Quote escalation
What a kitchen quote from last year is worth today
A kitchen quote written a year ago is not a price today, and the size of the gap depends entirely on which category the money sits in. That is not a guess. 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 last twelve months those two series did completely different things.
What your quote is worth now, and on the order date
Derived value at the order date
$62,453
A $60,200 quote priced 14 months ago is worth $61,939 at today's producer prices, and $62,453 by the time the order is placed 4 months from now.
| Line | As written | Annual rate applied | Today | 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, a compound 5.02 percent per year. |
| Appliance package | $9,200 | +0.65% | $9,270 | $9,290 | Major appliances (BLS series WPU1241) moved from 144.227 in June 2023 to 147.051 in June 2026, a compound 0.65 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, a compound 4.68 percent per year. |
| Trim, millwork and framing lumber | $3,400 | +2.82% | $3,512 | $3,545 | Lumber and wood products (BLS series WPU081) moved from 257.664 in June 2023 to 280.114 in June 2026, a compound 2.82 percent per year. |
| Labour | $21,000 | not indexed | $21,000 | $21,000 | Left flat on purpose. There is no producer price index for a remodelling crew, and inventing one would be worse than showing zero drift. |
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 different markets wearing the same word. 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 | What it covers | June 2023 | June 2025 | June 2026 | 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 | 147.051 | +0.17% |
| WPU1054 | Plumbing fixture fittings and trim | 395.136 | 420.361 | 453.198 | +7.81% |
| WPU081 | Lumber and wood products | 257.664 | 266.567 | 280.114 | +5.08% |
Read down the last column rather than across the rows. Appliances and stock cabinets have been essentially flat, while custom cabinetwork and plumbing fittings have moved several per cent in a year. A quote whose weight sits in the flat categories has aged well; one whose weight sits in the moving ones has not, and no amount of goodwill from the contractor changes what their supplier now charges them.
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 as the agency publishes it, with the index level and the month it belongs to attached.
“Custom wood kitchen cabinets, bathroom vanities, and related cabinetwork” index 172.568 (2026 June)
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Producer Price Index (commodity) — BLS public API, custom cabinet commodity index
What it means for your kitchen A producer price index tracks what producers RECEIVE, so this is a signal about what your cabinet shop now pays and is charged, arriving on your quote only after their margin, freight, the designer’s markup and whatever discount you actually negotiated have each had their turn.
The arithmetic this site performs on that series is one division and one subtraction, printed here so you can redo it rather than trust it:
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
A signed fixed-price contract is a price, not an estimate, and index movement afterwards is the contractor’s exposure rather than yours — that is what they were paid to carry. The same is true of 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. Most quotes carry a validity period that nobody reads, and it is usually thirty days.
- 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 is usually earlier than anyone expects and is what sets the exposure above.
Sources for this page
Five commodity series, one row each. Each series was read at three periods — June 2023, June 2025 and June 2026 — from the same address, because a period is a field inside the response rather than a different document.
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Producer Price Index (commodity)Stock wood kitchen cabinets, related cabinetwork and countertops.
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Producer Price Index (commodity)Custom wood kitchen cabinets, bathroom vanities and related cabinetwork.
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Producer Price Index (commodity)Major appliances.
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Producer Price Index (commodity)Plumbing fixture fittings and trim.
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Producer Price Index (commodity)Lumber and wood products.