Based on aggregated data, converting a bathtub to a shower costs $3,000 to $10,000, with a typical project landing near $6,000. Within that total, materials account for roughly $800 to $4,000 and labor for $2,000 to $5,500 — so labor is the larger share of nearly every quote. The work typically takes 3 to 7 days, and a permit is typically required, because a conversion moves the drain and reworks the supply lines rather than swapping a fixture in place.
The spread from $3,000 to $10,000 is not vagueness. It is three genuinely different jobs sold under one phrase: cutting a step-through into the tub you already own, dropping an acrylic pan and panel kit into the alcove, or demolishing back to the studs and building a tiled walk-in shower. And running underneath all three is the thing that makes this project different from almost any other bathroom line item — the tub is hiding the condition of the wall and floor behind it, and nobody knows what is back there until it comes out.
The Three Routes, and Why They Price So Differently
| Route | Typical installed cost | Duration | What actually happens |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tub cut | $1,200–$2,000 | 1 day | A section of the tub wall is removed and a watertight step-through cap is bonded in. Tub, drain and tile stay. |
| Prefab / acrylic conversion | $3,000–$6,000 | 3–5 days | Tub out, new pan set, drain moved, acrylic or composite wall panels installed, valve and door fitted. |
| Tile-built walk-in shower | $6,000–$10,000 | 5–7 days | Demolition to studs, mortar bed or foam pan, waterproof membrane, bonded drain, tile, grout, glass. |
The tub cut is the least-known of the three and the cheapest by a wide margin. It is a modification rather than a conversion: a rectangular section of the tub’s outer wall is cut out, the edges are capped, and what remains is a low step-through with the original tub floor, drain and tiled walls. It sits below the $3,000 floor of the conversion range because none of the expensive things happen — no demolition, no disposal, no new pan, no plumbing move, no permit in most jurisdictions. What it does not produce is a flat shower floor: there is still a curb of a few inches, and the surrounding tile is still whatever it was. For a household whose goal is stepping in safely rather than a new bathroom, that trade is the difference between $1,500 and $6,000.
The prefab route is where the median conversion lands. A moulded acrylic, fiberglass or composite base drops into the alcove the tub vacated, and three panels cover the walls. It is fast because the waterproofing arrives as a manufactured part instead of being built on site. Panel wall surrounds run roughly $600 to $2,000 for the three-wall assembly, against $1,200 to $7,000 for a tiled one.
The tile route is the same footprint, four times the labor hours. Tile is not a covering here; it is the final layer over an assembly that has to hold water — a sloped mortar bed or preformed foam pan, a sheet or liquid waterproof membrane, a bonded drain, then thinset, tile and grout. That assembly is why the tile route has an entirely different failure mode from a panel one: a panel leak shows up at a seam, while a tile leak shows up in the ceiling below.
What Is Actually in the Quote
Every conversion is the same handful of parts. Priced individually against the same national dataset, they build up like this:
| Line item | Low | Typical | High |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tub removal, demolition, disposal | $150 | $400 | $800 |
| Shower pan or base | $500 | $1,400 | $3,500 |
| Wall surround (acrylic panel low, tile high) | $600 | $2,000 | $7,000 |
| Shower valve and trim | $200 | $425 | $900 |
| Drain relocation and rough plumbing | $600 | $1,000 | $1,600 |
| Shower door or enclosure | $400 | $1,000 | $3,000 |
| Permit and inspection | $100 | $300 | $800 |
Two things fall out of that build-up, and they are more useful than the totals.
First, the floor is real. Add the low column and it comes to roughly $2,550 — below the $3,000 range floor. Almost nobody buys every line at its minimum, because the minimums belong to different jobs: a $500 pan is an acrylic drop-in, and it does not pair with a $3,000 frameless enclosure. The $3,000 floor is the cheapest coherent conversion, not the sum of the cheapest parts.
Second, the ceiling is soft in the other direction. Stack every high figure and the total reaches roughly $16,000 — well past the $10,000 top of the range. That is not an error in the data; it is the point where the scope stops being a conversion. Once the footprint expands, a wall moves, or a custom glass enclosure and a stone bench go in, the job has become a full walk-in shower build ($4,000 to $20,000) or a bathroom remodel ($10,000 to $30,000), and it prices as one. The $10,000 ceiling describes a conversion that stays inside the tub’s own alcove.
The individual lines are priced in detail on their own pages: shower pan installation at $500 to $3,500, shower door installation at $400 to $3,000, shower valve replacement at $200 to $900, and tile shower installation at $1,200 to $7,000.
The Wall Behind the Tub
This is the section most budgets are missing. Survey data published in 2026 puts the share of homeowners who ran into at least one unplanned cost near 70 percent on this specific project, with water damage and structural repair the two most frequent findings.
The reason is structural, not statistical. A bathtub is a sealed vessel bolted against two or three walls and sitting on the subfloor. Water that gets past the caulk line, past a failed grout joint, or past the drain shoe does not appear in the room — it runs down the back of the tub apron and into the framing, where nothing is visible for years. The first person to see that wall is the person who pulls the tub out, on day one of a job that has already been quoted.
So the discovery has a price, and it can be estimated in advance even though it cannot be predicted:
| What gets found | Typical cost to correct |
|---|---|
| Water-damaged drywall and cement board | $300–$900 |
| Subfloor rot, partial plywood replacement | $400–$1,500 |
| Rotted wall studs or sill plate | $500–$2,000 |
| Floor joist repair or sistering | $800–$3,000 |
| Mold remediation, bathroom-scale | $500–$4,000 |
| Corroded supply lines, galvanized replaced with PEX or copper | $500–$2,000 |
| Failed or improperly sloped drain line | $600–$1,600 |
| Asbestos testing in a pre-1980 bathroom (floor tile, mastic) | $250–$600 test |
None of these is exotic. A $1,500 subfloor repair on a $6,000 typical conversion is a 25 percent overrun, and it is roughly the median finding, not the worst case. Published contingency guidance across remodeling data sits at 10 to 15 percent of project cost, which on a $6,000 conversion is $600 to $900 — enough for drywall and a patch of plywood, and not enough for joists and mold together.
There is one thing that shifts the odds before the tub comes out: a bathroom directly above a stained or sagging ceiling, a soft spot in the floor at the tub apron, or a tub that moves when it is leaned on are all visible from the outside, and all three correlate with what gets found behind the wall. Mold that is found is a health-code and remediation question rather than a finish question; the EPA’s mold guidance sets out what remediation involves and at what area thresholds professional handling is normally used. Asbestos in pre-1980 flooring and mastic is a separate abatement track with its own EPA rules, and it is one of the few findings that can stop a job outright until it is cleared.
The Plumbing Line Nobody Budgets
A tub drain and a shower drain are not in the same place. The tub drain sits at one end, tight against the wall, with the overflow stacked above it. A shower drain sits near the center of the pan. Moving it is the single most-missed line item in a conversion budget, and aggregated data prices it at $600 to $1,600.
What that money buys depends entirely on what is under the bathroom floor:
- Joisted floor with a basement or crawlspace below — $600 to $1,000. The branch line and P-trap are reachable from underneath. The trap arm is cut, re-run and re-sloped, and the new drain body is set to the pan’s height.
- Joisted floor with a finished ceiling below — $900 to $1,400. The same work, plus opening and closing the ceiling of the room beneath.
- Concrete slab — $1,200 to $1,600 and up. The slab is broken out around the existing drain, the line is re-run in the trench and the slab is repoured. This is the case where “just move the drain a foot” becomes a demolition job.
Two related lines usually arrive with it. The valve moves up the wall — a tub-and-shower valve is set around 28 inches off the floor to feed the spout, while a shower-only valve sits at roughly 45 to 48 inches. That means opening the wall, re-running the supply stubs and capping the tub spout drop, and the valve itself is $200 to $900. And the tub spout hole in the wall must be closed, which on a tiled wall means matching tile that is often out of production.
The cheapest conversion is the one that keeps the drain where it is. Some prefab bases are manufactured with an end drain for exactly this reason: they set over the existing tub drain location and eliminate the $600 to $1,600 line entirely. It is the single largest structural saving available on this project.
Cost by Shower Size
The tub’s own footprint — the standard 30 by 60 inch alcove — is the footprint the $3,000 to $10,000 range describes. Anything wider means moving a wall.
| Shower footprint | Prefab / acrylic | Tile-built | What changes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 32 x 32 in (corner stall) | $2,500–$5,000 | $5,000–$8,000 | Smaller enclosure, but the leftover floor from the tub must be filled and finished |
| 36 x 36 in | $3,000–$5,500 | $5,500–$9,000 | Common accessible minimum; grab bar blocking added |
| 30 x 60 in (tub alcove, unchanged) | $3,000–$6,000 | $6,000–$10,000 | No framing change — the baseline conversion |
| 36 x 48 in | $3,200–$6,000 | $6,000–$10,000 | Fits most alcoves with minor framing |
| 42 x 60 in and larger | $5,000–$8,000 | $9,000–$15,000+ | Wall relocation, new framing, supply and drain reroute — leaves the conversion band |
A smaller shower is not automatically a cheaper job. A 32 by 32 inch corner stall dropped into a 60 inch alcove leaves roughly 2.5 feet of exposed subfloor where the tub used to be, and that floor now needs framing, backer, tile or vinyl and a transition — commonly $400 to $1,200 of work that a full-alcove shower never triggers. The International Residential Code sets the minimum shower compartment at 30 by 30 inches of clear interior area, which is the floor below which a stall cannot legally be built.
Cost by Wall Material
A standard 30 by 60 inch alcove has three walls — about 10 linear feet — carried to a height of 72 to 96 inches, which works out to roughly 60 to 80 square feet of wall surface. That number is what turns a per-square-foot material price into a real line item.
| Wall material | Installed cost per sq ft | 60–80 sq ft alcove | Typical service life |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fiberglass / acrylic panel kit | $8–$25 | $600–$2,000 | 10–15 years |
| Ceramic tile | $10–$25 | $600–$2,000 | 20–30 years |
| Porcelain tile | $15–$35 | $900–$2,800 | 25–40 years |
| Cultured marble panel | $20–$45 | $1,200–$3,600 | 15–25 years |
| Natural stone (marble, travertine) | $30–$75 | $1,800–$6,000 | 20–40 years |
| Solid surface / quartz slab | $50–$100 | $3,000–$8,000 | 25–40 years |
The panel-versus-tile decision moves more money than any other single choice in a conversion, and it moves labor more than materials. A three-panel acrylic surround is fitted in a day. The same three walls in tile carry a backer board or mortar bed, a waterproof membrane, layout, cutting, setting, curing overnight, grouting, curing again and sealing — commonly 3 to 5 days of a tile setter’s time. Grout is also a recurring cost that panels do not have: regrouting runs $300 to $2,000 every 8 to 15 years depending on use and ventilation.
Materials vs Labor
| Component | Low | Typical | High | Share of a typical project |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Materials (pan, panels or tile, valve, door, waterproofing) | $800 | $2,000 | $4,000 | ~33% |
| Labor (demolition, plumbing, waterproofing, setting, finish) | $2,000 | $3,500 | $5,500 | ~58% |
| Total project | $3,000 | $6,000 | $10,000 | 100% |
Materials and labor together account for $2,800 to $9,500 of the $3,000 to $10,000 band. The remainder — roughly $200 to $500 — is the permit, the dumpster or haul-away, and the small consumables that no line item carries: shims, thinset, silicone, backer screws, blades.
Labor is close to three-fifths of a typical conversion, and it is the reason the project costs multiples of what the parts cost. A conversion is not one trade. It is a demolition day, a plumber for the drain and valve rough-in, an inspection window in the middle of the job while the wall is still open, a waterproofing and setting phase, and a finish day for the door and trim. Bathroom trade labor runs roughly $115 per hour on the national dataset, and the calendar — 3 to 7 days with a mandatory inspection hold — is what makes a small room expensive.
Cost by City
Pans, panels, valves, tile and glass are manufactured goods that ship at broadly national prices. The $2,000 to $5,500 labor line is what moves. Holding materials flat at the $2,000 typical figure and scaling only the $3,500 typical labor line by each metro’s measured labor adjustment factor:
| City | Labor Adjustment Factor | Typical Conversion (materials flat + labor adjusted) | Tile-Built Conversion | vs. National |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chicago, IL | 1.33 | $6,655 | $11,315 | +33% |
| Seattle, WA | 1.29 | $6,515 | $11,095 | +29% |
| New York, NY | 1.23 | $6,305 | $10,765 | +23% |
| Houston, TX | 0.93 | $5,255 | $9,115 | −7% |
| San Antonio, TX | 0.85 | $4,975 | $8,675 | −15% |
Labor adjustment factors are derived from BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (May 2025): the median ratio of local to national hourly wages across the trades that do this work. How this is calculated.
Chicago carries the highest factor in the dataset at 1.33, which puts a typical conversion near $6,655 against roughly $4,975 in San Antonio at 0.85 — a spread of about $1,680 on identical scope. That ordering surprises people who expect New York (1.23) to top the list: trade labor is priced by union density and local contractor supply, not by how expensive a city is to live in. Phoenix, at 0.99, is the closest thing in the dataset to a national benchmark. The calculator on this page applies any city’s factor to a specific project size and route.
DIY vs Professional
The material side of a prefab conversion is genuinely purchasable by a homeowner. Here is what the parts cost, for the same 30 by 60 inch alcove a contractor would quote at $3,000 to $6,000:
| Item | Typical DIY cost |
|---|---|
| Acrylic or composite shower base, 30 x 60 in | $300–$900 |
| Three-piece wall surround kit | $500–$1,500 |
| Pressure-balance shower valve and trim | $120–$400 |
| Shower door (framed sliding to semi-frameless) | $300–$1,200 |
| Cement backer board, membrane, thinset, silicone | $150–$350 |
| PVC or ABS drain fittings, trap arm, shims, fasteners | $80–$200 |
| Reciprocating saw, oscillating tool, torch or PEX crimper (buy or rent) | $100–$300 |
| Dumpster bag or haul-away for cast-iron tub and debris | $100–$400 |
| Permit and inspection | $100–$800 |
| DIY total | $1,750–$6,050 |
Against a professional $3,000 to $6,000 for the same prefab route, the DIY saving is real but narrower than it looks — roughly $1,250 to $2,000 at the low end, and it evaporates entirely if the drain has to move. Three things concentrate the risk:
- The drain is the job. Cutting into a branch line and re-sloping a trap arm is where a DIY conversion most often stops. Slope, venting and trap arm length are code-inspected items, and a plumbing permit in most jurisdictions requires the work to be done or signed off by a licensed plumber. That constraint varies by jurisdiction and is worth checking before the tub comes out, not after.
- A cast-iron tub weighs 250 to 400 pounds and does not fit through a standard door in one piece. It is broken up in place, and disposal of the pieces is a $100 to $400 line whichever route is taken.
- Waterproofing has no partial credit. A pan or membrane that leaks does not leak visibly — it leaks into the framing below, and the repair is the ceiling of the room underneath plus the shower rebuilt from scratch, commonly $3,000 to $8,000. That is more than the original professional quote.
Cost per Year of Service
| Route | Typical cost | Service life | Cost per year |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tub cut | $1,600 | 5–10 years (limited by the original tub) | ~$210 |
| Prefab / acrylic conversion | $4,500 | 10–15 years | ~$360 |
| Tile-built walk-in shower | $8,000 | 20–30 years | ~$320 |
| Bathtub replacement (keep the tub) | $2,500 | 15–25 years | ~$125 |
Over the life of the assembly, tile is roughly the same cost per year as acrylic — around $320 versus $360 — despite costing nearly twice as much on the day. The panel kit is cheaper to buy and reaches the end of its life two decades sooner. Tile’s ongoing cost is grout maintenance; acrylic’s is replacement. The tub cut looks cheapest per year until the caveat is applied: its service life is capped by the age of the tub it was cut into, and the modification cannot be undone.
Simply replacing the tub at $1,500 to $8,000 remains the cheapest way to have a working bathing fixture, and it is the correct comparison for a household that has not decided whether it wants the tub gone.
Resale: The One Case Where This Can Cost Money
Stated as data rather than advice: a converted walk-in shower is generally neutral to mildly positive at resale in a home that retains at least one bathtub elsewhere. Buyers over 55 and buyers with mobility constraints reward it; the NAR Remodeling Impact Report tracks bathroom renovation cost recovery in the range of 50 to 70 percent for comparable scopes.
The exception is narrow and it is real. Removing the only tub in the house is the one case where this project can subtract value. Households with infants and small children commonly filter listings on tub presence outright — a home with zero tubs is excluded from the search, not merely scored lower — and that is a filter no finish quality compensates for. In a one-bathroom house, the conversion narrows the buyer pool. In a two-bathroom house with a tub in the hall bath, converting the primary bath is the standard move and carries none of that penalty.
Permits, Timeline and What Slows a Job
A permit is typically required for this project. A like-for-like tub swap frequently is not permitted; a conversion is, because it changes the drain location, the valve and the wall assembly behind the finish. Aggregated data puts the permit at $100 to $800, with inspection fees where they are billed separately. The inspection itself is what shapes the calendar: it happens with the wall open, after the rough plumbing and before the waterproofing goes on, which means the job has a mandatory pause in the middle of it.
Typical duration is 3 to 7 days:
| Phase | Typical time |
|---|---|
| Demolition, tub removal, disposal | 0.5–1 day |
| Discovery and repair (if anything is found) | 0–3 days |
| Drain relocation, valve rough-in | 0.5–1 day |
| Rough inspection hold | 0.5–2 days (scheduling) |
| Pan set, waterproofing, panels or tile | 1–4 days |
| Grout cure, sealing (tile only) | 1–2 days |
| Door, trim, fixtures, final | 0.5–1 day |
The prefab route with no drain move and no discovery is genuinely a 3-day job; the tile route runs at the long end and can reach two weeks once curing windows are included. What turns a 3-day job into a 3-week one is almost always the middle row of that table.
What Drives the Price
- Drain relocation — $600 to $1,600. The largest single avoidable line. A base with an end drain that lands on the existing tub drain removes it entirely.
- Wall assembly — $600 to $7,000. Acrylic panels at the bottom of that band, natural stone at the top. This is the widest single line in the quote.
- Shower pan or base — $500 to $3,500. An acrylic drop-in base sits near $500 to $900; a site-built mortar bed with a linear drain and tile reaches $3,500.
- Glass enclosure — $400 to $3,000. A framed sliding door is $400 to $900; a semi-frameless hinged door is $900 to $1,800; a frameless heavy-glass panel or a custom enclosure runs $1,800 to $3,000. A curbless doorless walk-in with a wet-wall layout skips the door but adds pan slope and drainage work.
- Discovery behind the tub — $0 to $4,000. Around 70 percent of projects hit at least one; $400 to $1,500 for subfloor repair is the common case.
- Valve and trim — $200 to $900. A pressure-balance valve is at the bottom; a thermostatic valve with multiple outlets and a rain head is at the top. Moving the valve up the wall is labor, not parts.
- Accessibility features — $150 to $1,500. Grab bars run $150 to $500 each installed (they require blocking behind the finish, which is cheap during a conversion and expensive after it). A fold-down seat is $300 to $800; a curbless entry adds $500 to $2,000 in floor framing.
- Fixtures — $50 to $900. A standard head, a handheld on a slide bar, or a rain head plus body sprays. WaterSense-labelled heads cap flow at 2.0 gallons per minute against the 2.5 gpm federal maximum.
- Permit and inspection — $100 to $800.
- Tile-matching the tub spout hole and the surrounding wall — $200 to $900. Discontinued tile is the reason a “small” patch becomes a full wall.
How to Reduce a Tub-to-Shower Conversion Cost
- Keep the drain where the tub’s drain already is — a base with an end drain removes the $600 to $1,600 plumbing line.
- Keep the footprint inside the existing alcove; moving a wall moves the job out of the conversion band and into a remodel.
- Compare a panel surround against tile on cost per year of service, not on purchase price — the gap narrows from roughly 2:1 to roughly 1:1.
- Ask for demolition, discovery repair and finish to be itemized separately, so a repair found on day one is priced against a written rate rather than negotiated mid-job.
- Budget the discovery explicitly. On a $6,000 typical project, a 15 percent contingency is $900; the median finding is larger than that.
- Where a tub is being kept elsewhere in the house and the goal is only safe entry, a tub cut at $1,200 to $2,000 solves that specific problem for a fifth of the cost of a conversion.
- Have grab-bar blocking installed while the wall is open even if the bars are not going in yet — the blocking is a few dollars of lumber now and a wall-opening job later.
Related Bathroom Costs
The conversion sits between two cheaper projects and one much larger one. Below it, a bathtub replacement at $1,500 to $8,000 keeps the tub and the drain exactly where they are, and a shower pan installation at $500 to $3,500 is the single most expensive component of the conversion bought on its own. Above it, a full shower installation at $1,000 to $8,000 covers a shower built where none existed, and the bathroom remodeling hub prices the full remodel at $10,000 to $30,000 and the walk-in shower build at $4,000 to $20,000.
The individual components each have their own page: tile shower installation at $1,200 to $7,000, shower door installation at $400 to $3,000, shower valve replacement at $200 to $900, and shower regrouting at $300 to $2,000 for the maintenance that follows a tiled conversion. Where the conversion is part of a wider bathroom project, bathroom sink installation runs $280 to $1,400 and a half bath remodel runs $1,500 to $12,000. Drain, supply and venting work beyond the shower itself is compiled under plumbing costs.
The calculator applies a city labor factor to any of these scopes, and the methodology page sets out how the national ranges are compiled and how the city adjustment is measured.
Last updated: August 2026. All figures reflect aggregated national cost data and are not a quote for a specific bathroom. Actual pricing depends on what is found behind the tub, on drain location, and on the local market. See the methodology page for how figures are calculated and sourced.