Quick answer
Read a kitchen quote line by line, checking exactly what's included versus excluded: GST, delivery, scribing, benchtop cutouts, plumbing and electrical disconnection, splashbacks, appliance install and rubbish removal are the costs most often left out. MTN Kitchens quotes Auckland supply-and-install at trade pricing with inclusions spelled out.
Key points
- Read the exclusions list, not the inclusions list. The inclusions are marketing; the exclusions are where the variations hide.
- Supply-only almost never wins once you load in labour, firmed-up stone, cutouts and coordination. The cheapest line on the page is rarely the cheapest kitchen on the wall.
- Make the quote name everything in writing: carcass thickness, hardware brand, door finish, benchtop material, edge profile and colour range. A lump sum hides substitutions.
- Watch PC and PS lines. A provisional sum is a placeholder, not a price, and on a repeating unit there is usually no good reason for one.
- A quote is a programme commitment too. Confirmed lead times and one consistent spec across the run matter more on a 40-unit job than a few dollars a cabinet.
The gap is what's left out.
Two quotes for the same Flat Bush townhouse block can sit $4,000 a unit apart and describe, on paper, the exact same kitchen. The cabinetry is almost never the difference. The difference is what each quote leaves out, who is assumed to be doing the cutouts and connections, and whether the lead time actually fits your programme. On a ten, twenty or eighty unit job those gaps stack up. They usually surface as variations halfway through, when you have no leverage left to push back.
Reading a kitchen quote properly means reading the exclusions, not the inclusions. The inclusions list is marketing. The exclusions list is the contract. Here is how to pull one apart before you sign, in the order it actually matters on an Auckland job.
Supply-only versus supply and install
This is the biggest swing on the page, and the one most often blurred. Supply-only covers flat-pack or assembled cabinetry dropped to site. Supply and install covers manufacture, delivery, fitting, scribing to walls that are never square, benchtop templating and install, and making good. The supply-only number always looks sharper because the real cost of getting the joinery onto the wall has been handed to you, your chippie, your stonemason and your programme. If you are still weighing the two delivery models, flat-pack versus pre-assembled cabinets is the same decision viewed from the workshop end.
Split it across separate trades and you also own the coordination. The benchtop supplier blames the cabinetmaker for the gap, the cabinetmaker blames the builder for the framing, and you field the callback. One supply-and-install contract puts a single party on the hook for the finished result. With us that is one contract and one invoice, from manufacture in our East Tamaki workshop through to the kitchen installed and signed off. No seam for a variation to hide in.
There is a real labour question underneath this too. If a quote is supply-only, work out who is fitting it and what their day rate is. A builder who puts his framing crew on a kitchen install to save money usually loses that saving twice over: once in the time they are off the critical path, and again in the snags. Scribing to an unlined or out-of-square wall, levelling a long run of base units, and templating a stone bench are not framing jobs. Price the labour honestly and supply-only often is not cheaper at all once you load it in.
Decode the line items
A single lump sum per kitchen is hard to interrogate and easy to pad. Ask for a breakdown. You want to see carcasses, hardware brand, benchtop material and edge, splashback, and door finish as separate lines, so you can spot where a cheaper substitute has quietly gone in. A lump sum hides substitutions; a broken-down quote forces them into the light. If you want to understand what each of those lines should actually cost, where the money goes in a kitchen quote breaks the proportions down.
Carcass and hardware
Carcasses are usually 18mm melamine, sometimes 16mm on the sharper quotes. That 2mm matters over a long base run and on drawer boxes that get hammered in a rental. Check the back panel too: a 16mm captured back is a different beast to a 3mm panel stapled into a rebate. Hardware is where the quiet savings hide. Hinges and runners are either named by brand or they are not, and a quote that says only "soft-close runners" is leaving itself room to fit the cheapest thing that technically soft-closes. On turnover work, the hardware is the first thing that fails, so make the quote name it. The detail behind that is in soft-close, drawers and the details that reduce callbacks.
Finish and benchtop
Finish and benchtop are where the specs drift between quotes. Matte 2-pac, melteca and timber are different price points and different durability profiles, and a quote that says only "painted doors" is not telling you which. 2-pac lacquer is a sprayed finish on MDF and looks the part, but it chips on an arris and the touch-up is a specialist job. Melteca or melamine on doors is tougher and cheaper and reads fine in a spec home. Same with the bench. Laminate, engineered stone and natural stone can be a thousand dollars a unit apart before you have decided anything, and the edge profile and any waterfall ends move it again. Make the quote name the material, the brand and the colour range, or you are not comparing the same kitchen.
| Line item | Vague quote says | What to pin in writing |
|---|---|---|
| Carcass | "Melamine carcasses" | 16mm or 18mm, plus back panel spec |
| Hardware | "Soft-close hinges and runners" | Named brand, e.g. Blum or Hettich |
| Door finish | "Painted doors" | 2-pac, melteca or timber, with colour |
| Benchtop | "Stone benchtop" | Laminate, engineered or natural, brand, edge |
| Splashback | Often omitted entirely | Supply, install, and who owns each |
The exclusions that become your problem
The exclusions list is where the hidden costs live, and a thin quote often runs the longest one. These are the items routinely carved out and handed back to the builder. Each is a variation waiting to happen if you have not priced it:
- Appliance cutouts, hob and sink penetrations, and final appliance fit-off
- Plumbing and electrical connections: waste, water and circuits to the kitchen
- Splashback supply or install, often parked as someone else's scope
- Strip-out and disposal of the old kitchen on renovation or turnover work
- Scribing and packing to out-of-square or unlined GIB, and making good after install
- Delivery, multi-level access, and carrying on tight isthmus and terraced-housing sites
- Provisional sums for stone, where the real number only lands after templating
- Rangehood ducting and the penetration through the soffit or roof
- Handles and finishing hardware, sometimes split out as a separate prime cost line
None of these are unreasonable to exclude. A kitchen company is not a plumber and should not be pricing your waste runs. The problem is when the exclusion is silent, or buried in clause 14 of a PDF you skimmed, and you carry the job to your own client without that money in your number. Read every exclusion as a question: who is doing this, and is it in somebody's price? If you cannot answer that for each line, you have not finished reading the quote. Getting that coordination right early is half the battle, which is why coordinating the kitchen install with your other trades is worth reading alongside this.
Provisional sums and prime cost items
Watch for PC and PS. A prime cost or provisional sum is a placeholder, not a price. Stone benchtops are the usual culprit. The quote carries a provisional sum, the slab gets templated weeks later once the cabinets are in, and the true cost lands as a variation when you are already committed. Provisional sums are fair enough when real measurement is genuinely still pending. A quote stacked with them is an estimate wearing a quote's clothes.
For volume work, push for a fixed rate per unit against a defined spec, so eighty kitchens cost what eighty kitchens were quoted to cost. Once the layout and material are locked, there is no good reason a developer kitchen needs to carry a provisional sum on the bench. The slab area is known, the cutouts are known, the edge is known. If a supplier still wants a PS line on a repeating unit, ask why. Usually it is because they are not confident they can hold the spec at that price across the run, which tells you something on its own. Pinning that down is exactly how you keep kitchen spec consistent across 30+ units without the price drifting.
On a subdivision the cheapest line on the page is rarely the cheapest kitchen on the wall. I have watched the whole margin disappear in variations that were never in the price to begin with.
Lead time and consistency across the run
A quote is a programme commitment too. Price means nothing if the kitchens land late and hold up your CCC. Ask for confirmed lead times against your build sequence, not a vague few weeks. A single kitchen is a 5 to 7 day install. A staged development out at Hobsonville Point or Papakura needs a manufacturer with the capacity to feed the site without stalling your finishing trades. Workshop output of ten-plus kitchens a week, and the discipline to hold one spec across the whole run, is worth more on a 40-unit job than a few dollars saved per cabinet that turns up in dribs and drabs at inconsistent quality. How that maps onto a real build sequence is covered in kitchen lead times and your construction programme.
Consistency pays off at the back end as well. Identical spec across every unit means one set of spare doors, one maintenance standard, and far fewer headaches once the rental units start turning over. It also matters for your own sign-off: a building inspector walking a block of identical units wants to see identical work, and a kitchen that drifts from unit to unit invites a closer look you do not want during a CCC inspection. Trade and wholesale pricing with no showroom markup gets you the keen number without the supply-only trap, as long as the install scope is genuinely inside the contract and not sitting in the fine print as your problem.
A worked example: a 24-unit Flat Bush townhouse run
Say you are building 24 terraced units in Flat Bush, three-bedroom each, identical kitchen layout: a galley with a 3.6 metre main run and a 1.8 metre return, single bowl undermount, 600 freestanding cooker, a slot for an integrated dishwasher. You get two quotes. Quote A is supply-only at roughly $6,500 plus GST a unit. Quote B is supply and install at around $9,800 plus GST a unit. On the spreadsheet, Quote A is nearly $80,000 cheaper across the block, and that is the number the QS circles.
Read the gaps, not the cabinets.
Now load the real cost into Quote A. You need a crew to install: figure a two-man team taking the better part of a day per unit once you count scribing, levelling and making good, so a day rate across 24 units is real money. Quote A excludes the stone, carried as a provisional sum, so the bench gets templated unit by unit and the price firms up later, almost always upward. It excludes appliance cutouts and fit-off, splashback install, and the strip-out is irrelevant here but the multi-level carry on a terraced site is not. Add the coordination: your site manager now owns the gap between cabinetmaker, stonemason and plumber across 24 kitchens, and every gap is a phone call.
By the time you load labour, the firmed-up stone, the cutouts and the management time, Quote A lands within a few hundred dollars a unit of Quote B, and you are carrying all the risk and all the callbacks. Quote B is one contract, one invoice, one party responsible if a door is out or a bench is short. On a 24-unit run the sequencing alone is worth the difference: the manufacturer feeds the site at ten-plus a week, your finishing trades never stall waiting on a kitchen, and the spec is identical across all 24 so your handover pack and your spares are clean. The decision is not which number is smaller. It is which number is true. If you are pressure-testing the dollar figures themselves, trade vs retail kitchens: what developers actually pay sets the baseline.
What goes wrong, and how to see it coming
The failures are predictable once you have seen a few. The most common is the silent substitution: a quote names a premium hardware brand at tender, and a budget runner turns up at install, because the contract never pinned the brand in writing. The fix is to make the quote name everything and then attach that quote to your order.
The second is the framing gap. Cabinets are made to plan, the framing is built to tolerance, and nobody checks the two against each other until the kitchen arrives and the fridge cavity is 20mm short. On a single villa reno you absorb it. On a 30-unit job that error repeats 30 times. A site measure before manufacture kills this, and a supplier who installs their own work has every reason to measure properly because they wear the mistake. The third is the access surprise: a quote priced off drawings, with no site visit, that did not allow for a unit up a flight of stairs on a tight cross-lease, and the carry charge appears as a variation. The fourth is the lead-time blowout, where the kitchen was cheap but turns up six weeks after it was needed and your painters and floor layers are standing around. None of these are bad luck. They are gaps in the quote you could have read before you signed.
What to ask before you sign
Run any kitchen quote through this list before it goes into your tender. If the supplier cannot answer plainly, that is your answer:
- Is this supply-only or supply and install, and exactly where does install scope start and stop?
- Are the carcass thickness, hardware brand, door finish, benchtop material and edge profile all named in writing?
- What is on the exclusions list, and who is carrying each excluded item in their price?
- Are there any PC or PS lines, and what triggers them firming up?
- Is there a site measure before manufacture, and who is responsible if cabinets do not fit the framing?
- What is the confirmed lead time and install rate against my programme dates?
- Is delivery, access and multi-level carry included for this specific site?
- Is the spec guaranteed identical across every unit, and can I get spares to that spec?
- Is the price plus GST, and is it fixed against this spec or subject to firming up?
Residential renos read differently
A one-off Ponsonby villa is not a volume job and the quote should not read like one. Here the strip-out and disposal is real and should be priced, not assumed. The walls are 100 years old and nothing is square, so scribing and packing is a genuine line, not a throwaway. You may be working around a scullery, a heritage window reveal, or a wall you cannot move without a consent. The benchtop is more likely to be a single statement slab where the stone choice drives the whole number, so the provisional sum on stone is fairer here than on a repeating unit, as long as it firms up before you commit. If keeping the figure under control is the priority, renovating a kitchen without blowing the budget walks through where the give is.
What matters on a reno is that one party owns the awkward bits. The old kitchen out, the new one scribed in, the bench templated to the real wall and not the drawing, and the making good after. When that is split across trades, the homeowner becomes the project manager by default, and that is where renos go sideways. One contract for the kitchen, with the install genuinely inside it, is worth more on a villa than on a spec home precisely because there is no site manager to catch the gaps.
Frequently asked questions
Why is one quote so much cheaper than the others?
Almost always because it is supply-only, or because it carries provisional sums on the bench and excludes the cutouts, connections and making good. The cabinetry cost between reputable manufacturers does not vary that much, so when a quote is wildly cheaper the question is not how they did it but what they left out.
Do I need a building consent for a new kitchen?
A like-for-like replacement usually does not need a consent on its own, but the work around it often does: moving plumbing or waste, altering structural walls, or new electrical work signed off by licensed tradespeople. On a new build or development the kitchen is part of the consented works and the install needs to support your CCC.
What does plus GST actually change on a developer quote?
If you are GST registered and building to sell, you claim the GST back, so the plus-GST number is the one that matters to your cashflow and comparison. The trap is comparing a GST-inclusive quote against a plus-GST one without adjusting, so always get every quote on the same basis.
Can you hold one price across a staged release?
Yes, against a locked spec and an agreed programme. Once layout, finish and benchtop are fixed, a repeating unit can be priced at a fixed rate per kitchen for the run, so staged releases at places like Hobsonville Point keep their spares, maintenance and pricing clean from stage one to the last stage.
How firm is a 5 to 7 day install?
For a standard single kitchen with the site ready, 5 to 7 days covers cabinet install, benchtop templating and fit, and finishing, allowing for the gap while stone is fabricated. It assumes the room is lined, painted to a stage, and services are roughed in, so the thing that blows the timeframe is the site not being ready, not the kitchen.
Send us the brief and we will price it straight
If you have a development or a reno coming up, send through your unit count and a rough spec, or just the drawings and your programme dates. We have been manufacturing and installing Auckland kitchens for 23-plus years, out of our own East Tamaki workshop, with more than 2,000 kitchens on the wall and the capacity to feed a site at ten-plus a week. We supply and install on one contract and one invoice, Site Safe qualified, at trade and wholesale pricing with no showroom markup.
We will turn around bulk pricing within 24 hours, GST clear, with the inclusions and exclusions set out plainly so you can hold it honestly against whatever else is on your desk. Send the brief and we will tell you what is in the number and what is not, before you have to find out the hard way.