The Cost of Building a Shipping Container Home

If you’re thinking of building a shipping container home, you likely have a few questions about costs.

Architect Adam Kalkin, for example, has designed a 2,000 sq. ft. homemade out of six shipping containers. The two-story home features, three bedrooms, two and a half baths, a laundry room, a pantry, and other amenities.

You can build a shipping container home just like Kalkin’s Quik House, but doing so will set you back around $184,000. Or you can go another route and pay around $86,000. Let’s see how.

Calculating the cost of a shipping container home

$184,000 sounds like a lot of money to pay for a home made from shipping containers, so let’s take a look at how that price breaks down.

Your greatest expense will be the cost of the shipping containers. Kalkin’s design calls for six factory-modified containers that come in at roughly $19,833 each. So, six of those sets you back $119,000.

The next highest costs on your shopping list is site preparation (add $14,000), and assembly of the containers on the site (add $2,500).

Shipping Container Modification Cost

Now all you that you have is six shipping containers, assembled on your lot. But those containers are bare inside. To turn your containers into a home, you need to spend the rest of your budget. Expect to pay something like the following:

• Heating, cooling, plumbing, and electrical: $21,000

• Roofing and insulation: $8,500

• Doors and windows: $6,000

• Flooring: $5,000

• Painting and wall finishes: $6,000

• Shelves and closets: $2,000

• TOTAL: $65,000