Estimating Guide
By Phazahn Odom | Founder of Phixmo | Former bookkeeper for residential GCs | Former NFL tight end, Pittsburgh Steelers
Kitchens are the most common project a residential GC takes on, and they are also where estimating mistakes cost the most. Cabinetry alone can swing the number by 20,000 dollars, and the costs that get forgotten (permits, dumpsters, drywall patching, contingency) are exactly the ones that come straight out of your margin when the job is over.
This is the breakdown I wish every contractor had in front of them, written from years doing the books for residential GCs and watching where the money actually leaked.
Seven categories cover almost every dollar in a kitchen. Get these ranges right and you are most of the way to an accurate bid. The ranges below assume a typical residential remodel, not a teardown.
Tearing out the old kitchen: cabinets, countertops, flooring, and sometimes a wall. Cost moves with how much is coming out and whether you hit anything unexpected behind the drywall. Budget the debris haul-off separately so it does not get buried in labor.
The single biggest swing in a kitchen. Stock runs 3,000 to 8,000 dollars, semi-custom sits in the middle, and full custom starts around 25,000 and climbs. Install labor adds another 2,500 to 6,000. Do not forget filler strips, crown, and accessories, which add 10 to 15 percent that estimators routinely leave off.
Priced per square foot and the material choice is everything: laminate 15 to 30 dollars, quartz 80 to 150, natural stone 200 and up. Then add the fabrication costs that get missed: sink cutout, edge profile, and seams run 300 to 800 dollars on top of the slab.
Standard work (disconnect, reconnect, new fixtures in the same locations) runs 2,000 to 6,000 dollars. The moment you move the sink or add a line, you are into 4,000 to 8,000 because now there is new rough-in inside the walls and floor.
New circuits, outlets, under-cabinet and recessed lighting, and code-required GFCI protection land around 2,000 to 6,000 dollars. If the home needs a panel upgrade to carry the new load, add another 2,000 to 4,000, and check for it early because it is an easy number to discover too late.
Tile, luxury vinyl, or hardwood installed runs 8 to 18 dollars per square foot. Measure the actual floor area minus the cabinet footprint, because you are not flooring under the base cabinets, and estimating the full room square footage quietly pads the number.
Backsplash, paint, light fixtures, faucet, and cabinet hardware. Individually small, together they total 3,000 to 8,000 dollars and they are the details the homeowner actually touches and sees every day, so they are worth pricing carefully rather than guessing.
These are the line items that quietly disappear from a bid and then reappear as a smaller profit check at the end. Every one of them is real money, and every one is preventable.
Most kitchen remodels need a permit, especially once plumbing or electrical is involved. Budget 500 to 2,500 dollars depending on the jurisdiction and scope. Leaving it off does not make it go away, it just comes out of your margin.
A dumpster runs 400 to 800 dollars for a kitchen, and somebody has to fill it and haul it. This gets folded into demo labor and then forgotten as its own line, which is exactly how it disappears from the bid.
Even when the homeowner buys the appliances, installing them is 800 to 1,500 dollars of labor and connection work. Separate the install from the appliance cost so it is visible and billed, not absorbed.
Opening walls for plumbing and electrical means patching them after, which runs 1,000 to 2,500 dollars. On older homes, increase that by 50 percent, because nothing behind the plaster is ever as simple as it looks.
Kitchens hide surprises: rot under the sink, knob-and-tube wiring, a floor that is not level. Carry an 8 percent contingency so the first surprise does not come straight out of your profit. If you do not use it, it improves the margin.
Your trucks, insurance, office, and your own time are real costs that belong in every bid. Build in 12 to 18 percent for overhead and profit on top of direct costs. This is not padding. It is the difference between staying in business and working for free.
Labor is the most slippery number in any kitchen bid, and the place estimates go wrong most often. Four habits keep it honest.
Do not start by guessing a number of hours. List every task the job actually requires (demo, rough-in, set cabinets, template and install tops, tile, trim, finish) and estimate the hours each one takes. Hours built from real scope are defensible. A round number pulled from memory is not.
A national-average labor rate will lose you money in a high-cost market and price you out in a low-cost one. Use the real loaded rate you pay your crew and the real rate your subs charge in your area. Your numbers, not somebody else's benchmark.
Nobody swings a hammer for eight straight hours. Travel, setup, cleanup, material runs, and waiting on inspections are all paid time that does not show up in a clean task estimate. Add 15 to 20 percent to your productive hours so the labor line reflects a real day.
The only way your estimates get better is to compare what you bid against what it actually took, job after job. Over time you build a private database of how long things really take for your crew, which makes every future kitchen bid sharper than any published rule of thumb.
AI does not replace your judgment. It removes the slow, manual parts of getting to a first-pass number so you spend your time refining instead of measuring.
When you have plans, upload the PDF, calibrate the scale by clicking two points on a known dimension, and Phixmo's AI reads the drawing and pulls measurements in about ten minutes, work that used to take an afternoon with a scale ruler. Every measurement shows how it was derived, you review and correct what it read, then turn it straight into an estimate. Every number stays editable, so your judgment is always the final word.
Most kitchens do not come with plans, so describe the job in plain English (a 200 square foot kitchen remodel in San Diego, mid-range finishes, moving the sink) and get a first-pass cost breakdown in under a minute. Use it as a starting structure you adjust against your site visit, not a final number, and you have a complete estimate framed in seconds.
A realistic spread for a mid-range kitchen in a high-cost market. Low, mid, and high reflect material and finish choices, not different scopes. Use it as a sanity check against your own bid, not a substitute for one.
Demolition and debris removal
Low
$3,500
Mid
$4,500
High
$6,000
Cabinetry (with install)
Low
$12,000
Mid
$16,000
High
$21,500
Countertops
Low
$3,000
Mid
$6,350
High
$11,000
Plumbing
Low
$2,500
Mid
$4,500
High
$7,000
Electrical
Low
$2,500
Mid
$4,500
High
$8,000
Flooring
Low
$2,200
Mid
$3,500
High
$5,500
Finishes and fixtures
Low
$4,300
Mid
$6,500
High
$9,000
Permit fees
Low
$600
Mid
$1,200
High
$2,200
Dumpster and debris
Low
$500
Mid
$600
High
$800
Appliance installation
Low
$900
Mid
$1,200
High
$1,500
Drywall repair
Low
$1,200
Mid
$1,800
High
$2,200
Subtotal (direct cost)
Low
$33,200
Mid
$50,650
High
$74,700
GC overhead and profit (15%)
Low
$4,980
Mid
$7,598
High
$11,205
Contingency (8%)
Low
$2,656
Mid
$4,052
High
$5,976
Total estimate
Low
$40,836
Mid
$62,300
High
$91,881
Illustrative ranges for a high-cost market. Your real numbers depend on your local rates, material choices, and site conditions.
Phixmo turns a kitchen scope into an estimate in minutes with AI takeoffs and text estimation, then tracks estimated versus actual on every category so the margin you bid is the margin you keep. Field workers are always free.
For most residential GCs, 12 to 18 percent net margin on a kitchen is a healthy target after overhead and profit are built in. Where contractors get hurt is bidding a healthy margin and then watching it erode through unbilled change orders, labor overruns, and forgotten costs. The bid is not the problem. Protecting the margin during the job is.
Write a change order for every one, no matter how small, and get it approved before you do the work. A homeowner asking for an extra can light or a different tile feels minor in the moment, but five or six of those across a kitchen is real money. Phixmo enforces approval, so a change order cannot be invoiced until the customer has signed off, which protects both sides and keeps the added scope from quietly eating your margin.
It depends on who is buying them. If the homeowner is purchasing appliances directly, keep them out of your cost and quote installation only. If you are supplying them, use a clearly labeled allowance so the homeowner understands the number can move based on what they pick. Either way, always separate appliance installation labor, which runs 800 to 1,500 dollars, from the appliance cost itself so nothing hides.
Most kitchen remodels do not come with a full set of plans, so you estimate from a site visit: measure the room, note what is moving, photograph the existing conditions, and price from there. AI text estimation gives you a fast first-pass breakdown from a plain description of the job, which you then adjust against what you saw on site. When plans do exist, an AI blueprint takeoff pulls the measurements for you.
Track estimated versus actual on every category as the job runs, not at the end. If labor on cabinetry install is trending over the hours you bid, you want to know on day three while you can still react, not at reconciliation when the money is already gone. Real-time job costing plus enforced change order approval is how a healthy bid actually turns into a healthy profit.