Prefab House Price in India: Why Two Quotes Can Differ by Lakhs

Ask three companies what a prefab house costs and you will get three answers
that do not even look related. One sends a WhatsApp message quoting a lakh and
a half. The second quotes twelve hundred rupees per square foot. The third
quotes more than double that and asks for your plot dimensions before saying
anything else.

None of them is necessarily wrong. They are quoting three different products
that share the same name.

We get this call almost every week at our Howrah factory. Someone has collected
four quotations, spread them out on a table, and cannot understand how the gap
is so wide. So before you compare a single number, you need to know what is
actually being sold to you under the word "prefab".
 

Four Different Things Are Sold as a "Prefab House" in India

Most of the confusion disappears once you know which of these four you are
being quoted for. It is also worth understanding
which steel system suits your building before you go further.
 

1. The portable cabin

This is the site office you see outside every construction project. A light
frame, sandwich panels, a door, two windows, and basic wiring. It arrives on a
truck almost finished.

Companies usually price these per unit rather than per square foot, which is
exactly where the very low figures you see online come from. A 20 x 10 foot
cabin at two lakh sounds cheap until you work out that it is only 200 square
feet.

A cabin is genuinely useful. It is not a house. It is not built for thirty
years of family living, it usually sits on a minimal foundation, and no bank
will treat it as a permanent structure.

2. The container conversion

A shipping container, cut for openings, insulated and finished inside. Popular
for cafes, farm stays and guard posts, and it looks good in photographs.

Fixed width, fixed height, fixed feel. You cannot get a wide living room out of
one container without joining several together, and the joining is where the
cost quietly climbs. Priced per unit again, and the interior finish decides
almost everything about the final figure.
 

3. The panel house

Insulated wall panels on a light frame, assembled on site. Faster than brick,
cheaper than a fully engineered building, and this is what most of the
mid-range per-square-foot quotes are describing.

The quality range inside this one category is enormous. Panel thickness, frame
gauge, roof specification and finishing standard vary widely between suppliers,
and almost none of it appears in the quotation. Two quotes at the same rate per
square foot can be describing very different buildings.
 

4. The steel-framed permanent house

An engineered structure. Every wall panel is designed for the loads it carries,
cut in a factory to the millimetre, erected on a proper foundation, and
finished inside and out like any other home. Plumbing, wiring, tiles, plaster
finish, the lot.

This is the category we build in, and it is the only one of the four that a
bank, a municipality and a future buyer will treat the way they treat a
conventional house. Rates sit meaningfully above the panel-house range for that
reason. We have published the actual numbers by scope in our
LGSF house construction cost per sq ft guide.

So when you see prefab house prices quoted anywhere from a lakh to several tens
of lakhs, you are not looking at one product with a very wide price band. You
are looking at four different products stacked on top of each other.
 

Why Two Quotes for the Same House Still Differ

Even once you have settled on one category, quotations vary. Almost always for
one of these six reasons.

Per unit versus per square foot. A two lakh cabin and a house quoted per square
foot cannot be compared until both are on the same basis. Do that conversion
first, before you look at anything else.

Ex-factory versus delivered and erected. Some quotes cover material leaving the
factory gate. Transport to Siliguri or Guwahati and site erection turn up as
separate line items later. Ask plainly whether the price includes delivery and
erection at your site.

Foundation in or out. Most prefab quotations exclude the foundation and most
buyers do not notice. A steel-framed building needs a lighter foundation than
brick and RCC, which is a real saving, but it is not free and it is rarely
inside the headline number.

Structure only, shell, or turnkey. This is the single biggest cause of
confusion we see. A structure-only quotation gives you a frame. A shell adds
walls and roof. Turnkey hands you a finished house you can move into. Comparing
one firm's structure price against another firm's turnkey price is the mistake
that makes a good supplier look expensive. The same problem shows up when
people compare steel against conventional work, which is why we wrote about
how a steel building compares with brick separately.

GST. Some quotes show it, some do not. Check whether the figure in front of you
is inclusive before you celebrate the cheaper one.

Distance from the factory. Transport is a genuine cost. A house going to a hill
site in Meghalaya carries more logistics than the same house going to Panchla.
Anyone quoting an identical rate for both has built the difference in somewhere
else.
 

How to Compare Two Prefab Quotations Properly

Put both quotes on one sheet and answer these eight questions for each.

What is the total built-up area, and what is the rate per square foot once you
divide?

Is the foundation included?

Is transport to your actual site included?

Is erection included, or is that a separate contractor's job?

What is finished at handover — a bare frame, a weatherproof shell, or a house
you can live in?

What steel thickness and coating is specified? A supplier who will not put this
in writing is hiding the main variable in the whole building.

Are structural drawings included, and are they suitable for municipal plan
sanction?

How many days from advance payment to handover, in writing?

If a supplier cannot answer those eight in writing, what you are holding is not
a price. It is a starting position.
 

Which Kind of Prefab House Is a "Real" House?

The honest answer depends on what you need the building to survive.

If you want a site office for two years, a cabin is the right buy and paying house rates for it would be foolish. If you are building a home for your family on your own plot, you need an engineered structure with a proper foundation, sanctioned drawings and a steel coating specified for your local climate. That building will still be standing, and still be sellable, decades from now. This is what we build as prefab house construction in Kolkata and across eastern India.

The mistake we see most often is not people overpaying. It is people buying
category three when they needed category four, discovering the difference in
the third monsoon, and then blaming prefab construction as a whole.

Send us your plot size and what you want to build, and we will send an
itemised quotation that shows exactly which category you are being quoted for,
with nothing hidden below the line.

Prefab House Price in India — Frequently Asked Questions
 

Q: What is the actual price of a prefab house in India?

A: It depends entirely on which type of prefab building you mean. Portable
cabins are usually priced per unit and start low. Container conversions and
panel houses sit in the middle. Fully engineered steel-framed homes with proper
foundations and finishes are priced per square foot and sit at the top. The
four are not comparable products, which is why online price ranges look so
contradictory.

Q: Why is one prefab quote half the price of another?

A: Usually because one is structure-only and the other is turnkey, or because
one excludes foundation, transport, erection or GST. Convert both to a rate per
square foot, then check line by line what each includes before deciding which
is actually cheaper.

Q: Is a prefab house cheaper than a brick and RCC house?

A: On total project cost, a properly engineered steel-framed house is broadly
comparable to good quality conventional construction. Where it wins clearly is
build time, a lighter and cheaper foundation, almost no site wastage, and lower
long-term maintenance. Cheap prefab is cheaper than brick, but then you are
comparing two different standards of building.

Q: Can I get a home loan on a prefab house?

A: Lenders are far more comfortable with an engineered permanent structure on a
proper foundation with sanctioned drawings than with a portable or relocatable
unit. Documentation and approvals matter more than the construction method
itself. Speak to your bank early and take the structural drawings with you.

Q: How long does a prefab house last in India?

A: A steel-framed house built with the right galvanised coating for its
location will last for decades with normal maintenance. Coating specification
matters more than most buyers realise, because a coastal or high-humidity site
needs a heavier coating than an inland one. Ask any supplier to state the
coating in writing.

Q: Which type of prefab building do I actually need?

A: Temporary site accommodation for a year or two, buy a cabin. A cafe, farm
stay or guard post, a container conversion often works well. A permanent home,
showroom or institutional building on your own land, you need an engineered
steel-framed structure. Match the category to the life you need from the
building, then compare prices only within that category.
 

Browse all our steel construction guides for more on costs, systems and building types.