September 1, 2026

Flat-pack means standard boxes you assemble. Fitted means standard boxes assembled for you, from a fixed range of sizes. Bespoke means the cabinetry is drawn and built for your room. The words are used loosely, and plenty of fitted kitchens are sold as bespoke, so it is worth knowing what actually separates them.

Flat-pack

Typically £3,000 to £12,000 for the units. Carcasses come in standard widths, usually 300, 400, 500, 600 and 1000mm, and you fill the gaps with filler panels. Assembly is yours or your fitter's.

It is genuinely good value if your room is a simple rectangle and you are comfortable with visible fillers. It stops being good value the moment your room has a chimney breast, a sloping ceiling, or a wall that is not square, which is most British houses.

Fitted

Typically £12,000 to £30,000 installed. Same standard carcass sizes, better materials, a designer who plans the layout, and a fitting team. This is the high-street middle ground.

The thing to understand is that the units are still standard. The design work is about arranging fixed sizes intelligently, not about making a cabinet to a dimension. Where a run does not quite reach, a filler panel closes the gap.

Bespoke

Typically £24,000 upwards. Every carcass is cut to your measurements, so a run finishes exactly where the wall does. No fillers, no compromise on awkward returns, and cabinet depths and heights that suit how you cook rather than what the catalogue offers.

You are also usually buying better construction. In our case an 18mm moisture-stable SuperPan carcass, Blum soft-close hinges and full-extension runners throughout, and dovetailed solid timber drawer boxes.

How to tell which one you are being shown

Ask three questions.

• What widths do your carcasses come in? A list is fitted. Any width is bespoke.
• Will there be filler panels, and where? A bespoke kitchen should need almost none.
• Who builds it, and could I visit? A bespoke maker can answer this with a place and a person.

Which one is right

If your room is square, your budget is tight and you want it done quickly, fitted is a perfectly sensible answer and we would tell you so. Bespoke earns its money in awkward rooms, in period properties, and when you intend to stay long enough for the extra ten or fifteen years of life to matter.

What is not sensible is paying bespoke money for a fitted kitchen, which happens more often than the industry likes to admit.