged panels adds about $2,225 on its own. A curbless entry is the second, at $694. And the wall surface is the third, because tile is three days of somebody's time and a panel is one. Set those three and the average stops mattering.
What is the average cost to convert a bathtub to a shower?
Less than people expect, and the honest way to see it is against the alternative. Putting a new tub back in the same alcove is about $3,180 in Atlanta; converting that alcove to a shower with panelled walls and a fixed glass panel is $3,745 — a difference of about $565. Tiled with sliding doors it is $4,509. The reason it is not double is geometry: a standard American tub alcove is 60 inches long with the drain already at one end and the supplies already in the wall, so a shower dropped into it reuses the opening, the drain and the pipework. What makes a conversion expensive is deciding to move the drain, go curbless, or do both.
How much does it cost to remove a bathtub and install a walk-in shower?
Taking the tub out is about $483 of the total — five labourer hours and the disposal — and the rest is building the shower. That ratio is worth carrying into any quote you receive: if the removal is being priced as a large separate item, ask what is in it. The wall does have to be opened to get the tub out, because a tub flange is nailed to the studs and the wall surface is built over it, but that wall was coming off anyway to build the new shower. Where the removal genuinely does cost more is a cast iron tub, which comes out in pieces rather than whole, and an upstairs bathroom, where everything has to go down a staircase.
Will Medicare pay for a walk-in shower?
Generally no, and the reason is in a definition rather than in a list. 42 CFR 414.202 defines durable medical equipment as equipment meeting five conditions, and the fourth is that it "generally is not useful to an individual in the absence of an illness or injury". A shower is useful to everybody, so it does not meet that condition: it is a home modification rather than equipment, and Original Medicare does not cover home modifications. Grab bars fall the same way. Some Medicare Advantage plans do offer home modification as a supplemental benefit, and that varies by plan and by year, so the only reliable answer for your own situation comes from your own plan or from Medicare directly. This page prices the construction. It does not tell you what you are entitled to, and it should not be read as though it does.
Taken from Google’s “people also ask” results for this search on 23 August 2026, not invented.
Other cost calculators
The first of these are the jobs closest to this one — the ones that turn up in the same quote, or instead of it.
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- Bathtub refinishing cost
Works out the cost per year against a new tub, then shows what nobody says: a second coating cannot go over the first, so repeating it converges with replacing.
- Bathroom addition cost
Prices the drain, the vent and the joist work no quote itemises, and the pump a bathroom below the sewer line cannot do without.
- The full walk-in shower 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.