Short answer. Published figures put cabinet refacing at $4,500 to $16,200 for an average kitchen, and up to $23,300 for a large one. Set against new cabinets, that is roughly 70 to 80 percent of the cost of replacing them outright. For a kitchen with solid boxes, a layout you like and countertops you want to keep, that is money well spent. For a kitchen with failing particle board, a layout that annoys you, or boxes that were cheap to begin with, you are paying most of the price of a new kitchen to keep the worst part of the old one.
Ranges as published September 2026 by national cost guides and Home Depot’s own refacing guide, both relayed by Benchmark Home Improvements. We do not sell refacing, so none of these figures are ours. Full attribution below.
Written by Marjorie Hernandez
Kitchen Designer, 20+ years in kitchen design
Reviewed by Emin Halac
Chief Executive Officer
Updated September 2026. Written from the showroom floor, not from a trend deck.
Before you read this
We do not sell cabinet refacing
We sell cabinet doors and we sell cabinets. We do not offer refacing as a service, which means we have nothing to gain from telling you it is a good idea and nothing to lose from telling you it is not.
That is worth knowing, because almost every other page you will read on this question is published either by a company whose entire business is refacing, or by a remodeler who would rather sell you a new kitchen. Both are giving you real information. Neither is disinterested.
That 70 to 80 percent figure is the single most important number on this page, and it is the one most refacing pages leave vague. Once you have it, the decision gets much easier.
Where the numbers on this page come from
CITED. Every cost range below is attributed to whoever published it. We do not offer refacing, so we have no pricing of our own to quote and we are not going to invent a range.
OUR READ. Anything labelled that way is our judgement from what comes through our showrooms. It is reasoning, not data, and it is labelled every time.
What is cabinet refacing, and how does it differ from kitchen cabinet refinishing?
Cabinet refacing keeps your existing cabinet boxes exactly where they are and replaces everything you can see. New doors, new drawer fronts, new hinges and hardware, and a matching veneer or laminate applied to the exposed face frames and end panels so the whole kitchen reads as new.
The confusion starts because there are really five options here, not two, and the words get used interchangeably by people selling different things.
| Option | What changes | What stays |
|---|---|---|
| Painting | Colour only | Boxes, doors, hardware, layout |
| Refinishing | Stripped and recoated finish | Boxes, doors, layout |
| Door replacement | Doors and drawer fronts | Boxes, face frames, layout |
| Refacing | Doors, fronts, hardware, plus veneer on the frames | Boxes, layout |
| Full replacement | Everything | Nothing, and the layout can change |
The two middle rows get conflated constantly. Door replacement leaves your existing face frames visible. Refacing covers them. If your frames are in good condition and close in colour to the new doors, you may not need the veneer step at all.
Cabinet refacing cost: what published figures actually say
Ranges vary widely because kitchen size, door style and material vary widely. Here is what the sources currently publishing numbers say, attributed.
| Source | Refacing cost | Compared to new |
|---|---|---|
| Google AI Overview, Sept 2026 | $5,000 to $15,000 | 30 to 50% less |
| National cost guides, as relayed by Benchmark Home Improvements | $4,500 to $10,500 | not stated |
| Home Depot’s own refacing guide, as cited by Benchmark | $8,100 to $16,200 average kitchen, up to $23,300 large | not stated |
| 180 Kitchens | not stated | 30 to 50% less |
| The Cabinet Doctors | not stated | 70 to 80% of new |
| Cabinet trade discussion, r/kitchenremodel | not stated | about 75% of new |
| New semi-custom cabinets installed, per Benchmark | $10,000 to $25,000 | this is the thing being compared against |
Published ranges, same scale
Refacing and new cabinets cost the same for a lot of kitchens
Every published refacing range below overlaps the cost of new semi‑custom cabinets. The shaded band is where a refacing quote and a new‑cabinet quote can land on the same number.
Refacing · national cost guides, relayed by Benchmark Home Improvements $4,500–$10,500
Refacing · Google AI Overview, September 2026 $5,000–$15,000
Refacing · Home Depot’s own guide, cited by Benchmark $8,100–$16,200, large kitchens to $23,300
New semi-custom cabinets, installed · per Benchmark $10,000–$25,000
$5k
$10k
$15k
$20k
$25k
A refacing quote at the top of its range costs more than new cabinets at the bottom of theirs.
Which is why the answer is never the quote on its own. Price new cabinets in the same grade, then compare.
Ranges as published September 2026 by the sources named on each bar. Benchmark Home Improvements relays the national cost guide and Home Depot figures rather than publishing its own. No source here publishes primary survey data. Chart by USA Cabinet Express, which does not sell refacing.
Notice the gap. The marketing-facing sources say refacing saves you 30 to 50 percent. Two independent trade sources, one of them a refacing company itself, put it at 70 to 80 percent of the cost of new. Those cannot both be true of the same kitchen.
Now put two of those rows side by side. Home Depot’s own refacing guide prices an average kitchen at $8,100 to $16,200. New semi-custom cabinets, installed, run about $10,000 to $25,000. The ranges overlap heavily. A refacing quote at the upper end of one range costs more than new cabinets at the lower end of the other, for a kitchen that keeps its original boxes.
There is a second problem with the headline savings figure, and Benchmark Home Improvements makes the point well: cabinetry and its installation is only about a third of a full kitchen project. So even where the 50 percent saving holds, it is 50 percent of one slice, not half your kitchen budget.
[OUR READ] The difference is usually what “new” is being compared against. Refacing at 50 percent of new makes sense when “new” means custom cabinetry. Refacing at 75 percent of new is what happens when you compare it honestly against good semi-custom or stock cabinets, which is what most people actually buy. If you are quoted refacing and you have not also priced new cabinets in the same grade, you do not yet have a comparison.
One more figure, from The Cabinet Doctors: kitchen cabinet refinishing costs roughly two thirds of refacing. If your doors are a profile you still like and the problem is only the finish, that is the cheaper lane and nobody selling refacing will point you to it.
The question homeowners keep asking out loud
On r/kitchenremodel, in a thread specifically about choosing between refinishing, refacing and replacement, a homeowner asked it directly:
“I thought refacing was almost as much as a full replacement. How do you mitigate costs with refacing”
A cabinet trade commenter in the same thread answered it directly:
“Refacing often costs about 75% of the price of new, similar cabinets.”
That number arrived independently of the published 70 to 80 percent figure, from someone with no page to sell. When the trade and a refacing company agree on a number, it is probably close to right.
Check your cabinet boxes before you get a single quote
Refacing is only worth 75 percent of the price of new cabinets if the boxes you are keeping are worth keeping. Checking them takes about ten minutes with a torch.
What the boxes are made of
Open a door and look at the raw edge of the box, and at the shelf edges. Plywood shows layers. Particle board shows compressed chips. Solid wood is obvious. Plywood and solid wood are worth refacing. Particle board is a judgement call, and once it has been wet it is not a judgement call at all.
Under the sink, always
This is where kitchens die. A swollen, soft or delaminated cabinet bottom under the sink means water has been getting in, and refacing that run puts a new door on a box that is already failing. If the sink base is gone, price replacing at least that cabinet regardless of what you do elsewhere.
Square, level and sound
Open and close every door. Do they sit square, or has the face frame racked? Are the shelves sagging in the middle? Do the drawers run straight? A refaced door on a racked frame will look wrong forever, because the new door is square and the hole it sits in is not.
A homeowner in that same Reddit thread described the test better than we would: “are they real wood? do they still open properly? Are they chipped, are they cardboard inside, you know pressed wood?” That is the whole diagnostic in one sentence.
What replacing kitchen cabinets does to your countertops
There is an argument for refacing that has nothing to do with how the doors look, and for some kitchens it decides the whole thing.
If you have stone countertops you intend to keep, replacing the cabinets puts them at risk. Granite and quartz have to come off the boxes to get the boxes out, and going back down on new cabinets is not guaranteed. Slabs crack. Seams do not always line up again. Integrated sinks complicate it further.
Refacing does not touch the counters at all. They stay exactly where they are, on the boxes they were templated and installed onto.
Homeowners raise this themselves. From the same thread: “if you remove the cabinets there is a possibility that the counters could become damaged with them being removed… at least protect the rest of your investment.” And from someone who had done it: “I was told stone based counters (granite) are not as forgiving.”
[OUR READ] If your counters are two or three years old and you like them, this alone can tip an otherwise marginal decision toward refacing. If your counters are laminate, or dated, or you were going to change them anyway, it drops out of the calculation entirely and refacing loses one of its better arguments.
Is cabinet refacing worth it? Five things that should all be true
All of these should be true, not just one:
Your boxes are plywood or solid wood, dry, square and sound, including under the sink.
You are happy with the layout. Refacing will not move a single cabinet, and the thing that annoys you about your kitchen is very often the layout rather than the finish.
You have countertops you want to keep, particularly stone.
Your timeline is short. Published figures put refacing at one to five days against several weeks for replacement.
You have priced new cabinets in the same grade and the refacing quote came in lower.
Cabinet refacing vs replacing: when replacement is the better call
The cabinet refacing vs replacing decision usually turns on one of four things, and none of them is the door style.
The boxes are particle board and have been wet, or the sink base has gone soft.
You want the layout to change. New appliance sizes, an island, a wider fridge opening, moving the sink. Refacing cannot do any of it.
The interiors are the problem. If you want deeper drawers, pull-outs throughout, or better storage, you are buying boxes.
The refacing quote came in close to the cost of new. At 75 percent, you are paying most of the price of a new kitchen to keep the oldest component in it.
Refacing is not quite as limited as it is often described. Google’s own AI summary of this topic says refacing “cannot change your floor plan,” and a homeowner in the Reddit thread contradicted that directly, describing a refacing job that added pull-out bins and soft-close, cut the granite back and moved cabinets down for a taller fridge. Ask what your fabricator can do before you assume.
Sometimes the honest answer is neither
We sell cabinets, so take this in the spirit it is meant. A lot of kitchens that get refaced or replaced did not need either.
“You don’t get the money back for cabinets in resale unless your cabinets are damaged or non functional and are a drag on the home value. Those were beautiful well built cabinets. I wouldn’t do any of your choices.”
That comment drew agreement from several people in the thread, including one who had just refaced their own kitchen. Another put it as: “there is way too much throw it out when chances are it was better quality than what you could afford NOW.”
If your boxes and doors are solid and your real complaint is that the kitchen looks tired, new hardware, a change of wall colour, better lighting and updated countertops will often get you most of the way for a fraction of either quote. That is not a sales pitch, which is rather the point.
Refacing vs replacing cabinet doors: where door-only fits in
We do sell this one, so weigh what follows accordingly.
Refacing vs replacing cabinet doors is a narrower question than refacing vs replacing the whole kitchen. Door replacement swaps the doors and drawer fronts without applying veneer to the face frames. It costs less than refacing because there is less material and less labour. It only works when your existing face frames are in good condition and either close enough in colour to the new doors, or paintable to match.
Where refacing makes sense is when your frames are damaged, badly dated in colour, or you want a finish the existing frames could never match. If your frames are fine, the veneer step is money spent hiding something that did not need hiding.
Our kitchen cabinet door styles guide covers the profiles worth specifying and has a section on when door-only replacement is the right call. If finish is what you are weighing up, our piece on gray cabinets goes through undertone, which is the thing people most often get wrong when choosing new fronts.
Price new cabinets before you accept a refacing quote
Not because we think you should buy new. Because at 70 to 80 percent, you cannot tell whether a refacing quote is good value until you know what the alternative costs in the same grade. Bring your measurements and we will price the comparison, including door-only if your frames are sound. If the answer is that refacing wins, we will say so.
Cabinet refacing questions we get asked most
Is it cheaper to reface or replace cabinets?
Refacing is cheaper, but by less than most people expect. Published trade figures put it at roughly 70 to 80 percent of the cost of comparable new cabinets, and a cabinet trade commenter independently put it at about 75 percent. Marketing-facing sources often claim 30 to 50 percent savings, which usually reflects a comparison against custom cabinetry rather than the stock or semi-custom most people actually buy.
How much does cabinet refacing cost?
Published ranges vary widely. National cost guides put it at $4,500 to $10,500, while Home Depot’s own refacing guide prices an average kitchen at $8,100 to $16,200 and a large one up to $23,300. Google’s AI summary gives $5,000 to $15,000. For context, new semi-custom cabinets installed run roughly $10,000 to $25,000, so the ranges overlap. We do not offer refacing, so we have no figure of our own to add, and any range should be checked against a quote for your actual kitchen.
Is cabinet refacing worth it?
It is worth it when the boxes are plywood or solid wood and sound, you like the layout, you have countertops worth protecting, and your timeline is short. It is poor value when the boxes are particle board, when the sink base has water damage, or when you want the layout to change, because you are paying most of the cost of a new kitchen to keep its oldest component.
What is the difference between refacing and refinishing cabinets?
Refinishing strips and recoats the doors you already have, so the profile stays the same and only the finish changes. Refacing replaces the doors and drawer fronts entirely and veneers the face frames to match. Refinishing costs roughly two thirds of refacing according to The Cabinet Doctors, so if you still like your door profile it is the cheaper lane.
How long does cabinet refacing take?
Published figures put refacing at one to five days against several weeks for a full replacement. That gap is one of the stronger arguments for refacing, particularly if you are working to a deadline like a holiday or a house sale.
Can you reface cabinets if the boxes are particle board?
Sometimes, if they are dry and structurally sound. Particle board that has been wet is a different matter, and the cabinet under the sink is where to look first. A swollen or soft base means water has been getting in, and putting a new door on a failing box is money badly spent.
Does refacing damage countertops?
No, and that is one of its real advantages. Refacing does not touch the counters. Replacing the cabinets does, because stone has to come off the boxes to remove them and going back down is not guaranteed. If you have granite or quartz you intend to keep, that risk belongs in the comparison.
Can refacing change my kitchen layout?
Mostly no, but less absolutely than usually stated. Refacing keeps the boxes where they are, so it cannot move a sink or add an island. However homeowners report refacing jobs that added pull-outs and soft-close, and in one case cut the countertop back and moved cabinets to widen a fridge opening. Ask your fabricator what is possible rather than assuming.
Do you get your money back on refacing when you sell?
Generally not, unless the existing cabinets were damaged or non-functional enough to drag the value down. That is worth weighing before either option. If the kitchen simply looks tired rather than failing, hardware, lighting, wall colour and countertops often get you most of the way for far less.
Where we land on cabinet refacing
Refacing is a good answer to a narrow question: how do I make a structurally sound kitchen with a layout I like look new, quickly, without disturbing the countertops. For that kitchen it is worth the money.
For everything else, the 70 to 80 percent figure does the arguing. If you are paying three quarters of the cost of a new kitchen, the boxes you are keeping need to be worth keeping, and a lot of them are not.
Check under the sink first. Then price new cabinets in the same grade so you have something real to compare against. Talk to a dealer rep if you want that comparison priced.
Sources. The 70 to 80 percent and two thirds figures are quoted directly from The Cabinet Doctors, “What Is the Difference between Refinishing, Refacing and Resurfacing Kitchen Cabinets?”, read at source September 2026 · Dollar ranges and the one third of project figure from Benchmark Home Improvements, “Cabinet Refacing vs. Replacing: What Each Really Costs”, read at source September 2026, which itself relays national cost guides and Home Depot’s published refacing guide · 30 to 50 percent comparison from 180 Kitchens and Google’s AI Overview, September 2026 · Homeowner and trade comments quoted from a public r/kitchenremodel discussion on refinishing, refacing and replacement.
A note on the numbers: no source on this page publishes primary survey data on refacing costs. The Cabinet Doctors describe their figure as “estimates,” and Home Depot’s range reaches us secondhand because their site blocks automated access. Treat every range here as directional, and get a quote for your own kitchen before deciding anything.
USA Cabinet Express sells cabinet doors and cabinets. We do not offer refacing as a service. Statements marked [OUR READ] are our own judgement rather than published findings. Reviewed for technical accuracy by Emin Halac.
