How to Price a Bathroom Vanity Installation | Reddit & LinkedIn

A vanity install looks simple and often is not. The quote has several lines: removing and disposing of the old vanity, any plumbing work, the new vanity and top, the faucet and hardware, wall and floor repair, and labor. The materials are easy to price. The labor and the surprises are where estimates miss.

The classic trap is quoting a straight swap and then finding water damage, mismatched plumbing, or an out-of-level floor once the old unit comes out. Price what you can see, but flag the likely hidden work to the customer up front. A vanity that sat over a slow leak for years will reveal rot, and that becomes a change order if you did not warn them.

Plumbing is the biggest variable on a vanity job. If the new vanity keeps the same footprint and the supply and drain lines line up, labor is modest. If the customer wants a double sink where there was a single, or a different width that moves the drain, you are into real plumbing work: cutting, rerouting, and sometimes opening the wall.

Confirm the plumbing plan before you quote. Ask whether the vanity style keeps the existing rough-in or changes it. A furniture-style vanity with exposed legs, for example, may expose supply lines that were hidden behind a cabinet, which means nicer valves and cleaner work. Each of these is a line item, not an afterthought.

Behind and under an old vanity you often find the work nobody quoted: a patch of drywall ruined by a slow leak, caulk-hidden floor damage, or an uneven wall that makes the new top sit wrong. Budget a repair allowance, and tell the customer it is an allowance, not a guarantee.

The honest move is to price a visible-scope quote and name the likely hidden items as a separate allowance line the customer can see. That way, if the wall is fine, they pay less, and if it is rotted, you are not absorbing it or fighting over a change order. Transparency on the unknowns builds trust and protects your margin.

Markup on small remodel and installation work commonly runs 20% to 35% for a small contractor, higher than big jobs because the fixed overhead of showing up, measuring, and managing the job is spread over a smaller ticket. Your own numbers set the real rate. Remember markup is not margin.

Small jobs are where many contractors lose money by under-pricing the labor and the trips. A vanity install can take two visits, a supply run, and disposal. Price the real time, not the optimistic time, and do not discount the markup just because the material total is low. The overhead is the same whether the ticket is $800 or $8,000.

The fastest path from site visit to signed quote is to draft against your own templates. ContractShield lets you snap photos of the existing vanity, the plumbing, and the wall, say or type the scope, and get an AI draft of removal, materials, labor, and a repair allowance in about 25 minutes total. You approve each line, and every line shows where its price came from, so the numbers stay yours.

Once the customer accepts online, milestone payments are built in, with automatic reminders and collections if a balance goes past due. For small jobs that is especially useful, because chasing a small final balance by hand is rarely worth your time.