Guides / Estimating
Quoting cabinet painting
Cabinet refinishing is the highest-margin work many painting companies do and the easiest to underprice, because almost none of the cost is in the painting. It is prep, logistics and finish quality, and the customer's expectations are closer to furniture than to walls.
Count units, do not measure area
Price per door, per drawer front, and per linear foot of box and face frame. Square footage is nearly meaningless here, because the time is in handling, masking and finishing each piece, not in covering area.
A kitchen with 28 doors and 12 drawers is a known quantity of work. The same kitchen described as 180 square feet tells you nothing useful.
The prep is the job
Degreasing — kitchen cabinets carry years of cooking residue, and a finish applied over it will fail regardless of the product. Then sanding or deglossing every surface, filling, caulking where appropriate, and priming with something that bonds to the existing finish.
Skip or rush any of this and the failure is visible, on a surface the customer touches every day, in a room they are in constantly. Cabinets are the job where cutting prep is least survivable.
Logistics people forget to price
- Removing, labelling and rehanging every door and drawer front, with the hardware kept in order
- Setting up a spray area, on site or at a shop, with the dust control that implies
- Dry and cure time between coats — a cabinet job occupies more calendar days than labor days
- The customer having no kitchen for the duration, which shapes the schedule more than the work does
- Hardware: reusing, replacing, or drilling new holes for different centers
The finish standard is the price
A brushed finish, a sprayed finish on site, and a sprayed finish in a controlled shop environment are three different products at three different prices, and the customer cannot be expected to know which one they are imagining.
Show examples and state which you are quoting. Most disputes on cabinet work are a customer who pictured a factory finish and was quoted a brushed one.
Why the margin is good
Material cost is low relative to price, the work is skilled enough that the field is thinner, and the result is highly visible — which makes cabinet jobs an unusually strong source of referrals and photographs.
If you can do it well, it is worth building the pricing properly rather than treating it as an add-on to an interior quote.
Questions
How do you price cabinet painting?
Per door, per drawer front, and per linear foot of box and face frame. The cost is in handling, masking and finishing each piece, so unit counts are the right basis — not square footage.
Why is cabinet painting so expensive?
Almost none of the cost is painting. It is degreasing, sanding, priming, removing and rehanging every door, setting up a spray environment, and cure time between coats.
Spray or brush for cabinets?
They are different products at different prices. Show examples and state which you are quoting — most cabinet disputes are a customer who pictured a sprayed factory finish and was quoted a brushed one.
Where this stops being arithmetic
Aerys prices a job from your own catalog and production rates, sends it with an accept link and the invoice already attached, and then compares what the job actually cost against what you quoted — by task, while the job is still running.