How to Price Cabinet Painting: Doors, Drawer Fronts and the Hours Behind Them
Cabinet work is quoted differently from walls. Nobody measures a kitchen door in square metres or square feet; the trade counts doors and drawer fronts and charges for each. That count is only as good as the hours behind it, and on a cabinet job most of those hours go on handling the doors, not on paint. This guide covers how the trade counts a kitchen, what moves the price in each market, and a worked kitchen in hours you can check against your own.
The unit is the door and the drawer front
A cabinet quote is a count, not a measurement. Each door is priced both sides, and carries its share of the outside box faces and frames around it. A drawer front is priced the same way, at a lower rate. Everything else is counted against those two:
- End panels and kicks. The exposed side of a run, and the strip along the floor: kickboards in Australia and New Zealand, toe kicks in the US and Canada, plinths in the UK. Sprayers usually count these as door-equivalents rather than measuring them.
- Interiors. Painting inside the boxes is an add-on, counted by the cabinet. Most resprays leave the interiors alone.
Price doors and drawer fronts separately. A drawer front is smaller and comes off and goes back on far quicker than a door. In US painters’ quotes a drawer front typically runs at about a third of a door. A single blended rate overcharges on a drawer-heavy kitchen and undercharges on one full of tall doors.
Framed or frameless: what is actually painted
How the cabinets are built decides how much there is to paint behind each door:
- Framed (face frame). A solid timber frame on the front of the box, painted along with the doors. This is the usual construction in the US and Canada. A UK in-frame kitchen is framed too, and is premium work with more prep.
- Frameless. Common in Australia, New Zealand and the UK. Only the doors, drawer fronts, end panels and kicks are painted; the carcass edges are usually melamine and left alone.
A framed kitchen has more paintable surface per door, so it takes longer and buys more paint. Count the doors the same way either way, and set the construction once for the kitchen.
Where the hours go: handling dominates
The trade works on 30 to 60 hours for a standard kitchen, about 1.2 hours per door or drawer front all-in. Very little of that is paint going on. A respray is a sequence: remove and label every door and drawer front, take the hardware off, degrease, scuff, fill, prime, spray or brush, let it cure, then rehang and adjust every hinge. The boxes are always done on site; the doors are often sprayed off site.
So a cabinet price needs three kinds of time, not one:
- Handling, per door and per drawer front. The remove, label, hardware and rehang time, which is most of the job. Set the minutes to suit the doors you are painting: more edges to sand, mask and inspect means more minutes per door.
- Prep and paint, on the surface. The degrease-scuff-fill on every face, and the coats themselves. Usually three coats, counting the primer.
- Setup, once per kitchen. Masking benchtops, splashback, appliances and floor, building the spray zone, then demasking and cleaning up. It does not grow with the door count, which is why a small vanity is expensive for its size.
Spray or brush
Spraying is the finish most kitchen clients are paying for, and it puts the coats on much faster. What it does not do is shorten the handling, the prep or the setup, which are most of the hours. Expect spray to take a few hours off a kitchen, not half of it. It also uses more coating to overspray, so the paint line goes up while the labour line comes down.
Coatings by market
| Market | What the trade calls it | Typical coating |
|---|---|---|
| Australia | Kitchen cupboards, cabinetry; kickboards | 2-pac polyurethane respray |
| New Zealand | Kitchen cupboards, cabinetry; kickboards | 2-pac polyurethane respray |
| United States | Cabinets; toe kicks | Urethane-modified enamel |
| Canada | Cabinets; toe kicks | Urethane-modified enamel |
| United Kingdom | Kitchen units; plinths; a kitchen respray | Water-based satinwood or eggshell, or a spray lacquer |
Whichever coating you use, price it at your own cost per litre or gallon. 2-pac and urethane enamels cost several times what a wall paint does, so a kitchen’s paint line is not small.
Worked example: a reference kitchen in hours
This is the kitchen Surfacely’s cabinet defaults are calibrated against: 18 doors, 9 drawer fronts and 2 end panels, framed, no interiors, sprayed at the Open speed with the overspray coverage step, three coats with heavy prep. Hours only, because the price depends entirely on your own rate.
| Part of the job | How it is worked out | Hours |
|---|---|---|
| Door handling | 18 doors × 60 min | 18.00 |
| Drawer front handling | 9 drawer fronts × 20 min | 3.00 |
| Setup | Once for the kitchen | 4.00 |
| Prep | The faces, box and frame, at the heavy prep rate | 2.79 |
| Paint | Three coats, sprayed | 3.51 |
| Total, sprayed | 1.16 hours per door or drawer front | 31.30 |
| Total, brushed | Only the paint time changes | 36.57 |
Read the table from the top: handling and setup are 25.00 of the 31.30 hours. That is why a cabinet price that starts from area, the way a wall price does, comes out far too low, and why getting your handling minutes right matters more than any other number on the job. The defaults are 60 minutes per door, 20 minutes per drawer front and 4 hours of setup per kitchen. Each is a starting point you can change on the cabinet you are pricing.
How Surfacely prices cabinets
In Surfacely, cabinets are a surface you add to any area: a kitchen, a bathroom vanity, a laundry, a built-in wardrobe. You count, you don’t measure:
- Count the doors, drawer fronts, end panels and kicks, and how many cabinets have their insides painted, with steppers on your phone. Each interior counts as a standard 1.2 m² (13 ft²), which you can change on the cabinet.
- Choose framed or frameless, and spray or brush.
- Measure any frame or panel the counts do not cover as Cabinet frames / panels: strip width by exposed length. Framed cabinets already include a frame allowance, so Surfacely warns you before you count a frame twice.
- Surfacely prices it from your own rates: your labour rate, your prep and speed settings, your coating cost, plus the handling and setup minutes above. There is no second price list to keep up to date.
It then shows you what that comes to the way you think about it: a price per door, a price per drawer front, and a total for these cabinets. If you normally charge more or less per door, adjust the handling minutes on the cabinet until the figures match. The price still follows your labour rate, your prep and your choice of spray or brush, so it moves when they do. Handling minutes are set on each cabinet, not as a company default, so check them on the next kitchen too. Only people on your team who can see job financials see those figures. A crew member counting cabinets sees the counts and the hours, never a price.
On the estimate, the cabinet line reads in counts (“18 doors · 9 drawer fronts · 2 panels”, and any interiors you counted), never as an area. If you want the client to see your rate, switch on Price per door and drawer front in the estimate’s display settings. Those figures are worked out from the line’s real price, so the doors and drawer fronts always add up to the line total.
Measuring the rest of the job? The surface measuring guide covers walls, doors, windows and trim, and how to quote a painting job covers the margin maths that turns hours into a price.
Related guides
- Cost to paint kitchen cabinets (for your clients)
- How to quote a painting job
- Painting production rates
- Painter hourly rate calculator
FAQ
How do painters price cabinet painting?
Most of the trade quotes by the door and by the drawer front, both sides, with each one carrying its share of the box faces and frames around it. End panels and kickboards, toe kicks or plinths are added as door-equivalents. Interiors are an add-on. The figure behind it is time: most of the hours go on handling each door and drawer front, not on paint.
How many hours does it take to paint a kitchen of cabinets?
The trade works on 30 to 60 hours for a standard kitchen, or about 1.2 hours per door or drawer front all-in. Surfacely’s reference kitchen (18 doors, 9 drawer fronts, 2 end panels, framed, sprayed) comes to 31.30 hours sprayed at the Open speed, and 36.57 hours brushed.
Should a drawer front cost the same as a door?
No. A drawer front is smaller and is quicker to take off, label and refit. Painters who price it like a door overcharge on drawer-heavy kitchens and undercharge on tall-door ones. A drawer front usually prices at about a third of a door.
What is the difference between framed and frameless cabinets?
A framed (face frame) cabinet has a solid timber frame on the front of the box that gets painted along with the doors. It is the usual construction in the US and Canada, and UK in-frame kitchens count as framed too. Frameless cabinets, common in Australia, New Zealand and the UK, show only the doors, drawer fronts, end panels and kicks; the carcass edges are usually melamine. A framed kitchen has more to paint per door.
What coating is used on kitchen cabinets?
It depends on the market. In Australia and New Zealand a cupboard respray is usually 2-pac polyurethane. In the US and Canada it is commonly a urethane-modified enamel. In the UK painters reach for a water-based satinwood or eggshell, or a spray lacquer. All of them are three-coat systems in practice, counting the primer.
Is it faster to spray kitchen cabinets?
The coats go on faster, but spraying does not shorten the handling or the prep, and those are most of the job. On Surfacely’s reference kitchen, switching from brush to spray saves about five hours of a job of about thirty-six hours.
Does Surfacely make me type a price per door?
No. You count doors, drawer fronts and panels, and Surfacely prices them from your own labour rate, prep rates, speed and paint costs. It then shows you the result back as a price per door, a price per drawer front and a total for the cabinets, so you can check it against what you normally charge and adjust the handling minutes on the cabinet until the figures match.