How Much Does a Kitchen Remodel Cost? What the Research Actually Shows

Most articles answering this question give you a table of percentages: cabinets 30%, labor 20%, countertops 10%, and so on.

We are not going to, because we could not find a primary source for those splits that we were willing to stand behind. They appear everywhere, they are always slightly different, and they mostly cite each other. What follows is the part that is actually measured, plus the parts that are judgement, clearly labelled as such.

The headline number

The best current figure comes from Houzz, who survey renovating homeowners each year:

The median spend on a major kitchen remodel is $55,000, rising to $75,000 for larger kitchens.¹ That is from a study of 1,780 U.S. homeowners.

Median matters here rather than average. A handful of very expensive projects drag an average upwards; the median is the middle of the distribution, so it is the better answer to "what do people like me spend".

Two things that number is not:

• It is not what a kitchen has to cost. Plenty of good kitchens cost a fraction of it.
• It is not a national constant. Labor rates vary enormously by region, and labor is a large part of any quote.

What actually moves the number

In rough order of how much they change the total.

Whether the layout changes. This is the single biggest lever. Keeping the sink, the range and the drain line where they are avoids plumbing and electrical work, avoids patching the walls and floor afterwards, and shortens the job. Moving them changes the trade mix of the entire project. Two kitchens with identical cabinets can differ by many thousands purely on this.

Whether the boxes are replaced or kept. Replacing doors, countertop and handles on sound carcasses gets you most of the visual change for a small share of the cost. Full replacement means removal, disposal, new cabinets, and reinstalling everything around them.

Appliances. The range from serviceable to aspirational is wider here than almost any other category, and it is entirely discretionary. Appliances are also the item most often upgraded late, in a showroom, on the day.

The countertop. Material choice on this one surface swings the total more than most people expect, and the price often excludes cut-outs, backsplashes and special edge profiles. Two quotes for "the same countertop" frequently differ because one includes those and the other does not.

Doing it twice. The most expensive line in any kitchen is the one you pay for again. Reordering doors in a different color, replacing a countertop you disliked once it was in, or living with something you regret and changing it in three years.

Going over budget is the norm, not the exception

This is the part worth internalising before you set a number.

Houzz found that in 2025, 37% of renovating homeowners exceeded the amount they had set.² Their sample was 10,176 renovating homeowners.

Clever Real Estate asked a differently framed question of 1,000 homeowners and got a much higher figure: 78% went over budget on their last project, 44% of them by at least $5,000 and 35% by at least $10,000.³

Those two numbers are not in conflict. They are measuring different things: one asks about a specific recent year and a set amount, the other asks about a person's last project overall. Read together they say the same thing. Overrunning is normal, and the overrun is often five figures.

The interesting part is why, because Houzz asked that too. The two most common reasons were choosing higher end materials than originally planned (35%) and expanding the scope of the project mid renovation (31%).²

Neither of those is a surprise cost. Neither is a builder finding rot under the floor. They are both decisions, made by the homeowner, after the project started.

What that tells you about how to budget

The usual advice is to add a contingency of ten or twenty percent for the unexpected. That is sensible, and it does not address the thing the data actually points at.

The overruns above are not unexpected costs. They are late decisions. The most effective way to keep a kitchen near its budget is not a bigger contingency, it is deciding more things earlier, when changing your mind is still free.

Concretely:

Set the number before you look at anything. Looking first anchors you high, and every subsequent option is judged against the nicest thing you saw.

Separate the layer that is expensive to change from the layer that is cheap. Boxes, countertop and floor are expensive and disruptive. Door color, handles, tile and lighting are comparatively cheap. Put your budget into the first layer and your personality into the second.

Get three quotes, and make them comparable. Ask each to price the same specified list. Quotes that differ by thousands usually differ in what they include, not in what they charge.

Decide the appliances early. They set cabinet dimensions, and choosing them late in a showroom is exactly the moment the 35% happens.

Ask what is excluded. Cut-outs, backsplashes, disposal of the old kitchen, patching, drywall, and final decoration are the usual gaps.

The cheapest large change

If the number above is uncomfortable, the honest answer is that the largest visual change per pound spent is almost always the doors.

Repainting or replacing cabinet doors, adding new handles, and changing the tile behind the counter transforms how a kitchen looks while leaving the expensive layer alone. It is a fraction of a full remodel and, for a kitchen whose layout works and whose carcasses are sound, it is frequently the right answer rather than the compromise answer.

The catch is that it is only cheap if you get the color right first time. A repaint you dislike is a weekend and a bill, twice.

That is the specific thing our cabinet color visualizer is for: you photograph your kitchen, photograph the color, and see the two together before you buy anything. Same for the countertop, the tile and the floor. None of it replaces a quote. It replaces the guessing that leads to the expensive decisions being made late.

Sources

1. Median major kitchen remodel $55,000, rising to $75,000 for larger kitchens. 2026 U.S. Houzz Kitchen Trends Study, n=1,780 U.S. homeowners. Read the study
2. 37% exceeded their set amount in 2025. 35% chose higher end materials than initially planned, 31% expanded scope mid renovation. 2026 U.S. Houzz & Home Study, published 22 April 2026, n=10,176 renovating U.S. homeowners. Read the study
3. 78% went over budget on their last project, 44% by at least $5,000 and 35% by at least $10,000. Clever Real Estate, Home Renovation Trends, October 2024. n=1,000 U.S. homeowners, surveyed 14 to 16 August 2024, margin of error plus or minus 3%. Read the survey

The ordering of cost drivers, and the advice on budgeting, is judgement based on how kitchen projects are quoted and built. It is not survey data and we have not dressed it up as any.