Every Van Conversion
Kit, Compared

There’s no single thing
called a “van kit.”

There are four very different products that all get called a van conversion kit, and they range from a few hundred dollars to nearly twenty thousand:

• Digital plans & CNC files — you buy the cut files, you supply the plywood and the machine time. Cheapest. Most work.
• Removable drop-in modules — bed, boxes, and panels that bolt to factory points and come back out. $695–$9,000. Install in an afternoon.
• Flat-pack furniture & cabinet kits — CNC-cut galleys, beds, and cabinets you assemble and mount. $5,500–$16,000. A weekend to a few weeks.
• Foundation systems — the structural backbone: L-track, wiring harness, insulation, panels, a roof fan. $16,000–$18,500, and you still build the rest.

The honest headline: the cheapest option is almost always “do more of it yourself,” and that cost is paid in time and tools, not dollars. This page lays out exactly where each company sits, what’s in the box, and what’s still on you.

Starting prices listed by each vendor as of mid-2026. Kits are rarely “universal” — wheelbase, roof height, and cargo-vs-passenger layout all change fitment. Always confirm the exact product page before you buy.

The four tiers,
explained.

Same word, four completely different products. Here’s what you’re actually buying at each level — and what you’re signing up to do.

• 1 — Digital plans & CNC files: You buy a download — cut files (DXF) for a CNC router plus assembly drawings. You source your own plywood, cut the parts (on your own machine or at a local job shop), and assemble. This is the floor on price and the ceiling on effort — you’re effectively the factory. Most file packs cover cabinetry and the bed; walls, ceiling, flooring, and finish are on you.
• 2 — Removable drop-in modules: Pre-assembled furniture that mounts to your van’s existing factory holes and L-track, then comes back out when you need the cargo space. No permanent cutting, no wiring required to camp. This is the fastest path and the most daily-driver-friendly — the trade is that it’s a camping setup, not an integrated four-season build with plumbing and electrical baked in.
• 3 — Flat-pack furniture & cabinet kits: CNC-cut galleys, beds, benches, and overhead cabinets — usually Baltic birch plywood or riveted aluminum — that ship flat and bolt together like high-end IKEA. You assemble, finish (if unfinished), and mount to the van. Some companies sell a complete interior; others sell à la carte so you can buy panels first and add cabinetry later. This is the sweet spot for a builder who wants a professional look without designing every box from scratch.
• 4 — Foundation systems: Not furniture — the structure. A foundation kit gives you the part most DIYers get wrong: a steel or composite mounting skeleton, L-track on the walls and ceiling, insulation, finished wall and ceiling panels, a wiring backbone, and a roof fan. You then mount your bed, storage, and galley to it over time. It’s the most expensive starting point and it still leaves the entire finish-out (electrical, water, cabinetry) ahead of you.

Every supplier,
by tier.

Organized cheapest-effort-first within each tier. “What’s still on you” is the honest part — it’s the work the price doesn’t cover.

Tier 1 · Plans & CNC Files

Cut it yourself. The floor on price, the ceiling on effort.

Tier 2 · Removable Drop-In Modules

Install in an afternoon. The fastest, most daily-driver-friendly path.

Tier 3 · Flat-Pack Furniture & Cabinet Kits

A weekend to a few weeks. A professional look without designing every box from scratch.

Tier 4 · Foundation Systems

The structural backbone. The most expensive start — and the finish-out is still ahead of you.

Plus · Component Marketplaces

Parts, not full kits — for when you need individual pieces (windows, fans, fridges, electrical, single cabinets) rather than a packaged kit.

• Campervan HQ — broad retailer: windows, fridges, solar, power electronics, cabinets, bumpers (Victron, Dometic, CR Laurence, and more).
• RB Components — Sprinter cabinets and storage, plus brackets and off-road/utility components.
• Sprinter Store — Sprinter-specific cabinets and storage solutions.

The cheaper the kit,
the more your garage covers.

Here’s the honest tool reality by tier — because the lower the price, the more your own shop has to make up the difference.

If the kit mounts to L-track or threaded inserts, budget for a rivet-nut setter and a good set of bits before the pallet arrives — running to the store mid-install is how a weekend becomes three.

Flat-pack vs fully built —
install time never disappears.

People assume a kit that arrives “already built” saves them the most. It saves assembly time, but it usually costs you on the two things buyers forget: shipping and install.

A pre-assembled galley is a big, heavy crate — and freight is priced by size and weight, so the more finished a kit is, the more it costs to get to you. And no matter how done the kit looks in the photos, it still has to become part of the van.

The constant across all three is install. Mounting to L-track or threaded inserts, anchoring so nothing moves at 70 mph, sealing the roof-fan cutout, running wire and plumbing, scribing panels to a van wall that is never flat — that labor is the same whether the box arrived flat or finished. “Already built” only removes the easiest hour of the job.

Walls and cabinets,
or a full off-grid rig?

This is the single biggest lever on cost and labor, and it’s where most kits stop short. Almost every kit on this page hands you the furniture — walls, ceiling, cabinets, a bed, a galley. The systems — water and power — are where the real work and real money live, and most kits leave that to you.

Decide how far up this ladder you actually need to go before you spend a dollar.

Keep it at Level 1 or 2 and a kit gets you a long way for very little. The moment you want water or power done right, you’ve crossed from “assemble furniture” into “build systems” — which is skilled labor, the right foundation, and the part of a build worth handing to someone who does it every day. Most kits don’t pretend to solve this. We do.

Low-roof & E-Series owners:
your options are thinner.

If you’re on a low-roof cargo van — Ford E-350, a low-roof Transit or ProMaster, or a Chevy Express / GMC Savana — most of this list isn’t built for you. The flat-pack and foundation companies overwhelmingly target high-roof Sprinter, Transit, and ProMaster vans; one major kit maker states plainly that it doesn’t sell DIY kits for short- or medium-roof vans at all.

That’s not a dead end — it just narrows the field:

• VanLab lists Express and E-Series among its compatible platforms in the size-based small-kit range — one of the few flat-pack makers that does.
• Removable modules (Camp N Car, Freeway universal platforms) don’t care about roof height because nothing mounts to the walls.
• Digital CNC plans let you design to your exact interior height.
• Custom cabinetry — built to a low roof’s real dimensions — is often the only way to get a true fitted interior in these vans. (That’s a place a shop like ours earns its keep.)

Which path is
actually yours.

Four honest answers. Find the one that sounds like you.

A kit price is
not a van price.

This is the trap that turns excited buyers into disappointed ones. You see a number — “$9,995 kit,” or even a “$98,000 build” — and your brain files it as the drive-it-home, all-in price. It almost never is.

We watch people fall in love with a price and then deflate when they learn what it doesn’t include. With kits, the honest finished-van math is:

The van is usually the biggest single line and it’s almost never in the kit price. A used cargo van runs the high teens to low twenties; a new one is well north of that. Stack the kit, the freight, and the systems on top, and a “cheap” DIY van still adds up — it’s just spread across line items instead of one sticker. None of that makes a kit a bad idea. It makes knowing the all-in number the difference between a great decision and a rude surprise.

Three honest ways to a finished van

The middle path is the one almost nobody talks about, and it’s the most cost-effective way to a real van for a lot of people: buy the kit that fits your budget, and let a shop turn it into a van.