Polish it or replace it?
Marble does not fail all at once. It gets dull in the lanes, etched near the sink and scratched at the door, and at some point somebody says the word replace. This is how to decide without guessing.
You are not comparing two prices. You are comparing two different outcomes, and one of them involves a skip bin in the driveway.
What each one is
Restoration keeps the stone you have. Depending on its condition that is some combination of deep cleaning, stain treatment, chip and crack repair, grinding to flatten, honing to correct, polishing to the finish you want, and sealing. It is done in place, wet, in sections, with the room protected. A benchtop is usually a visit. A floor is days.
Replacement removes the stone and installs new. That is demolition, disposal, substrate preparation, sourcing stone that matches what is left, dealing with the fact that it will not quite match, installation, grouting and finishing. On a benchtop it also means a template, fabrication, a plumber twice, and often a new splashback because the old one was bonded to the old top. It reads as simple on paper and becomes a project on site.
When restoration is the right call
When the stone is worn rather than ruined, which is most stone. Dullness, etching, light to moderate scratching, minor chips, surface stains, soap film, uneven shine and lippage are all surface problems, and restoration exists to correct surface problems while keeping the material. This matters more on older properties, custom cuts and premium marble, where the original stone is part of the character of the space and a new slab, even a close one, reads as new. It matters in a building, where a replaced foyer is a foyer out of service for weeks.
Restoration also gives you a choice of finish. A polished floor can be brought back honed if the household has decided it prefers forgiving to reflective. Replacement gives you whatever finish the slab comes with.
When replacement is genuinely necessary
Cracks that run right through the tile or the slab. Widespread breakage. Water damage under the surface. Movement in a failed substrate. Large missing sections that cannot be filled cleanly. Previous repairs that have made the stone unstable. And the rarer case where the stone is the wrong material for where it is and keeps failing, so that restoring it becomes an ongoing cost with no end.
Even then the decision should come from an inspection, not from the way it looks on a bad day. A great deal of stone is written off as too far gone by a builder or a cleaner who does not have the tools to restore it, and it was not.
The costs replacement hides
Demolition and disposal are the obvious ones. The rest: matching stone that is no longer quarried, installer labour, delays, repairs to the finishes around the stone, furniture and fixtures moved, and in a kitchen or bathroom, plumbing, cabinetry and the transitions to the next material. The pricing page sets out how restoration is quoted so that you can put a replacement quote next to it with all of its parts included.
The finish question
New marble is not automatically a better surface. Installed with lippage or finished unevenly, it looks average, and a lot of new floors are. A proper restoration treats the surface as a system: ground flat, honed even, polished to the chosen level, sealed. It regularly produces a flatter and clearer floor than the one that was installed. The difference between a temporary buff and a restoration is whether the cause of the dullness was removed or covered.
How to decide
Have the stone looked at for what it is, how deep the wear goes, whether there is etching, what the structure is doing, what has been done to it before, and what finish you want. If it is fundamentally sound, restore it first. If the damage goes below what a repair can hold, replace it, because the condition demands it and not because it looks tired. The what-we-cannot-fix page lists the cases where we will tell you that ourselves.
On this site
Related questions.
Is it cheaper to replace a marble benchtop than restore it?
No. Restoring a marble benchtop costs a fraction of replacing it, and the gap is wider than most people expect. Replacement means a new slab, a template, fabrication, removal of the old top, a plumber to disconnect and reconnect the sink, a new splashback if the old one was bonded, and typically two to four weeks without a working kitchen. Restoration is one visit, done in place, with the kitchen protected. The only time replacement makes sense is when the stone itself has failed structurally, which is rare. The pricing page sets out how each kind of job is priced, so you can weigh it against a replacement quote.
How long does a bathroom take?
Most bathrooms are one long day, and we need the room for the duration. Floor, vanity and shower are done in the same visit with one set-up, which is why quoting the room together is cheaper than quoting the surfaces separately. If a second coat of sealer is called for, we come back briefly the next morning. The shower waits for the sealer to cure. We give you the exact window before we leave.