Upholstery Finder/Guides/What boat canvas and marine upholstery costs in Florida
What boat canvas and marine upholstery costs in Florida
Of the 33 marine shops on this site, not one publishes a price for canvas or upholstery work.
I checked all of them, because that is what this site is built to do. Two of the 33 publish a price for something, and both are worth naming, because they show exactly where the line falls. Custom Marine Fabrication in Jacksonville lists an aluminium sand spike rod holder at $350, or $500 a pair. Miami Prestige Interiors sells a marine beanbag at $1,999 with an add-to-cart button.
A rod holder and a beanbag are products. A bimini top is not. That is the whole reason one carries a price and the other never does.
Why the shops stay quiet
The auto trim shops on this site do the same thing, and for a related reason. A car seat hides its problem under the cover. A boat hides its problem in the shape.
Every hull is a little different by the time it reaches a canvas shop. The frame was bent for that boat, then somebody added a radar arch, or the boat sat three seasons in Florida sun and the old canvas shrank around a frame that has quietly moved. Quote that from a web form and you are either losing money or frightening off a job you would have been happy to take.
So the shops here publish what they can stand behind, which is the work itself: 26 of them name enclosures, 25 name bimini tops and shade, 30 name cushions and seating. On money, they say to call.
Who actually wrote the numbers you find
This matters more here than in most trades, so I want to be plain about it. Search for what boat canvas costs and you get four kinds of page, and they are not equally honest.
Retailers selling pre-made canvas by size chart. Amazon, National Bimini Tops, Great Lakes Skipper, TopMaster Marine. Great Lakes Skipper lists replacement bimini covers at $250 to $499.99. These are real prices for a real product, and that product competes with the shops in this directory. Their incentive runs toward making custom work look expensive.
Cost-aggregator sites. HomeGuide, ThePricer, LatestCost. They rank well and they carry no liability for being wrong, because nobody is going to do the job at the number they quote.
Shops writing cost posts about their own trade. Better informed, and selling.
Owner forums. The Hull Truth, the Sam's Marine Hatteras owners' board, the Grady White forum. Boat owners reporting what they were quoted and what they paid, with nothing to sell either way.
I have leaned on the forums where I could, because they are the only category with no stake in the answer. Where I use the aggregate ranges, it is because they are the numbers that exist, not because I trust them.
What the trade charges
Full enclosures, by boat size:
- Under 20 feet: roughly $1,000 to $3,000
- 20 to 30 feet: roughly $3,000 to $5,000
- Flybridge: roughly $5,000 to $15,000, and the spread is that wide because the shape is that variable
Real quotes reported by owners land inside those bands and toward the upper half. A complete bridge enclosure in 40-gauge Strataglass, all four sides, came in at $6,000. An 11-by-11 full enclosure was estimated at about $6,500. A Sunbrella enclosure with 40-gauge Strataglass, roll-down windows and screens came back at $12,500 plus tax. One rule of thumb in circulation puts a Strataglass window enclosure near $130 a linear foot, which is useful mostly as a sanity check on a quote you already hold.
Bimini tops. A pre-made replacement canvas cut to a size chart runs $250 to $499.99. A complete bimini including the frame was quoted at $1,249 by one owner. A custom-patterned top from a shop sits above the first number and is not really comparable to it, which is the next section.
Upholstery and cushions. A single boat seat runs $200 to $1,000, and a captain's chair with arms $500 to $2,000. A helm seat or a bottom cushion averages $500 to $800. A set of two to four seats commonly lands between $900 and $3,000. Marine upholstery labour is quoted at $60 to $120 an hour, with $80 the figure that comes up most.
The cheaper option a canvas shop will not raise with you
Pre-made canvas, cut to a published size chart for a standard frame.
At $250 to $499.99 against a custom top, it is a fraction of the bill, and for some boats it is the right call: a common production hull with an unmodified frame, a boat you are selling next season, a cover you need now because the old one failed in June.
It is the wrong call when the frame has been altered, when the boat is anything other than a stock configuration, or when the canvas has to meet an existing enclosure panel. A size-chart top that is close but not right does not just look wrong. It chafes, it holds water, and it works its own stitching loose.
What moves the number
The window film, more than the fabric. 10 of the 33 shops here name Strataglass, 15 name Sunbrella and 7 name Stamoid. The clear panels are the expensive part of an enclosure and the part with a service life, because the wrong cleaner hazes them permanently. Ask what film is being quoted and at what gauge.
Whether the frame is included. The difference between $499 and $1,249 on a bimini is usually metal.
Thread. AA Boat Tops & Canvas in West Palm Beach, trading since 1981 and run by a Marine Fabricators Association master certificate holder, lists Tenara thread by W. L. Gore. Thread that outlives the fabric costs more and is the reason a ten-year-old cover fails at the panel rather than the seam.
The two questions that get you a real number
- What is not in this quote? Frame work, hardware, zips, screens, removing the old canvas, the fitting visit. Each one is a line somebody can leave out.
- What is the window film, and what is its gauge? A quote that does not say is not a quote you can compare to another one.
The marine shops are listed by city, with the materials each one names on its own page. If you want to know how the job runs before you commit, does a boat canvas shop come to your boat covers where each part of the work happens.