Cabinet Refinishing Pricing: How Painters Should Quote Cabinet Jobs
Cabinet refinishing pricing for painters: per door and per foot ranges, a job-based quoting method, and why public cost guides undersell you.
Published October 5, 2026 · PaintingPPC
Cabinet refinishing pricing for a painting contractor should be built from production hours, not a per-door or per-foot rate pulled off a website. Public cost guides put professional cabinet painting anywhere from about $30 to $70 per linear foot and $70 to $250 per door, but those ranges mix handymen, brush-and-roll jobs, and spray-finish shops. Price your own cabinet work from your labor, your finish system, and your real cost to land the job.
I run PaintingPPC. We run Google Ads for painting contractors, one painter per market. Cabinet work is some of the best-paying work a painting company sells, and it is also where I see painters leave the most money on the table. They quote off a number a homeowner found online. Here is a better way.
How much do painters charge for cabinet refinishing?
Published guides disagree, which tells you how wide the market is. HomeGuide lists $2,000 to $6,500 for an average kitchen, $70 to $125 per door, and $30 to $70 per linear foot, with spray finishes running $40 to $100 per linear foot. Angi lists $100 to $250 per door, $30 to $60 per linear foot, and $900 to $2,000 for stock cabinets up to $2,500 to $7,000 for custom.
| Source | Per door | Per linear foot | Full kitchen |
|---|---|---|---|
| HomeGuide | $70 to $125 | $30 to $70 (spray $40 to $100) | $2,000 to $6,500 |
| Angi | $100 to $250 | $30 to $60 | $900 to $2,000 stock, $2,500 to $7,000 custom |
Treat these as a sanity check. If your quote lands far below the bottom of every range, you are underpricing. If it lands far above, you need to be able to explain the finish and process that justify it.
Why do the public cost guides undersell professional work?
The guides average everything together. A brushed-on repaint with no degreasing and a sprayed catalyzed finish with doors pulled, labeled, and cured off-site are both “cabinet painting” in the data, but they are not the same product.
The homeowner reading those guides sees a low average and anchors on it. Your job in the estimate is to show what the number buys: degrease, sand, prime, spray, number of coats, cure time, hardware. I covered that structure in how to write a painting estimate. For cabinets, quote the package, not an itemized parts list.
How do you build a cabinet refinishing price from scratch?
Build it from the hours, then check it against the market ranges. Labor drives the number. Both sources above put labor at roughly 70 to 85 percent of a cabinet painting bill, because the work is prep and finish, not paint.
Here is the method I would use:
- Count doors, drawer fronts, and face frames. Doors and drawer fronts are your main production unit.
- Estimate hours per unit for your own crew, by stage: remove and label, degrease and scuff, prime, sand, spray coats, reinstall.
- Multiply by loaded labor cost, not the hourly wage. Add payroll tax, insurance, truck, and tools.
- Add materials at your normal markup. Cabinet primers and catalyzed finishes cost more than wall paint.
- Add overhead and a profit target as a percent of price.
- Add your acquisition cost for the job, as its own internal line.
Step six is the one painters skip. If a lead costs you money to land, the job has to carry it. The full logic is in how to price painting jobs.
Per door or per linear foot: which pricing method is better?
Per door pricing is better when the kitchen has many small doors and drawer fronts, and per linear foot is better for quick ballparks on the phone. Neither should be your final quote.
Linear foot ignores door count and style. A shaker door with a routed profile takes longer to finish than a flat slab. Per door ignores the face frames, end panels, and crown that also need finishing. Use whichever gets you a fast range on the first call, then price the actual job after you see the kitchen.
What changes the price of a cabinet job?
These are the factors that move the number most:
- Door and drawer count, and the style of each
- Current condition: grease, damage, or an old failing finish
- Finish system: brushed, sprayed, or catalyzed
- Color change, especially dark to light
- Whether doors come off-site to a shop
- Interior boxes, which are often an add-on
- Hardware replacement and soft-close upgrades
Duration matters for scheduling. HomeGuide reports cabinet painting takes about 3 to 5 days on average, so a cabinet job ties up a crew for most of a week. Price that opportunity cost in, especially in a busy season.
How should a painter quote cabinet jobs on the first call?
Give a range, qualify the kitchen, and book the in-home visit. A range like “most kitchens in our area fall between X and Y, depending on door count and condition” filters out the shopper who wanted $800 and keeps the one who is comparing against $15,000 for replacement.
This is also where the lead gets won or lost. If you pay for cabinet leads, ask for door count and a photo on the first call. I walk through that screening in how to qualify painting leads. If you advertise cabinet work, the campaign setup is in Google Ads for cabinet refinishing.
Cabinet refinishing pricing FAQ
How much should I charge to paint kitchen cabinets?
Most published guides place a professional kitchen cabinet paint job between roughly $2,000 and $6,500, with big swings by size, door count, and finish. Build your price from production hours and check it against those ranges. Do not set your price from a national average.
Is cabinet refinishing priced per door or per linear foot?
Both are used. Per door runs about $70 to $250 depending on the source and the finish, and per linear foot runs about $30 to $100. Use them for ballparks, and price the real job from labor hours.
How long does cabinet refinishing take?
HomeGuide reports about 3 to 5 days for an average kitchen. Doors sprayed off-site and cured can stretch the calendar even if crew hours stay low. Quote the timeline in the estimate so the homeowner knows the kitchen will be down.
Is cabinet refinishing worth it versus replacing?
For the homeowner, refinishing usually costs a fraction of replacement when the boxes are sound. For you, it is a high-ticket interior job with less weather risk than exterior work. That is why it deserves its own pricing method.
Price it like a product, not a guess
Cabinet refinishing pricing works when you know your hours, your finish system, and what each job costs you to win. If you want to compare your cabinet numbers against what a booked job should cost you in ads, you can book a call. If not, run your last three cabinet jobs through the six steps above and see where your margin really landed.