Websites for Cabinet Makers and Millwork

The gap the site has to close

Customers researching kitchens have been looking at images for months, and images carry no price.

By the time they enquire they have an idea of what they want and frequently no idea what it costs. Custom cabinetry is substantially more expensive than the stock alternatives they have also been looking at, and nobody has told them.

That gap produces the pattern this trade knows well: an enthusiastic enquiry, a detailed conversation, a quote, and silence.

Closing it before the meeting saves both parties considerable time and is entirely a content problem.

Pricing, in the only form it can take

Exact figures are impossible and ranges are not.

What to publish: a starting figure for a typical kitchen, a range for common project types, and what actually moves the number.

The factors are worth listing explicitly, because customers do not know which of their choices are expensive: material and species, whether doors are painted or stained, drawer count, hardware quality, unusual sizes, and anything curved or non-standard.

Drawer count in particular surprises people. A run of drawers costs considerably more than the same width of doors, and a customer who knows that can adjust rather than abandon.

Custom against semi-custom against stock

A distinction the customer has probably not encountered and needs.

Explaining what each means, what the cost difference is, and what you actually get for it lets somebody place themselves honestly.

It also protects you, because a customer comparing your quote to a stock kitchen without understanding the difference concludes you are expensive rather than different.

Where you offer more than one tier, saying so captures work that would otherwise go elsewhere entirely.

Lead times, stated early

The other frequent surprise.

Design, approval, fabrication, and installation take months, and customers planning a renovation around a date need to know before they commit to anything else.

What to state: how far out you are booking, how long design takes, how long fabrication runs, and how long installation takes on site. Also that changes after approval cost time as well as money.

A customer told this in advance plans around it. A customer told at the quote is a customer who has already booked a countertop supplier and a plumber.

The process

Worth describing, because a custom project involves more customer decisions than they expect.

1. Initial conversation, and whether it costs anything.
2. Measurement and design, including whether design is a paid stage and whether it is credited.
3. Drawings and approval, and how many revisions are included.
4. Deposit and material ordering.
5. Fabrication, during which changes become expensive.
6. Installation, and how long the space is unusable.
7. Deficiency review and final payment.

The design fee question causes friction when it emerges late. Stating that design is a paid stage, and that the fee is credited if the project proceeds, is the arrangement most customers accept readily when told at the start.

What is not included

The section that prevents most disputes in this trade.

Countertops, plumbing, electrical, flooring, painting the room, appliance supply, and any demolition. Customers frequently assume a kitchen quote includes more than cabinetry.

Saying what you coordinate against what the customer arranges themselves is worth stating plainly, since a project with three trades and no coordinator is a project that goes wrong.

Photographs and the portfolio

Strong in this trade and improvable in one specific way.

Finished kitchens photograph well. What is missing is the detail that demonstrates craft: joinery, drawer construction, hardware, edge profiles, and how something awkward was solved.

A customer cannot judge construction quality from a wide shot, and the detail images are what distinguish a cabinet maker from a supplier of boxes.

Adding the project's scale and rough budget range where the client permits turns a portfolio into something a prospect can measure themselves against.

The rest

Materials and where they come from, since customers increasingly ask. Warranty on workmanship and on finish, which are different. Whether you do commercial and millwork alongside residential, since those are different customers. And a clear service area, since installation travel is a real constraint, which follows the same invisible-cost argument as in what a tile and stone website needs.

Frequently asked questions

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