How much to charge to paint kitchen cabinets

Last updated Oct 25, 2026

Cabinets aren't walls. Twenty doors is forty faces and eighty edges, plus a kitchen the client can't use till you're gone. Price the hours, then check them against per-door numbers.

Short answer

Cost guides: $70–$125 per door and $30–$110 per drawer front (Fixr, 2026), or $30–$70 per linear foot (HomeGuide, Fixr). Angi's 2026 page says $100–$250 per door, $30–$60 per linear foot.
That's what homeowners paid, not what your hours cost.
Price it as hours × your loaded rate, plus overhead and materials, at your margin. Then divide by doors and by feet to see where you land.

Per door and drawer front

Count every door and drawer front, price each. Clients follow it, and it scales with what eats time: faces and edges. Fixr adds $75–$150 per cabinet as a third unit.

Door style moves it. Angi says slab and Shaker paint faster than raised-panel or detailed doors. Price each style on its own line, not one flat rate.

Where it breaks: boxes, face frames, end panels, crown, the back of the island. Say whether your per-door price covers them.

Per linear foot

Run a tape along the uppers and the lowers. HomeGuide and Fixr put it at $30–$70 per foot; Angi, $30–$60. Quick to quote from the driveway.

Where it breaks: a foot of drawer stack has more faces than a foot of open shelving. HomeGuide says painters charge up to 10% more for cabinets taller than 8 feet.

Hours: where the price should come from

Same four lines as any paint job: hours from your rates, loaded labor, overhead, margin. Cabinets add trips, shop time and dry time.

Prep the data sheets ask for

Degrease. Sherwin-Williams' Emerald Urethane sheet: wash off all surface contamination, rinse, let dry; seal grease stains with a primer-sealer. The doors by the range need more than a wipe.
Sand. Benjamin Moore's Advance sheet, cabinetry: rough every surface with 220 grit or coarser before priming, sand lightly between coats, clean off all dust. Sand glossy alkyds before Advance goes on.
Prime. For MDF, thermofoil and laminate the Advance sheet lists Fresh Start High-Hiding All Purpose Primer (046). Big color change? Sherwin-Williams says primer improves hide; Benjamin Moore says tint it toward the finish color.

Two cabinet enamels, from their data sheets

Product	Coverage per gallon	Recoat at 77°F, 50% RH	Notes
SW Emerald Urethane Trim Enamel, satin	350–400 sq ft at 4 mils wet	4 hours	Airless 2,000 psi, .013–.017 tip; HVLP setup listed
BM Advance, satin (792)	400–500 sq ft	16 hours	No heavy abrasion for 5–7 days; up to 30 days to optimum hardness

Recoat time sets your calendar. At 4 hours, two coats fit in a day. At 16 hours, every coat waits overnight. Cold or damp rooms stretch both.

Spray or brush

Cost guides disagree. HomeGuide says spraying costs more, $40–$100 per foot, for the extra prep and masking. Fixr says it's often cheaper: longer prep, easier application. Both can be true. Spraying boxes in place means masking the whole kitchen. Spraying doors in a shop goes fast. Either way, price the masking hours against the coat hours.

Doors off-site

Shop work isn't free. Count pickup, delivery and rehang as hours, and the rack space as overhead. Label each door and its hinge spot before it leaves.

Worked example: 20 doors, 8 drawer fronts

Example inputs Hours, the takeoff and paint prices are example inputs, not market rates. Labor $28/hr + 22% burden, $12/hr overhead, 30% margin and 15% materials markup are Sheenbid's sample settings. Priced in Sheenbid's engine, solo crew.

Task	Hours
Mask kitchen; remove and label doors, fronts, hardware	3
Degrease and scuff-sand boxes and face frames on site; fill dings	4
Shop: degrease and sand doors and fronts	6
Prime boxes and face frames, brush and roll	3
Shop: spray-prime doors and fronts, sand between coats	3
Two finish coats, boxes and face frames, brush and roll	6
Shop: spray two finish coats, doors and fronts, both sides	6
Rehang, adjust, hardware, touch-up, cleanup	4
Sheenbid setup: 0.75 hr × 6 days	4.5
Labor hours	39.5

Paint. Example takeoff: 20 doors × 6.5 sq ft (both faces, edges) + 8 fronts × 2 sq ft + 80 sq ft of boxes, frames and end panels = 226 sq ft a coat. Two finish coats: 452 ÷ 350 (Emerald's low end) = 1.3 gal; buy 2 for spray loss and touch-up. One coat of primer: 1 gal.

Materials. 2 gal finish at $70 + 1 gal primer at $45 + $60 sundries (sandpaper, degreaser, tape, plastic) = $245. HomeGuide lists cabinet paint at $20–$70 a gallon and primer at $35–$50.

Labor: 39.5 hr × $34.16 loaded	$1,349.32
Overhead: 39.5 hr × $12	$474.00
Materials	$245.00
Cost	$2,068.32
At 30% margin: $2,068.32 ÷ 0.70	$2,954.74
+ 15% materials markup	$36.75
Price, rounded to $25	$3,000

$3,000 ÷ 28 pieces = $107 each · ÷ 26 linear ft = $115/ft · ÷ 39.5 hr = $75.95/hr

Against the cost guides: per piece, Fixr's ranges give $1,640–$3,380 for this kitchen. Angi's per-door range gives $2,000–$5,000 for the doors alone. Per foot, 26 feet at $30–$70 is $780–$1,820. The hours price sits inside the per-door ranges and far above per-foot. Quote this job off a per-foot number and you work 39.5 hours for less than cost.

6.1 working days of labor. Calendar days run longer: dry time between coats, and the topcoat's cure before heavy use. Sheenbid's 10% default deposit on this job: $300.

Mistakes that eat cabinet margins

Quoting a cost-guide per-foot number. See the example: 26 feet at the guides' top rate is $1,820 for 39.5 hours.
Skipping the degrease. Paint over kitchen grease is a callback. The data sheets say clean first.
Forgetting trips. Pickup, delivery, rehang and touch-up visits are hours.
Promising the kitchen back too soon. Advance needs 5–7 days before heavy abrasion and up to 30 days to reach optimum hardness. Tell the client before rehang day.
Leaving interiors unwritten. PCA standard P23 lists cabinets, shelves and related hardware as outside a painter's scope unless the contract names them. Your client hasn't read P23: put it on the quote.
Power-sanding an old kitchen. EPA's RRP rule: anyone paid to disturb paint in a home built before 1978 must be certified and use lead-safe practices. Power tools without HEPA exhaust control and open-flame burning are prohibited.
One price for every finish. Angi adds $500–$2,000 for glaze, distressing or two-tone.

Not legal advice. Lead and contract rules vary by state: check yours.

Price walls and trim the same way: room price calculator. Margin, not markup: the difference. The whole bid: how to bid a paint job.

Sources

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