Quote escalation
What a kitchen quote from last year is worth now, on producer-price trends
A kitchen quote written a year ago is not a price today, and the size of the gap depends on which category the money sits in. The Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes a monthly producer price index for stock kitchen cabinets and a separate one for custom kitchen cabinets, and over the twelve months to June 2026 (preliminary) those two series moved very differently.
What your quote is worth now, and on the order date
Derived value at the order date
$62,458
A $60,200 quote priced 14 months ago is worth about $61,943 if each line has moved at its category’s average annual producer-price rate for June 2023 to June 2026 (June 2026 preliminary), and $62,458 by the time the order is placed 4 months from now.
The quote amounts pre-filled above ($60,200 in total) are an example — Illustrative assumption — not a market quote. Replace them with the lines on your own quote.
| Line | As written | Annual rate applied | Today (at that rate) | At order | Basis |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cabinetry (custom shop) | $24,500 | +5.02% | $25,942 | $26,369 | Custom wood kitchen cabinets, bathroom vanities, and related cabinetwork (BLS series WPU08210105) moved from 148.967 in June 2023 to 172.568 in June 2026 (preliminary), a compound 5.02 percent per year. |
| Appliance package | $9,200 | +0.68% | $9,273 | $9,294 | Major appliances (BLS series WPU1241) moved from 144.227 in June 2023 to 147.186 in June 2026 (preliminary), a compound 0.68 percent per year. |
| Sink, faucet and fittings | $2,100 | +4.68% | $2,215 | $2,249 | Plumbing fixture fittings and trim (BLS series WPU1054) moved from 395.136 in June 2023 to 453.198 in June 2026 (preliminary), a compound 4.68 percent per year. |
| Trim, millwork and framing lumber | $3,400 | +2.84% | $3,513 | $3,546 | Lumber (BLS series WPU081) moved from 257.664 in June 2023 to 280.234 in June 2026 (preliminary), a compound 2.84 percent per year. |
| Labour | $21,000 | not indexed | $21,000 | $21,000 | Left flat on purpose: this site applies no index to labour. |
Stock and custom cabinets are two different markets
Over the twelve months to June 2026, producer prices for stock wood kitchen cabinets, related cabinetwork and countertops moved +0.18 percent while custom wood kitchen cabinets, bathroom vanities, and related cabinetwork moved +8.53 percent. Those are two separate BLS series. If your designer switched you from a stock line to a custom shop between the first meeting and the order, the category changed underneath the quote and the escalation changed with it.
| BLS series | Item title as printed by BLS | June 2023 | June 2025 | June 2026 (preliminary) | Twelve-month change |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| WPU08210102 | Stock wood kitchen cabinets, related cabinetwork and countertops | 122.401 | 122.947 | 123.166 | +0.18% |
| WPU08210105 | Custom wood kitchen cabinets, bathroom vanities, and related cabinetwork | 148.967 | 159.000 | 172.568 | +8.53% |
| WPU1241 | Major appliances | 144.227 | 146.798 | 147.186 | +0.26% |
| WPU1054 | Plumbing fixture fittings and trim | 395.136 | 420.361 | 453.198 | +7.81% |
| WPU081 | Lumber | 257.664 | 266.567 | 280.234 | +5.13% |
Read down the last column rather than across the rows. Appliances and stock cabinets have been nearly flat over this twelve-month window, while custom cabinetwork and plumbing fittings moved several per cent. A quote whose weight sits in the flat categories has moved little on these indexes; one whose weight sits in the moving ones has moved more.
What a producer price index is, and what it is not
The table above is the engine of this page, so it is worth being precise about what those five series measure. Here is one of them: the cell this site reads from the BLS data table.
Custom wood kitchen cabinets, bathroom vanities, and related cabinetwork — series WPU08210105, 2026 row, Jun column of the BLS data table: 172.568 (printed "(P)": preliminary)
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Producer Price Index (commodity data, not seasonally adjusted) — BLS data page, series WPU08210105; original retrieval recorded 2026-08-06; that copy was not retained; checked against our saved copy of 2026-10-05; the June 2026 value is marked preliminary by BLS.
What it means for your kitchen A producer price index tracks what producers receive for their output, before retail markups, freight and any discount you negotiate.
The dollar figures above use each series’ three-year compound rate, applied for the quote’s age and again for the months until the order. The twelve-month change is shown in the table for comparison and is not applied. Both workings for custom cabinets, printed so you can redo them:
What these series do not contain
- Labour. There is no index applied to the labour line on this page at all, which is why it reads “not indexed” in the table rather than carrying a rate we invented for it.
- Retail behaviour. Promotions, floor-model clearances, end-of-line discounting and the price a big-box chain negotiates are all downstream of a producer price and none of them are in it.
- Your supplier. A commodity index is a national average across many producers. The shop quoting you may have held prices, raised them harder, or changed lines entirely.
- Anything about quality. An index is built to hold the specification constant. If the quote you are re-pricing switched from plywood boxes to a cheaper carcass, the index has nothing to say about that and the money saved is not escalation.
When the drift above is not a reason to reopen anything
If you hold a signed fixed-price contract, read what it says about price changes before treating index movement as your exposure; the same goes for a deposit that explicitly locked a cabinet price on order. Drift matters when a quote has expired, when the order date is still months out, or when the exposed lines are large enough to move the total by more than the contingency you are already carrying on the contingency page. Otherwise it is context, not a conversation.
How to use this without annoying your contractor
- Establish which line is exposed. Escalation on a flat category is not worth a conversation; escalation on a moving one is.
- Ask when the quote expires and what happens after; a validity period is easy to miss.
- Ask whether the cabinet price is held on order or on delivery. Those are very different promises when the lead time is three months.
- If the order is months out, ask what a deposit buys: a place in the queue, or a locked price. They are not the same thing and only one of them protects you.
- Then check the schedule. The lead-time tool works out the latest date the order can be placed, which sets the exposure above.
Sources for this page
Five commodity series, one row each. Each series’ BLS data page prints all three Junes used here (2023, 2025 and 2026) in one table.
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Producer Price Index (commodity data, not seasonally adjusted)Stock wood kitchen cabinets, related cabinetwork and countertops. The June 2026 value is marked preliminary by BLS.
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Producer Price Index (commodity data, not seasonally adjusted)Custom wood kitchen cabinets, bathroom vanities and related cabinetwork. The June 2026 value is marked preliminary by BLS.
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Producer Price Index (commodity data, not seasonally adjusted)Major appliances. The June 2026 value is marked preliminary by BLS.
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Producer Price Index (commodity data, not seasonally adjusted)Plumbing fixture fittings and trim. The June 2026 value is marked preliminary by BLS.
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Producer Price Index (commodity data, not seasonally adjusted)Lumber. The June 2026 value is marked preliminary by BLS.