Four routes lead to the same driveway: a finished van off a shop floor, a used conversion from a private seller, a commission from a builder, or a year of your own weekends. They cost different amounts of money, time and control, and the wrong one is expensive to reverse. Here is what each route costs in 2026 and who it actually suits.
The short answer
- Buying finished is the fastest route and the shortest list: 2 of the 27 American shops we track keep completed vans in stock, and both start above $115,000.
- A commission runs $18,695 to $600,000 for the conversion work, chassis excluded, and takes 4 to 6 days at the modular end and 4 to 9 months for full custom.
- One documented Transit self-build came to $20,150 in parts and roughly 1,000 hours, which is a $45,000 van once you pay yourself $25 an hour.
- Used conversions sell 20 to 30 percent below the equivalent new build, and that discount exists because most buyers cannot audit somebody else's wiring.
- The hybrid route, buying the wiring and the heater and building the rest, starts at $5,000 of shop work and has no marketing behind it.
The four routes, and what each one costs
Buy or build sounds like two options. In practice there are four, and they are not equally available. A finished van sitting on a builder's floor is the rarest of them. A used conversion from a private seller is the largest market by volume and the least documented. A commission is what most people mean when they say they are having a van built. A self-build is the cheapest in cash and the most expensive in everything else.
| Route | Cash cost | Time to keys | What you control |
|---|---|---|---|
| Finished van from a shop | $115,000 to $220,000, chassis included | Days | Nothing. The van already exists |
| Used conversion, private sale | 20 to 30 percent below the new build | Days to weeks | Nothing, and you inherit the wiring |
| Commissioned build | $18,695 to $600,000, chassis extra | 4 to 6 days on modular work, 4 to 9 months full custom | Layout, systems, materials, finish |
| Hybrid, shop does the systems | $5,000 to $20,000 of shop work | 1 to 3 weeks of shop time, plus your own | Everything you build yourself |
| Self-build | $20,150 in parts on a documented Transit | 600 to 1,200 of your own hours | All of it, including the mistakes |
One column in that table needs care before you compare anything. Conversion prices in this industry exclude the van and finished-van prices include it, so a $95,000 package and a $135,000 vehicle on a forecourt can be the same van reached from opposite directions. Settle which side of that line every number sits on, and half the confusion in this category disappears in one question.
The commission route is the one you can price from your desk. 26 of the 27 American shops we track publish or will state a from-price for conversion work, and only Peace Vans in Seattle quotes purely per project. The two buy routes work the other way round: what you can have is whatever happens to exist this week, at whatever the seller is asking for it.
Buying a van that already exists
New and finished, off a shop floor
Of the 27 American shops we compare, 2 keep completed vans in stock. Vanspeed in Westminster, California builds Sprinters only and holds finished vehicles at $115,000 to $175,000. The Vansmith in Boulder runs a rotating inventory of completed Sprinters and Transits at $120,000 to $220,000. Storyteller Overland in Birmingham is a third door of a different kind: a manufacturer building RVIA-certified production vans and selling them through a dealer network at $160,000 to $220,000.
That is the whole new-and-finished market from established converters, and it starts at $115,000. There is no $45,000 finished van waiting on a lot anywhere in the country, because building on speculation ties up a shop's capital in a vehicle nobody has paid for. The shops that can afford to do it are the shops with the margin to absorb it, which is exactly why both of them sit at the premium end.
What you give up is specification, and at this level specification is not a matter of taste. The berth count, the seatbelt count and the direction the bed runs are fixed before you arrive, and nobody is moving a wall in a van they built to sell. That is why a family of four rules out most stock vans before price enters the conversation, and why anyone over about 6 foot 2 should lie on the bed before looking at anything else.
Buying a finished van off the floor, all in
Total$125,450 to $192,450
The headline price already contains the chassis, which is the one thing that makes a finished van hard to compare against a conversion quote. Enclosed transport instead of flying out and driving home runs $1,200 to $2,800 coast to coast.
Used and finished
The used market is where finished vans are actually plentiful, and used conversions sell 20 to 30 percent below the equivalent new build. On a $120,000 van that is $24,000 to $36,000 off, which is the largest saving available anywhere in this category without giving up a finished vehicle or a professional install.
The discount exists for a reason, and the reason is information. You are buying somebody else's wiring, somebody else's water system and somebody else's decisions about insulation, and most buyers cannot tell a professional install from a confident one by looking at it. A van from a named shop with an itemised invoice and a wiring diagram is a different product from an anonymous build at the same asking price, and it should not cost the same money.
Two checks cost nothing and change the number you should offer. Run the VIN through the federal recall database, because an open recall on a van with lined walls is a job somebody has been putting off and you are about to inherit. Then price the asking figure against what the build cost new: we hold a from-price for 26 of the 27 shops, so a 2022 van out of a shop that charges $65,000 to $95,000 tells you within a minute whether the seller's number is sane.
Six checks before money moves on a finished van
- The build invoice, itemised, with the conversion separated from the chassis
- A wiring diagram, the battery capacity in amp hours, and every charging source listed
- The weighed figure from a public scale, and the payload it leaves against the door sticker
- The VIN through the federal recall database, plus the chassis service history
- Who holds the warranty on the conversion, who holds it on the van, and for how long
- The title as it reads today, cargo van or RV, and what your insurer will write against it
Commissioning a build
A commission is the route the industry is built around, and it covers the widest span of money of anything here. Custom Coach Creations in DeLand, Florida takes full conversions from $18,695. Glampervan in Oakland works on nothing but the 136 inch high-roof ProMaster at $30,000 to $65,000. Ready.Set.Van in New Jersey publishes fixed packages at $65,000 to $95,000. Advanced RV in Willoughby, Ohio starts at $300,000 and engineers each vehicle individually to $600,000. Every one of those figures excludes the van.
What the money actually buys is the right to specify, and the specifications worth commissioning are the ones that cannot be added afterwards. Insulation, the heater, the electrical run and the bathroom, because an indoor shower changes the whole floor plan rather than occupying a corner of it. A fridge, a fan, a solar panel and a mattress can all be improved in your own driveway five years from now.
The trade is time and money held. Most shops take 25 to 50 percent up front and stage payments through the build, so a large share of the price leaves your account months before a vehicle exists, and it is not sitting in an escrow account unless you asked for that in writing. Ask what the deposit is held against and what happens to it if the shop stops trading.
Two base rates are worth knowing before you start asking a builder questions. 1 of the 27 shops we track states a warranty term in public, which is Outside Van at 3 years. 2 are RVIA certified, Storyteller Overland and DM Vans, which means their builds are inspected against the industry's electrical, propane and egress standards rather than self-attested. A shop that answers vaguely on either is giving you a normal answer rather than a bad one, and the way to use that is to ask for the term in the contract instead.
A commissioned mid-range build, all in
Total$132,718 to $178,410
Most shops take 25 to 50 percent up front and stage the rest through the build. On this table that is $33,000 to $89,000 out of your account months before a vehicle exists, which is the cost of a commission that no quote itemises.
How long each route takes
Time is the axis that decides this for most buyers, and it is the one the industry quotes worst. 4 of the 27 shops we track publish a lead time at all, and those four cover the honest spread from a single day's modular work to a full conversion.
| Shop | Published lead time | What that covers |
|---|---|---|
| Contravans, Arvada CO | From 4 to 6 days | Modular builds and single-system work |
| Oasis Campervans, Buena Vista CO | 3 to 4 weeks | A full minivan conversion at $12,000 to $30,000 |
| Off Highway Van, Salt Lake City | 6 to 8 weeks | A full aluminum build at $165,000 to $245,000 |
| Vertical Vans, Salt Lake City | 8 to 10 weeks | A full conversion at $35,000 to $95,000 |
| The other 23 shops | Not published | Ask for two dates in writing before you pay anything |
None of those numbers is the number you care about. Shop time is how long your van is on the floor. The queue is how long you wait to get on it, and a shop with an 8 week build time and a 9 month backlog delivers in 11 months. Both figures are true and only one of them appears in a brochure.
Buying finished collapses all of that to days, and in one specific case it is worth real money. If a trip is already booked, a van you can drive home this month at $150,000 beats a better van in November at $110,000. If the trip is next year, the same comparison reverses completely and the $40,000 buys a layout drawn for you.
From the desk
Ask yourself which you would rather spend the next year doing, building a van or using one. Nearly everybody knows the answer in under a second, then argues themselves out of it on price. We have watched buyers save $40,000 on a self-build and lose two summers to it, and we have watched buyers pay $150,000 for stock inventory in March and get 6 months of use out of the van that same year.
Building it yourself, costed honestly
The self-build figure people quote is the parts figure, and it is roughly half of the honest total. One documented Transit build came to $20,150 in parts and roughly 1,000 hours of owner labour. At $25 an hour, a wage most people would refuse from an employer, that is a $45,000 van. At any rate you would pay a professional it is comfortably past $60,000, which is a mid-range commission.
The hours are the part nobody plans for. 1,000 hours is 25 full working weeks, or every Saturday and Sunday for two years with nothing else happening at the weekend. Builders who track their own time split it across climate control, electrical and living space, and the living space alone, meaning the cabinetry, the bed and the galley, takes more than a third of the total.
A self-build, costed at what it takes
Total$46,700 to $75,100
Strip the chassis out and the parts come to $16,700 to $30,100, which brackets the $20,150 that documented Transit build recorded. The chassis is the largest line here and the line most self-build budgets leave out of the sum entirely.
Two things follow from that table. A self-build is not cheap in absolute terms once the van is in the number; it is cheap relative to a professional build of the same specification, which runs 40 to 60 percent above the parts cost. And the entire saving is your labour, which means it only exists if you finish.
A real share of self-builds never do. There is no register of abandoned conversions so nobody can put an honest percentage on it, but every shop in this trade takes calls from people asking to have a half-built van completed, and finishing somebody else's work costs more than starting clean because the first job is undoing decisions. Ask any builder how often that call comes in and watch the face they make.
Costs money to get wrong
An unfinished self-build is the worst asset in this category
A conversion that stops at 70 percent is worth less than the parts that went into it. The chassis holds most of its value and the $20,000 of components inside it does not, because a buyer looking at exposed wiring and a half-built galley is pricing the removal work rather than the materials. Insurers write it as a cargo van because there is nothing to inspect as an RV, and lenders will not lend against it at all. Put a finish date in the calendar before you cut anything, and if the van is not weathertight, insulated and wired by that date, pay a shop to close it out.
Money treats the routes differently too, and it catches people late. Lenders underwrite the paperwork rather than the vehicle. First Citizens Bank publishes RV loan terms from $2,500 over 5 to 15 years, with 20 percent down, a minimum credit score of 670 and nothing older than 5 years. A professional build with an itemised invoice fits that description. A self-build usually does not, and RVIA certification is what an RV loan looks for when a lender decides which product it is writing.
The hybrid route almost nobody sells
The route that beats the other three for a large number of buyers has no marketing behind it, because there is no package to sell. Pay a shop for the jobs that are dangerous or unforgiving, and do the rest yourself in your own time.
Blue Ridge Adventure Vehicles in Fairview, North Carolina takes work from $5,000 and fits components rather than converting whole vans. Contravans in Arvada will install electrical, storage or a heater in a van you have already started, and turns modular work around in 4 to 6 days. Z2Overland in Portland sells removable cabinet kits from $18,000 that come out again, which leaves the van registered as a van and the interior sellable on its own.
The two jobs worth buying are the wiring and the heater. Those are the two that start fires, they are the two an insurer asks about after one, and they are the two that become unreachable the moment the walls are lined. Cabinetry is plywood and patience by comparison, and a mediocre cabinet is a mediocre cabinet rather than a hazard.
The cost lands between the two extremes and much closer to the self-build end: $5,000 to $20,000 for professionally installed systems, plus your own parts and hours for everything else. The time lands closer to the buy end than people expect, because the shop's half is measured in days and it happens while you are still deciding what colour to paint the cabinets.
The chassis decision comes before the route decision
Every route except buying finished starts with you owning a van, and that purchase is larger than most of the conversion quotes above it. Mercedes publishes the Sprinter Cargo Van from $48,990 to $75,830 across the range, with the 170 inch high roof starting at $57,540. The Transit and the ProMaster both sit under it. 4 of our 27 shops build on the Sprinter only and 2 on the ProMaster only, so the platform decides your shortlist as firmly as your budget does.
Payload decides whether the finished van is legal to load, and it is the number a first-time self-builder is most likely to blow straight past. Mercedes publishes 3,450 to 3,814 pounds of payload for the 170 inch high roof 2500 depending on drivetrain. A four-season build with 40 gallons of water aboard, a heavy battery bank and two adults in the front seats eats most of that before a bike goes in the garage, and weight is the one mistake that cannot be fixed with money afterwards.
Buying finished sidesteps the whole decision, which is a genuine advantage and an underrated one. The van in front of you has already been weighed, already been registered and already been proven to work as a combination. You are trading the specification you wanted for the certainty that the thing runs, and for a first van a lot of buyers make that trade and never regret it.
Which route suits which buyer
The routes sort cleanly once you name which resource is actually scarce for you, rather than which one you enjoy thinking about.
- Time is scarce and money is not: buy finished. 2 shops hold new stock above $115,000 and the used market has hundreds of vans. Days, not quarters.
- Money is scarce and time is not: build it yourself at $46,700 to $75,100 with a used chassis, or buy a used conversion from a named shop and improve what you do not like.
- Neither is scarce and the layout matters: commission it. $18,695 to $600,000, and the specification is the thing you are paying for.
- Both are scarce: go hybrid. Buy the wiring and the heater for $5,000 to $20,000, build the cabinets across a winter, and sleep in something safe by spring.
- You already own a van: every route except buying finished is still open, and converting the van you have is the single largest saving in this category.
One test settles it faster than any spreadsheet. Put a date in the calendar for the first night you intend to sleep in the van, then work backwards through the lead times above. Most people find the date rules out two of the four routes immediately, and that the argument they were having with themselves about money was never the binding constraint.
Six questions that pick the route for you
- The date you need to be sleeping in it. A commission that clears in 11 months fails an April deadline
- Your cash today against your cash in nine months, because 25 to 50 percent lands early
- How many berths and how many seatbelts, counted for the people who will actually travel
- Whether you want an indoor shower, which is the one specification nobody retrofits cheaply
- How many weekends you will genuinely give up, and then halve the number
- Whether you are financing it, because the paperwork sets the rate before the price does
