Painting cabinets — count the pieces, get a price per door and drawer front
Cabinets are quoted by the piece, but a flat fee per door loses money on some kitchens. Surfacely counts the doors, drawer fronts, end panels and cabinet interiors you give it, turns them into a painted area, and runs that through the same speed, prep, coats and paint system as every other surface. The price per door and per drawer front is something you read off the result, not something you type in.
The surface is called Cabinetry in the surface picker. Each market has its own words for the same thing: cabinets in the US and Canada, cabinetry in Australia and New Zealand, and units and cupboards in the UK. The panel at the base of a run is the kickboard in Australia and New Zealand, the toe kick in the US and Canada, and the plinth in the UK. Surfacely uses your market's word on screen.
What one piece includes
A piece is a door or a drawer front. Pricing a piece covers both faces plus its share of the box: the carcass sides, shelves and the area around the opening. You never measure those separately. End panels are counted on their own and are painted on one side.
Measuring doors and drawer fronts
Measure each size of door and drawer front: its width and height, then how many are that size. Tap + Another door size for each different size. A door counts once it has a size. Each door is painted on both faces at the size you measured. A cabinet counted before doors were measured keeps the standard size until you measure it.
Counting panels and interiors
Use the steppers to enter how many end panels and kickboards (toe kicks in the US and Canada, plinths in the UK) and cabinet interiors the job has. There is no quantity of cabinets to enter: the counts are the quantity. A drawer front is the face of the drawer, not the whole drawer. Only doors and drawer fronts count as pieces. Panels and interiors add area and time, and their share of the price is carried by the doors and drawer fronts rather than shown as a figure of its own.
For a second set of cabinets with different counts, add a new Cabinetry surface: tap the add button on the measured card, or add it from the surface pills. The button is labelled with your market's word for cabinets, for example + Cabinets in the US and Canada or + Units & Cupboards in the UK. Each Cabinetry surface has its own counts, construction and minutes, and each is charged its own setup time. If the second set shares the setup, set its setup minutes to 0.
Cabinet interiors
Cabinet interiors is how many cabinets have their insides painted, such as open shelving or a full respray of the box. It starts at 0, and most resprays leave it there. Each one counts as a standard 1.2 m² (13 ft²). Once you count one, Size of each interior appears so you can change that figure for this surface: a vanity is smaller and a pantry is larger. Interiors add area and paint, and the labour to prep and paint them. They add no handling minutes, because no door comes off for them.
Cabinet frames
To price the frame itself, add Cabinet frames from the surface pills after you have measured the doors and drawer fronts. It works the way walls do with their doors and windows.
- Measure each run of cabinets across its whole front, doors included: its height, then its width. Tap + Another cabinet run for the next run, such as the overheads.
- The doors and drawer fronts measured on Cabinetry in the same area come off the fronts. What is left is the frame, and the card shows the sum, for example "5.3 m² less 4.0 m² for 8 doors and 6 drawer fronts".
- Use Qty for identical runs.
Once a front is measured, the cabinets in that area stop adding their own frame allowance, so the frame is counted once. Without a measured front, Framed cabinets keep the allowance described below. Frames measured before November 2026 as a strip width and length keep pricing as strips; nothing is taken off them.
Framed or Frameless
The Construction choice records whether the cabinets have a face frame, the frame at the front of the box that the doors hang from.
- Framed is the default in every market. The face frame is painted as well as the doors, so Surfacely adds its area. In the UK, in-frame cabinets count as Framed.
- Frameless is for cabinets where the doors sit on the box with no frame in front. These are common in Australia, New Zealand and the UK. Choose Frameless for a frameless kitchen so you are not charged for a frame that is not there.
Spray or brush
Cabinets use the normal method switch, and as on any surface it changes nothing else. Cabinets start at the Careful speed, which suits brushing. If you're spraying, move the speed up (Open is marked as typical for spray) and pick the coverage step marked for overspray, because spraying uses more coating. Masking is prep, so allow for it there. See Spray vs brush and roll.
Handling and setup minutes
Cabinets take time that is not painting: removing doors, labelling them, taking off hardware, masking hinge cups, denibbing between coats, then rehanging and adjusting. Surfacely covers this with three figures you can change on the cabinet. Each sits between More time on the left and Less time on the right, and you can tap the number to type your own.
- Minutes per door. The default is 60 minutes. If the doors take longer, for example detailed doors with more edges to sand and mask, raise it.
- Minutes per drawer front. The default is 20 minutes, a third of a door. A drawer front has fewer edges to mask and nothing to rehang or adjust. The trade prices a drawer front at roughly a third of a door, and this is where that difference comes from.
- Setup minutes are charged once for each Cabinetry surface, not per piece. The default is 4 hours. They are only charged when there is at least one door or drawer front, so an entry with only panels picks up no setup.
Each tap moves the figure by 1 minute below 10, by 5 minutes up to 2 hours, and by 15 minutes above that. All three honour what you set: set 0 and that part is zero. Once you change a figure, Reset puts the default back.
Reading the price per door and per drawer front, and tuning it
Once the counts are in, the cabinet card shows ≈ … per door · … per drawer front · … for these cabinets. The last figure is the sell price of the whole cabinet line. The first two split it between the doors and the drawer fronts, the way the trade quotes them, so the doors times the price per door plus the drawer fronts times the price per drawer front comes back to the line.
The split follows what Surfacely works out each kind of piece costs. A door has more face and more box to paint than a drawer front, and a longer handling time, so a door carries more. The setup time is shared across all the doors and drawer fronts, and the share for end panels and interiors is spread across them in the same proportion as their own cost. A part with nothing counted is left out, so a doors-only vanity shows only a price per door. The figures show only to roles that see money, so crew never see them.
Treat it as indicative. It is worked out before downtime and before the job rules (minimum hours, minimum paint, half-day round-up) are applied, so the quote can differ slightly. The rate is calculated each time from your own labour rate, paint cost and margin. It is not a stored price that can go stale.
Tune the minutes until the figures match what you usually charge. If a typical kitchen comes out below your normal price per door, raise the minutes per door. If the drawer fronts come out above or below what you charge for them, move the minutes per drawer front on their own: the door figure does not move. The minutes are set on each cabinet, not as a company default, so check them on the next kitchen too.
Cabinet paint
Cabinets take their paint from the cabinet coating material category, which each market names in its own terms. See Material categories to set its cost and spread rate. Prep defaults to the Heavy level, which accounts for the degreasing, scuffing and filling cabinets need before the first coat.
Show the price per door and drawer front on an estimate
You can choose to show your client a Price per door and drawer front on the estimate. It is off by default. Turn it on with the checkbox under Display settings on the estimate, or set your default under the estimate display settings. The figures are worked out from the real price of that line, after any discount on the estimate, and are printed beside the cabinet counts. A part with nothing counted is left out. When only panels or interiors are counted there are no pieces to divide by, so no figure is shown.
The figures on the cabinet card are indicative, worked out at your own rates before the quote is built. The figures on the estimate come from the cabinet line on the quote, after downtime, job rules and any discount, so the two can differ slightly.
The client never sees the area Surfacely used internally for cabinets. They see the counts and, if you choose, a price per door and per drawer front.
Why it matters: a kitchen is quoted by the door in the trade, but one flat price per door under-charges kitchens with a lot of box to paint. Counting the pieces and letting the model do the arithmetic gives you a price per door and per drawer front you can still quote the way clients expect.