What it does, what it costs, and where your work lives

Plain answers about CabDesign: what the Designer draws, how the cut list gets to your saw, what the open beta includes and where your work lives. Planning a wall of tool cases instead? StackDesign has its own FAQ. Can't find your answer here? Email us; a real person reads it.

What CabDesign is

What it draws, what it hands back, and what you need to use it.

What can the Designer actually draw?

A whole room, not a row of boxes. Walls, cabinets, appliances, counters and the fittings around them, in a floor plan, an elevation and in three dimensions. What comes back is not a picture: it is every panel with its size, its material, its grain direction and its edgebanding, nested onto sheets so you know what to buy.

Do I need CAD or drafting skills?

No. You describe a room the way you would describe it to a person and the tool does the arithmetic that turns it into parts. Every construction setting - the reveals, the gaps, the joinery, the drawer slides - starts on a shop-ready default you can leave alone, so nothing asks you a question you have no reason to have an answer to yet. When you do want to change one, you change it once for the whole shop and every project after it starts there.

Is it for frameless or face-frame?

It is built around European frameless (32mm) and Gola handleless cabinets, the way the studio builds. The cut list and the optimizer work for any panel parts you give them.

Can I work in inches instead of millimeters?

Yes, and per context. Every dimension switches between millimeters, centimeters, decimal inches, fractional inches down to a sixteenth, and feet plus inches - so you can lay a wall out in feet and size the cabinets in millimeters in the same job. A wrong unit is a wrong cut, so nothing is ever displayed or read back without one.

What is the AI Designer?

An assistant built into the Designer page. It knows every tool in CabDesign, and once you sign in it can read your saved design, so you can ask it questions in plain English: what a part should measure, how to set something up, or what to do next. It is an early preview today, on its way to planning the whole job with you.

What devices and browsers does it work on?

Any modern browser on a computer or tablet. It is built for desktop and tablet screens - phones are not supported yet.

Cut lists, materials and edgebanding

From plan to saw.

How accurate are the cut numbers - can I cut wood from them?

The number you see while designing is labeled an estimate on purpose; the exact counts come from the Cut List Optimizer, which nests your parts on your real sheet sizes and remnants. Every cabinet's math is re-derived against the shared geometry engine by an automated audit on every change, and a change to cut math goes through a reserved review before it ships.

How do my parts get to the Cut List Optimizer?

One click. Send to Cut List hands the whole package to the Cut List Optimizer in the same account, with no CSV round-trip. From there you print the cut list or download CSV, DXF and a cut-station list.

Does the optimizer use my offcuts before opening a new sheet?

Yes. Your stock includes remnants, and the optimizer packs parts onto the fewest sheets, remnants first. Your sheet stock and edgebanding inventory are account-level, shared across jobs - you do not re-enter them per project.

Does it account for my saw's kerf and for edgebanding thickness?

Yes to both. The blade kerf is a setting the nesting honors, and edgebanding is a real material whose thickness changes the cut size on the faces you band - a part with no edgebanding is cut at its finished size, never deducted.

What materials can the cabinets use?

Real sheet goods from your materials library - species and thickness per part, so a cabinet can mix 19 mm sides with a thinner back or drawer bottom - plus edgebanding matched to the sheet. Pricing per sheet, per piece, linear or board-foot lives in the materials library, and the design totals what to buy.

Your account, the beta and pricing

What is free, what costs money, and what happens to your work.

What do I get when I sign up?

Everything, free during our open beta: StackDesign, the materials library, the Cut List Optimizer, the hardware library and the full kitchen Designer. No card, nothing to switch on, and nothing renews.

Is there a time limit on the free beta?

Yes. The beta runs until October 31, 2026. If we need more time, we will tell you by September 30, 2026, and either way we will email you before anything costs money. Your projects, materials and inventory stay saved on your account either way - nothing is ever deleted, you stay signed in, and your data stays yours.

What happens to my account when the beta ends?

It moves onto a plan with the first month free, plus any months you banked. If you saved a card, that plan starts charging when the free run ends, and you can cancel online first from account settings. If you never saved a card, nothing is charged: the subscription ends by itself and your account moves to our free plan, where the Designer stays open and a cut list needs a paid plan.

How much will it cost after the beta?

Nothing costs money today. The beta runs until October 31, 2026, and we will tell you by September 30 if we need more time. When it ends, your account moves onto a plan and the first month is free, with any months you banked from a bug reward or the 3FREE code added to it. It is DIY at $29 a month for the full kitchen Designer, Pro at $89 a month for a shop that designs for customers, or $19 a month for unlimited StackDesign projects, or $49 once for a single StackDesign project. The pricing page has the plans side by side. If you saved a card during the beta, you were shown your exact first charge date and can cancel any time before it from your account settings page. If you never saved one, nothing is charged at all.

What is the refund policy?

The $49 single project has a 14-day money-back guarantee: ask within 14 days and we refund it in full, no questions asked. The monthly subscription cancels anytime - your access runs to the end of the month you paid for, and we don't refund partial months. The full policy is in the Terms.

Do I lose my designs if I don't pay?

No. Saved work is never deleted when the beta ends. If you do not take a plan, your account moves to our free plan: the Designer stays open, your projects, materials and inventory are all still there, and you can carry on working on them. The one thing that needs a paid plan is the cut list.

Is my data private?

Your shop data is yours. We do not sell it, and each account's workspace is isolated at the database level. The full inventory of what we store and why is in the privacy policy.

Can I delete my account?

Yes, yourself, from account settings - no email required. Deleting the account removes your workspace and its data.

Planning a wall of tool cases?

StackDesign is the CabDesign module for that job: a wall of cabinets sized to the Systainers and tool cases you already own, with the trays, the clearances and the cut list worked out for you. It has its own questions and its own answers on the StackDesign FAQ - what a tray is, what SYS-AZ means, how it decides each cabinet's height, and whether you can plan around boxes you have not bought yet.

It also sells on its own, so if tool storage is the only thing you came for you do not need all of this. Everything on this page about your account, the beta, the cut list and your materials applies to both. While the open beta runs, one sign-in opens both of them.

Still stuck? Talk to a person.

Email support@cabdesign.app - it reaches the cabinetmaker who builds this, not a ticket robot.

Step-by-step guides for both products live in one Support section - thirteen articles from your first wall to the sheet layout, with the StackDesign planner guides in their own subsection, plus a contact form. Broader guides live in the Help Center. CabDesign is built by Bespoke Woodcraft Studio, a custom cabinet shop in Los Angeles - these are the tools the shop runs on.

SYSTAINER® is a registered trademark of TANOS GmbH. This product is an independent planning tool and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by TANOS GmbH or Festool.