Panel upgrades get quoted as a single number more often than almost any other electrical job, which is a problem, because the price swings hard on amperage, what's already in the wall, and how much the utility has to be involved. Here's what's actually in the number.
Pricing by amperage
- 100A to 150A upgrade — $1,500–$3,000. Less common as a standalone job; usually done when 100A is genuinely maxed out but a full 200A jump isn't needed yet.
- 100A to 200A upgrade — $2,000–$4,500. The most common upgrade, driven by EV chargers, heat pumps, hot tubs, or additions that push a house past what 100A can carry.
- 200A to 400A upgrade — $4,000–$8,000+. Whole-home electrification (EV charging plus heat pump plus induction range plus a shop or ADU) or larger homes running multiple high-draw loads at once.
- Sub-panel addition (not a full upgrade) — $800–$2,500. Adding capacity to a garage, shop, or addition without touching the main panel, when the main has headroom to spare.
For a typical 100A-to-200A swap on an average single-family house, that's $2,500–$4,000 installed — the number most homeowners are actually pricing when they call around.
What actually drives the price within a category
Whether the service line and meter need upgrading too. The panel itself is often the cheap part. If the service entrance cable, meter base, or weatherhead can't handle the new amperage, all three get replaced alongside the panel — easily adding $1,000–$2,500 to a straightforward swap. A quote that's meaningfully below others is worth checking against this: did they actually look at the service line, or just price the panel?
Utility coordination. The utility has to disconnect power before the panel is swapped and inspect (or re-energize) after. Some utilities schedule this within days; others take weeks, and a handful charge a service fee for the disconnect/reconnect visit. This isn't the contractor's cost to control, but it belongs in the estimate as a timeline note so the client isn't surprised by a multi-day power outage they didn't plan around.
Panel location and access. A panel in an easily reached garage or basement is the cheap case. One buried behind finished drywall, in a tight crawlspace, or requiring the meter to be relocated for code clearance (working space in front of a panel is a hard code requirement, not a suggestion) adds real labor hours before any wire gets touched.
Circuit count and rewiring. A straight panel swap that reuses the existing circuits is fast. A panel that's being upgraded because it's also being reorganized — arc-fault or ground-fault breakers added to meet current code, circuits relabeled and redistributed, or new circuits run for the loads that triggered the upgrade in the first place — turns one job into two stacked on top of each other.
Panel brand and breaker compatibility. Breakers aren't universal across panel brands. If a panel swap changes brands, every existing breaker gets replaced too, not reused — a detail that's easy to leave out of a materials list and then eat as a change order.
The line items people miss
- Permits and inspection. Panel work is almost universally permitted — this isn't optional, it's how the utility knows it's safe to re-energize the service. Typically $100–$400 depending on jurisdiction, plus the inspection itself, which the utility usually won't reconnect without.
- Temporary power loss. Not a line item with a dollar figure, but worth stating explicitly in the estimate: expect power off for anywhere from a few hours to a full day depending on utility scheduling, sometimes overnight if the utility can't return same-day.
- AFCI/GFCI breaker upgrades. Current code often requires arc-fault and ground-fault protection on circuits that didn't need it when the house was built. A panel upgrade is the moment an inspector will flag this — budget for it rather than treating it as a surprise mid-job.
- Whole-house surge protection. Not always required by code, but increasingly standard practice and often requested once a panel's already open — $150–$400 for the device and install if it's being added.
- Grounding and bonding upgrades. Older homes sometimes have grounding that doesn't meet current code (a ground rod that's corroded, or bonding that was never done to plumbing). An inspector catching this mid-upgrade turns into unplanned work if it isn't checked and priced up front.
DIY vs. hire
This isn't a DIY category, full stop. Panel work is high-voltage, whole-house work where a mistake doesn't mean a redo — it means fire risk or a lethal shock, and it requires a licensed electrician and a permitted utility disconnect in essentially every jurisdiction. The "DIY vs. hire" question that actually applies here is scope, not skill: whether to bundle the panel with other electrical work (new circuits, EV charger install) into one mobilization, which usually costs less combined than pricing each as a separate visit.
Structuring the estimate
A panel upgrade estimate holds together best in four pieces: the panel and service (panel, breakers, meter base and service line if needed), labor (the swap itself, priced as a job rather than itemized hours, since utility coordination makes the timeline variable), permits and inspection, and code-driven extras (AFCI/GFCI breakers, grounding fixes, surge protection) kept in their own miscellaneous section so a client can see they were priced deliberately, not folded into "electrical, $3,200" with no way to tell what's inside it.
JobPencil's builder handles this the same way — materials and labor broken out with a miscellaneous section for permits and code items, all reconciling to one client-facing total. Build a panel upgrade estimate free, no account required.