Count the boxes and price each one. Labor-only, the published range is $55 to $220 a cabinet by region (Eagle Woodworking, May 2026), at 2 to 3 hours a box. Homewyse's September 2026 labor line is 2 hours and $193 to $301 per cabinet with the site in your favor. Then the adders, each on its own line: crown, fillers, finished ends, the island, hardware, tear-out. The per-linear-foot rate everyone quotes, $50 to $200 at Fixr, is for checking the total afterwards. Price the run by the foot and the uppers quietly pay you less than the bases for harder work. On a twenty-box kitchen that is several hundred dollars you never see leave.
What is the labor rate per cabinet to install kitchen cabinets?
Between $55 and $300 a box depending on where you work and whose number you trust.
| Figure | What it covers | Source |
|---|---|---|
| $55-$170 per cabinet, Southeast | Labor only | Eagle Woodworking, 2026 |
| $75-$220 per cabinet, Northeast | Labor only | Eagle Woodworking, 2026 |
| $193-$301 per cabinet, 2.0 hours | Labor only, favorable conditions | Homewyse, Sept 2026 |
| $250-$600 per box | Installed, box included | HomeGuide |
| $50-$200 per linear foot, or $40-$100 per hour | Labor only | Fixr, Jan 2026 |
| 30-50% of the installed total | Labor share | Fixr, Jan 2026 |
Read the Homewyse description before borrowing its number. The 2 hours includes cutting the plumbing holes in the sink base, scribing an exposed panel to the wall, hanging doors and drawers and setting hardware. That is the complete box, finished. If you hang a run of uppers at 45 minutes a box with a helper and a ledger, you are faster than the published figure. Your price should still not be.
The forum numbers tell a different story. On Woodweb a shop owner describes paying his sub $25 a box on new construction and $35 on a remodel, and the sub still clearing about $60 an hour. Those are 2008 production rates on tract houses, five kitchens a week. Another installer in the thread says the difference between that and "a remodeling job where there will be other trades getting in your way" is the whole price. A 2026 remodel in an occupied house, with the client's fridge in the dining room, is the Homewyse number, not the Woodweb one.
Should you price by the box or by the linear foot?
By the box, and the reason is the uppers.
Look at any kitchen wall. The bases are mostly 30 and 36-inch boxes, so per-foot and per-box land near enough the same place. Above the counter it falls apart. Over the range sits a 30-inch box that is 18 inches tall. Over the fridge, a 36 by 15. Beside the window, a 12-inch single. Each one gets lifted, held to the 54-inch line, clamped to its neighbor, face frames drilled and screwed, then screwed into every stud behind it with #10 by 2-1/2 inch screws, the sequence the Hampton Bay guide spells out. The 12-inch box takes nearly the time of the 36. By the foot it pays a third as much.
Run it on one wall. Ten feet of uppers made of a 36, a 30, a 24, an 18 and a 12 is five boxes. Ten feet of bases below is a 36, a 30-inch sink base and two 27s, four boxes. At $100 a linear foot both walls bill $1,000. At $150 a box the uppers bill $750 and the bases $600. Per foot paid the same for both. Per box paid more for the uppers, which is the right way round, because uppers are the harder half and they always have more joints per foot.
Woodweb's installers price this way without calling it a method. One charges $40 a cabinet, counts a tall pantry or oven cabinet as two, and adds $10 for every molding miter. Another counts "anything as a box," filler strips included. Nobody who installs for a living prices by the foot.
Per linear foot has one honest use. Fixr says the average kitchen is 25 to 30 linear feet, so once the boxes are priced, the foot rate says whether the total is believable. A check. Not a price.
What do you charge beyond the boxes?
Each gets a line, and the lines are where the money is on a semi-custom job.
| Adder | Published figure | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Crown molding, whole kitchen | $210-$570 installed | HomeGuide |
| Crown, per foot, sub rate | $2 a foot, doubled when it runs to the ceiling | Woodweb 2008 |
| Fillers | $8 each up to 42 inches | Woodweb 2008 |
| Finished end or back panel | $20 each, or $5 a linear foot | Woodweb |
| Hardware install | $5-$30 per piece, 20-40 pieces typical | Eagle Woodworking |
| Ceiling-height uppers | add 10% or more | HomeGuide |
| Tear-out and disposal | $15-$20 per linear foot, or $350-$1,000 | HomeGuide, Fixr |
Notice the sub's crown rule: double it when it goes to the ceiling. Crown on top of a 30-inch upper with air above is a straight run and a few miters. Crown that closes to the ceiling is scribed to a ceiling that is not flat, and in a house older than about 1970 it never is. HomeGuide's 10% for ceiling-height is light for that.
The island is the line most often folded into the box count, and it should not be. There is no wall. The boxes get screwed to each other, then to cleats anchored through the finished floor into the subfloor, after the whole footprint is taped out and checked against the clearances. Then the back and both exposed ends get panels, and the overhang usually wants supports. Four boxes of island is six to eight boxes of time.
Fillers are cheap and they are a trap. The $8 is for cutting the strip. The cost is finding out you need one you did not plan on, because the wall is out of square and the run lands three-quarters of an inch short. That is the walkthrough's job, covered in what to charge for a kitchen remodel. The crown and light rail lines are priced the same way as baseboard and casing.
What does an out-of-level floor cost you on a cabinet install?
Half a day, usually. You find out on the walkthrough or you find out with the boxes in the driveway.
Every manufacturer's guide starts the same way. Hampton Bay's says to check the floor with a 4-foot level, find the high point along the wall, and measure up 34-1/2 inches from there for the base line, 54 for the bottom of the uppers. From the high point. So every other spot on the floor is low, every base on a low spot gets shimmed up to the line, and the toe kick gets scribed to hide the gap. On a floor that drops a quarter inch over twelve feet, that is a few shims. On a 1950s slab that has settled three-quarters of an inch toward the back door, every base on the run is shimmed, the toe kick tapers visibly, the dishwasher opening is too short at one end, and the end panel needs a wedge cut to meet the floor.
So the level comes out at the walkthrough. Lay it along each run and across the island footprint, and write the drop on the estimate. HomeGuide tells its readers that cabinet installation "is challenging if the kitchen floors aren't level and the walls aren't plumb." A client reading that on a cost site is being told why your number is higher than the handyman's. Let it.
When do you charge for unboxing and inspection?
Always, and most installers do not.
A twenty-box kitchen arrives as twenty-plus cartons, closer to thirty once the trim pieces are in. Someone opens every one, checks door style and finish against the order, checks the hinge side on the singles, looks for a cracked face frame or a dented door, and stages them in the order they go up. That is a morning for one person before a screw goes into a wall. It is the morning that saves the job.
The reason is lead time. Hampton Bay's guide says a replacement door leaves the factory in 3 to 5 business days and a replacement cabinet in 5 to 7, and that is a stock line sold through a big-box store. Semi-custom is longer. Find the damaged sink base the morning you open it and you set the rest of the kitchen, leave the gap, and come back for a half day. Find it on the day you reach it, with the run screwed off on both sides, and the client's countertop template date slides. Put the line on the estimate as "receive and inspect cabinet order, stage for install," with hours against it. A client accepts it when it is explained once. A day that appears nowhere on the paper they signed, they will not.
One more thing the calendar says. Google Trends' index for "cabinet installation" in the United States hit 100 in early May 2026 and sat at 31 in early October, with "custom cabinet installation" rising 110%. Demand triples into spring. Discount in November if you want the work. Never in April.
What this misses
Every figure above is national or regional, not yours. Eagle's table spans a factor of three between a Southeast low and a Northeast high. Take the hours, 2 to 3 a box, and multiply by your own loaded rate. What overhead costs per hour covers how to get it.
The forum rates are old. Woodweb's threads are from 2005 and 2008, quoted for the method and the installers' words, not the dollars. Nobody should be charging $25 a box in 2026.
HomeGuide's page carries 2026 in its title and a 2023 byline. Treat its ranges as floors. Fixr's and Homewyse's figures are dated January and September 2026.
Frameless is not priced here. Fixr puts it at 20% to 50% more. If the order is frameless, add time to every box, not a percentage to the total.
Countertops and the mechanical trades are not in it. Nothing above includes the template date, the sink hookup or the outlets that move when the layout does.
BidWalk takes the box count wall by wall as you call it out on the walkthrough, with uppers and bases on separate lines, and writes the crown, the island and the inspection morning as their own items before you leave the kitchen.
