There are four ways into a camper van and most people commit to one before understanding the other three. The decision usually gets made on price, which is the wrong axis: the routes differ far more in time, financing and what you end up owning than they do in cost. Choose on price alone and you can end up eighteen months from a van you needed this summer.
The four routes at a glance
| Factory built | Commission a build | Buy used | DIY | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| All-in cost | $90k to $250k | $90k to $380k | $45k to $130k | $35k to $70k |
| Time to keys | Days to weeks | 6 to 26 months | Days | 6 to 24 months |
| Layout control | None | Total | None | Total |
| Warranty | Full factory | 1 to 3 years on workmanship | Rarely | None |
| Financing | Straightforward | Very difficult | Moderate | Very difficult |
| Risk | Low | Moderate | Moderate to high | High |
| Resale | Predictable | Good if a known shop | Depends on the build | Poor |
Read that table down the financing row rather than the cost row. Two of these four routes are hard to borrow against, and for most buyers that constraint decides the outcome before any of the other rows get a say.
Buying a factory-built van
A Class B motorhome from an established manufacturer, bought through a dealer. You get a warranty, a service network, financing that works like any vehicle purchase, and a resale value somebody can actually look up. You get no say in the layout at all.
This route is undersold in van life media because it is not romantic, and it suits more people than choose it. The category is also smaller than its visibility suggests: RVIA's shipment survey recorded 909 van campers shipped across the entire United States in May 2026 and 4,075 in the first five months of the year, which is why dealer stock is thinner than for any other RV category and why the good configurations move quickly.
If you want to be using the van this season and you are not fighting a specific layout constraint, the factory vans worth considering will serve you better than an eighteen month wait for something marginally more personal.
Commissioning a conversion
The most flexible route and the slowest. You choose the chassis, the layout and the systems, and you wait while somebody builds it. The number in circulation for this route is a useless $15,000 to $200,000, so here is a real one: across the 46 US shops we track with published pricing, the median starting price is $58,000 for the conversion alone, a quarter of shops start under $35,000 and a quarter above $115,000, and the median shop's flagship build runs $130,000.
Add a chassis and the arithmetic becomes concrete. A Ram ProMaster is the cheapest way in, a Mercedes-Benz Sprinter the most expensive, and a Ford Transit sits between them, with roughly $8,000 separating the three at comparable specification before anybody starts work.
The thing to understand before committing is the payment structure. Shops work to milestones, and 25% to 50% falls due months before there is a van to look at. That is why this route suits people with cash available and a clear reason the standard options do not work, and why the wait is longer than the build time anybody quotes you.
Buying used
The best value in the category if you inspect properly, and the worst if you do not. Somebody else has absorbed the heaviest depreciation and found the shakedown faults, and you get the van on Saturday rather than next spring.
The risk sits entirely in what you cannot see. Water ingress behind panels and badly done electrical are the two faults that turn a bargain into a project, and neither shows in photographs. This route rewards patience and a proper two-vehicle inspection more than any other, because you are buying a van and a house at once and most buyers check only the first.
It also rewards knowing who built it. A documented build from a shop with a name is easier to insure, easier to finance and considerably easier to sell on than an undocumented one, and the discount between the two is larger than most sellers expect.
Doing it yourself
Cheapest in cash, most expensive in everything else. Materials for a mid-range specification run $15,000 to $30,000, and the time commitment is 300 to 800 hours, which for most people working evenings and weekends is twelve to eighteen months.
It wins clearly at the budget end, where no shop can compete on labour, and it wins for people who want to be able to modify the van themselves afterwards. It loses on insurance, financing and resale, all three of which are structurally harder for a self-build, and the honest cost comparison against paying a shop is closer than the headline suggests once those are counted.
There is a middle option that gets almost no coverage: pay a shop for the electrical, plumbing and roof penetrations, then do the insulation and carpentry yourself. That combination runs roughly $22,000 to $38,000, takes the dangerous work off your hands, and is offered by many shops at the accessible end of the market without being advertised.
Financing is the axis nobody mentions
Every comparison of these routes is written as a cost comparison. For most buyers the binding constraint is not what a route costs, it is whether anybody will lend against it, and that quietly removes two of the four options.
Lenders secure against an asset they can value and repossess. A finished van has a market value and a title. A van that exists as a drawing and a queue position does not, which is why lenders will generally not finance a conversion that has not been completed, and why financing a self-build for anything above the value of the stock van is close to impossible. Nobody is being unreasonable. There is simply nothing to secure.
| Route | What a lender sees | Practical position |
|---|---|---|
| Factory built | A titled vehicle with a book value | Standard RV or auto loan. Easiest of the four |
| Buy used | A titled vehicle, value harder to establish | Workable. An RV title and build documentation both help |
| Commission a build | A contract and a deposit | Expect to fund 25% to 50% in cash before the van exists |
| DIY | A cargo van and a pile of receipts | Chassis financeable. The build usually is not |
There is a workable structure for the two difficult routes, and it is worth knowing before you conclude they are closed to you. Finance the chassis with a standard vehicle loan, cover the build with a personal loan or line of credit, then once the van is finished and can be appraised as a complete recreational vehicle, refinance both into a single longer-term RV loan at a better rate. It costs more in interest during the build and it works.
Two things make it go more smoothly. Credit unions are consistently more willing than banks to look at an unusual request, and keeping every receipt, invoice and specification from the build is what makes the eventual appraisal possible. The CFPB's guidance on shopping for a vehicle loan is worth reading before the first conversation rather than after it, because the terms on this kind of borrowing are negotiable in ways most buyers do not realise.
What DIY actually costs once you price the hours
Every guide quotes 300 to 800 hours as though it were free. It is the largest single input in a self-build and leaving it out of the comparison is how the cheapest route on paper stops being the cheapest in practice.
None of which means DIY is a mistake. Plenty of people genuinely want the hours, treat the build as the project rather than the obstacle, and end up with a van they can repair anywhere because they built every part of it. That is a real and defensible reason to choose it. Wanting to save money, on its own, usually is not, and the people who choose DIY purely as a cost decision are the ones whose half-finished vans appear on marketplaces every autumn.
Insurance and resale differ by route too
Two consequences of the route you pick land years later, and neither appears in any comparison of these options.
Insurance. A factory van has a recognised classification and slots into an existing product. A professional conversion, especially a certified one, can usually be placed with the build value stated on the policy. An undocumented self-build is the hardest to insure properly, and the common failure is not a refusal but a cheap policy that covers an empty cargo van and ignores $30,000 of conversion, which the owner discovers only after a claim. Getting the build value on the policy is the whole game in insuring a converted van.
Resale. A documented professional build retains roughly 55% to 70% of its conversion cost at three years. A self-build retains far less, commonly 25% to 50%, because the next buyer cannot verify what is behind the walls and prices in a rewire they may never need. On a $40,000 build that spread is a five-figure difference, and it is worth weighing against the labour saving that made DIY attractive in the first place, alongside what a converted van is actually worth second-hand.
Four questions that pick the route for you
Answer these in order and the route usually selects itself.
- When do you need it? Under three months rules out commissioning and DIY entirely, leaving factory or used. This question decides more cases than every other consideration combined and most people ask it last.
- Can you fund it without borrowing against the van? If no, you are choosing between factory and used, because a commissioned build needs a large share in cash and a self-build cannot be secured against.
- Do you have a layout constraint nothing standard solves? Unusual height, equipment that needs garage volume, full-time work from the van, or accessibility requirements. If yes, commission. If no, you are almost certainly better off with a finished van.
- Do you want to do the work? Not can you, want to. DIY is a hobby as much as a saving, and treating it purely as a cost decision is the single most reliable predictor of an abandoned build.
Buy used, then upgrade
One combination suits a lot of people and gets suggested by almost nobody, so it is worth naming plainly.
Buy a sound used conversion at $70,000, then spend $10,000 on the two or three systems you actually care about: a bigger battery bank, a better heater, a layout change to the garage. That lands closer to what you want than a $110,000 new build, it happens this month rather than next year, and you are spending upgrade money on a van you have already lived in rather than guessing from a drawing.
The financing works too, which the pure routes often do not. A completed used van is financeable as a vehicle, and a $10,000 upgrade is small enough to fund from cash or a short personal loan without the refinancing exercise a ground-up build requires. It is also the cheapest way to find out what you actually want before committing to a full build at whatever tier you were considering.
Key takeaways
- Four routes, and they differ more in time and financing than in cost.
- Financing rules out two of them for most buyers. Lenders will not secure against a van that does not exist yet.
- Factory built is undersold and suits more people than choose it. Stock is thin: 909 van campers shipped nationally in May 2026.
- Commissioning is the most flexible and slowest, and needs 25% to 50% in cash before there is anything to look at.
- Used is the best value if you inspect properly and the worst if you do not.
- DIY stops being cheapest once you value the 300 to 800 hours. Choose it because you want the work, not to save money.
- A documented professional build retains 55% to 70% of its cost at three years against 25% to 50% for a self-build.
- Buy used then upgrade is the underrated route for anybody who wants a van this year.