Most people who fall for vanlife start out planning to convert their own van themselves – (if you’re thinking about it too, here are 10 things to know before you even start!).

You know we did that too (it’s 5 years by now, we are talking about van conversion DIY and living in our orange home on wheels :)) and we published several guides here for every stage of it.

What most people don’t take into account though, it is how much damn time and work it takes to convert a van into a comfy and homey campervan (depending on the level of comfort and luxury you want to achieve, you might be looking at 6-12 months of part-time work!).

People get often amazed by the prices of custom made campervans, but consider this: carpentry, electrical system, plumbing, exterior works, cabinetry, toilet, shower, lighting… all clummed into a tetris-like tiny space, where everything needs to be millimeter-perfect…

If you don’t have the time (and the patience!) to do it yourself, pricing in to hire a professional fitter looks all the more a convenient choice! 

The catch though, is that custom camper van builders are wildly different operations!

Some are engineering shops.

Some are furniture makers who happen to work inside a vehicle.

Some sell one famous design and build it beautifully, over and over.

While others can fit your any request into a sleak, boutique and unique design!

Be mindful though: Picking the wrong one can be a six-figure mistake!

If you’re from the US and you are considering the purchase of a custom made van, for you today we compiled a list of seven of the most respected custom builders in the United States (on craftsmanship, design approach, price, wait times, and what each shop does better than the rest!).

Hoping this will be of help to you, let’s dive right in! 🙂

NOTE. Before the list:

how to read the prices

One number worth having in mind first.

A full DIY conversion typically costs three to five times less than a professional custom build.

That gap is not because of the parts.

It is because of the time required to design, engineering, and build the campervan (which are several hundred skilled hours!).

We fitted vans ourselves in the past, and we know how much time it takes to convert a van into a masterpiece… so before judging a price “way too high”, consider the craftsmanship that goes into this gorgeous pieces of art on wheels! 🙂

Said that, the other thing to keep in mind when purchasing a custom-made van, is to understand what a quoted price actually includes.

Some builders quote all-in, with the base van rolled into the figure.

Others quote conversion-only, and you buy the van yourself and bring it in.

A $40,000 conversion and a $40,000 finished van are very different objects, so each entry below flags which is which!

1. Brooklyn Campervans:

High-end, custom-made Sprinters!

The campervan side of YouTube is full of beautiful rigs that belong to somebody else.

Brooklyn Campervans is instead a company built around the opposite proposition: the layout, materials and finishes are designed around the buyer, then cut on the shop’s own CNC machines.

As we always say, the beauty of building a van from scratch (instead of buying a standard RV), is that you can tailor it specifically to your needs, use and taste. This is exactly the service Brooklyn Campervans offers! 

They are specialised in 144 and 170-inch AWD Mercedes-Benz Sprinter.

The shop pushes personalisation further than most of its competitors, down to an online configurator that lets buyers spec a layout before speaking to anyone.

The flagship shows what that budget buys. The “Elevate” model for example, has a queen bed that rises through a slide-out skylight at the touch of a button, while the rear becomes a lounge by day, and the same bed carries you up to a rooftop deck made of walkable solar panels!

But that is not all, to our careful eye, that is also what stands out:

• Price is high, but so is quality! The Elevate v4 runs about $292,000 on a 2026 AWD Sprinter 170, with a MONSTROUS 15kWh battery (which offers almost unlimited autonomy for boondocking), undermount air conditioning, fast-internet Starlink antenna, and a recirculating shower that reuses a single gallon of UV-sterilised water (wonderful!).

• The Desert Scout sits near $199,500;  and it is a gorgeous build, using all the best products currently on the market (360° cameras, Dometic fridge, Webasto heater, Fiamma awning, just which would make for a splendid mobile office

• Con: the waiting list with Brooklyn Campers is LONG, and build slots  need to be booked almost a year ahead (but if you’re looking for a fully customized van, might be worth the wait!) 🙂

To give you an idea, a 15kWh bank is roughly three to four times what a self-built rig usually carries, which gives some sense of the gap — here’s how a van electrical system is normally designed if you want the comparison.

All in all: suited to buyers who want something nobody else has, and who are prepared to wait about a year for it.

2. TouRig:

Modern-looking vans

TouRig, located in Colorado, is a company that has spent close to two decades building a reputation as the sensible choice for serious custom work with no signature feature attached to it.

The pitch here is lminimal, durable, high-performance builds, executed by a crew drawn out of the construction, transportation and maritime trades.

Tourig has a catalogue, but can also customize its vans on its clients special needs.

Buyers describe how they travel, and the shop designs/suggests the floor plan and material palette around that.

Typical build windows run 6 to 12 weeks, depending on complexity, on Sprinter and Transit chassis.

Two practical notes: TouRig runs a retail side stocked with the accessories most builders expect you to source yourself, and new and pre-owned converted vans come up for sale periodically — worth watching for anyone who doesn’t want to wait out a full build.

3. Sandy Vans

Located in San Diego (California), Sandy Vans is a company known almost entirely for one thing: the Concrete Oasis!

The Concrete Oasis is a Tulum-inspired Sprinter with sculptural micro-cement walls, walnut arches and a drop-down queen bed, created by Edden and Nicole of Ananda Living, which spread and became famous across YouTube and spawned a long tail of imitations.

Sandy Vans builds the official version!

The specification supports the price: micro-cement finishes, hydronic heating, battery-powered air conditioning and a walkable solar roof deck, on the 2026 AWD Sprinter 170.

Hydronic heating and a recirculating shower are the two systems that most often defeat self-builders, and for good reason — plumbing is the least forgiving part of a DIY conversion.

The trade-offs are worth knowing before falling in love with the photos:

• It’s a limited series, currently sold out with a waitlist
• Headroom under the bed is limited
• There’s no belted seating for extra passengers
• You’re buying a specific design faithfully executed, not commissioning your own

Outside the Oasis, the shop turns standard builds around in 4 to 6 weeks — quick by custom standards — offers other limited series including Landship and Mothership, as well as single installation services (such A/Cs, Starlink, electrical systems etc.)

4. Outside Van

Located in Portland (Oregon), Outside Vans is what happens when suspension engineers take charge of the whole vehicle xD

Officially, it is a division of the publicly traded Fox Factory, the company behind the shocks on a large share of America’s mountain bikes and trophy trucks, and the vans inherit that engineering-first character.

The vans of Outside Vans are built to carry gear, and the aesthetics follow.

The shop has been at this for over 30 years, produces more than 100 conversions annually, and runs a team of 65-plus covering systems engineering, woodwork and upholstery in-house.

Every build starts from their Premium Interior Package, with power, water, climate and layout customised from there.

Production models run from roughly $89,000 up to around $235,000 for rigs like Overnight, Parks and Syncline.

The full custom side solves specific problems: storage for six bikes, a ski tuning bench, a mobile base camp for a film crew.

Two things set it apart practically.

There’s a dedicated service department that will work on any Sprinter build, whoever converted it. And used demo vans are often the cheapest route into a premium adventure van without dropping down in quality.

The interiors are matte, modular and unapologetically functional.

Nobody is trying to make this feel like a boutique hotel 🙂

5. Rossmönster Vans

Located in Longmont (again Colorado!), Rossmönster is the shop to call if you’re looking for a woody refined interior.

Here we are not talking only about vans, but bulkier RVs and pick-ups too.

The company was founded by carpenters and custom woodworkers, backed by engineers who use the builds outdoors themselves, and the results read less like a converted vehicle than a small Scandinavian cabin that happens to do 70 mph 😉

The process also here starts with a decision form and a designer, who delivers a one-off floor plan before any material is ordered.

Once the design is locked and materials are in, the active build runs roughly three weeks — genuinely fast for work at this level. Perhaps it is not laser-focused crafted like some of the previous boutique options, but the speed you could get a van here is also worth considering! 🙂

6. Beartooth Vanworks

Let’s move to Belgrade (Montana) and here we find another established company called Beartooth vanworks!

Here prices range from around $40,000, build only, normally with a $2,500 refundable deposit.

Most adventure vans are designed for good weather.

Beartooth builds for the days everyone else turns back — snow, cold, altitude — and their First Tracks model is about as purpose-built a ski basecamp as exists on four wheels.

The crew brings more than 70 years of combined trade experience, which matters in a vehicle that has to hold heat at elevation.

Cold-weather capability is mostly won or lost before the furniture goes in, in the walls and the floor — the same reason insulation is the step DIY builders most often underestimate.

Builds run mainly on Sprinter, ProMaster and Transit platforms, with a typical 10 to 12 week window.

Note the pricing is conversion-only — budget for the base van on top!

7. Sportsmobile

Fresno, California (plus Indiana, Texas and Nevada).

Sportsmobile is another van conversion company which offers conversions from around $35,000, build only.

The company has been converting vans since 1961, which makes it older than most of its competitors combined. That history buys two things nothing else on this list can match.

The first is range. Where boutique shops work almost exclusively on Sprinters, Sportsmobile will build on ProMasters, Metris vans, E-series vans, work vans and specialty vehicles — and the base van you choose shapes the finished build more than most people expect.

The second is their proven 4×4 system in the Classic conversions, for anyone planning to leave the pavement properly.

There’s also a Design Your Own studio for configuring a build online, dealer financing that can cover up to 100% of the van and 50% of the conversion, and rental options for testing vanlife before committing.

Build windows run around three months.

How this list

was put together

The camper van market has grown absurd quickly in the past 5 years.

Americans took delivery of 342,220 RVs in 2025, up 2.5% year on year according to the RV Industry Association, and the headline custom builds now run well past $300,000!

Five criteria shaped the selection: craftsmanship that outlasts the photographs, a clear design point of view, transparent pricing, realistic wait times, and genuine differentiation — every shop here does something the others don’t 🙂

Building it yourself instead?

Hiring a builder buys back time, engineering and a warranty.

It does not buy the thing most people actually remember about their van, which is having built it.

For anyone leaning the other way, the DIY route is thoroughly documented on this blog:

• The complete van conversion guide — every stage, start to finish
• The electrical system — wiring diagrams included
• Thermal insulation — the step that decides whether the van works in winter
• Heating: gas, diesel or electric?
• Every product used in the build, and where to buy it
• Internet in your camper — Starlink and the alternatives
• 10 campervan mistakes worth avoiding

Whichever way it goes, the decision is the same one: match the van to the way you actually travel, and the six-figure question gets a lot easier to answer.

Frequently Asked Questions