Worktop Costs Guide 2026

Most worktop companies make you phone for prices. We publish ours: fitted kitchens start from £1,150, every material band is listed below in plain £/m², every common extra has a number against it, and the instant estimator applies the same rates to your actual layout in sixty seconds. All figures are guide prices — the exact fixed price is confirmed after the free laser template — and we beat any written like-for-like quote.

This guide walks through where the money goes in a stone worktop: the slab, the fabrication, the extras and the fitting. Understanding the structure is the best negotiating tool you can have, whoever you end up buying from — it tells you which choices genuinely move the price and which are nearly free. We have supplied stone across Surrey and London since 2011 from our own West Molesey workshop, so these are working numbers, not brochure bait.

How much does a stone kitchen worktop cost in 2026?

A typical Surrey or SW London kitchen — around 3 to 6 square metres of worktop — costs between £1,500 and £4,500 supplied and fitted in quartz, granite or porcelain, with our minimum fitted job at £1,150. Large kitchens with islands, premium slabs and multiple extras run £5,000–£10,000+.

Those brackets cover the overwhelming majority of real quotes we issue. The quickest way to place yourself inside them is the 60-second estimator: choose material and band, sketch the layout, tick the extras, and you get a realistic from–to range for your postcode. It is guide only — exact fixed price after the free laser template — but it is built on the same rate card we quote from, so it does not flatter to deceive.

What are the price bands per square metre?

Our 2026 supplied-and-fitted guide rates per m²: quartz £250 Essential / £320 Premium / £420 Luxury; granite £280 / £350 / £460; marble £340 / £420 / £560; porcelain & Dekton £300 / £380 / £480. Supply-only starts lower — from £190/m² for quartz.

The bands are about the slab, not the service: Essential covers popular plain and lightly patterned colours in standard 20mm; Premium adds veined designs, more colour choice and 30mm options; Luxury is statement slabs — dramatic veining, book-matching, branded flagship ranges from the likes of Silestone, Dekton and Caesarstone. Fabrication, templating and fitting quality are identical across all three — a budget colour gets the same CNC precision as a £560 marble.

What do the extras cost?

Our 2026 guide prices for the common extras: upstands £28 per linear metre; full-height splashback £140 per m²; sink cut-out £95; hob cut-out £85; drainer grooves £120 per set; waterfall end £340 each; radius corners £45 each.

Two observations from the quote book. First, cut-outs are priced for the machining and polishing, not the hole — an undermount sink cut-out is a polished, visible edge that takes real workshop time. Second, the extras list is where quotes quietly diverge between companies: a "cheaper" £/m² rate with £180 cut-outs and £60/lm upstands overtakes ours fast. Always compare the bottom line of a fully specified quote — which is exactly the comparison our quote-beat promise invites.

What is included in a supplied-and-fitted price?

Our fitted prices include the slab, CNC fabrication, edge polishing, free laser templating, delivery, installation by our own fitters, jointing, sealing of natural stone, and removal of packaging. There is no survey fee and no templating charge hidden further down the paperwork.

What is not included, anywhere in the industry: plumbing disconnection and reconnection, electrical work for hobs, removal and disposal of the old worktop (we quote this separately if you want it — typically £120–£250), and carpentry to correct unlevel or unsupportive cabinets, which is rare but surfaced honestly at template stage rather than on fitting day. If you are comparing quotes, check each of these lines — the gaps are where surprise costs live.

What makes a worktop quote go up — or down?

Upward pressure: more cut-outs and shaped details, full-height splashbacks, waterfall ends and mitred edges, thin-porcelain fabrication, book-matching (which can require buying two slabs), long unsupported spans needing reinforcement, and awkward access — basement kitchens and tight staircases add handling time.

Downward pressure is mostly layout efficiency: a design that nests neatly into one slab wastes less stone than one that forces two slabs for a few awkward centimetres. If your kitchen is borderline, tell us — small design tweaks (island 10cm narrower, splashback as upstand) sometimes drop a whole slab from the bill. Offcuts can also become vanity tops, sills and hearths at marginal cost, which is the thriftiest trick in stone: see our remnants section when you visit.

How do material choices compare on total cost?

For the same 4m² kitchen with a sink cut-out, hob cut-out and 4lm of upstands, the guide totals land roughly: Essential quartz ≈ £1,300; Premium quartz ≈ £1,600; Essential granite ≈ £1,430; Premium porcelain ≈ £1,840; Premium marble ≈ £2,000. The spread between sensible choices is smaller than most people expect.

That is the useful insight: moving from Essential quartz to Premium granite costs a few hundred pounds, not thousands — so choose the material on its merits (heat, maintenance, looks) rather than assuming the price gap is unbridgeable. The genuinely big jumps are into Luxury marble and heavily fabricated designs. Run your own numbers in the estimator; it does this comparison across materials instantly.

Are cheap worktop deals online too good to be true?

Often, yes — the classic patterns are supply-only prices dressed as fitted ones, £/m² rates that exclude templating and delivery, extras priced after you are committed, and imported pre-cut sizes that cannot actually fit your kitchen without visible joints. The worktop market rewards reading the whole quote.

Our counter-offer is structural: published rates, a free laser template before any money is fixed, our own workshop and fitters rather than subcontract chains, and the standing promise that if you bring us any written like-for-like quote, we beat it. That promise is only possible because our costs are our own — in-house CNC fabrication since 2011, no middlemen to feed. Get a written quote from anyone; then call 0208 123 3004.