Cabinets are priced by the foot, and by who is buying the boxes
Linear feet of base and wall cabinet, times a rate: a cabinet quote is the easiest arithmetic in the house, right up to the question of who is buying the cabinets. Some of your customers have already ordered from a big-box store and want them hung level. Others want you to supply them from a line they pick. Those are two different businesses on the same footage, and a single rate gets one of them wrong by thousands.
So this page does what the flooring page does with its material families: one instant service per way you sell. Install only carries your labor by the foot; supplied and installed carries a rate per foot with a stock line in it, and the line she picks moves it. The island and taking the old cabinets out are asked the same way on both. Install only also asks the crown, the age of the house (an older one needs every box shimmed) and the trim, because those are your labor; the supplied rate already carries the crown and the fillers, and the disclaimer says so.
The flow also asks for a photo of the room, and the lead tells you to ask for those pictures on the callback. Attaching the image itself to the lead is on the roadmap, which is why it is not a tick in that list.
The eight things that set a cabinet number
Four lengths, two pick-ones, a yes or no and a ZIP. You build the set once in the dashboard and every rate in it is a field you own — you can change a per-foot rate the day your supplier changes theirs without touching your website.
Base cabinets
Linear feet along the wall under where the countertop goes, corners counted once. Homeowners measure this one well, because it is the number the showroom asked them for. On the demo, $95 a foot to install her cabinets and $340 a foot to supply and install a stock line.
Wall cabinets
The uppers, measured the same way, at their own rate: $85 a foot to install and $290 to supply and install on the demo. Tell her in the help text that a tall pantry cabinet counts as two feet here; she will ask.
The island
A pick-one that adds dollars once, because an island is one piece of work set square to everything else in the room: no island, cabinets only, or an island with a seating overhang. $650 and $900 to install on the demo; $2,400 and $3,600 supplied.
Crown molding
Linear feet, multiplied: $18 a foot on the demo. Usually the same as her wall cabinets, and the help text says so, which saves the question on the callback.
The old cabinets
A yes or no with a flat amount: $450 on the demo for taking them down without wrecking the wall behind and hauling them away. It is added once for the job, however many boxes there are.
How old the house is
Built in the last 25 years at the rate, older with some shimming +8%, old and out of level everywhere +15%. A percentage on the whole job, because a wall that is out of plumb slows every box on it, and she knows how old her house is even when she does not know how flat it is.
Baseboard and casing
Finish trim by the linear foot, cut, fitted and nailed ready for paint: $7.50 a foot on the demo. The question that turns a cabinet install into the whole room, and the one finish carpenters forget to ask.
Travel zone
List your ZIPs by zone, whole ZIPs or three-digit prefixes, and the widget prices the trip from the ZIP she types, most specific match first, as a flat charge, a percentage, or both. Our demo shop charges nothing in its home county and $95 out to the ring beyond it, so the same kitchen comes back $4,903 to $5,992 at home and $4,988 to $6,097 in Columbia. Set one zone to "outside my area" and it declines politely while still capturing the lead.
A real kitchen install, start to finish
Eight questions, about a minute. This is the exact sequence running on the install-only service of our own cabinet demo account, answered for a kitchen in an older Towson house whose owner has already bought her cabinets — and the total at the bottom is what the live engine returns for these answers, not a figure anybody typed into this page.
| # | What she is asked | What she answers | What it does to the price |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | How many linear feet of base cabinets? | 22 | 22 × $95 = $2,090. This is THE base number |
| 2 | How many linear feet of wall cabinets? | 18 | 18 × $85 = $1,530 |
| 3 | Is there an island? | Island, cabinets only | A flat $650 for the job |
| 4 | How many linear feet of crown molding on the cabinets? | 18 | 18 × $18 = $324 |
| 5 | Are the old cabinets coming out? | Yes | A flat $450 for the job |
| 6 | How old is the house? | Older, some shimming expected | +8% on the whole job. Newer 0%, out of level everywhere +15% |
| 7 | How many linear feet of new baseboard or door casing? | 0 | Nothing. A number question at zero adds nothing |
| 8 | Got a photo of the room? | Offered | Nothing. A photo never moves the price |
| The arithmetic, in the order the engine runs it | $2,090 + $1,530 + $650 + $324 + $450 = $5,044, then the one percentage answer, the older house at +8%, applies once to all of it: → $5,447.52 | ||
| She sees | $4,903 – $5,992 | ||
| What lands in your inbox, the second she submits | Name, mobile, ZIP, all eight answers, and the photo flag | ||
Every rate in that table belongs to the demo account, not to a Tailgate Office price list — you set all of them yourself, and you can change one without touching your website. What is not illustrative is the total: $4,903 to $5,992 is what the engine returns for those eight answers, for installing cabinets she has bought.
Would you rather try it than read about it? We keep a working example cabinet and finish carpentry company website with NapkinPrice™ embedded — the real engine, quoting live, on a page that is not ours. Put in those eight answers and see the same number come back.
Try the live demo site (opens in a new tab)Her cabinets on one rate, yours on another, and the built-ins on a visit
This is the one design decision that matters in cabinets, so here is the whole of it in plain words rather than a promise that it all just works.
There are five kinds of pricing rule in the engine and none of them multiplies one answer by another. A number question carries a per-unit rate — the feet of base and wall, the crown, the trim. A pick-one adds dollars once or takes a percentage of the whole job. What it cannot do is change the per-foot rate because she answered “supply them too”, and pretending otherwise on a marketing page is how you end up with a product that does not do what the website said.
As a percentage, supplying the cabinets would be several hundred percent on top of the labor, and the pool would mark up the removal fee and the island with it. So our demo runs two instant services: install only, at $95 and $85 a foot, and supplied and installed, at $340 and $290 a foot with a stock line in the rate. Inside the second, the line she picks is a percentage small enough to be believable: semi-custom +30%, custom +75%. She picks the service first, which is how she thinks about it anyway: either she has bought the cabinets or she has not.
The supplied service carries a wider band on purpose, 12% against 10%, because the door style and the finish are chosen later in a showroom. The same kitchen, supplied in a semi-custom line with an island up to six feet, comes back $17,789 – $22,641; in a stock line, $13,684 to $17,416.
Cabinet installation, her cabinets — quotes instantly
$95 a foot of base and $85 of wall on the demo, with the island, the crown, the removal, the trim and an older house moving the job. A $1,200 minimum is the floor under the final number, applied after every rule and the travel zone, so a 120-foot trim job that works out at $900 comes back $1,200 to $1,320. Past $30,000 it stops pricing and hands you the lead.
Cabinets supplied and installed — quotes instantly
$340 a foot of base and $290 of wall with a stock line in the rate, semi-custom +30% and custom +75%, an island up to six feet at $2,400 and over six at $3,600. Its own $4,500 minimum and $45,000 ceiling, and a 12% band because the doors and the finish are chosen later. Countertops, plumbing and electrical are not in it, and the disclaimer says so.
Built-ins, closets and refacing — site visit, never priced
Site-visit mode captures the request and shows no number at all, which is the honest answer to a window seat nobody has designed yet. It asks what she is thinking about, bookcases, a closet system, new doors on her old boxes or wainscoting, and roughly how many feet of wall, which moves no money and only tells you how long to book the visit. She gets a plain "we like to see it first" note; you get a lead worth bidding.
A service that quotes will not go live until it carries a real base fee or a real minimum. That is deliberate: a service with neither would happily return $0 to a homeowner, and one bad number on your website costs more than a day of setup. Neither cabinet service carries a trip charge, so on both of them it is the minimum doing that job.
A cabinet lead pays for the software for a long time, and it comes in while you are scribing a filler
Nobody in this trade misses calls on purpose. You miss them with a box on your shoulder and a level in your other hand, or because the miter saw is running in somebody’s garage. She is planning a kitchen, not fixing a leak: she is working down a list, and the installer who sends her something first is the one who gets to measure. In a trade where one kitchen is weeks of booked work, the call you could not take is a month of it.
| What a missed cabinet call is worth | On the demo account |
|---|---|
| Installing her cabinets: 40 feet, an island, crown | $4,903 – $5,992 |
| The same kitchen supplied, semi-custom | $17,789 – $22,641 |
| The same kitchen supplied, stock line | $13,684 – $17,416 |
| A small kitchen, 18 feet, installed | $1,597 – $1,951 |
| One recovered install pays for | 24 months of the bundle |
| One recovered supplied kitchen pays for | 89 months |
Once texting is switched on, CallMitt™ writes back by text with your business name in the first words, so she replies into the same thread as her quote. The message is picked by the hour and the day, against the hours you actually keep — the demo shop runs 7 to 4, because the boxes are carried in at seven and the van is loaded again by four, so a 4:20 call gets the after-hours version rather than one claiming somebody is in the shop — and every version asks the two things that sort your week: which room, and roughly how many feet of cabinets.
Straight about where this stands. The forwarded-call hook is built and waits on your texting number, so today you log the missed call and nothing is sent: a reply queued now is retired rather than delivered when your carrier registration clears. Everything around it is built and running now: the five messages, the business-hours, weekend, holiday and vacation rules, the quiet hours, the opt-out handling, and the thread her reply lands in beside her quote.
How CallMitt Works Run Your Own NumbersA finish carpenter is hired on one question, and it is about a crooked wall
Anybody can screw a box to a wall. What separates a finish carpenter from a helper is the house that is not square: the wall that bows half an inch, the floor that drops toward the window, the filler that has to be scribed so the gap disappears. Has he done that himself? A man who has can tell you how in a sentence, and a man who has not will learn it on your customer’s kitchen.
Put “Now hiring — text CREW to your texting number” on the van and the shop door. CrewFunnel™ asks seven short questions: is he 18 or older, does he have his own hand tools and a valid driver’s license, has he scribed a cabinet or a filler to an out-of-level wall himself, how many years has he done finish carpentry or cabinet installation, how far out does he live, can he start inside two weeks, and what was the last job he worked on. Three are knockouts — under 18, no tools or license, or living further out than you will drive — and the rest come back as a weighted fit score, years in the trade heaviest, the start date next and the scribing question after it.
Two things about that scoring are worth copying. Distance is a knockout and never a weight, because a number answer scores higher the bigger it is, so weighting miles would rank the man furthest away at the top. And free text carries no weight, because any non-empty answer scores full marks and a weighted text box inflates every candidate who typed anything. Both are set that way on our demo job, and all seven questions carry a Spanish translation.
One honest note on delivery. Text-to-apply waits on your texting number, so today he answers those seven questions on your screening page rather than by text — same questions, same knockouts, same scoring, same pool. The keyword on the van takes over the day your carrier registration clears.
See how CrewFunnel works
A kitchen gets its review the first time she cooks in it
The last door is adjusted, the crown is caulked, and the first weekend she makes dinner in the new kitchen and every drawer closes the way the showroom one did. That is the week she would write you a review. By the time the countertop people and the plumber have been through, the cabinets are just the kitchen, and the installer who hung them level is a name she has to look up. The outfit with sixty reviews is not sixty times better than you; somebody there asks every customer, the week the kitchen is finished.
HurraBell™ does the asking. Once review requests are switched on, you mark the job done — from the inbox, from your phone, or from your job software through Zapier — and the customer gets one request in your words, with your own Google review link, after a delay you pick: an hour, unless you change it. Three days later, one email reminder, unless the link has been opened or the customer has since texted you, messaged you from your website or had a call logged on her thread.
Review requests aren’t switched on yet, so none is sent today. When they are, the request goes by email once your Google review link is saved on the HurraBell page and your mailing address on the Account page. A text goes as well where the customer ticked the box on your quote form or visit booking agreeing to a review-request text, and only once your carrier registration clears, the same wait as every text on this site; until then it is email only.
See how HurraBell worksOne recovered install covers 24 months
And a supplied kitchen covers 89 of them. In a trade where the shopper is comparing three installers from a showroom parking lot, the arithmetic is not close — it is barely arithmetic.
The Tailgate Office Bundle
Instant quotes on your website, missed-call text-back and text-to-apply hiring (texts go out once texting is switched on), and, once switched on, a review request after every job, plus customers, jobs, estimates and invoices in one place. 30 days free, no credit card, no setup fee, cancel from the dashboard.
Start Free TrialOnly need one of the tools? After the trial you can keep just that one at its own price; the office stays with the Bundle.
Cabinet questions we get asked
You can price a range, and only a range — the widget never shows a single figure. The disclaimer under it is yours to write. On the demo it says the install price covers leveling, shimming, scribing, fillers and hardware, that countertops, plumbing and electrical are not included, and that the price is confirmed when you see the room and the boxes. Nothing is started until she has that written number.
Because the engine cannot multiply one answer by another, as the section above explains, and we would rather tell you that than sell you a form that quietly gets one of your two businesses wrong. As a percentage, supplying the cabinets would be several hundred percent and would mark up the removal fee with it. One service per way you sell gives each a rate that is right for it, and she picks the service before she answers a question.
Not on the demo, and the disclaimer says so in her words: countertops, plumbing and electrical are by others. If you template and install countertops yourself, run them as their own service with their own per-square-foot rate, so the cabinet number stays the cabinet number and she can see what each part costs.
They usually do for a kitchen, because the showroom or the big-box designer asked them for it. The help text says to measure along the wall where the countertop goes and to count a corner once. The lead records exactly what she typed, so when you measure 24 feet against her 22 the conversation is about the difference rather than the whole number.
No, and you should not. Put built-ins, closet systems, refacing and wainscoting on a site-visit service: it asks what she is thinking about and roughly how many feet of wall, shows no price whatsoever, and sends her a plain "we like to see it first" note. A built-in is designed around the room, and nobody should publish a number against a design that does not exist yet.
Our demo says no, and neither instant service carries one. Cabinets go in the same way in February as in July, and the one seasonal pattern this trade has, everybody wanting the kitchen finished before the holidays, is a scheduling problem rather than a pricing one. The field is there if your costs genuinely swing, but inventing a season to fill the box is the fastest way to end up with a number you cannot defend.
Call it fifteen minutes for your text-back messages and your working hours, a minute, once review requests are switched on for your account, to paste your Google review link on the HurraBell page and your mailing address on the Account page, and about an hour to write the eight questions and load one rate card — per foot of base and wall, the island, the crown, the removal, the house-age percentages and the trim. Then most of another hour to clone it into the supplied service with different numbers. A service that quotes will not go live until it carries a real base fee or minimum, which is deliberate. No onboarding call, no setup fee and no contract: $199 a month buys all four tools.
Also run a remodel crew, or lay floors? See all the trade pages or ask us.
Quote the kitchen while she is still holding the tape measure.
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