Every dollar figure in the worked examples below is invented for this post. They are labelled where they appear. They are not market rates, they are not anyone's rates, and they must not be used as a benchmark. The only real figures here are the published index moves and shelf prices, each of which carries a source.
A quote is a chain of small numbers
When a supplier tells you panels are up, the honest question is not "how much do I raise my prices". It is "how much of this quote is that panel".
Most shops never answer that, because the quote is one number arrived at by feel. Then a 12 percent input move becomes a 12 percent price move, or a zero percent price move, and neither is right.
Why one flat rate per linear foot is a made-up number
The industry habit is a single dollars-per-linear-foot figure for a whole kitchen. It is easy to say and it is wrong in both directions, because it prices two jobs the same when they are not the same job.
Drop the drawer banks from a run and a flat rate does not move. Change the door from a slab to a five-piece and a flat rate does not move. Anything that does not move when the work moves is not a price. It is an average someone applied to you.
The fix is not more complexity in the client-facing form. It is fewer inputs from the client and more structure behind them.
Rate per finish family, not one rate for everything
Three finish families cover most of what a cabinet shop actually builds: melamine, painted MDF or maple, and a wood species. They differ in material, in prep, in finishing time and in rework risk. They should not share a rate.
The client-facing measurement can still be simple. Lower, upper and full height is enough to price a ballpark. What sits behind each of those three numbers is a different rate per family.
Example rates, invented for this walkthrough:
| Family | Lower, per ft | Upper, per ft | Full height, per ft |
|---|---|---|---|
| Melamine | 420 | 310 | 560 |
| Painted | 610 | 450 | 790 |
| Wood species | 740 | 560 | 960 |
Take a kitchen with 14 feet of lower, 10 feet of upper and 4 feet of full height. Melamine comes to 11,220. Painted comes to 16,200. Wood comes to 19,800. Same room, three families, three real differences in the work.
Nothing on that table is a market rate. Your own numbers come from your own tracked hours and your own invoices, and a range built from them is a fact about your shop rather than an opinion about the market.
The door is the thing that doubles
The most common pricing mistake in a species change is multiplying the whole job.
A published dealer price list gives the shape of it. On one list read on 19 September 2026, hard maple ran 9.00 to 16.00 per board foot and black walnut ran 6.00 to 25.00 per board foot for the grades shown 5. The top of the walnut range is well above the top of the maple range. The carcass, the hardware, the finishing schedule and the install do not follow it.
Carry on the example. Say the wood family quote of 19,800 contains 6,200 of doors and drawer fronts. Change the species and the front package costs 2.1 times as much, which is 13,020. The job goes to 26,620.
The front line rose 110 percent. The job rose 34 percent. If you had applied a species multiplier to the total you would have quoted something near 41,000, looked at it, decided it was absurd, and discounted your way back down by instinct. The multiplier caused the discount.
Species belongs on the part made from that species. Nowhere else.
What a real material move does to that quote
Here are the real moves, from published indexes. Between August 2025 and August 2026 the US producer price index for hardwood plywood rose 11.8 percent 1 and the narrow index for prefinished particleboard and MDF rose 23.5 percent 2. In Canada, veneer and plywood rose 6.3 percent over the same twelve months 3.
Now put those on the painted example of 16,200. Invented material breakdown:
| Line | Before | Move | After |
|---|---|---|---|
| Carcass panels | 2,112 | up 11.8% | 2,361 |
| MDF door blanks | 1,480 | up 23.5% | 1,828 |
| Hardware | 860 | flat | 860 |
| Finish | 540 | flat | 540 |
| Edge banding, fasteners | 210 | flat | 210 |
| Material total | 5,202 | 5,799 |
Materials rose 597. On a 16,200 quote that is 3.7 percent. Two of your inputs moved by 11.8 and 23.5 percent and the client-facing number moved by 3.7 percent.
That is the arithmetic that stops both mistakes. You do not raise the quote 23 percent because MDF did. You also do not absorb it, because 597 on every kitchen is a real year.
One caution. If you price by dividing cost by one minus a target margin rather than adding a fixed markup, a 597 cost rise at a 40 percent margin adds 995 to the price, not 597. Know which method you use before you quote the increase.
For context on who has been absorbing: the US producer price index for wood kitchen cabinet and countertop manufacturing rose 4.3 percent over the same twelve months 4, less than the panels those cabinets are built from.
Anchor the rate to something you can show
Material rates should be traceable to a document. Shelf prices read on 19 September 2026 at one Canadian retailer: 3/4 inch 4x8 white melamine at CAD 68.98 6, 3/4 inch 4x8 sanded birch plywood at CAD 74.98 7, and 3/4 inch MDF at CAD 90.20 8. Hardware, one US retailer, same day: a pair of Blum TANDEM plus BLUMOTION slides from 36.99 to 39.99 depending on length 9, and a pair of Blum soft-close hinges at 17.99 10.
None of those is what a shop with an account pays. They are public, dated and checkable, which is exactly what a rate you can defend needs to be.
Price validity windows
A quote without an expiry is a promise about a future you do not control.
Two dates already on the calendar make the point. Canada's counter-tariffs on a list of US-origin goods took effect on 8 September 2026 12, and the scheduled Section 232 increases on kitchen cabinets and vanities are set for 1 January 2027 11.
Practical shape: fourteen days on a ballpark range, thirty days on a detailed proposal, and a line that says material pricing is held for that period and re-confirmed at order. Put the expiry date on the document in words, not in fine print. Reissue rather than extend, because a reissued quote is a fresh conversation and an extended one is a concession.
How to explain a change to a client
Do it in four sentences. Name the line that moved. Give the amount in dollars, not a percentage. Show the date the supplier price changed. State the new total and the new expiry.
Do not apologise, and do not re-open the rest of the quote. A client who is shown one line and one invoice believes the number. A client who is handed a revised total with no breakdown starts pricing you against someone else.
If the change lands after signing, the pass-through clause has to have been in the document they signed, saying what triggers it, how it is computed and what proof you will show. A clause that appears for the first time on the invoice reads as a surprise, whatever it says.
What this means for a two-person shop
You can already produce a number in five minutes. The hour and a half goes on second-guessing it.
The arithmetic above is what removes the second-guessing. Once the quote is a sum of rates per family, per part, you can see where a move lands and you can tell the client exactly what changed. You stop discounting the total because the total looks big, because the total is no longer a feeling. It is a set of lines you can point at.
Three things to do this month. Split your rate into families if it is one rate today. Move species onto the front package instead of the total. Put an expiry date on the next quote you send.
When this was checked
The index moves and shelf prices here were read on 19 September 2026. The example rates were never real. Check the reviewed date before quoting anything in this post to a client.