What Are RTA Cabinets
and Why Should You Care?
The same construction. The same hardware. A fraction of the price. Here's the plain-English explanation nobody else bothers to give you.
RTA stands for Ready-To-Assemble.
That's it. There's no mystery. The cabinet is fully manufactured — plywood box, solid wood door frame, drawer boxes, soft-close hinges — but it ships flat-packed instead of pre-assembled. Everything arrives pre-cut and pre-drilled. You put it together on site with basic tools. A rubber mallet, a drill, and a level. Most homeowners do it in 20 to 30 minutes per cabinet.
The reason RTA cabinets cost less has nothing to do with quality. It has to do with logistics. A pre-assembled cabinet is a bulky box of air — you're paying freight on empty space. An RTA cabinet packs flat, ships efficiently, and skips three layers of markup: the assembly labor, the showroom floor space, and the distributor middleman who sits between the factory and the customer.
When you buy RTA directly from us, you're getting the cabinet the factory makes — not a version of it that's been marked up through a supply chain designed to make money off of you at every step.
What Does a 10×10 Kitchen Actually Cost?
A 10×10 kitchen is the industry-standard measurement: 20 linear feet of cabinets, upper and lower. Here's what you're looking at across the three cabinet categories.
RTA Cabinets
for a 10×10 kitchen
- Same plywood box construction
- Soft-close doors and drawers
- Dovetailed drawer boxes
- No showroom markup
Semi-Custom
for a 10×10 kitchen
- Assembly markup included
- Showroom overhead baked in
- More size flexibility
- 3–8 week lead time
Custom
for a 10×10 kitchen
- Designer and installer margin
- 8–16 week lead time
- Fully bespoke sizing
- You're paying for prestige
Price ranges reflect cabinet costs only, not installation labor. Actual cost varies by kitchen size and door style.
RTA does not mean cheap. It means you skip the assembly markup.
The cabinets coming off the same factory line as anything you'd find in a kitchen showroom. The construction spec is identical. What changes is the step between factory and your jobsite — specifically, who does the assembly and how many hands the cabinet passes through before it gets to you.
Our cabinets use 3/4" plywood boxes — not particleboard, not MDF. Plywood holds fasteners better, handles moisture better, and outlasts particleboard by a wide margin. It's the material that experienced installers look for because they've seen particleboard boxes fail.
Drawers are dovetail-jointed solid wood. That's the joinery you see on high-end furniture — mechanical interlocking cuts that don't rely on glue alone. Soft-close hinges and undermount slides are standard, not an upgrade.
What's inside every box
If you can assemble furniture, you can assemble these cabinets.
The process is straightforward. Each cabinet ships with all panels pre-cut to size and all holes pre-drilled. You connect the box using cam locks — the same fastener system you've seen in every flat-pack furniture piece. No sawing. No measuring. No special skills.
You'll need a rubber mallet to seat the cam locks, a drill for hinge mounting plates, and a level when you're hanging wall cabinets. That's the full tool list for most people. Plan on 20 to 30 minutes per cabinet if this is your first time. Experienced installers move faster.
We have step-by-step assembly guides and video walkthroughs for every cabinet type. If you hit a question mid-assembly, the answer is likely already in the guide.
Who buys RTA cabinets?
Pretty much anyone who has figured out that paying extra for factory assembly is optional.
Homeowners
Saving serious money on a kitchen remodel without giving up quality. If you're doing a gut renovation, the difference between RTA and semi-custom could pay for your countertops and appliances.
Learn more →Contractors
Maximizing margin on client projects. You're already providing the labor — buying direct means the cabinet markup stays in your pocket, not a distributor's. Trade accounts get volume pricing.
Learn more →Builders
Standardizing cabinet specs across developments and holding costs flat across projects. Consistent SKUs, consistent pricing, consistent lead times — the kind of predictability that makes project accounting sane.
Learn more →Dealers
Adding a cabinet line without carrying inventory. Drop-ship direct to your customers, take your margin, skip the warehouse cost and the carrying risk. Dealer accounts have their own pricing structure.
Learn more →Ready to stop overpaying for cabinets?
Browse the full catalog and see what your kitchen costs with cabinets priced the way they should be. If you want a number before you commit, get a quote — no pressure, no sales call required.