Competitive is the tough part. Setting aside the stuff that comes from Asia where the labor cost is low and they are mass producing a specific set of kits, I think this discussion is mostly about the "cut to order" laser business. Some of the larger operations such as National may have a computer person on staff. However, I suspect that a lot of laser cutting businesses are one or two person operations. The cutter with whom I have the most experience with is mostly a one man operation. He would like to be a two man operation but the needed skill set can command more money elsewhere. One of the things we expect from a laser cut kit is good parts fit. If you have ever built from plans or even older kits you may have observed that parts as drawn, parts as cut, and parts as fit are three different things. In preparing cut files the laser operator is essentially redrawing the files into a computer drawing file. Once the initial set of files is done my guy, at least, cuts a set of test parts to check fit and alignment and then goes in and tweaks the parts. If the customer wants something scaled up or down then it is also necessary to go through and adjust all of the stock material sizes so that you don't have to source 64/117th's inch square stock. The point being; even if it is a simple design, the cutter still has several hours of computer time tied up in a cut file. Computer people generally don't work cheap. Kit cutters generally aren't web designers. Setting up and maintaining a website is another source of overhead. Sure, some people have the skills but if you look at a lot of small hobby related businesses a lot of the websites are pretty bare bones. Fancy websites cost money up front and require more effort to maintain. The hardware itself is a pretty significant cost. Industrial quality laser cutters are an order of magnitude more expensive than the cheap Chinese K-40 cutters. Add to this the ancillary equipment required for the laser and the maintenance required for the whole assembly and there is quite a bit of expense to amortize. This doesn't even touch on the other costs of having a small business such as insurance and maintaining the physical plant. Some cutting businesses operate as a part of a larger business and some get by on a shoe string budget. I could ramble on some more but it mostly just to support the point that a lot of laser cutters are small businesses with varying resources. When you look at it that way, it isn't all that surprising that there is a lot of variance in pricing.