Every line item between a factory price and a finished building — August 2026
This is the page that matters most, and it is the one the category refuses to write. When a builder advertises a price per square foot, that figure covers the building. It does not cover the concrete it sits on, the trench that feeds it, the crane that places it, the permit that allows it or the truck that brings it. Those costs are real, they are substantial, and on a small building they can approach the cost of the structure itself.
The reason they go unpublished is that they are site-specific and therefore easy to defer. "We'll work that out later" is technically accurate and functionally misleading, because by the time it is worked out the buyer is committed. Below is the whole list, with the numbers we actually use.
| Type | Rate | When it is used |
|---|---|---|
| Pier & Beam | $38/sq ft | Concrete piers with steel beam carriage. Fastest, best on stable soil. |
| Slab-on-Grade | $46/sq ft | Monolithic reinforced slab. Most common for permanent placement. |
| Stem Wall | $52/sq ft | Perimeter stem wall with interior piers. Required in many flood zones. |
Foundation is the largest site cost on most projects and the choice is usually made for you by soil and flood zone rather than preference. Pier and beam is fastest and cheapest on stable ground. Slab-on-grade is the default for permanent placement. A stem wall is mandatory in many flood zones and is simply the price of building where you are building.
| Item | Cost | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Permitting and plan check | $8,900 | Jurisdiction-dependent. Includes plan review, fees and inspections. |
| Survey, staking and certification | $5,400 | Required almost everywhere before a foundation can be poured. |
| Clearing and grading | $4,200 | Typical flat lot. Slope adds below. |
| Sloped-site adder | $3,600 | Additional excavation, retaining and stepped foundation. |
| Utility trenching | first 50 ft included, then $185/ft | Water, sewer, electrical and data in a common trench. |
| Crane set | first 100 ft reach included, then $2,900 + $95/ft | Required for second-story modules and any obstructed placement. |
| Freight from the facility | $6.80 per loaded mile | From the Miami fabrication facility. See cost by state. |
| Electrical panel upgrade | $3,400 | Frequently needed when adding a dwelling to an existing service. |
| Septic system | $14,500 | Where municipal sewer is unavailable. Perc test required first. |
| Well | $11,800 | Where municipal water is unavailable. Depth-dependent. |
| Demolition | $9,200 | Removing an existing structure or slab from the placement area. |
| Tree removal | $1,450 each | Mature trees in the delivery path or over the pad. |
Take an 800 square foot two-bedroom unit at the Signature tier. Structure is 800 × $325, or $260,000. A slab foundation adds 800 × $46, or $36,800. Permitting and plan check adds $8,900. Survey and staking adds $5,400. Clearing and grading adds $4,200. That is $315,300 before a single foot of trench, and before the truck leaves the facility.
Now add 120 feet of utility trench: the first 50 are included, the remaining 70 at $185 is $12,950. Add freight — 1,100 miles at $6.80 per loaded mile is $7,480. The honest number is $335,730, or $420 per square foot all-in.
Compare that to the $531 per square foot all-in published by the most transparent national builder and the saving is real and quantified. But notice that the structure-only figure of $325 tells you almost nothing about the final cost, which is exactly why we do not lead with it.
Three line items above generate more unpleasant conversations than all the others combined, and all three are avoidable with a phone call made early.
Utility trenching. The rate looks modest until you measure the distance. A unit placed at the back of a deep lot can easily sit two hundred feet from the nearest service point, and at $185 per foot beyond the first fifty that is $27,750 for a trench. The fix is to walk the site with a tape before you choose the placement, because moving the pad thirty feet closer to the house is free and moving the utilities is not.
Electrical panel capacity. Adding a dwelling unit to an existing residential service frequently exceeds what the panel can carry, and the upgrade is not just the panel — it can involve the service drop, the meter and a utility coordination timeline measured in weeks. Have an electrician read the panel before you assume.
Septic capacity. Where there is no municipal sewer, an additional dwelling requires either capacity in the existing system or a new one, and that determination is made by a health department using a perc test rather than by anyone's preference. On some parcels the answer is simply no, and it is far better to learn that before spending money on design.
Some of these numbers are prices and some are facts, and knowing which is which saves everyone time.
Facts: permitting and plan check fees are set by the jurisdiction. Survey and certification requirements are set by the jurisdiction. Septic and well costs are set by geology and by the health department. Freight is set by distance and diesel. None of these move because you asked.
Prices: foundation work, clearing and grading, trenching and demolition are all competitive local trades, and on a larger project it is entirely reasonable to source them yourself and have the module delivered to a pad you contracted separately. Buyers who do this well save real money. Buyers who do it badly end up with a pad out of tolerance and a module that will not sit right, which costs far more than the saving.
The pragmatic split most people land on is to let the supplier handle anything that touches the module tolerance — foundation and set — and to self-source the earthwork and the trades that do not interact with the building envelope.
Tell us the scope and the ZIP. You get a real delivered-and-installed number, not a "contact us for pricing" runaround.
We run a group of focused sites so you land on the one that matches what you actually need instead of a catch-all catalog.