Four ways to buy the same kitchen, and one question that matters more than all of them: how the box is built. Here is how a cabinet company would tell you to choose.
Cabinet shopping is confusing on purpose. Every showroom uses the same four words — stock, RTA, semi-custom, custom — to mean slightly different things, and none of those words tells you the thing that actually matters, which is how the box is built and what is inside the drawer. This is the map: what each category really is, which one your room needs, and the six specifications worth arguing about.
“What kind of cabinets should I buy” is really two independent questions, and mixing them up is why showroom visits go in circles.
You can have a cheap frameless kitchen and an expensive framed one, or the reverse. Decide them separately.
What they search at midnight “are RTA cabinets any good” — yes, and the reason has nothing to do with them being flat-packed.
| Type | Sizes | Typical wait | Who assembles | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| RTA / flat-pack | Standard increments | Days to weeks | You (or your installer) | DIY, value, fast projects |
| Assembled stock | Standard increments | Days to weeks | Arrives built | No time, no space to build |
| Semi-custom | Standard, with modifications | Weeks | Arrives built | Awkward walls, more finishes |
| Full custom | Anything you draw | Months | Arrives built | Old houses, unusual rooms, no compromises |
Deliberately no prices — they move with material, finish, region and week. What is stable is the ordering: RTA is the least expensive way to buy a given quality of box, and full custom is the most, with the two middle options doing what their names say.
Best for anyone willing to trade a weekend for a large chunk of the budget
The same panels, doors, hinges and runners as an assembled cabinet — delivered flat, because most of what you pay for in an assembled box is air and labour. Shipping a cube of empty space across a country is expensive; shipping a stack of flat panels is not.
What it actually asks of you: floor space to build in, a drill, and a methodical afternoon. Every box is the same handful of moves repeated, and once you have built two you can build twenty. The honest risks are damage in transit on cheap packaging, and cabinets that arrive with vague instructions from suppliers who have never watched a customer build one.
If you go this way, build the whole kitchen before install day rather than box by box on the wall — it turns the fitting into one clean run. The assembly sequence is animated here, on a real 3-drawer base.
Best when time or space is worth more than the saving
Identical range, identical sizes, built at the factory. You are buying back your weekend, plus the certainty that every box is square. In a small apartment with nowhere to build, or on a project where the trades are booked and the clock is running, that is worth real money.
The trade beyond price is logistics: built cabinets are bulky. Tall pantry units and wide sink bases have to physically get up the stairs and around the turn at the top, and a damaged panel usually means the whole cabinet goes back rather than one part being reshipped.
Best when the room is nearly standard, but not quite
A stock catalogue that will bend: a cabinet made narrower, a run made shallower to clear a doorway, a taller upper to close to the ceiling, finishes and door styles the base range does not carry. You stay inside a system — which keeps it affordable and repeatable — while buying your way out of the two or three places the system does not fit.
Watch the lead time and the modification list. Every change is a line item and a delay, and past a certain number of modifications you are paying custom money for a stock box. Ask what the change actually costs in weeks, not only in currency.
Best for old houses, odd rooms, and kitchens that must be exactly right
Made to your drawing in a joinery shop: any width, any height, any finish, curved ends, integrated appliance panels, a bench seat that becomes a pantry. If your room has sloping ceilings, a chimney breast, or a wall that is two inches out over its length, custom simply absorbs it.
The costs are money, time and dependency. Lead times run into months, changes after drawings are signed are expensive, and the quality is entirely the shop’s — there is no brand standard behind it. Ask to see finished kitchens they built three years ago, not the ones they installed last week.
Independent of how you buy, a cabinet is built one of two ways, and it matters more day to day than most people expect.
Flip cabinets are frameless, full-overlay and flat-packed — which is why the install chapter keeps insisting on levelling: with no face frame to hide behind, the boxes have to be right before the doors go on.
None of it is the category on the price list. Six things decide whether a kitchen still closes properly in ten years.
Two quotes for “the same kitchen” are almost never the same kitchen. Put them side by side on cabinet count, box material, runner and hinge brand, and the filler-and-panel list, and the cheaper one usually turns out to be missing three things you will have to buy anyway. Designing the layout yourself first, in real cabinet sizes, makes this comparison possible — because you already know exactly how many of each box the room needs.
The quality lives in the panels, hinges and runners, not in whether the box arrives built. A good RTA cabinet and the same cabinet assembled at the factory are the same cabinet; you are paying for labour and for shipping air. Flat-pack also has practical advantages: the boxes fit up stairs, and a damaged panel can be replaced on its own.
Framed cabinets have a face frame across the front that the doors hang on, which narrows the opening and can put a centre stile in the middle of a two-door cabinet. Frameless, or European, cabinets have no frame, so the door covers the whole box and the full interior width is usable. Framed is the traditional North American look and the only way to get true inset doors; frameless gives more usable space and slimmer gaps.
Stock comes in fixed sizes from a catalogue and ships fastest. Semi-custom is that same catalogue with modifications allowed, such as a narrower box, a shallower depth or an extra finish, at the cost of weeks. Custom is made to your drawing in any size or finish, with the longest lead time and the highest price, and its quality depends entirely on the shop that builds it.
Stock and RTA are typically days to a few weeks, semi-custom runs into weeks because every modification is a production step, and full custom is commonly months. Ask for the lead time in writing before you book an installer, and add contingency: trades booked around an optimistic delivery date is the classic way a renovation stalls.
Usually not. Most awkward rooms are solved with standard boxes plus fillers, scribe panels and end panels, which is what those parts exist for. Custom earns its money when the geometry itself is impossible, such as a sloped ceiling, a curved wall or a chimney breast that has to be wrapped.
Yes, and it is usually the single largest saving available on the cabinetry line, because factory assembly and shipping built boxes are both expensive. What it costs you is floor space, a drill and a methodical afternoon or two. If you are already doing your own installation, assembling is the easy part by comparison.
Six things: the panel material and thickness, the edge banding thickness and bonding, whose hinges and drawer runners are used and their warranty, how the doors are finished, whether fillers, end panels and toe kick are included in the quote, and the real lead time. Two quotes for the same kitchen usually differ on the last two.
Mixing brands within a run is risky, because door colours, overlays and reveal gaps rarely match exactly, and the mismatch reads as an error. Mixing within one range is normal and often smart: stock boxes everywhere, with a custom panel or a made-to-size filler in the one spot the catalogue cannot reach.
Lay out your real room in real cabinet sizes, then compare quotes on the same list of boxes, fillers and panels.
Open the 3D planner →