Key takeaways
- Assembly-only (building the boxes, drawers and doors) runs roughly $50 to $100 per SEKTION cabinet; assembly plus installation runs roughly $150 to $300 per cabinet, more for tall and corner units.
- A standard 10x10 kitchen of about 20 cabinets costs roughly $2,500 to $4,500 for professional assembly and installation in MA, CT and RI in 2026.
- Installation, not assembly, is where the skill and most of the cost live: the rail, leveling, scribing and door adjustment.
- Assembling the boxes yourself and hiring a pro to install saves roughly $1,000 to $2,000 on a 20-cabinet kitchen, if you have the floor space and leave the doors off.
- Compare quotes by converting each to a total for your actual cabinet list and confirming that fillers, panels, toe kicks, cleanup and return trips are included.
On this page
- Assembly and Installation Are Not the Same Job
- Per-Cabinet Pricing Rules of Thumb
- Cost by Kitchen Size
- What Drives the Cost Up
- The Hybrid: You Assemble, We Install
- Hourly, Per-Cabinet or Per-Project: Comparing Quotes
- What Any Quote Should Include
- Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island Notes
- Getting a Number for Your Kitchen
Assembly-only for IKEA SEKTION cabinets runs roughly $50 to $100 per cabinet in Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island in 2026. Assembly plus installation runs roughly $150 to $300 per cabinet, with tall pantry units and corner cabinets above that. For a standard 10x10 kitchen of about 20 cabinets, that works out to roughly $1,000 to $2,000 for assembly alone and $2,500 to $4,500 for the cabinets assembled, mounted, leveled and adjusted.
The gap between those two numbers is the point of this guide. Assembly and installation are different jobs with different skill levels, and a quote that says "cabinets" without saying which one is not a quote you can compare against anything.
Assembly and Installation Are Not the Same Job
Assembly: turning flat packs into boxes
Assembly is building the cabinet. For a SEKTION cabinet that means the frame (two sides, top, bottom, back panel, cam locks and dowels), the adjustable legs on a base cabinet, UTRUSTA hinges and shelf pins, MAXIMERA drawer boxes and their runners, and hanging the doors and drawer fronts loosely so they can be adjusted later. A practiced installer builds a simple wall cabinet in 20 to 30 minutes. A 30" base with three MAXIMERA drawers takes closer to 45 minutes to an hour, because each drawer is its own small assembly. We walk through the build step by step in how to assemble IKEA SEKTION cabinets.
Assembly is repetitive, learnable and happens on a flat floor with the instructions open. That is why it is priced low and why plenty of homeowners do it themselves.
Installation: turning boxes into a kitchen
Installation is everything that happens after the boxes exist:
- Laying out the room from the plan and finding the high point of the floor
- Locating studs and fastening the steel suspension rail dead level
- Hanging wall cabinets on the rail and connecting them to each other
- Setting base cabinets on their legs, leveling them to the high point and screwing them together
- Anchoring base cabinets to the wall
- Cutting and scribing fillers and cover panels to walls that are not straight
- Fitting toe kicks
- Adjusting every door and drawer front so the gaps are even and the lines run straight
- Drilling for and mounting handles
This is where the skill lives and where a bad job shows. A base cabinet a quarter inch out of level at the sink becomes a countertop seam that will not close and a dishwasher that will not slide under. Our guides on installing the IKEA suspension rail and leveling IKEA cabinets on an uneven floor show how much of installation is measuring rather than screwing.
Per-Cabinet Pricing Rules of Thumb
| Cabinet type | Assembly only (per cabinet) | Assembled and installed (per cabinet) |
|---|---|---|
| Wall cabinet with doors, 15" to 30" wide | $50–$100, low end | $150–$300, low end |
| Base cabinet with doors | $50–$100 | $150–$300 |
| Drawer base, three or more MAXIMERA drawers | $50–$100, high end | $150–$300, high end |
| Corner base or corner wall cabinet | $50–$100, high end | Often above $300 |
| Tall pantry or oven cabinet, 80" or 90" | $50–$100, high end | Often above $300 |
These are the ranges we see across the three states for registered, insured installers in 2026. A one-person operation working out of a van may quote below them. A general contractor who subcontracts the cabinet work will often quote above them, because there is a margin on top of the installer's rate.
Cost by Kitchen Size
| Kitchen size | Typical cabinet count | Assembly only | Assembly and installation | Install days |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Small: galley or condo kitchen, up to 10 linear feet | 8–12 | $400–$1,200 | $1,200–$3,000 | 1–2 |
| Medium: L or U shape, 10 to 20 linear feet (the 10x10 lives here) | 15–25 | $750–$2,500 | $2,500–$4,500 for a 10x10; more toward 25 cabinets | 3–4 |
| Large: island, pantry wall, 20-plus linear feet | 25–40 | $1,250–$4,000 | $5,000–$10,000 and up | 5–7 |
These figures are the per-cabinet rules multiplied by the cabinet count, anchored to the $2,500 to $4,500 range for a 10x10. They are a starting point, not a quote. Cabinets are not all equal: a small kitchen with a 90" pantry, a corner carousel and a run of drawer bases will cost more than its count suggests, and a medium kitchen of plain door cabinets on drywall will cost less. For the full picture including cabinets, countertops and appliances, see what a 10x10 IKEA kitchen costs and how long IKEA kitchen installation takes.
What Drives the Cost Up
Tall cabinets
The 80" and 90" SEKTION pantry and oven towers have more parts, take two people to stand up and position, and leave very little room to maneuver under an 8-foot ceiling. A 90" frame on 4.5" legs is 94.5" tall; in a room with 96" ceilings that means assembling it close to its final position and walking it upright with an inch and a half to spare. See IKEA pantry and tall cabinets.
Corner units
Blind corner bases, carousels and corner wall cabinets have to work in two directions at once. The adjacent cabinets have to be pulled the correct distance off each wall, the doors have to clear each other, and a filler is almost always involved. Our IKEA corner cabinet guide covers the options.
Drawers versus doors
A base cabinet with two doors is one frame and two hinged panels. A base with three MAXIMERA drawers is one frame, three drawer boxes on runners, three fronts and three rounds of adjustment so the fronts line up across the whole run. Drawer-heavy kitchens, which we recommend for daily use, cost more to assemble and more to install.
Plaster walls
Rail installation on plaster-and-lath takes longer. Electronic stud finders are unreliable through plaster, the fasteners have to reach framing, and old plaster likes to crumble exactly where the rail needs to sit. Budget extra rail time on any house built before about 1950, which describes a large share of the housing in Worcester, Hartford, New Haven and Providence. Our guide to hanging IKEA cabinets on plaster and lath walls explains the approach.
Uneven floors
In a pre-war house the floor may fall an inch or more across a 10-foot run. Base cabinets get leveled to the high point, which means legs extended at the low end, toe kicks scribed to follow the floor and occasionally a filler at the countertop edge. None of it is hard. All of it is slow.
Stacked wall cabinets
Running cabinets to the ceiling with a second row of 15" or 20" wall cabinets means a second rail or a rail plus connectors, and the fronts have to align vertically across the stack as well as horizontally along the run. See extending IKEA cabinets to the ceiling.
Finish work
Crown molding, toe-kick lighting and scribing panels around windows, radiators and chimney breasts run $300 to $1,200 as add-ons, depending on how much of it the kitchen needs.
Access and logistics
Third-floor walk-ups in triple-deckers, no parking in Boston's North End or on Providence's Federal Hill, buildings that require elevator reservations and floor protection. Nothing about this is technical. It simply takes time, and time is what you are paying for.
The Hybrid: You Assemble, We Install
A common way to save is to build the boxes yourself and hire a professional for installation only. At $50 to $100 a cabinet, that saves roughly $1,000 to $2,000 on a 20-cabinet kitchen. A few things to know before you commit:
- You need floor space. Twenty assembled cabinets fill most of a living room. In a condo or a triple-decker flat, that is often the deal-breaker.
- You own the assembly. If a drawer runner goes in backwards or a back panel is nailed on crooked, the installer will either fix it on the clock or ask you to. Ask up front how they handle it.
- Some installers will not warranty boxes they did not build. Our 5-year workmanship warranty covers our installation work regardless, but we will tell you on day one if a cabinet needs to be rebuilt before it can go up.
- Leave the doors and drawer fronts off. Installers fit and adjust fronts after the boxes are mounted, and pre-hung doors get in the way and get scratched.
- Skip the hard ones. Corner units and tall cabinets are the two worth leaving to the installer.
See can you install an IKEA kitchen yourself for an honest view of where DIY makes sense, and IKEA kitchen assembly tools for what to have on hand if you go ahead.
Hourly, Per-Cabinet or Per-Project: Comparing Quotes
| Quote type | How it works | Best for | Watch for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hourly | A rate per person per hour and an estimate of hours | Small jobs, repairs, jobs with unknowns | The estimate is not a cap; old houses run long |
| Per cabinet | A rate per frame, sometimes tiered by cabinet type | Comparing installers like for like | Exclusions: rail, fillers, panels, cleanup, return trips |
| Per project | One fixed price for a written scope | Budget certainty on larger projects | The scope has to be written down; changes are priced separately |
To compare quotes written three different ways, convert each to a total for your actual order list and your actual scope. For an hourly quote, multiply the rate by the estimated hours and ask what happens if the hours run over. For a per-cabinet quote, check the count against the IKEA order list and ask what is excluded. For a per-project quote, read the scope line by line and make sure the excluded items are named. Then compare the three totals, not the three rates. Our IKEA kitchen installation cost calculator gives you a baseline to hold each quote against.
What Any Quote Should Include
Whatever the pricing model, a complete cabinet quote should state:
- The cabinet count, matched to your IKEA order list
- Assembly of all frames, drawers and doors (or a note that you are assembling)
- Suspension rail, mounting, leveling and anchoring
- Doors, drawers, hinges and soft-close adjustment
- Handle drilling and mounting
- Fillers, cover panels and toe kicks, including scribing to walls and floors
- Removal of packaging, or a clear note that it is excluded (our packaging cleanup service is a separate line for exactly that reason)
- What happens when parts are missing or damaged, and whether the return trip is included
- Exclusions in writing: plumbing, electrical, countertops, demolition, bulkheads
- The workmanship warranty term
- The payment schedule
If a quote is missing several of these, it is not necessarily a bad installer. It is an incomplete quote, and you should ask for the rest before you compare it to anything.
Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island Notes
Massachusetts
Installers doing residential home improvement work should hold Home Improvement Contractor registration through the Office of Consumer Affairs and Business Regulation; look them up on mass.gov before you sign. In Greater Boston, expect quotes toward the upper end of the ranges: parking, permit requirements for dumpsters on city streets, condo insurance rules and third-floor kitchens all add hours. Deliveries come from IKEA Stoughton. See our Massachusetts IKEA kitchen installation page.
Connecticut
Home Improvement Contractor registration runs through the Department of Consumer Protection and can be verified at elicense.ct.gov. IKEA New Haven serves most of the state. Fairfield County labor tends toward the upper end of the ranges, and the colonials and Capes across the Hartford suburbs often bring 8-foot ceilings and existing bulkheads into the picture. See our Connecticut IKEA kitchen installation page.
Rhode Island
Contractors register with the Contractors' Registration and Licensing Board; verify at crlb.ri.gov. There is no IKEA store in Rhode Island, so cabinets come by IKEA delivery from Stoughton or New Haven, and installation should be scheduled a few days after the delivery window so the boxes can be checked. Providence triple-deckers and East Side Victorians bring plaster walls and sloping floors as standard. See our Rhode Island IKEA kitchen installation page.
In all three states, ask for a certificate of insurance showing general liability, and workers' compensation if the installer has employees. It costs nothing to ask and it separates the businesses from the hobbyists.
Getting a Number for Your Kitchen
Start with your IKEA order list, count the frames and note how many are tall, corner or drawer units. Run the count through our IKEA kitchen installation cost calculator for a baseline, then get two or three quotes and convert each to a total for the same scope.
We review IKEA plans for free before quoting and price per project, with the cabinet count, inclusions and exclusions written out. Request a free estimate and send us your plan; our cabinet assembly and installation service page explains what the quote will cover.
Frequently asked questions
About the authors
This guide was written and reviewed by the Hearthstone Kitchens installation team, who have installed 600+ IKEA kitchens in Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island over 7+ years. Prices reflect what we see on real quotes in 2026 and are updated when the market moves. We are an independent installer and are not affiliated with IKEA.
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