Small kitchen Cost Calculator

How this calculator works

Every figure in this calculator is the one published in the cost table on our small kitchen guide. Pick the option that matches your job and the calculator returns that published range, adjusted for your region - it does not model anything the guide does not already say.

That is deliberate. A calculator whose rates drift from the page it sits under is worse than no calculator, because two numbers on the same site disagree.

What it cannot know: access, the condition of what is already there, and anything structural. Those are what separate three real quotes from each other.

Why a small kitchen doesn’t cost small

The figures above look modest next to a full kitchen, but a small room rarely costs a small amount per square metre. Plumbing, electrics, fitting labour and building control don’t shrink with the floor – they spread over fewer cabinets, so each unit carries more of the fixed cost. That’s the first thing to hold in mind when a budget feels tight.

The biggest lever you control is the layout. Keep the sink, hob and appliances where they are and you keep the pipework and wiring short, the walls unchased and the making good minimal. Move them – sink to the far wall, hob onto a new run – and a single-wall or galley job quietly picks up new pipe runs, a longer first-fix and fresh plaster. In a small space those changes are proportionally expensive because there’s less kitchen to absorb them.

Reface or replace is the other big fork. If the carcases are sound, new doors, drawer fronts, handles and a fresh worktop can transform a galley for far less than stripping it out. A full replacement makes sense when the units are failing, the layout is wrong, or you’re moving services anyway – but on a tidy footprint a reface often gets you most of the look for a fraction of the spend.

A small footprint changes the maths in ways that aren’t obvious. Fewer units means the worktop, appliances and any premium finish weigh more heavily in the total, so upgrading a laminate top to quartz moves the figure more than it would in a large room. It also means trades work on top of each other in a tight space, which can slow the schedule even though there’s less to fit.

Get three written quotes and check what each assumes – whether the units are supplied by you or the fitter, whether the old kitchen’s removal and waste are included, and whether the price keeps the existing layout or allows for moving it. Our small kitchen cost guide walks through where the money goes on a compact refit.