Almost all my own planes are built from plans but I have too many kits behind me to count anymore. All plans built planes are just kits you have cut out yourself and almost no instructions. I buy A lot of plans from MAN and some of the older magazines plans service and they have A print out of the building article that came in that issue. Sometimes that's A lot of help and sometimes none at all.
Wood and glues are cheap but the covering starts running into money if it's A big plane. I never thought of the control linkages as anything high dollar but I also have A lot of it just sitting around in the shop. I figure about half the price of A GOOD kit to build from plans.. My 80 inch Sukhoi ran me about one fifty to build. Go look at 27% ARFs and see what they would cost. Sometimes an ARF is cheaper then one of my scratch built planes and more often then not they are cheaper then A kit built plane. One of the many reasons they have taken over the market.