How to price fitted wardrobes: a joiner's worksheet (materials, labour, margin)
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Closetforge is a white-label 3D wardrobe configurator and quoting software for fitted-wardrobe makers. This guide is for them: pricing a fitted wardrobe means adding up what the job costs you (board, hardware, labour, installation, travel, overhead), adding the margin that keeps the business alive, then VAT. Below is each line in the order a joiner meets it, with a worked example and a free price worksheet that does the arithmetic in your browser. You need no software for the method: a spreadsheet or a calculator is enough.
The shape of the calculation
Every fitted-wardrobe price is the same chain of steps:
- Materials: sheets of board, including waste, plus edge banding.
- Hardware: hinges, runners, rails, handles, fixings.
- Workshop labour: cutting, drilling, assembly, finishing.
- Installation: fitting on site, including scribing and making good.
- Travel: the distance to the customer, for every visit.
- Overhead: a share of the costs the job does not pay for directly.
- Margin: what you keep after all of the above.
- VAT, if you charge it.
The first five lines add up to the subtotal. Overhead goes on top of the subtotal to give your cost before margin. Margin goes on top of that to give the price excluding VAT. VAT is the last step.
1. Materials: sheets and waste
Board is bought by the sheet, not by the square metre you use. The quantity that matters is the number of whole sheets you must buy to cut every part, not the area of the parts.
Start from a cut list: every panel with its length, width, thickness and decor. Group the panels by board and decor, then work out how many sheets each group needs. Add a waste allowance for offcuts that cannot be used and for keeping grain direction. The allowance depends on how well your parts nest on the sheet and how much of your offcut stock you reuse, so use your own history rather than a rule of thumb.
The calculation is: sheets bought × price per sheet × (1 + waste ÷ 100).
If you quote from a drawing and have no cut list yet, estimate the sheet count and replace it with the real count later. A cut list with board nesting removes the guesswork, because the sheet count comes straight from the design.
2. Edge banding by exposed edges
Edge banding is priced by the metre, and the length is not the total perimeter of every panel. Count the edges a customer can see or touch: the front edges of shelves, dividers and carcass sides, all four edges of a door or drawer front. Edges that sit against the wall, the back or another panel normally take no band, or a cheaper one.
Counting only exposed edges keeps the length honest. Machine time to apply it belongs in labour. The line is metres of band × price per metre.
3. Hardware by role
List hardware by what it does, not by the part number you happened to use last time: door hinges, drawer runners, hanging rails and brackets, shelf supports, handles, soft-close dampers, sliding track and rollers, fixings. For each role, write the quantity and the unit price you actually pay, then multiply.
Count per door and per drawer, not per wardrobe: a wider door needs more hinges. And keep a price list you update whenever a supplier changes a price.
4. Labour by component
Workshop labour is hours × hourly rate. The difficulty is knowing the hours. The reliable way is to time the components you build repeatedly and keep the numbers: minutes for a carcass, a shelf, a drawer box, a hung door, a sliding door pair, a rail. Then a job's labour is the sum of its components rather than a feeling.
Decide what your hourly rate has to cover, and do not count the same cost here and again in overhead.
5. Installation and travel
Fitting on site is a different job from building in the workshop, with a different rate and a different risk. Estimate installation hours separately: carrying in, levelling, scribing to uneven walls, fixing, adjusting doors, cleaning up.
Travel is distance × rate per kilometre, and the distance is the total, not the one-way trip. Count the survey visit, the delivery and fitting days, and any return visit for adjustments.
6. Overhead
Overhead is the cost of being in business that no single job pays for: rent, insurance, vehicles, software, accountancy, tools, phone, marketing. A simple way to carry it is a percentage of the subtotal.
To find your own percentage, divide a year of those costs by a year of the direct costs (materials, hardware, labour, installation, travel) of the jobs you completed. Recalculate it once a year.
7. Margin: on cost or on price
Margin is the part you keep. There are two ways to express it, and mixing them up is a common reason a job earns less than expected.
- Margin as a percentage on cost (a markup). The margin is a percentage of your cost before margin. A 25% markup on a cost of 100 gives a price of 125.
- Margin as a percentage of price. The margin is a percentage of the selling price. To keep 20% of the price on a cost of 100, the price is 100 ÷ (1 − 0.20) = 125.
Those two examples are the same price. A 25% markup is a 20% margin of price. The reverse mistake costs money: if you want to keep 25% of the price and apply a 25% markup, you end up with only 20%. The worksheet lets you choose either method and states which one is applied, so you can check the other one.
Pick one convention, write it down and use it on every quote. When you compare your margin with anyone else's, first check which of the two they mean.
8. VAT: inclusive or exclusive
Work out the whole price excluding VAT first, then add VAT as the last step. Whether you show customers the price including or excluding VAT depends on who they are and on local practice: a consumer in many countries expects a price with VAT included, while a business customer often expects it separately. The rate depends on the country and sometimes on the type of work, so check it with your accountant rather than copying one from a guide.
In the worksheet, VAT is a single percentage on the price excluding VAT. Leave it at zero to see the price without VAT.
A worked example
These are round numbers invented for this example. They are not market data, and they are not a recommended price, a rate for your region or an average of anything. Replace every one of them with your own.
| Line | Working | Amount |
|---|---|---|
| Sheets, with waste | 6 sheets × 80 × 1.15 | 552.00 |
| Edge banding | 60 m × 0.50 | 30.00 |
| Hardware | hinges, runners, rail, handles | 120.00 |
| Workshop labour | 30 h × 40 | 1,200.00 |
| Installation | 8 h × 40 | 320.00 |
| Travel | 80 km × 0.50 | 40.00 |
| Subtotal | 2,262.00 | |
| Overhead | 10% of subtotal | 226.20 |
| Cost before margin | 2,488.20 | |
| Margin | 25% on cost | 622.05 |
| Price excluding VAT | 3,110.25 | |
| VAT | 20% of the price excluding VAT | 622.05 |
| Price including VAT | 3,732.30 |
In this example the 25% markup is 20% of the price excluding VAT (622.05 ÷ 3,110.25). If the aim had been to keep 25% of the price, the price excluding VAT would have been 2,488.20 ÷ 0.75 = 3,317.60 instead.
Type the same numbers into the price worksheet, then change one input at a time to learn which lines matter in your workshop.
Check the price before you send it
Before a quote leaves the building, look at it from three directions.
- The effective hourly rate. Divide the price excluding VAT, minus materials and hardware, by the hours you will spend. If it is lower than what you would charge for day work, the quote is too low.
- The materials share. Materials and hardware as a share of the price should be similar from job to job in the same kind of work. A job far outside your usual share points to a mistake in the sheet count or the hours.
- The win rate. If you win every quote you may be too cheap. If you win none, check whether the price or the reply time is the cause.
What this guide does not do
- It does not give you prices, rates, waste percentages or margins for your market. Those are yours to measure, and this guide has no data on what other workshops charge.
- It is not tax or legal advice. VAT rates and the rules for showing prices to consumers differ by country, so confirm them locally.
- It does not replace a cut list. A real cut list with nesting gives a better sheet count than an estimate.
- It is not a quote. The worksheet adds the numbers you type and nothing else; it does not know your materials, your suppliers or your customer's room.
- It does not describe how Closetforge works inside. The software prices each customer design from the rates the workshop enters, see how it works, and the plans are on the pricing page.
From worksheet to a system
A worksheet suits one-off jobs and checking your thinking. When the same method repeats for every enquiry, a configurator on your own website can take over the re-entering: the customer designs the wardrobe and the quote is priced from your own board prices, hardware and labour rates, with a cut list for the workshop.
See it working in the live demo, or book a call to talk through your own rates.