Cost and Estimating
What a 42U Cabinet Actually Costs to Build
A line-by-line teardown of the material, labor, and burden that go into a fabricated 42U cabinet, and why the sticker price is the least interesting number.
Most quotes for a 42U cabinet arrive as a single number. That number hides a dozen decisions: steel gauge, coating, how much bench time the door hardware really takes. Any one of them can move the price more than the discount you negotiated. This is the teardown.
Where the money goes
Raw steel is rarely the largest line. Shop labor and the burden that rides on it usually are. Here is a representative split for a single powder-coated 42U cabinet built in-house:
| Line | Amount | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Material (steel + hardware) | $194 | 16% |
| Shop labor | $351 | 29% |
| Coating | $178 | 14% |
| Bought-out parts | $139 | 11% |
| Crating and freight | $138 | 11% |
| Burden and G&A | $230 | 19% |
What the sticker price leaves out
A cabinet does not arrive installed. Two costs live outside the unit price and belong in any honest comparison:
- Lead time
- 4-6 weeksLonger with custom coating
- Freight class
- 85Crated, one skid per two cabinets
- Install labor
- Not includedBudget separately
See it on your own numbers
The teardown above uses our default shop rates. Your steel cost and margin will differ, so rather than argue about a single figure, run it:
Open the configuratorOpen this build in the configuratorChange the build class to a value OEM or an import and watch which lines move, material barely budges, but labor and burden collapse, which is the entire argument for and against outsourcing in one screen.