Well for some base pricing info call the stone yards in your old city for buy your own price. Check with your old fabricator on what they would charge. Once you do that you can start talking to local fabricators with some confidence.

What they could possibly mean that the fabricator does Cost Plus, meaning if stone yard #1 gives it to him cheaper than stone yard #2 his price to you will be cheaper if the stone comes from #1, because the percent he marks up will be the same. For example the designer my parents used did cost plus and if something my parents were purchasing went on sale, the designer passed the savings on to them. She was paying less for the product so she charged them correspondingly less. Labor will be the same, but the price passed onto you for materials could vary.

Dan, Stone yards in my old city didn't sell Danby marble. It can be hard to find. I just happened to have moved to NYC so there are many places nearby between Long Island, North Jersey, and CT. So I don't think I can price compare there.

Palimpset, Thanks for the cost plus idea. I will ask the fabricator/installers if they would be able to price in such a manner. I know designers do it, we'll see if fabricators do too.

In the NYC area I'd forget about seperate stone pricing and get complete job quotes from a number of fabricators. Unless you want to go out a bit into Pennsylvania Amish country where you may get more flexibility and likely better pricing.

@dan1888, what do the Amish have to do with fabricating and installing Danby marble countertops? Because that’s what the post is about…not cabinets.

Kendrah, I live on LI, and have never heard of the first scenario, where the fabricator/installer sets the pricing of the slab. Rather, we purchased stone from a stone yard, their pricing. The slab was delivered to our fabricator, who charged for templating, fabrication and installation. He had nothing to do with the pricing of the stone.

There are hundreds of stone yards on LI. I’d keep looking. I think we used a stone yard in the Melville area. It was almost 6 years ago, so I can’t recall the name.

The system is squirrely and I can't imagine it works well for anyone.

I ended up buying from a place that had prices listed on the slabs and a "discount" to fabricators. The stone dealers that had pricing available only to fabricators or just relative price ranges didn't get my business. I don't have time or patience for that.

I had no idea that is how countertop business is done in that area of the country. What a nightmare! you would think that the manufacturers would have some influence over the dealers in order to make the process easier for the end user.

Do the fabricators have stock at their sites from which to choose, or does everyone have to go to the ”middleman” to view options and then contact the fabricator(s) to get cost estimate…for each different item?? Ugh!

@MaryBocaTX, our fabricator has some stock, but not a lot. Much of it is remnants from other jobs. In the NYC metro area, including here on Long Island, there’s (much) greater inventory at dedicated stone yards. Our contractor has a long standing relationship with a fabricator a few minutes from our home. That’s where we had the slab delivered. He was fabulous!

That sounds more like it. Isn’t Long Island a reasonable place to go, even if one lives in NYC?

From some of the above posts, it sounded like all of the dedicated stone yards wouldn't even talk price…only the end fabricator.

Thank you, @darbuka, for the clarification!

Just to clarify…our contractor gave us a list of 10 stone yards, all within 40 mins from our home. The contractor has relationships with all ten. DH and I picked out the slab by ourselves, and got a price…which included a contractor discount. The contractor arranged to have the stone transported to the fabricator.

Like most everything else in our all house gut/renovation, all costs were put on the contractor’s tab. We reimbursed him afterwards.

The slab I’ve been writing about, was for two large vanity tops in bathrooms. Our kitchen has soapstone counters. Those were purchased from, and fabricated and installed by M. Teixeira (their New Jersey location). We paid Teixeira directly. The contractor had nothing to do with that transaction, the fabrication, or instillation.

To answer @MaryBocaTX’s question, yes, it’s quite reasonable to drive from NYC to stone yards on LI. Though, if you live way uptown, Westchester county might be a shorter drive.

This is how the majority of the US buys counters. Consumers do not buy slabs. The slab sellers are wholesale. And only sell to the fabricators. You buy completed counters from fabricators. You don’t buy your lettuce mix from the produce distributor and then take it to that new bistro for them to prepare for you. You buy a sakad, a completed finished product, from the restaurant.

You’re 100% shopping the wrong thing if you’re shopping price. Skill is what you need to shop, or youre going to end up with a ”help disaster” post.

I guess my confusion was in the fact that the OP couldn't get prices from the stoneyard. Where I live, whomever is selling the stone (regardless of whether or not they do the fabrication) will price the stone (by remnant or slab). If they also fabricate, they will tell you that the slabs are ’X’ amount of $, and fabrication for that type of stone is approx. ’X’ $ per sf - varied by miters, etc.

I am intrigued by @Granite City Services’s pricing model, however. That seems like an incredibly smart way to do business - and very advantageous to the end user.

Mary, that's how our countertops were purchased also...no price until the fabricator gave us a quote. But the slab yard has the options categorized...you won't accidentally pick an exotic level stone if your budget says level 2.

Just to clarify, we purchased Dekton, so the only ones authorized (by Cosentino) to carry it are Cosentino certified fabricators (all of whom have attended and completed a months long out-of-state training course). So we chose our ”design” and then were given the option of choosing the fabricator from a list provided by Cosentino. The fabricator then templated, fabricated, and installed. The price was set by the fabricator (broken down in categories for our edification).

I have friends/family that have gone with regular granite/natural stone and they have gone to those huge stone yards and chosen their slabs (priced/purchased there), and had them delivered to whatever fabricator they wanted - usually at the recommendation of their contractor.

stone countertops often cause difficulty for shoppers when stone yards dont share pricing info with the consumer. in lieu of actual prices they could at least give levels of cost (lower cost tier one, highest cost tier four). this way someone for whom budget is primary doesnt fall in love with something they cant afford.

The salad analogy was incredibly helpful. Thank you. Also, really important to know how key the fabrication and installation part of it all is. All I was thinking about was stone price, duh.

I had originally thought we'd reuse the countertops in the kitchen so didn't include any countertop info in the original agreement with our contractor. I'm not in love with our contractor. Not sure I trust his opinion on who to use for countertops and cannot imagine the mark up of contracting the work out from him to a fabricator.

I'm overwhelmed with figuring out how to find a contractor that has a relationship with a Danby stone dealer, but it sounds like I need to hunt around and just get quotes from a few different places like I would normally do with any other kind of contractor.

Reagrding Long Island, yes I live in Washington Heights so it could take an hour or an hour and a half or more. But I don't mind a hike to look at stone - it is such a big investment. I'd rather find someone in Westchester though if I can.

Thanks all.