Wandering through one of my favourite blogs today, I came across an old post that made me laugh.  It was about website pricing and customers' reactions to quotes.

Although we try to ensure that our pricing is competitive here at Brand You, we do occassionally get asked for solutions that we can't implement on a shoestring.  A classic example:  the customer who came to us and told us that he wanted a price to "clone" eBay.  We asked him whether he was aware that eBay has probably spent in excess of £100,000 on their site, at which point he said "yes, but now that all the functionality is there, you must be able to replicate it for a few thousand pounds, max."  

Needless to say, the project didn't go ahead... 

For those of you who wonder why websites cost what they do, perhaps a peak at Conversational Marketing's blog might fill in the gaps.