New cabinets are sold in three tiers, and the tier — more than the brand — sets your price, your lead time, and how well the kitchen fits your walls. We do not sell cabinets (counters are our trade), but every countertop we install sits on somebody's tier decision, so we have opinions. As of mid-2026, national installed pricing runs roughly $100-$300 per linear foot for stock, $150-$650 for semi-custom, and $500-$1,200+ for custom. A typical 10x10 kitchen has about 20 linear feet of cabinetry, which is why quotes for the same room can range from $2,000 to $24,000 — with most homeowners landing between $4,000 and $13,000 for the cabinets themselves.

Stock: fast and fixed

Stock cabinets are factory-built in fixed sizes — widths in 3 in. increments, standard depths and heights — and warehoused for fast delivery, sometimes same-week from a home center. Boxes are usually melamine-faced particleboard with a plywood upgrade available on some lines; door and finish choices are limited to the catalog.

Honest fit: rentals, flips, tight budgets, and simple straight-run kitchens. The fixed sizing is the real constraint: odd wall lengths get bridged with filler strips, and you take the depths and heights you are given. If your kitchen is a plain L with standard walls, stock plus a plywood upgrade is genuinely good value. Ready-to-assemble (RTA) lines sit at the bottom of this tier — cheapest of all, but assembly quality becomes your installer's problem. One note from the trade that arrives later: thin-sided budget boxes sometimes need reinforcement before they can carry stone — cheaper to plan than to discover.

Semi-custom: the mainstream sweet spot

Semi-custom lines start from standard sizes but let you modify them — reduced depths, increased heights, dozens of door styles and finishes, and the full accessory catalog (drawer bases, roll-outs, pantry pull-outs). Construction upgrades like all-plywood boxes, dovetail drawers, and soft-close undermount slides are either standard or available on nearly every line. Lead times run several weeks because cabinets are built to order.

Honest fit: most owner-occupied remodels. This tier has the widest quality spread in the industry — the same badge can cover a builder-grade box and a near-custom one — so compare construction specs line by line, not brand by brand. The price spread ($150-$650/lf installed) is wide for the same reason; the upgrades are usually where the money is best spent.

Custom: built to your walls

Custom shops build to any dimension, any species, any finish — inset doors, unusual depths, furniture details, true site-specific fits for old houses where nothing is square or level. You are paying for build time and skilled labor: $500-$1,200+ per linear foot installed, with lead times commonly 8-12 weeks or more.

Honest fit: high-budget kitchens, historic homes, and layouts that standard boxes genuinely cannot serve. If a semi-custom line can hit your layout with modifications, the custom premium buys craftsmanship and detail, not function — a legitimate luxury, but name it as one.

What actually moves the price inside a tier

Box material: the all-plywood upgrade is the highest-value dollar in the order on most lines.
Drawers and slides: dovetail boxes with soft-close undermounts vs. stapled boxes on rollers.
Door style and finish: inset doors carry roughly a 20% premium; painted finishes typically cost more than stains; frameless construction runs about 15% above framed.
Accessories: every roll-out, pull-out, and organizer is a line item — they add up faster than the boxes do.

Budget honestly

Installation labor runs about $50-$200 per linear foot on top of materials-only pricing, and tearing out and disposing of the old cabinets typically adds $350-$800. Delivered cost also drifts above the headline linear-foot number once modifications, trim, and fillers hit the invoice — build 15-25% of headroom into the cabinet budget and you will not be surprised. Same advice we give about our own quotes: the honest number is the itemized one.

Sources

2026 Average Cost of Kitchen Cabinets — HomeAdvisor
How Much Does It Cost to Install Kitchen Cabinets in 2026? — HomeLight
Cabinet Reviews 2026: Ratings for the Top 157 Cabinet Brands — Main Line Kitchen Design
Top 12 Kitchen Cabinet Brands in USA (2026 Update) — Tivoli Design Group

Stock, Semi-Custom, or Custom: Which Cabinet Tier Fits Your Project