The Ultimate Stone Benchtop Buying Guide
Whether you’re refreshing your existing kitchen, renovating or building a new home, one of the most lavish and most desired products of all is a stone benchtop. Nothing quite matches the opulence, style, and durability provided by stone benchtops, which is why they’re on so many Perth homeowners’ kitchen wish lists.
As the go-to store for kitchen renovation products in Perth, we know all too well how significant adding a stone benchtop can be to a kitchen’s overall design and aesthetics. You don’t even have to renovate your kitchen to see the impact; a simple benchtop upgrade to stone will transform a dated kitchen into a contemporary one in a matter of hours.
If you’re looking to modernise your kitchen, completely renovate it, or you’re in the process of building a home, chances are you have a stone benchtop in mind. Before diving in, it’s worth knowing that since 1 July 2024, traditional high-silica engineered stone benchtops — the quartz-based products that dominated Australian kitchens for the past two decades — are banned from manufacture, supply, and installation across Australia. The compliant options today are silica-free or low-silica engineered surfaces, sintered stone, granite, and marble. To help ensure you choose the best benchtop for your kitchen, we’ve compiled this easy-to-follow stone benchtop buying guide.
Benchtop Durability
While you may think the most important aspect of a stone benchtop is its design, it’s actually its hardness and porosity. The harder the stone, the more durable it will be. The lower the porosity, the lesser the chances of it staining or marking from everyday use.
Thus, when shopping for stone benchtops in Perth, a hard, non-porous stone will yield the lowest maintenance and greatest longevity. Porous stone has a high absorption rate and needs constant sealing to retain its looks and performance.
Other qualities to be mindful of are its resistance to impact, cracking, chipping and heat. A stone benchtop is a significant investment, so you want to make sure it offers excellent value for money and lasts the test of time.
Types of Stone Benchtops
The first step in selecting a stone benchtop is to understand the options available and weigh up the pros and cons of each to find the right fit for your kitchen. The primary materials used for stone benchtops in Perth today are silica-free and low-silica engineered surfaces, sintered stone, granite, and marble. Each will provide a stunning result, but there are meaningful differences between them in terms of density, durability, and price.
Silica-Free and Low-Silica Engineered Surfaces
Following the 1 July 2024 ban on high-silica engineered stone, a new generation of compliant engineered surfaces has taken over as the most popular benchtop choice in Australia. These products are manufactured using non-quartz base materials — most commonly recycled glass, premium minerals, or bauxite — combined with polymer resins or other binding agents, and contain less than 1% crystalline silica (silica-free) or use low-silica formulations to keep workers safe.
These surfaces carry forward the best qualities of the products they replaced. They are extremely hard, dense, non-porous, scratch-resistant, UV-resistant, low-maintenance, and available in a wide range of colours, patterns, and designs — from clean whites and concretes through to intricate veining that mimics marble and granite. They don’t require sealing, making them genuinely low-effort in a busy kitchen.
Our range of stone benchtops is Silestone, manufactured by Cosentino. Since 2023, the entire Silestone range available in Australia uses Cosentino’s HybriQ+ technology, which replaces the traditional quartz base with premium minerals and recycled materials to significantly reduce crystalline silica levels. Cosentino also offers Silestone QXeron, a zero crystalline silica surface made with recycled glass and materials. If you’d like to confirm which specific Silestone products we currently stock and their silica classifications, please contact our kitchen team before purchasing — we’re happy to provide full product detail. You can also view our range of stone benchtops here.
The one honest trade-off with engineered surfaces versus natural stone is that, because they are manufactured, they tend toward a more consistent look rather than the organic, one-of-a-kind variation you get from a natural slab. For some homeowners that’s a drawback; for others, the consistency is exactly what they want.
Marble
If budget isn’t an issue, then a marble benchtop would have to be considered the premium tier of stone benchtops. Marble is a metamorphic limestone known for its attractiveness. It’s one of the world’s most beautiful materials, and it never ages — it’s timeless. Marble benchtops exude prestige and luxury, mirrored by their high price tag.
However, you may like to think twice before splurging on this gorgeous material for your kitchen benchtop because, while it scores a 10/10 in the looks department, it doesn’t score so well elsewhere.
Marble is a soft and porous material — two qualities that don’t fare well under the stains of everyday kitchen use. Unfortunately, marble is very susceptible to staining and requires high maintenance to retain its good looks. Being soft, it is prone to cracking and chipping, and being porous, it needs regular sealing to avoid damage.
Marble benchtops are also limited in design. They’re only available in the range of marble available, generally tones of white, cream, brown, grey, and black.
Granite
Granite is another great benchtop material. Formed by volcanic action that slowly cooled over time, this igneous rock is known for its unique veining patterns that reflect its original environment. It’s available in a wide range of colours and patterns. Granite is hard and dense, highly resistant to chips and scratches, and low maintenance, providing it is sealed.
Granite does contain crystalline silica naturally, but it remains legal under the national ban because it is a natural stone, not an engineered product created by combining stone materials with resins. Perth fabricators work granite using controlled wet-cutting processes. The main drawbacks of choosing granite are that it must be sealed to perform well, and it costs a little more than compliant engineered surfaces.
Sintered Stone
Sintered stone has emerged as the standout premium option since the engineered stone ban. It is manufactured by compressing natural minerals under extreme heat and pressure — without any resin binders — to create an ultra-hard, fully non-porous surface that contains zero crystalline silica. It is completely compliant and handles Perth’s harsh climate particularly well, with excellent UV stability and heat resistance that make it well suited to kitchens with north-facing windows or benchtops near glass that catches afternoon sun.
Sintered stone requires no sealing, resists staining, scratching, and heat, and is available in a wide range of large-format slab sizes that suit contemporary kitchen designs. The trade-off is cost — it sits at the premium end of the compliant range — but its performance and longevity make it a strong choice for a 10 to 15 year kitchen investment.
Benchtop Design
Once you have selected the type of stone benchtop you want, you can then concentrate on the shape and size. Obviously, your benchtop will need to cover your base cabinets. However, other considerations include overhang for bar stool seating, waterfall ends for a contemporary look, the thickness of the slab, and the edging.
Benchtop Overhang
Interior design today is all about open plan living, creating community spaces and making the kitchen the heart of the home. One way to help achieve such a goal is to include an island bench in your kitchen design with an overhang to create a breakfast bar or bar seating. This addition will increase the overall cost of the stone as more material will be required, but the memories such a design choice can help create are priceless.
Waterfall Ends
If you’re looking to modernise your existing kitchen or create a contemporary space, then one of the best design choices you can make is to include waterfall ends on your benchtop or island.
Stone waterfall benchtops with veins are particularly impressive because the stonemason can match up the veins so they flow down the waterfall end from the benchtop. It’s small details such as this that guests notice right away and really add a wow factor to a kitchen design.
Again, additional stone will be required to achieve such a look. However, the results are worth it. And if you are looking to have waterfall ends on a budget, consider choosing a thinner slab such as a 20mm slab over a 40mm slab to stretch your dollar. The impact waterfall ends will have on your kitchen design will far outweigh the impact of having a thicker slab, believe me.
Slab Thickness
Another consideration when selecting a stone benchtop is the thickness of the slab, and it shouldn’t be too difficult a decision. The thicker the slab, the higher the cost. Stone benchtops come in a range of thicknesses that will differ from provider to provider. Our Silestone range comes in thicknesses of 1.2cm, 2cm, and 3cm, for example. Others may offer 4cm.
There isn’t any significant benefit to opting for a thicker slab other than the aesthetics. A thicker slab will look more prestigious and luxurious than a thinner slab, but it won’t have that big an impact on the overall design.
If you’re on a tight budget, it’s a much better choice to opt for a thinner slab and put the savings towards waterfall ends, an overhang for bar stools, or — like I did — a matching stone splashback. Such upgrades will yield far greater results than having a thicker slab.
Benchtop Edging
The final design consideration is the edging, which is often overlooked. While most contemporary homes will opt for a basic square edge with a slight round edge (basic eased), there are many options to choose from which may better suit your design style. For instance, a traditional or Hamptons home may better serve a bevelled edge.
Common edging options include straight bevelled, basic eased, bullnose, ogee, mitred, and demi-bullnose.
Benchtop Colour
Knowing the type of stone, the design, slab thickness, and edging preference, you can now focus on what matters most: the colour, pattern, and design of the benchtop. For comprehensive guidance on how benchtop colours work within overall kitchen design and coordinating with cabinetry and other elements, explore our detailed guide on Australian kitchen colour schemes and trends for 2026.
The volume of design options will vary depending on the type of stone you choose. Silica-free and low-silica engineered surfaces offer the greatest variety, with hundreds of options available. They can perfectly mimic the look of marble with intricate veining, replicate concrete, lustrous granite styling, and contemporary terrazzo designs — the options are extensive.
If you opt for a marble or granite benchtop, you are limited to the available natural slabs and colour ranges, typically whites, browns, blacks, and creams, though each slab is unique.
When choosing a benchtop colour, pay close attention to the colour of your cabinets. Your benchtop needs to suit the cabinet colours to provide a cohesive look and suit the overall style of your kitchen. Your style may be monochromatic, contrasting, or complementary.
Benchtop Texture
The final step in selecting a stone benchtop is to choose the texture or finish. There may not be additional options in some cases, but silica-free engineered surfaces and sintered stone generally offer various texture options depending on the selected design.
Common benchtop textures include polished, matte, silk, and lightly textured surfaces.
Keep in mind that the plainer the surface, the easier it will be to wipe down and clean.
Budget Considerations
Stone benchtops are more expensive than laminate benchtops, but they are certainly worth the investment. They help create a much more luxurious kitchen and will increase the saleability and price of any home.
If you are on a budget and have your heart set on stone, there are some smart choices you can make to reduce costs. As mentioned above, you can opt for a thinner slab as a first step. You can also forgo design elements like waterfall ends and bench overhangs to reduce the amount of stone used. Choosing porcelain slab over sintered stone or natural stone is another way to get a compliant, durable benchtop at a lower price point.
Another way to reduce the cost of your stone benchtop is to purchase it from Ross’s Discount Home Centre. We stock offcuts, which allows our prices to be much lower than other suppliers in Perth. If you would like a quote, please contact our kitchen team on 1300 133 186.
Conclusion
Choosing a stone benchtop over other materials is a smart design choice for any kitchen. Whether you’re looking to update an old kitchen, renovate, or build a new home, a stone benchtop will elevate your kitchen to a whole other level.
When shopping for stone benchtops in Perth, the most important element to consider over design, colour, and style is the durability of the stone. Your benchtop will cop significant use over the years, and it needs to last the test of time. A hard, non-porous surface will give you maximum longevity with minimum effort.
There are four types of compliant stone benchtop to consider in 2026: silica-free and low-silica engineered surfaces, sintered stone, granite, and marble. The engineered surfaces and sintered stone are both hard and non-porous, making them excellent long-term choices. Granite is also hard and non-porous providing it is sealed annually. Marble is softer and more porous, making it a higher-maintenance option that suits lower-traffic kitchens better. Traditional high-silica engineered stone — the quartz-based products that were the market standard until 2024 — are no longer available in Australia.
When considering the design, give thought to whether you want an overhang for bar stools and waterfall ends and the cost implications of each. Also consider the thickness of the slab, along with the edging, colour, and texture options.
For Perth’s most competitively priced stone benchtops, look no further than Ross’s Discount Home Centre’s Silestone range. View our wide range of designs on our website and contact us for a personalised quote. And if you have questions we’ve left unanswered in this article, you’ll likely find them in our article, All Your Stone Benchtop Questions, Answered!
