2023 COST-TO-BUILD CALCULATOR
We believe that estimating the cost to build your dream home should be easily accessible. We provide this free, industry leading, home construction cost calculator to understand exactly what you can afford before you purchase a floor plan.
HOW TO GET AN ACCURATE BUILD COST:
Determining your cost to build is a process that narrows down the cost range with each subsequent step.
Step 1: Online Calculators
Others make you pay for them - check out our free construction cost estimator below.
Step 2: Historical Data
Look at homes recently built and sold in your area 12 months. Plug the historical sales data into the following formula:
(Final Sales Price - Land Sales Price) / Total Square Feet = Cost/SF
Step 3: Ballpark Cost per Square Foot
Contact local builders and send them a link to the house plan that you want to get a ballpark cost for.
Step 4: Bid
Once you've chosen a floor plan and narrowed down a shortlist of builder it's time to get the most accurate number. To help with bid accuracy we provide free material take-offs for our plans.
Home Construction Price Calculator
Note: The next US Census Bureau Construction Price Index data release is scheduled for April 23rd, 2024. We will update the calculators that same day.
Discover Your Dream House Plan
Use your cost/SF to narrow down the plans that you can afford.
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Unbeatable Accuracy
Our proprietary cost calculator is updated quarterly to get you the most up to date build cost.
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Our Price Guarantee
If you bids come in over budget we will exchange for any other plan of equal value.
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Better Tools
CALCULATOR F.A.Q.
Help me understand the percentiles?
The percentiles are based on the real costs paid to build homes in the last quarter.
Lower percentiles reflect more affordable housing with less expensive materials, workmanship and complexity. So if you are looking to build a more budget friendly house, then you might want to drag the slider to the lower end of the scale but if you are looking to build a complex house with premium materials then you want to look at the upper percentiles.
How Accurate is This Calculator?
Boutique Home Plans has developed this cutting edge calculator to perform a more accurate fast analysis of building costs than anyone else.
Residential construction cost estimating is an imperfect science, since costs can vary significantly by location and seasonality. That's why we show you real costs paid by builders so you can get an idea of what people are actually paying to build new homes right now.
Where Does the Building Material Cost Data Come From?
This calculator applies historical pricing from the US Census Bureau New Residential Construction Survey and is updated quarterly to reflect real world prices paid for new construction housing. We then analyze this microdata to extract percentiles paid per square foot of conditioned area.
How Does this Compare to a Paid Cost-to-Build Report?
This is significantly more accurate because it's based on real world pricing. In addition, paid reports have to make assumptions about build quality which is, by far, the biggest cost variable.
For example, two of the same house plans built in the same location with different quality materials could up to double the price. To solve this problem, our calculator allows you to select the percentile that most accurately reflects the quality you are aiming to build.
P.S. Ours is free to use, so you can save money!