Exterior Door Installation Cost: The Steel Entry Door Benchmark, Region by Region
A front door is the smallest exterior job most people ever pay for and the one with the widest quotes relative to its size. The Cost vs. Value Report prices one steel entry door replacement, jambs and casings and lockset included, in every region every year. This page sets that benchmark out by region and by edition, puts it beside the same publisher's upscale entrance project for scale, and lists what a real door quote adds that the benchmark does not.
Figures from the Cost vs. Value Report.
The door in the benchmark, part by part
An entry door quote can be a few hundred dollars or several thousand, and the difference is rarely explained. The Cost vs. Value Report cuts through that by pricing one door, described part by part, every year in every region. Knowing the parts is what lets you read a quote, so they come first.
The Cost vs. Value Report's benchmark removes an existing door of three feet by six feet eight inches, the standard size, along with its jambs. It installs a 20-gauge steel door with a clear, dual-pane half-glass panel, new jambs, and an aluminum threshold with a composite stop. The door arrives factory-finished in the same color on both sides. Outside, the trim is brick-mold; inside, 2.5-inch colonial or ranch casings in poplar or an equivalent, prefinished to match. The lockset is replaced.
For that door, installed, the Cost vs. Value Report prints a national average of $2,435 in its 2025 edition. It is a complete job rather than a slab price: the frame, the threshold, the trim and the hardware are all inside the number.
That is why a quote and this figure are only comparable when the quote is equally complete. A door slab hung in the old frame is a smaller job; a door with sidelights in a widened opening is a much larger one, and the Cost vs. Value Report prices that separately, further down this page.
Nine regions, one door
Across the nine US Census divisions, the Cost vs. Value Report's figures for this door run from $2,301 in the West South Central states to $2,684 in the Middle Atlantic. That spread of 1.17× is the narrowest of any exterior project we have looked at, which fits a job that is mostly a factory product and a short day of skilled work.
| Region (US Census division) | Benchmark job cost, 2025 |
|---|---|
| U.S. national average | $2,435 |
| New England | $2,547 |
| Middle Atlantic | $2,684 |
| East North Central | $2,339 |
| West North Central | $2,387 |
| South Atlantic | $2,398 |
| East South Central | $2,319 |
| West South Central | $2,301 |
| Mountain | $2,446 |
| Pacific | $2,545 |
Use the row for your division. A quote well above it for a door of this description is either a better door, a harder opening, or a higher price, and the quote should make clear which. A quote well below it has left something out, and the usual candidates are the jambs, the threshold, the casings and the lockset, each of which can be quietly reused rather than replaced.
Ten editions of the same door
The Cost vs. Value Report has carried this project for many years, and the chart below starts with the 2016 edition. From $1,335 then to $2,435 now, the Cost vs. Value Report's national benchmark has risen 82%, faster than the same report's roofing benchmark over the same years.
The rise came in steps. The figure climbed slowly through the late part of the last decade, jumped in the 2019 edition, and has risen in every edition since. The chart records what was reported for one door each year; it does not explain why, and it does not know what a door costs at your local supplier this month.
Its practical value is the usual one. A price someone paid for a front door several years ago is not a reference for one quoted today, and the chart shows roughly how far the benchmark has moved since. Compare against the current edition and let the older number go.
The upscale entrance, for scale
The same edition of the Cost vs. Value Report prices a second front-door project, and it is the most useful comparison on this page. The upscale version removes the same standard door, then cuts and reframes the opening for a wider fiberglass entrance with a sidelight on each side, moves an electrical box, and finishes with matching trim and hardwood casings. Its national figure is $11,754, which is 4.8× the steel door.
Almost none of that multiple is the door itself. It is the carpentry: cutting the wall, reframing the header and studs for a wider opening, moving wiring, and trimming a larger hole inside and out. The fiberglass slab and its sidelights cost more than a steel slab, but the opening is where the money goes.
The Cost vs. Value Report estimates the grand entrance recoups 84.7% of its cost at resale, against 216.4% for the steel door. Read those two together and the lesson is plain: buyers, in the Cost vs. Value Report's estimate, pay for a fresh front door, and they pay much less, per dollar spent, for a bigger one.
A resale share that says more about surveys than doors
The Cost vs. Value Report prints a resale estimate for every project, and for the steel door in 2025 it is $5,270 against a cost of $2,435, or 216.4% recouped. The Cost vs. Value Report's resale figures are estimates, not sale prices.
Three editions of the Cost vs. Value Report tell you how to weigh that number. The share was 63.8% in 2022, 100.9% in 2023, and 216.4% now. A steel door did not become three times more valuable to buyers in three years; the estimate changed. Treat the share as the Cost vs. Value Report's current estimate of buyer sentiment about front doors, which is warm, and not as a return on an investment.
If you are selling within a year, the share is a mild argument for replacing a tired door before the listing photos. If you are not, it has nothing to do with the decision, and a door that leaks air or does not lock properly needs replacing at any share.
What a real quote adds, and what the door outlives
Real quotes carry items the benchmark does not, and the door itself is usually not the expensive one.
Sidelights and transoms turn a door replacement into carpentry, as the upscale project above shows. A storm door is a second product with its own frame and its own price. Rot in the sill or the framing under the old threshold is found only after the old door is out, and a quote with no allowance for it is a quote that will grow. Hardware ranges from a basic lockset, which the benchmark includes, to handlesets and smart locks that can cost as much as a slab. And a door that is not a standard size, or an opening that is out of square, adds fitting time.
This page does not carry a service life for the slab itself; what it can say is that the parts listed above are the ones a quote prices separately. InterNACHI's life expectancy chart gives 100+ years for a fire-rated steel exterior door, 100+ years for fiberglass and 100+ years for wood, with its own caveat that these are guidelines under normal wear and maintenance and not guarantees. What fails first is the weatherstrip, the threshold, the finish and the hardware, which is why a door that looks worn is often a door that needs those four things and not a replacement.
What is ours and what is theirs
The figures on this page come from two published documents, and the reading of them is ours.
The benchmark, the regional figures, the history, the resale estimates and the upscale project's figure are the Cost vs. Value Report's, as printed, read on the date given in the sources at the end. The service life figures are InterNACHI's life expectancy chart, again as printed. We changed none of them.
The comparison and the emphasis are ours. We assume that a quote for a door matching the published scope can be fairly held against the regional benchmark, and that the gap between the two front-door projects is mostly carpentry rather than product. The first assumption is how the whole page works; the second is a reading of the two scopes, and a plausible one, not a measurement.
This page cannot tell you what the framing under your old threshold looks like, whether your opening is square, or what an installer in your town charges this month. Those three decide most of the gap between a benchmark and a bill.
Five questions before the old door comes off
Five questions, each with a short answer that belongs on the quote.
Is this a prehung unit or a slab in my existing frame? The Cost vs. Value Report's benchmark is a prehung door with new jambs and threshold. A slab in the old frame is cheaper and keeps whatever is wrong with the old frame.
What is included: casings, brick-mold, threshold, lockset? Each one is either in the price or it is not, and reused parts should be named as reused.
What happens if there is rot under the old door? Ask for the allowance, per hour or per job, before anyone finds out.
What is the door made of, and what is the finish? Steel gauge, fiberglass skin or wood species, and whether the finish is factory-applied or done on site.
Who warrants what? The manufacturer warrants the door; the installer warrants the fit, the seal and the swing. Get the second in writing, because it is the one that covers a door that sticks next winter.
Related on this site
Other pages on this site that take a quote apart the same way:
Sources and method
- Entry door benchmark — Zonda, Cost vs. Value Report 2025, published through the Journal of Light Construction. Project: Entry Door Replacement, Steel — remove a standard entry door and jambs, install a factory-finished 20-gauge steel door with a half-glass panel, new jambs, threshold, casings and lockset. National figure and the nine US Census division figures from the same edition; earlier years from the same publisher's project history. The same edition's upscale project, Grand Entrance (fiberglass) — the opening reframed for a door with two sidelights — is cited once, for contrast, at its national figure. Figures read from the publisher on 2 September 2026. jlconline.com
- Service life estimates — International Association of Certified Home Inspectors, InterNACHI's Standard Estimated Life Expectancy Chart for Homes. The chart states that its figures were determined through research and testing under regular recommended maintenance and normal wear, not extreme weather, neglect or abuse, and that they should be used as guidelines only and not relied upon as guarantees or warranties. A separate chart exists for Florida and the surrounding coastal region. No edition date is printed on the page. Figures read from the publisher on 2 September 2026. nachi.org/life-expectancy.htm
Comments
Post a Comment