Guides

RTA vs. Assembled Cabinets

Every cabinet you shop for falls into one of two categories: ready to assemble, usually shortened to RTA, or pre-assembled. The distinction has nothing to do with quality and everything to do with where the last step of construction happens, in a factory before it ships or in your kitchen after it arrives.

What RTA means

RTA cabinets ship as flat, pre-cut panels with the hardware, screws, and cam locks included. You assemble the box yourself, then install it like any other cabinet. Most RTA cabinets use cam and dowel joinery designed to be put together without special tools, and a single base cabinet usually takes well under an hour to build.

What pre-assembled means

Pre-assembled cabinets, sometimes listed as fully assembled, are built at the factory or by a local shop and arrive ready to set in place and secure to the wall. There is no build step, but the cabinet is bulkier and heavier to ship, and damage in transit is harder to fix than swapping out a single flat panel.

A separate question: framed or frameless

It is easy to mix this up with RTA versus assembled, but construction type is a different choice entirely. Framed cabinets have a face frame across the front of the box. Frameless cabinets skip the face frame so the doors cover the box directly. Both are available as either RTA or pre-assembled, so the two decisions do not have to line up with each other.

RTA tends to fit tighter budgets and DIY timelines, while pre-assembled tends to fit projects where an installer bills by the hour or the timeline does not allow for an assembly step — see how much kitchen cabinets typically cost for how that budget gap plays out. Once you know which one you want, you can browse BeeBoard's RTA-focused retailers or search the full catalog for pre-assembled options. If you've settled on RTA, the RTA measuring guide covers what to check before you order.