thats like asking if wine at $12.99 is a fair price.
Or if the shoes your wife bought for $39.95 was a deal.

We need more info, what material, how big are the slabs?

justmeinsd-

Forgive me in advance is I am misunderstanding what you wrote - it's been a long day in the heat here in AZ.....

the slab yard is going to sell you that slabs - direct?

That is pretty much unheard of - at least here in AZ.

In order to purchase a slab here, if you
are buying from a distributor like Dal Tile, Arizona Tile,
MSI, Best Marble & Granite, et all........
you have to be a legit Fabricator - not even a GC.
Maybe it's different in other parts of the US,
but out here in the 115 degree desert - that does not happen very often (to my knowledge anyways)....

I know that it's important to get the most value for your
dollar, but remember - you get what you pay for, and IF
Price is the most important of the holy trinity of purchasing:
"Price-Service-Quality" (choose two).....
then look out.... you may be in for a tough go.

I am NOT advocating throwing money away, but the guy that
does the BEST job for you Quality and Service wise, is
probably NOT going to ALSO be the Cheapest...

and please don't get me wrong - I am not trying
to "read" too much into your OP, but usually when people
start asking about what my costs are for a slab - it's a red flag... kind of like asking Mercedes what their cost is
per pound for the steel that goes into a Benz....

If the slab yard you went to is a Fabricator -
it's hard to say.... was it a Distributor? or a Fabricator?

let us know...

as I am sure that my Brother VR James will agree with me,
we only want to see you make an educated buying decision, and be happy with whatever material you decide to use -
we are here to help you......

kevin

In California, apparently, they sell slabs to the public and then let you get your own fabricator, but that is the only place I have heard of on this forum. If you are in CA you need to ask others who live there also and give them the name of your granite and the approximate size of your slab.

Installed prices for granite run from about 2000.00 (or less for a very small kitchen) to 20,000.00+. Depending on the granite, the size, the fabricator and where you live. If you know what you will have to pay for fabrication, add it to the price of your slab and you will have something you can compare to other peoples prices here. My qotes ranged from 2000.00 for "entry level" granite to over 5000.00 for a higher priced granite at with a more expensive fabricator. In most of the country its like asking what a kitchen costs. You can't buy just a kitchen, you have the buy the whole house and even then prices vary widely depending on size, building costs, availability and demand.

90% of the country can not buy just a slab.

Sue

Justmeind,

Depends on so much, size, grade of the slab, of course type of granite, and thickness.

Figure from $500 to $750 for a 55 square foot slab for level one, Uba Tuba, Santa Cecilia and such, 3cm thick, a few bucks a square foot less for 2cm.

Nicer granite will run $12 to $16.00 per square foot, $880 to $1,000.

And of course there is no top end, $2,000 slabs are common in the exotics.

Watch out for the grade of the slab. Some will say there are no grades, but there are according to our importer. You will know a Grade A slab when you see one, few fissures if any, some times slightly larger, and more uniform color (no unsightly blotches). Bargain priced orphan slabs are snapped up by some fabricators, last of the bundle, till they get two or three, then sold to unsuspecting consumers.

But expect to pay around $40 per square foot for fabrication labor for a decent job, more for a top quality job. There will be a waste factor factored in as well with some shops, so the most importantthing is to get the total job price and compare from that along with the amount and location of seams, rodding, quality of the seams, and most important, the reputation of the company.

Lots of sad stories out there, don't become another one.

Justme, I paid $1100/slab in California for exotic granite, but mine were small slabs. The better yardstick for granite pricing is the cost per square foot (mine was $40/sf, but again it was an exotic). I believe that common or garden variety granites are in the $10-16/sf range for 2 cm; 3 cm granites are, perhaps, 25-40% more if available in your area. I've been tempted by some high end exotics, which are semi precious gemstones and which cost $200/sf, and I'm sure it's possible to pay more :) The above prices do not include fabrication, which here can be $30-50/sf, plus extras for fancy edges and detail work. Larrywil (near Atlanta, IIRC) had a thread not too long ago about different fabricators' methods of calculating prices. HTH.

Kevin, in Cal., the yards can sell directly to the consumer, or they can sell to a fabricator. A few yards I visited would only give general ranges, e.g., "medium high," but most quoted prices direct to consumer.

I went to MANY yards in the San Fernando Valley in southern California. All slabs were quoted by the square foot. The cheapest I saw was $6.00/sq. ft. for some Uba Tuba; the most expensive was about $45.00 for I-can't-remember-what. My Coastal Green granite was about $1100 per slab, and they were $15.00 per square foot. I was told by one slab yard that the average is about $13.00/sq. ft. Unless the slabs are particularly small, that sounds like a normal price for a slab.

I am with sally. In LA granites start at $10 per sq ft. sometimes as low as $6 per sqft. These are the common colors such as uba tuba.
Most browns, golds, blacks go for between $10 - $20 per sq ft.

Green granites start at $30 per sq ft.

Exotics like sodalite, bahia, van gogh, start at $50 and go up to $200 per sq ft...

So for a standard 6 x 8 slab of uba tuba you could pay around $300 whereas lapis lazuli would be $$$.

Thanks all. The cost was around $25 per sq ft without fabrication.

Do know the name of your granite you were quoted or just want to save it for a surprise? :)

Sue

Whats the cost of a slab got to do with anything? What would you do with it after you bought it? Are you a fabricator or DIY?

How much is a sheet of plywood?
These cabinet guys sure do make a lot of money if I look at the cost of a sheet of plywood and compare to what I paid for cabinets! I should have checked out the cost of plywood first... never again.

On Ebay granite slabs start at $195.

Gee kev, a bit rough huh? I think justme did get around to the relevant measure and that is cost/sqft. If you have an honest and good fabricator, you can judge the ball park you are in for ultimate cost. For example, my fabricator had a base price and added for extras but the starting point was grade of granite. The base was $X (can't remember) then this group of granite was $X+10; +20 and so on until you got to the exotics and they were market price of the day. Heck, one we picked out for the center island was going to be about $3,000 (OOPS! 175/sqft) to cover a 50 by 50 inch center island (Typhoon green but it was incredible!).

Mine was a pretty up front guy. The problem I had was the supplier would not quote me any prices but referred me to my fabricator. I did not fault them since they are protecting their fabricators. The best I could ever get out of them was this in the ball park of x and a little less than y.

BTW, when was the last time you priced cabinet grade plywood (and related materials)? You might be shocked at how little it appears your cabinet guys made if you compare your cost of premium cabinet grade supplies (a small portion of which is plywood in premium grade cabinets) to theirs. We are not not talking 3/4 inch CDX decking @20 bucks a sheet you know.

Hey breezy I didn't mean to sound so rough but I went into a car dealer the other day and asked how much a pound cars cost these days and they responded like I was an idiot!

How much a pound did your car cost?

Good points, Brezzy 2.

I'll tell you what a well run shop can make, around 10% of the total sale if everything goes perfect. Cabinet making, even in the upper end market, is a low margin business. Too much competition, you have to have huge overhead ($500 a day for us, no labor, no payroll, nothing for us, just indirect costs), and you have a shop full of very expensive machinery that can be ruined easily if a worker gets careless.

It took awhile for my wife to figure out why I would turn down a difficult customer on a twenty grand job. Cause only two thousand of it has the potential to hit the bank account. Difficult customers can cost you more than that and you might well wind up losing money on the job.

I love the granite business. The margins are incredible, it is a natural product that is expected to have flaws, no warranty is given (at least any legal warranty that actually covers anything), and the total cost is double what some other products are. The cost of setting up is paltry, some shops start with a couple thousand bucks worth of tools.

Ka Ching!!!!

kev, my car per pound...is that with or without the Harmon Kardon stereo? I guess with the stereo it is about $25 a pound but hey, I can get a D9 bulldozer for $125K which is only about $1.25 per pound...what a bargain, right? And even though it would be problematic parking it in the parking garage at work, I would never have to be worried about being cutoff in traffic on my commute in and out huh?.

hotgranite - and you only hit the obvious. I don't know about the granite business but we were fortunate to have a pretty good granite fabricator (first kitchen I rated him fabulous, second, pretty good). The cabinet guy was really really good. His stuff is furniture quality and my taste in furniture runs in the Henredon(the old stuff when they were in NC) Hickory Chair etc. I'll admit that Henkle Harris is probably the king of the hill but often wonder if anything is worth all of that...but I digress!

Anyway, my hat's off to those who truly deliver first rate quality and I for one am glad to pay for it (really! AND DID without a complaint). My cabinets were EXPENSIVE, worth every penny and would pay it again without hesitation.

gapeach - just out of curiosity, how much does your car weigh anyweigh?

I agree. TOL work is worth every penny. Getting consumers to truly step to the plate and pay it is a different story.

My granite must have little elfs in it or something...cuz it sure cost more than $10 sq ft and it's not blue!

And my "slab" of onyx...we're currently talking $7500....maybe I should go to california and pick it up myself....but then I'd need to buy a big truck to drive it back, and heck figuring the poundage on those babies is a pain in the rump!

Can anyone possibly give a price qoute for a section of gray granite that is 8ft in length 1 ft in width and about 6inches thick. A friend was using it as a bench but would like to get rid of it. Also where could one sell such an item? Thanks in advance.

Can anyone provide a listing and/or recommendation for good fabricators in the San Fernando Valley, CA? I am remodeling a small bathroom and only need a piece 80" X 28", so buying an entire slab is not practical. Fabricators often have remnants they sell fairly cheaply, as they have no cost in the materials.

Don. I would love to engage you in the complexities of pricing jobs in the granite world. It is never straight forward based on the cost if slabs alone. The slab cost is just one factor in a long list to get to a final price. Unfortunately it leaves the consumer with a "shell game" feeling.

Why did Don Clerihue post on a thread from 2008? And with a critical tone to boot?

Don, this thread is 4 years old. The people you're waving your fist at are most likely not reading this.