bryła · transport · instalacje · podsumowanie
Compact 35 m² / Family 55 m² / Premium 75 m²
local / regional / national
The amount is updated after each change
What the cabin configurator does—and what it can't replace
The modular home industry has its own realities: lot surveys, building permits, and production schedules. The configurator streamlines some of these steps, while others remain the responsibility of the sales representative. Below is what it actually does—and what you shouldn’t expect from it.
A B2C customer compares several offers on their phone in the evening and needs a specific answer, not an email saying „Please send me a quote.”
A B2B client (developer, resort, municipality) wants to price a portfolio of several cottages without having to negotiate in a spreadsheet
The price per meter is just one of 5–10 factors that drive up the cost—and the customer wants to see every one of them
You sell in several regions, and shipping costs can easily add up to tens of thousands of zlotys
The blocking rules (e.g., Premium only with foundations) are fixed and can be set up once, rather than having to explain them in every email
Do you want data on which models and packages customers configure most often—and which ones they abandon?
Modular house configurator: how to plan the catalog, pricing, and inquiry handling
A guide for manufacturers of modular, vacation, and year-round houses who want customers to go from choosing a model to a price on their own. Here we describe a modular house configurator in terms of the decisions you need to make before the project is quoted: how much freedom to give the customer, how to present the price, what to ask in the last step, and how to use the tool beyond the website.
How much freedom to give the customer
In the demo above, the customer chooses one of three building models (Compact 35 m², Family 55 m², Premium 75 m²), a delivery zone, and a utilities package, and at the end sees a summary with the price. This is a deliberately closed catalog. The customer doesn’t design a house from scratch but chooses from variants the company knows how to manufacture and price.
Complete freedom, meaning moving walls and a custom floor plan, looks attractive but quickly leads to configurations that can't be sold without an architect. For most manufacturers, a better start is a few base models and option packages. A custom design remains a separate “talk to a sales rep” path.
If you design every house individually and don't have repeatable models, a modular house configurator won't help much, because there's nothing to choose from. In that situation, an approximate calculator (floor area, finish standard, location) and a brief form for the designer work better. A configurator makes sense once your catalog and price list are stable enough that sales reps calculate them by the same rules.
What to show in the configurator and what to leave to the sales rep
| Element | In the configurator | With the sales rep |
|---|---|---|
| Model and floor area | selection from the catalog | interior layout changes |
| Insulation, utilities, windows and doors | packages at an additional cost | custom fittings |
| Transportation | zones with a separate price | crane, difficult access, international transport |
| Foundations | yes or no, mandatory for selected models | ground conditions after a site survey |
| Timeline | approximate, if integrated with the production calendar | reservation and schedule |
Where you draw the line between the columns depends on how often a topic comes up. Anything a sales rep explains in every other email is worth moving into the configurator. Anything that comes up once in several dozen inquiries is better left for a conversation.
How to present a house price and make it easier to compare variants
With houses, customers most often ask what's included in the price. If a company sells houses at several stages of completion, for example closed shell, developer standard, and turnkey, it's worth presenting this as a separate choice with its own price. That way, comparisons with competitors happen on equal terms.
In the summary, the price should be broken down into the model, packages, foundations, and delivery. It’s worth listing separately what the price doesn’t include: utility connections, site preparation, paperwork. The customer will ask anyway, and having the answer in the configurator shortens the first conversation and reduces the risk of them feeling surprised by the final quote.
A house is not a purchase anyone makes in a single evening. Customers usually look at two or three variants, come back a few days later, and show them to their family. That's why the configuration should be saveable as a link or a PDF, and two variants should be comparable side by side, for example Family with the basic package and Premium with full utilities.
For a sales rep, this is valuable information. If the customer is comparing two models, the conversation is about the difference between them, not the whole offer from scratch. Saved versions go to the customer record, so you can see how their choices evolved. After a few months, this data also shows which pairs of models customers compare most often and where the differences in descriptions need clarifying.
Modular house configurator: what to ask in the final step
The form at the end of the flow is a good place for a few qualifying questions. Not a long survey, just the information a sales rep collects on the first call anyway.
- Whether the customer already has a lot and in what town, which clarifies delivery.
- Planned purchase or installation date.
- Intended use of the house: recreational, year-round, or rental.
- Whether the purchase will be financed with a loan or a lease.
- Whether it's a single unit or several for a resort or a developer.
Every additional field slightly lowers the number of submitted forms, so it's worth marking some of them as optional. In return, the sales rep knows right away whom to call first and where to start the conversation.
Visualization: floor plan, photos, or 3D
A modular house configurator doesn’t need a 3D scene to work. The customer needs a floor plan with the floor area, photos of completed projects, and a preview that changes after choosing a model. That’s how the demo on this page works: the steps are simple, and the price updates after every change.
A 3D model makes sense when the product's appearance depends heavily on the options, for example with glazing, roofs, and extensions. Then customers want to rotate the model and see it from different sides. A sensible sequence is a 2D version with good photos first, then data on what customers ask about, and only then a decision on 3D.
The configurator beyond the website: office, trade shows, partners
The same configurator can work in the sales office and at trade shows, where the sales rep walks the customer through the steps on a tablet and saves the configuration straight to the CRM. After the show, there's no need to transcribe notes from business cards, because every conversation leaves a complete customer record with the selected model and price.
When selling through regional partners, everyone works from a single price list, and a price change in the CMS panel takes effect for all of them immediately. This requires separate access for sales reps and partners, and routing leads to a single sales system, with information on who acquired them.
We describe the scope of work for implementations like this on the page online configurators and presentations, and you'll find an example of a product with a 3D view in the 3D winter garden configurator, and lead and quote management in one place is shown by JSON Hub CRM.
