Put two quotes for the same kitchen side by side and the totals can sit thousands of ringgit apart. It's tempting to read that as one honest contractor and one greedy one. It rarely is. Far more often, the two quotes are pricing two different kitchens under the same heading, and you only find out which one you bought when the invoice arrives.
One Malaysian kitchen specialist puts the gap between the cabinet price you're quoted and what a mid-range kitchen finally costs at 30 to 50 percent. That gap isn't a scam. It's the second half of the quote, the half nobody itemised. So this guide takes a kitchen apart the way a good quote should: the carpentry first, then everything else.
What a kitchen actually costs, broken into its two halves
Start with the totals, because that's what everyone asks first. Malaysian guides published for 2026 put a kitchen renovation in a wide band, and the width comes from two different things being priced together: the carpentry, and everything that isn't carpentry.
| Kitchen type | Typical scope | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Condo kitchen | Cabinets, countertop, sink, tap, backsplash | RM18,000 to RM38,000 |
| Mid-range kitchen, about 10 ft by 10 ft | Plywood cabinets, quality tiles, mid-range appliances | RM25,000 to RM45,000 |
| Full wet and dry kitchen | Two zones, moisture-resistant boards, extra M&E | RM35,000 to RM85,000 and up |
These are indicative market ranges, not a quote. They're compiled from Malaysian sources published for 2026 and listed at the bottom of this page. Plan your renovation and we'll give you a scoped figure instead of a range.
Notice where the money sits. Carpentry is usually the single largest line in any renovation, as our renovation cost guide for Malaysia explains, and a kitchen is where that's most visible, because almost the whole room is carpentry. So that's where to look first.
Why carpentry is priced per foot, and why that trips people up
Kitchen cabinets aren't priced per kitchen or per room. They're priced per foot run, measured along the wall. A 6-foot base cabinet, a 4-foot wall cabinet and a 3-foot tall unit add up to 13 feet of carpentry, and every one of those feet is priced by the board it's made from. Two kitchens that look the same size can cost very differently once the runs are counted, and the board is where most of that difference hides.
Melamine is the entry point. Melamine-faced particle board runs roughly RM180 to RM300 per foot run in 2026 guides. Many designers now specify E0-rated board, and that rating is about your health rather than the board's strength: E0 means very low formaldehyde emissions. Melamine does its job well in dry cabinets. Its weak point is the particle board core, which swells if water gets past the edges, and around a sink, water always finds the edges.
Plywood and HMR cost more, and belong nearer water. Mid-range cabinets with a plywood carcass, or high moisture resistant (HMR) board, run roughly RM320 to RM550 per foot run. Any cabinet within splash range of the sink is where that extra money earns its keep.
Aluminium and marine ply are the usual wet kitchen choice. In the wet kitchen, where the frying, washing and steam happen every day, fully aluminium cabinets or marine ply are the safer specification. Aluminium starts at around RM300 per foot run and climbs to about RM700 for premium specifications. That's a real cost, but so is replacing swollen cabinets a few years in.
There's one more thing the per-foot figure hides. Base cabinets carry the weight, the drawers, the sink and the hob cut-outs, so they're often priced at a higher rate per foot than the wall cabinets above them, even in the same board. Ask for the quote split into base, wall and tall units rather than one blended figure. Then you can see what each part of the kitchen costs, and so can the next contractor you ask to price it.
Countertops are priced separately, and the range is wide
The countertop sits outside the cabinet price entirely, quoted per square foot, and this is where published figures disagree most. One Malaysian price guide puts mid-range quartz at RM145 to RM226 per square foot. Another puts it at RM250 to RM400. The table shows the combined spread across both.
| Tier | Quartz | Granite |
|---|---|---|
| Budget | RM110 to RM180 per sq ft | RM15 to RM50 per sq ft |
| Mid-range | RM145 to RM400 per sq ft | RM60 to RM150 per sq ft |
| Premium | RM282 to RM1,000+ per sq ft | RM250 to RM600+ per sq ft |
Entry-level granite really is cheaper than entry-level quartz, which is why it's still common in budget kitchens. Quartz earns its higher price in a mid-range kitchen: it's non-porous, it needs no sealing, and it stays consistent in colour from slab to slab. A typical 25 to 35 sq ft kitchen countertop in mid-range quartz lands somewhere between about RM3,600 and RM14,000 on its own, depending on which end of that spread your supplier sits, before a single cabinet underneath it is counted.
If your kitchen has a wok burner or gets real afternoon sun, read our full countertop material comparison before you choose between quartz, sintered stone and granite. Heat is where the three part ways.
What the headline price usually leaves out
Now for the second half of the quote, the everything else. None of these items is exotic. They're simply easy to leave out of a number that has to look competitive.
- Appliances. The hob, hood, oven and fridge are usually excluded from a kitchen quote, and a mid-range hood and hob alone can run RM2,000 to RM4,000. "Kitchen renovation" and "kitchen renovation with appliances" are two different budgets. A low headline price sometimes just means the appliances were never in it.
- Plumbing relocation. Moving the sink even a short distance from its existing water point means work behind the wall and under the floor. Relocating a sink point commonly adds RM500 to RM2,000, and a quote written before the wall is opened can only guess at it.
- Extra electrical points. An induction hob and a built-in oven usually each need a dedicated circuit, at roughly RM600 to RM1,500 per circuit, and every new socket or point adds around RM200 to RM500. The hood, the fridge and the kettle all need somewhere to plug in.
- Backsplash and wall patching. Hacking off old tiles and making good the wall behind the counter is routine. It's also routinely missing from a cheap quote. Basic tile hacking in a kitchen runs about RM800 to RM2,500 on its own.
- Hood ducting. Venting the hood outside, instead of recirculating the air indoors, is extra work that's easy to leave off a quote and expensive to add once the cabinets are up.
The cheapest kitchen quote is often the one that quietly assumed you'd keep the sink where it is, buy your own appliances, and never need the extra socket behind the fridge. None of that makes it dishonest. It makes it incomplete, and the two look identical until the invoice arrives.
How to compare two kitchen quotes properly
Back to those two quotes on the table. Five questions will usually tell you why they differ, and which one is describing the kitchen you actually want.
- Ask for the cabinets in feet run, split by base, wall and tall units, with the board named for each. "Kitchen cabinets: RM22,000" tells you nothing about what you're getting.
- Confirm the countertop material, thickness and brand, not just "quartz". An entry-level local quartz and a premium international brand can be two to four times apart in price for the same square footage.
- Ask plainly whether appliances are included. If they aren't, price the hob, hood and oven you actually want separately, so your total budget is real.
- Confirm whether the sink and stove are moving. If they are, ask what plumbing and electrical work that triggers, and whether it's already in the price.
- Check whether the quote assumes a wet and dry split or a single kitchen. They're different projects, with different boards specified throughout.
The same questions work on any renovation quote, not just a kitchen. Our guide to how to read a renovation quotation takes them further, and our guide to the deposit and payment schedule shows how to pay for the work once you've chosen.
How we price a kitchen, since you asked
We measure the actual run in feet before we quote, not after. If your sink is moving, the plumbing cost is in the document you sign, not in a message after the old cabinet has come out. The board is named for every section, the countertop material is specified, and appliances are listed as included or excluded, never left vague. "The kitchen is done" should mean the same thing to us as it does to you.
We build kitchens as part of a full design and build project and as a standalone kitchen renovation. Either way, the number you agree to is the number the kitchen is built from.
