I built my own from melamine. It's SO heavy. Since I didn't follow plans word for word, I ended up spending about 300 without heat and definitely could have lowered that # a ton with better planning. I never thought of it in terms of a "per snake" cost, but after considering that I don't see myself ever building my own enclosure again. You're going to house some potentially very expensive animals in the rack. It might as well look nice, be professionally constructed, and last forever.

Oh, and melamine is RIDICULOUSLY HEAVY... and if you ever move there's a good chance it will lose a huge amount of structural integrity in the process because of the way the screws hold in the wood.

Get a pro rack and wait till you have more money to get the lesser.

/2cents