So it still sounds pricey,maybe you are doing multiple levels and you picked the absolute most expensive materials ,and it was 3 or 4 years ago when composite was still super high priced? If you have a drawing you can email I'll be happy to have one of my main builder guys price it just to make sure your guys are in the ballpark.
Last year I priced a deck was 650 sq ft ,I had to tear out old deck,install keystone's for the 2.5 ft rise and brick for surface plus 2 stone steps 6 feet wide was 21,000 and that was for a friend so a bit cheaper.he about shit so I had my builder guy come by and quote composite and it was just under 15k. And that was not any kind of buddy price just his normal quote.i get alot of customers asking me to build decks and I always give them this guy's name and never had a complaint.and they are pretty fast.idk if he would come down that far but probably would for 20k I bet.during the building boom these guys built 25 to 30 custom homes a year and now that things fell off they just do decks, garages, addition type stuff.