Built-ins are where furniture makers lose money. Not because the cabinets are hard — because a built-in isn't a piece of furniture, it's a small construction project. There's a site visit, an out-of-square wall, a finish schedule, an install day with someone else's baseboard in the way, and a client standing next to you asking whether the middle shelf could be adjustable.

Quote it like a table and you'll eat the difference. Here's the sequence that doesn't.

Step 1: charge for the site measure

The site measure isn't a sales call. You're taking real measurements, checking for square and plumb, finding the studs, locating outlets and returns, and figuring out how a finished carcass gets through the door and up the stairs.

Two to four hours including drive time, and it produces the information the entire quote depends on. Bill it, or roll it into a design deposit that credits against the build. Free site measures are a fine marketing choice — just recognize you're funding them out of the margin on the jobs that close.

While you're there, write down the things that will cost you later:

• How far out of level is the floor across the run?
• How far out of plumb are the walls, and do they bow?
• Is the baseboard staying or coming off?
• Where are the outlets, switches, vents, and returns?
• What's the path from truck to wall, and does anything need to come apart?
• Who is painting the wall afterward — you or them?

Step 2: take off materials, generously

Sheet goods first. Count actual sheets, not square footage, because you buy whole sheets and offcuts don't magically become the next job.

For a run of 12 linear feet of base cabinets and 10 linear feet of uppers, painted, illustrative numbers on the stock you'd buy locally:

• 9 sheets ¾" plywood at $85 = $765
• 2 sheets ½" ply for backs at $55 = $110
• 60 bf poplar for face frames and doors at $4 = $240
• Hardware: 14 hinges, 6 drawer slides, pulls = $310
• Primer, paint, and sundries = $180
• Materials: $1,605

Prices swing constantly and by region, so price from your own last invoice. And add scribe stock — you will need more solid material than the drawing shows, because nothing on site is straight.

Step 3: estimate labor in four separate stages

One lump-sum hour estimate for a built-in is a guess. Four stage estimates are a plan, and when you miss you find out which stage lied to you.

At a $45/hour shop rate that's $3,375. If you haven't derived your rate from your actual income target, overhead, and non-billable hours, do that first — the free Pay Yourself Calculator does the arithmetic in a couple of minutes.

On finishing: twelve hours for a painted run is not padding. Painted work means filling grain, priming, sanding between coats, and finding every flaw the primer reveals. Sprayed or brushed, painted built-ins routinely take longer to finish than to build the carcasses, and it's the single most underestimated stage in cabinet quoting.

On install: fourteen hours covers a two-person day plus the return trip for the door that needed adjustment after the heat came on. Install is also where the schedule goes sideways, because you're working around a house someone lives in.

Step 4: add the costs that aren't stock or hours

Delivery fuel, the dump run, blade sharpening after all that sheet stock, and the shims, screws, caulk, and construction adhesive that get consumed on site. Say $150.

Step 5: price it

• Cost basis: $1,605 + $3,375 + $150 = $5,130
• Margin at 30%: $5,130 × 0.30 = $1,539
• Price: $6,675 (rounded)

Then check what the job pays per shop hour before you send it:

• ($6,675 − $1,605 − $150) ÷ 75 = $66/hour

That's the number to compare against your other work. If it lands below what your furniture commissions return per hour, either the estimate is soft or built-ins aren't the right work for your shop.

Step 6: write the conditions down

This is the part that separates a quote from an invitation to argue. Put it on the quote itself, in plain language:

• What's included. Cabinet boxes, face frames, doors, drawers, specified hardware, finish, and installation. Say the finish and the hardware by name.
• What's excluded. Electrical work, plumbing, drywall repair, wall painting, crown or baseboard beyond the cabinet run, appliance installation, countertops. Excluding things is not rude; it's the only way both of you know what you agreed to.
• Site conditions. You've priced for walls within a stated tolerance. If the floor is out an inch across the run or the wall bows behind the uppers, that's additional scribe and filler work quoted separately.
• Access. You've assumed a clear path and an empty room on install day.
• Timeline and deposit. A deposit before you buy material, a progress payment when the boxes are built, the balance on completion. You should not be financing someone's sheet goods.
• Quote validity. Sheet goods pricing moves. Thirty days is reasonable, and it's a fair reason to hold the client to a decision.

Step 7: handle changes as changes

The middle shelf becomes adjustable. They want soft-close after all. The paint color changes after primer is on. All normal — and all repricing events.

The rule that saves the relationship: no change gets built until it's a written revision with a new number and a new total, acknowledged by the client. Not a text message you'll interpret later. A revised quote, sent and approved. It feels bureaucratic exactly once, and then it saves you every time after.

This is where an approval link beats a PDF — the client sees the revised total and clicks to approve it, and you have a timestamped record of what they agreed to. QuoteItRight versions quotes for this, so the change request and the original both stay on file.

FAQ

Should I quote built-ins by the linear foot? Linear-foot pricing is useful for a fast ballpark on the phone, and dangerous as a final number. It ignores the variables that drive the hours — door style, finish type, drawer count, site conditions, install difficulty. Use it to qualify a lead, then quote properly from a take-off.

How do I handle painting when the client's painter is doing the walls? Decide who finishes the cabinets and put it in writing. Shop-finished is better work and easier to control, but then you own touch-up after install. If their painter finishes on site, exclude cabinet finishing from your quote explicitly and say so out loud, because they will assume you meant finished cabinets.

What if the house is under construction and nothing is ready? Quote the build and the install as separate line items with separate triggers, and state that install is scheduled on your calendar once the site is ready. Otherwise a general contractor's delay becomes your storage problem and your cash-flow problem at the same time.