I was quoted a price of $115 a square foot installed, from Stockett here in Phoenix. They have 2 varieties: a softer, grayer one with lots of small veins (they called it "Minus") and a harder. blacker one with mostly dark green veins (called it "Brazilian Eyes") .When oiled, the blacker one is mostly black with very light veins and some dark green areas.

For common granites, prefabs are best. ubatubas, pearls. We recently purchased an 3' x 7' island made of kashmir white for $250. All edges bullnosed. In Los Angeles, this is what i found after shopping at dozens of stone yards. Cost of slab (buy whole slab): Common granites - uba tuba, pearls - $10-$15 per sq ft Middle level - volga blue, labarodorite etc $20-$30 per sw ft Blue/Green granites - Start at $40 per sq ft Templating+Fabrication+Installation is $25-$30 per sq ft. So lets say you want to do 50 sq ft of volga blue Total = ($20 + $25) * 50 = $45 * 50 = $2250

It got done. Home Expo was a nightmare. i got over the shock of paying $490, but then they tried to add on more charges. I had about four calls with them this week and each time they gave me a different total due that they were unable to justify (then they would say, "I'll call you back..." and the whole process would start over again). The final conversation was an exercise in frustration with a woman who couldn't understand basic math. Finally the installer saved the day by giving her a face-saving out when he suggested that she move a number around in her system. If it wasn't for the installer I don't know what I would have done. It ended up costing $490 for cutting the granite (plus $170 I had already paid for installation), which I'm fine with because it was two guys and it did take them a long time. The guy who cut the granite said he's only had a problem once. They cut it free hand and it's not perfect, but I don't see how they could have done better without removing it. I am relieved to have it done and grateful to the installer, but I will never buy from Home Expo again. Nobody knew what was going on, nobody could answer a question, more than one person said one thing and then denied it later.....

It depends who is doing the work, how the work is being done and who is buying the slabs. This can be very regional and also job dependent. In the Southern CA area consumers can go to slab yards, get pricing and buy slabs. In many other parts of the country the fabricator is the middleman who gets pricing and does the buying. I'm in So. CA so for my kitchen and fireplace projects I picked out my 5 quartzite slabs and paid in full. My fabricator went to pick them up and stored them at his shop for a few months as the remodel changed into a full gut. I paid him 50% of his labor/fabrication quoted price at the start and the remainder when the job was done. For other projects where I had a GC who took care of everything, the slab costs where just added to the next draw or money owed to the GC. The GC paid for materials and fabrication and then billed me.