Exterior Door Installation Cost: Front, Back, and Patio Doors

The first real storm after we moved in, I found a puddle the size of a dinner plate on the entry tile. Our front door was the original 1960s wood one, and I could see porch light under it at night. My son thought that was cool. I did not.

Then I poked the frame with a screwdriver and it sank in like soap.

The exterior door installation cost in 2026, short version: replacing a standard front door with a new prehung steel or fiberglass unit usually runs about $1,000 to $4,000 installed, door included. Wood entry doors and doors with sidelites often land between $3,000 and $8,000. A basic back door is commonly $700 to $2,500. If you only hang a new slab in the old frame, you might pay $400 to $1,500 all in. Rot in the sill or frame adds a few hundred dollars, sometimes a lot more.

Below: how prehung and slab change the price, what steel, fiberglass and wood really cost, my three quotes for the front door, what I paid for the back door, and the rot problem that almost nobody quoted correctly.

Jump to what you need:

• Exterior door installation cost in 2026
• Prehung vs slab
• Steel, fiberglass or wood
• My three front door quotes
• Back, storm and patio doors
• When the sill is rotten
• What you can do yourself
• Exterior door cost by job
• Frequently Asked Questions

Exterior door installation cost in 2026

An exterior door job has two price tags stapled together: the door and the labor. People quote you one number, and it helps to pull them apart.

For a standard 36-inch front door, the ranges I kept hearing from the three contractors who came out, plus what I saw on the shelf tags at two home centers:

• The door itself: about $250 to $800 for a basic steel prehung unit, $500 to $2,500 for fiberglass, and $1,200 to $5,000 or more for solid wood.
• Labor to install a prehung door into an existing opening: about $300 to $1,200. Most of that spread comes from what they find once the old frame is out.
• Extras that show up as separate lines: lockset and deadbolt ($60 to $400), interior trim and paint ($100 to $500), haul-away ($50 to $150), and sometimes a permit.

Put that together and the cost to replace a front door for most people sits somewhere between $1,000 and $4,000. Sidelites, a transom, a wider opening or a custom size push it past that quickly. These are estimates from my own quotes and a lot of questions, and labor rates in a big city can run close to double what they are in a small town.

One thing I didn’t expect: the door was the easy part of every quote. The frame, the sill and the floor under the threshold were where the money moved.

Prehung vs slab: the door installation choice that sets your price

A slab is just the door. No frame, no hinges cut, no threshold. A prehung door comes already hanging in its own frame with the sill attached, so the installer pulls out the old frame and sets the whole unit in the hole.

The slab sounds cheaper, and the door usually is. But a slab has to be fitted to your old frame, which means planing, cutting hinge pockets and drilling for the lock to match whatever is already there. On an older house the old frame is rarely square anymore. Mine was out by almost a quarter inch from top to bottom, which explains why I had to shoulder the door shut every time it rained.

The contractors drew the line about the same way:

• A slab makes sense when the frame, sill and weatherstripping are solid and square, and you mainly want a better-looking door. Expect $150 to $900 for the slab plus $250 to $600 in labor for fitting and hanging.
• A prehung door makes sense when the frame is rotted, out of square, leaking air, or when the threshold is shot. It costs more up front and seals much better, because the door and frame were built to close together.

For an exterior door, I came around to prehung pretty fast. The whole reason my door leaked was the frame. Putting a nice new slab into that rotten jamb would have been like buying new tires for a car with a bent axle.

Steel, fiberglass or wood front door installation

The install labor is close to the same across materials. The door price is where they split. I went back and forth on this for two weeks, and my notes from that stretch are mostly crossed-out numbers.

Steel is the cheapest way to get a solid, insulated door. Most have a foam core and seal well. The downsides: they dent (a kid on a scooter will prove this), and a deep scratch on a coastal or rainy house can start to rust if you don’t touch it up. Installed, a basic steel front door often comes in around $900 to $2,500.

Fiberglass costs more, doesn’t dent the way steel does, doesn’t rot, and can be stained to look like wood or painted. It handles weather and sun better than the other two in my opinion, and that’s what most of my contractors steered me toward for a door with no porch roof over it. Installed, figure about $1,500 to $4,500.

Wood is gorgeous and heavy, and it needs the most care. A wood door that faces full sun or rain needs refinishing every year or two, and it swells and shrinks with the seasons. That swelling was half of my original problem. Installed, wood usually starts around $2,500 and can go far past $7,000 for custom work.

If energy bills matter to you, look for a door that carries the Energy Star label. The Energy Star page for windows, doors and skylights says certified doors are independently tested, and it tells you to ask installers to break out labor and materials separately on the quote. I did that on all three, and it was the single most useful thing I asked. It also notes that homes built before 1978 may have lead paint, and contractors replacing doors there have to use lead-safe practices. My house is from 1964, so that line mattered.

My three front door installation quotes

Same door opening, same three weeks last spring. Single 36-inch front door, no sidelites, facing west with no overhang. I asked each of them for a fiberglass prehung door, painted, with a new deadbolt.

Quote 1: $4,850. A door company salesman sat at my kitchen table for an hour and a half with a binder of glass styles. He spent most of that time trying to sell me sidelites I didn’t ask for. The price was “good through Friday” if I signed that night. He never went outside to look at the frame. When I asked about the soft spot at the bottom, he said “the crew handles all that,” and it wasn’t anywhere on the paper.

Quote 2: $650. A handyman a coworker recommended. He offered to hang a new fiberglass slab in my existing frame and add new weatherstripping. Cheap, and he was friendly. But he didn’t poke at the sill either, and a slab in that frame would have kept leaking. I’d have been back at square one by next spring, minus $650.

Quote 3: $2,380. A finish carpenter who mostly does doors and trim. He knelt on my porch for ten minutes with a pick and a flashlight before he said anything. Then he wrote it all out: fiberglass prehung door and labor $1,640, cut out and replace the rotted bottom of both jambs and the sill area $380, a sill pan and flashing so water drains out instead of in $140, new interior trim and caulk $160, haul-away $60. The deadbolt was mine to buy.

I took Quote 3. It wasn’t the cheapest, and the handyman’s number was tempting for about a day. But Quote 3 was the only one that looked at the actual reason water was getting in. If you’re comparing three numbers that are thousands of dollars apart, our guide on how to tell if a contractor quote is fair walks through how I lined mine up side by side.

The pressure from Quote 1 is also a known red flag. The FTC’s advice on avoiding home improvement scams says to get several written estimates, ask why they differ a lot, and be wary of anyone pressuring you to decide on the spot. It also says not to pay the full price up front. My carpenter asked for a $500 deposit to order the door and the rest when he finished. That felt right.

Back door, storm door and patio door installation

The back door off our kitchen was a dented steel door with rust eating the bottom edge. The frame on that one was fine, surprisingly, because it sits under a small roof.

Same carpenter, same visit: a basic steel prehung door with a small window at the top, new lockset, installed for $1,450. He knocked $150 off because he was already there and the door came on the same order. If you need both doors done, ask about that. Two doors in one trip can save you a chunk of travel and setup time.

Back doors usually cost less than front doors because people pick plainer models. A half-glass back door or one with built-in blinds can still climb toward $2,500 installed.

A storm door is a separate, lighter door that goes on the outside of your main door. Installed, most run about $300 to $1,200. It can protect a wood door from weather, and that’s the best argument for one. One caution my carpenter mentioned: a full-glass storm door on a door that gets afternoon sun can trap heat against the main door, so check what the door maker says before adding one. I skipped it for now.

Patio doors are a different job with different numbers, mostly because of the glass and the size of the opening. Our full guide on the cost to install a sliding glass door covers that. And if you’re pricing doors inside the house too, the cost of installing an interior door is a much smaller number, since there’s no weather to fight.

When the sill is rotten

This is the part that makes exterior door quotes swing so much. Water sneaks in at the bottom corners of the frame, sits there, and slowly turns the wood to mush. You won’t see it from inside until the floor goes soft.

Check yours. Push a screwdriver into the bottom few inches of each side of the frame and the area under the threshold. Solid wood resists. Rotten wood lets the tip sink in with almost no pressure.

The prices I heard for fixing it, as part of a door replacement:

• Rot limited to the bottom of the jambs: about $200 to $500 extra. The carpenter cuts out the bad wood and splices in new, or the new prehung frame replaces it anyway.
• Rot in the sill plate or subfloor under the threshold: about $500 to $2,000 or more, because now someone is opening the floor.
• Rot that reaches the wall framing or the rim joist: that’s a bigger repair, and the number depends on how far it goes.

My carpenter found the subfloor under my threshold was soft but still sound at the edges, so he scraped it, treated it and added the sill pan. That was inside the $380 line. He told me a second winter of leaking probably would have meant a floor patch. I believe him, because the tile in front of the door had already started to crack.

Any quote that says nothing about the frame or sill on an older house is a quote that will grow later. Ask about it before you sign, not after the old door is lying in your yard.

What you can do yourself

I’m handy, not a carpenter. I’ve hung an interior door and it took me a whole Saturday and some words my kids weren’t supposed to hear. An exterior door is heavier, has to hang plumb and square, and it has to shed water. I left the actual install to a pro and I’d do it again.

But there’s plenty you can do for little money, and sometimes it means you don’t need a new door at all:

• Replace worn weatherstripping and add a door sweep. I spent $32 on both for the back door before it was replaced, and it stopped the draft for a winter.
• Tighten the hinge screws, or swap one short screw in the top hinge for a 3-inch screw that bites into the stud. That fixed a sagging door at my sister’s house in five minutes.
• Move the strike plate if the door rattles or won’t latch.
• Do the screwdriver test on the frame and sill, and take photos so you can show them to whoever quotes.
• Measure the door and the rough opening, so you know whether a standard size will fit.

If your door is solid and your frame is dry, you might just want a new look. A coat of paint and a new handle set can make an old door feel new for under $200. Our front door refresh walks through that project step by step. I’d try it before paying $2,000 for a door you don’t need.

Exterior door installation cost by job

I built this from my quotes, the shelf prices I wrote down and what the three contractors told me. Use it to read your own quotes, not as a price list.

Door job	When it fits	Installed cost (2026 estimate)	What pushes it higher
DIY weatherstripping, sweep and hinge fix	Door is solid, just drafty or sagging	$20 – $80 in materials	Frame out of square
New slab in existing frame	Frame and sill solid and square	$400 – $1,500	Wood slab, custom size
Steel prehung front door	Budget replacement, frame needs work	$900 – $2,500	Glass panels, rot repair
Fiberglass prehung front door	Full sun or weather, low upkeep	$1,500 – $4,500	Stain finish, decorative glass
Wood front door	Covered entry, willing to refinish	$2,500 – $7,000+	Custom size, solid hardwood
Front door with sidelites or transom	Wider entry, more light	$3,000 – $8,000+	Resizing the opening, new header
Back door, steel or fiberglass	Kitchen, mudroom or garage entry	$700 – $2,500	Half-glass, built-in blinds
Storm door	Extra weather protection	$300 – $1,200	Full glass, retractable screen
Sill and jamb rot repair	Soft wood at the bottom of the frame	$200 – $2,000+	Subfloor or rim joist damage

What blows the exterior door installation budget

• Rot nobody priced. If the quote doesn’t mention the frame and sill, ask what happens when they pull the old door and find soft wood. Get a per-item price in writing.
• Changing the size of the opening. Going from a single door to one with sidelites usually means a new header and wall repair inside and out, and that can add $1,500 to $4,000.
• Signing on the first night. The “today only” price from my first quote was more than double the one I took for the same door. Get three written quotes.

For how a door fits next to bigger projects, our overview of home renovation costs has the rest of the numbers.

The carpenter finished the front door on a Thursday in May, back door the next morning. The first big storm of the fall came through last week. I stood in the entry in my socks at ten at night, waiting for the puddle. Dry tile. No line of porch light under the door. My son was a little disappointed about that part.

Frequently Asked Questions

How much does it cost to replace a front door?
Replacing a standard front door with a prehung steel or fiberglass unit usually costs about $1,000 to $4,000 installed in 2026. Wood doors and doors with sidelites often run $3,000 to $8,000 or more. Rot repair in the frame or sill adds to that. These are estimates and vary by region.

Is it cheaper to replace just the door slab instead of a prehung door?
Usually yes, around $400 to $1,500 for a slab fitted to your old frame. It only makes sense when the frame and sill are solid and square. If the frame is rotted or the door leaks air and water, a prehung door is the better fix.

Can I install an exterior door myself?
Some homeowners do, but an exterior door has to be level, plumb, square and properly flashed, or water gets in. Replacing weatherstripping, adding a sweep and adjusting hinges are good DIY jobs. Setting a prehung door and repairing rot are better left to an experienced installer.

All prices here are 2026 estimates from my own written quotes, store prices and what contractors told me, and they vary by region, door material, opening size and the condition of your frame. Tessa is a hands-on homeowner, not a licensed contractor. Structural changes, framing repair and homes with possible lead paint should be handled by a qualified pro, and local permit rules apply.

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