Psalm/Pricing a worktop job
A guide for UK worktop fabricators · Updated 5 October 2026
Work out what the job costs you, counting the slabs you must buy rather than the square metres you sell, then add workshop time, templating and fitting and your margin. Quote the result as a rate per square metre with edges, cut-outs and fitting on their own lines, and add VAT at 20% last.
The quote generator is free, needs no account, and nothing you type leaves your device.
The method
A worktop price is built from your own costs, because the same stone costs two fabricators different amounts to turn into a worktop. Work through these, then add VAT.
The rest of this page takes each in turn and then builds one quote from them. The kitchen, the slab prices and the hourly rates are invented to show the arithmetic. Yours will differ, which is the reason to use your own.
Step 1
A customer is quoted in square metres of worktop, but you buy stone by the slab, and a slab is rarely used up. A common quartz slab is about 3,000 by 1,400 mm, which is 4.2 square metres. Sizes vary by supplier and by material, so read the size on your supplier's own price list.
Lay the pieces out on the slab before you price anything. The example kitchen has a back wall run of 3,000 by 620 mm, a return of 2,100 by 620 mm and an island of 2,400 by 900 mm. Together that is 5.32 square metres of worktop, plus 5.1 metres of upstand. The back run and the return sit side by side on one slab, because 620 plus 620 is 1,240 mm of its 1,400 mm width. The island needs 900 mm, which will not fit in the strip that is left, so it takes a second slab, and the upstands are cut from what remains of that one.
You sell 5.32 square metres of worktop, plus the upstands, and you buy 8.4. Only about 69% of the stone you paid for is on the customer's kitchen. A slab at £690 is about £164 a square metre, so a rate of £300 looks like nearly double the material. But the whole job costs £2,142.00 for 5.32 square metres sold, about £402 each, so £300 loses money before any margin is counted. Offcuts are sometimes saleable as a vanity top or a windowsill, but do not price a job on the hope of selling them.
| What it costs you | Working | Amount |
|---|---|---|
| Two quartz slabs | 2 × £690.00 | £1,380.00 |
| Workshop | 9 hours × £48.00 | £432.00 |
| Template visit | 1.5 hours × £40.00 | £60.00 |
| Fitting | 2 fitters × 4 hours × £30.00 | £240.00 |
| Van and fuel | £30.00 | |
| Cost of the job | £2,142.00 |
Invented figures for an invented kitchen. Use your own slab price, your own hours and your own hourly cost.
Step 2
Edges and cut-outs take different amounts of time, so they are priced separately. Time one of each for a month and use the average: a straight polished edge per metre, a mitred or built-up edge per metre, an undermount sink cut-out with its polished returns (usually the longest), a hob cut-out, a tap hole, drainer grooves.
Fabricators who publish a price calculator work the same way. On 5 October 2026 both work-tops.com and KML Worktops asked for the area first, priced the edge by type (sixteen types on one, seventeen on the other, from single arris to double full bullnose), and then added a sink cut-out, drainer grooves, tap holes, a hob cut-out and the removal and disposal of the old top. work-tops.com's page also says templating is extra and gives an average of £300 to £550 for templating and £1,200 to £4,000 for installation. That is one supplier's own statement, not a market average.
A customer who can see the sink cut-out and the polishing as a line understands why a kitchen with an undermount sink costs more than one with an inset sink. A customer who sees one lump sum tends to compare it with the cheapest number they were given.
Step 3
Margin and markup sound alike and give different prices. In the example the job costs you £2,142.00. A markup of 35% on that cost gives £2,891.70, and the profit of £749.70 is only 25.9% of the price. To keep 35% of the price, divide the cost by one minus the margin: £2,142.00 divided by 0.65 is £3,295.38. On this one job the difference is £403.68.
Choose the margin you need after your overheads, and use the same one on every quote. Many fabricators find that smaller jobs need a higher figure than large ones, because the template visit, the delivery and the paperwork cost the same whatever the size. A minimum job charge, below which you will not go out, deals with a windowsill or a vanity top that a rate per square metre would undersell.
Step 4
Now spread the price over lines. Put the fixed charges on their own lines first (upstands, the sink cut-out, the hob cut-out, tap holes, the template visit, delivery and fitting). They come to £902.80. The worktop line carries the rest: £3,295.38 less £902.80 is £2,392.58, which divided by 5.322 square metres is £449.56, rounded to £450 a square metre. That rate is for the worktop supplied and fabricated, slabs and workshop time included.
| Line | Qty | Rate | Amount |
|---|---|---|---|
| Quartz 20 mm, worktops | 5.32 m² | £450.00 | £2,394.00 |
| Upstands, 100 mm high | 5.1 m | £28.00 | £142.80 |
| Undermount sink cut-out, polished | 1 | £165.00 | £165.00 |
| Hob cut-out | 1 | £70.00 | £70.00 |
| Tap holes | 2 | £15.00 | £30.00 |
| Template visit | 1 | £75.00 | £75.00 |
| Delivery and fitting | 1 | £420.00 | £420.00 |
| Total before VAT | £3,296.80 | ||
| VAT at 20% | £659.36 | ||
| Total | £3,956.16 |
The job makes £1154.80 before VAT, 35.0% of the price. VAT is charged on the whole and is not part of the profit.
The rate of £450 is true for this layout only. A single run of 3,000 by 620 mm uses a whole 4.2 square metre slab for 1.86 square metres sold. At the same rate that is £837.00 of sales, and the slab alone takes £690.00 of it. When the yield is poor, quote the slab: charge the slab or slabs the job uses at cost plus your margin, and the fabrication, edges and fitting as separate lines.
Before you send it
Say how long the price stands. Slab prices move, so a quote with no end date is a free option for the customer. Fourteen or thirty days is common.
Take a deposit that covers the stone. The slabs are the one cost you cannot recover once they are ordered and cut. In the example they are £1,380.00, about 42% of the £3,296.80 before VAT. Take it when the customer accepts, hold the slabs against the order, and invoice the balance for fitting day.
Write down what the price assumes. The sizes are from the template, not the plan. The old top is taken off by you or by them. Water and power are connected and the cabinets are level. If the template comes in wider than the plan, re-price from the measured sizes: with a rate per square metre that is the new area times the rate.
VAT. The standard rate is 20%, shown on gov.uk on 5 October 2026. If you are registered, show the net, the VAT and the total as above. If you are not, do not add VAT or show a number.
Doing it without a spreadsheet
If you want to draw the layout and price by slab, CutBench is built for UK stone and worktop fabricators. On its own page, read on 5 October 2026, its Quote Studio draws L, U and island layouts with edges and cut-outs, prices from your own books by slab or square metre, plans the slabs with joints, holds slabs from the quote so they are not sold twice, and raises purchase orders from it. Its plans start at £79 a month for two staff seats and the Quote Studio plan is £198 for three. Its own page has the detail.
If you want a plain, correct quote today, the free quote generator does it. Type the square metres as the quantity and your rate as the price on each line, give each line its VAT rate (20%, 5% or 0%), set how many days the price stands, add your logo, and download the PDF. There is no account and nothing you type leaves your device. The lines in the table above go straight into it.
If you quote in millimetres, take deposits and stage payments, and want enquiries, orders and invoices in one place, that is what Psalm does for worktop fabricators: £39 a month for three people. Psalm does not draw layouts.
Questions fabricators ask
There is no honest single figure, because a finished square metre costs what the slab cost divided by how much of the slab the job uses, plus the workshop, template and fitting time. The example on this page lands at £450 per square metre, supplied and fabricated, on slabs bought at £690 each and a layout that uses about 69% of the stone. A layout that uses less needs a higher rate. Work it out from your own costs.
Yes, as its own line or inside the rate, because it is a visit with a person, travel and often a second visit when the site changes. work-tops.com's own calculator page, read on 5 October 2026, treats templating as an extra and states an average of £300 to £550. In the example it is £60.00 of cost and £75.00 on the quote.
Markup is a percentage of your cost, and margin is a percentage of the selling price. A 35% markup on a £2,142.00 cost gives a price of £2,891.70, which is a margin of 25.9%. To earn a 35% margin the price has to be £3,295.38. Divide the cost by one minus the margin you want.
Enough to cover the slabs, since that is the cost you cannot recover once the stone is ordered and cut. In the example the two slabs cost £1,380.00, about 42% of the £3,296.80 before VAT. Take it when the customer accepts and hold the slabs against the order.
If you are VAT registered, yes: the standard rate is 20%, per gov.uk on 5 October 2026, shown as its own line on top of the net price. If you are not registered, do not add VAT and do not show a VAT number.
Long enough to decide and short enough that a moved slab price cannot hurt you. Fourteen to thirty days is common, and the end date should be printed on the quote. The free quote generator offers 14, 30, 60 or 90 days, or none.
Re-quote from the measured sizes and say so. With a rate per square metre that is the new area times the rate, plus any change to edges and cut-outs, so the revised figure takes a minute to produce.
Type the lines from this guide into the free quote generator and download the PDF. No account, no card.