440 vs 360 GO!

So far my experience has been that all things horsepower related are spendy lol. I think I would like to shoot for around the 500hp range, seems like that would be easier/cheaper with a big block. With my 460 ford its a stock bottom end, some higher compression heads, cam, and your just about there. A small block in that range would cost a lot more, I would assume that would hold true for mopars as well?