Quick answer
After a kitchen quote request, expect a reply within 24 hours with a reference number, then questions: measurements, photos and your appliance list. A priced spec follows, a site measure locks the final dimensions, and manufacture is booked once you approve. Photos and three key measurements up front are what move a quote from days to hours.
Key points
- A serious supplier replies within 24 hours with a reference number, then asks for measurements, photos and your appliance list.
- The quote should arrive as priced lines against a drawn spec, not one number in an email.
- Nothing gets manufactured off your measurements. A site measure locks the final dimensions first.
- Photos plus each wall length in millimetres move a quote from days to hours; 'roughly three metres' stalls it.
- 'Valid for 30 days' means materials and rates are held for a month; after that the number gets rechecked, not silently inflated.
Five stages between hitting send and cooking dinner, with the honest durations.
You filled in the quote form at nine last night: a couple of paragraphs about the kitchen, two phone photos, a guess at the wall lengths. This morning it feels like the enquiry dropped into a hole, and the renovation you have been circling for two years is now waiting on strangers. What is actually happening on the other end is a pipeline, and knowing its stages tells you what to chase, what to prepare and what genuinely takes time.
This is that pipeline from the homeowner's side, stage by stage, with the honest timeframes and the things that move them. It reflects how we run it at MTN Kitchens, and most volume suppliers follow a similar shape.
The first 24 hours: a reply and a reference number
A serious supplier answers a quote request within 24 hours, and the reply carries a reference number. The number matters more than it looks. It means your kitchen now exists in a system rather than an inbox, every later email and photo attaches to it, and when you ring up, whoever answers can find the whole story in seconds. No reference number inside a day or two is its own data point about how the install will be run.
The first reply rarely contains a price. What it contains is the short list of things needed to build one, which is the next stage, and the fastest applicants have those ready before they are asked.
The questions that come back, and why
- Wall lengths: each wall the kitchen touches, in millimetres, corner to corner.
- Openings and services: where the window, doors, taps and stove sit within those walls.
- Photos: straight-on shots of the full run with the doors shut, plus one wide shot of the room.
- Appliances: what is staying, what is being bought, and model numbers where you have them.
- Scope: supply-only, or supply and install.
- Timing: when you would want the work done, even roughly.
Every answer moves the price. Wall lengths set the cabinet count, the window position fixes the sink, appliance sizes drive the joinery around them, and install scope decides whether trades need sequencing. A surprising amount can be read from good photos alone, which is why a kitchen quote from a photo is a real starting point and not a gimmick. If what you have is a plan, even hand-drawn, the upload option in the designer on our site reads a photo or scan of it and drafts the cabinet run left to right with widths and roles; you check and correct what it read, and the price and drawings follow from that.
From answers to a priced spec
With measurements and photos in hand, the supplier turns your kitchen into a drawn, priced document: a to-scale plan, an elevation, a cabinet schedule with every width, and a price built from coded lines, plus GST, with a validity window on it. This stage runs in days when your decisions are ready and stretches when they are not. What those pages contain, and the ten-minute way to read them, is covered in the kitchen spec document, explained.
Sanity-check the number before you fall in love with it or flinch at it. Bands for Auckland jobs, from small galley swaps through to big L-and-island kitchens, are laid out in how much a kitchen costs in Auckland, and a quote that sits far outside them deserves a question either way.
The site measure: where dimensions stop being yours
Once the spec and price look right, someone comes to the house with a laser and a tape. They check every wall length, the squareness of the corners, floor level, ceiling height, and where the services actually emerge, as opposed to where the plan assumed. The site measure locks the final dimensions before manufacture, and nothing should be cut before it.
This visit protects you more than the supplier. Your measurements got the price close; the site measure makes the kitchen buildable, and once the supplier has measured, a cabinet that does not fit is their problem to fix rather than yours to fund. Skipping this step to save a few days is how 20 mm gaps end up beside fridges. The difference between the two kinds of measurement is its own subject, and why approximate kitchen measurements cost you goes through the failure modes one by one.
Manufacture and the install booking
After the site measure and your sign-off, the job goes to the workshop and the board gets cut. Manufacture is measured in weeks, not days, and the honest variable is the queue: benchtops, board colours and hardware all arrive on their own schedules, and a good supplier gives you a window up front rather than a guess. The install slot gets booked against the manufacture window, so the kitchen arrives and goes straight onto the walls instead of sitting in your garage. That whole stretch, order through to install day, is walked through stage by stage in what to expect between ordering a kitchen and install.
What speeds a quote up, and what stalls it
| Detail | Speeds it up | Stalls it |
|---|---|---|
| Measurements | Each wall length in millimetres, written down | 'About three metres, maybe a bit more' |
| Photos | Straight-on shots of the full run, doors shut | One dark corner photo, or none |
| Appliances | Models named, or at least sizes fixed | 'We will pick appliances later' |
| Decisions | One decision-maker, finishes shortlisted | A new colour direction every week |
The pattern behind the right-hand column is approximation: approximate walls, approximate appliances, approximate intentions. Each 'roughly' becomes a question, each question becomes a wait, and a quote that could have landed in a day takes a fortnight of round trips. Decision drift is the other stall. The supplier can redraw a kitchen in an afternoon; a household that reopens the door-colour question every Sunday can hold the same quote in design for a month.
What does 'valid for 30 days' actually mean?
Most kitchen quotes carry a validity window, commonly 30 days. It is not a countdown designed to rush you. Board, benchtop material and hardware prices move, and the window is simply the period the supplier commits to holding the number regardless of what their costs do. Inside the window you can accept and the price stands. Past it, the quote needs revalidating before you plan around it.
Revalidation is routine and usually free. What resets the clock entirely is a spec change: a different benchtop, two more cabinets, a move from supply-only to supply and install. That is a new quote, not a revalidation, and treating it as one protects both sides from arguing about a number neither document supports.
A good next 48 hours
Tonight: tape-measure each wall the kitchen touches and write the numbers on a rough sketch, corner to corner, in millimetres. Tomorrow morning: four photos in daylight, doors shut, plus one of anything odd, the boxed-in pipe, the step in the floor, the low window. Then the appliance list, models included, and one sentence on scope and timing.
Send that bundle with your request and the reply from MTN Kitchens lands within 24 hours with a reference number on it. From there it is design, a price against a drawn spec, a site measure that locks the dimensions, and a manufacture and install window out of the East Tāmaki workshop, supply-only or supply and install, with the price built from coded lines you can actually read.
Frequently asked questions
What happens after you request a kitchen quote?
A supplier worth using replies within 24 hours with a reference number, then asks for wall measurements, photos and your appliance list. Your answers become a drawn, priced spec. Once you approve it, a site measure locks the final dimensions, manufacture is booked in the workshop, and the install slot is set against the manufacture window. Each stage has a job, and none is padding.
How long does a kitchen quote take in NZ?
The first reply should land within 24 hours. The priced spec behind it takes days when your measurements, photos and appliance decisions are ready, and weeks when every answer needs a round trip. The quote itself is rarely the slow part; gathering missing information and waiting on household decisions is. Send wall lengths in millimetres and straight-on photos up front and the whole thing compresses.
What information should I send with a kitchen quote request?
Four things: each wall length in millimetres on a rough sketch, straight-on photos of the existing run plus one wide shot, an appliance list with model numbers where you have them, and one sentence on scope, meaning supply-only or supply and install, and rough timing. That bundle lets a supplier price properly on the first pass instead of opening a fortnight of questions.
What is a kitchen site measure?
A visit where the supplier measures the room themselves: every wall length, corner squareness, floor level, ceiling height and the true positions of plumbing and power. It locks the final dimensions before manufacture, and nothing should be cut before it happens. After the site measure, a cabinet that does not fit is the supplier's problem to fix, which is exactly why the visit protects you.
Why is my kitchen quote taking so long?
Usually one of three things: the supplier is still missing measurements or photos, an appliance decision is holding the joinery design open, or the household keeps reopening finish choices. Occasionally the supplier is simply slow, and no reference number or acknowledgement within a couple of days tells you that early. Chase with specifics: send the missing numbers, not a 'just checking in' email.
What does 'quote valid for 30 days' mean?
The supplier commits to holding that price for 30 days regardless of what board, benchtop and hardware costs do underneath it. Inside the window, accept and the number stands. Past it, ask for a revalidation, which is routine, usually quick and often unchanged. A spec change is different: new benchtop, more cabinets or added install scope means a new quote, not a revalidation.
Can I get a kitchen quote from just photos?
You can get a genuinely useful indicative price from good photos plus your own wall measurements, and for straightforward same-footprint swaps it lands close. Clear, straight-on, daylight shots read best. The final number still waits on a site measure, because photos cannot reveal out-of-square corners or floor levels. Treat the photo quote as the decision tool and the site measure as the lock.