My biggest issue with "cheaper" alternatives is the same pathway they all take. Start cheap, gather market, then crank the costs after lock-in. Even "open-source" is abused. First everything is open-source, and then reasons come out for why premium services will be closed source.
"cost"/"price" vocabulary clarification, should you ever want to read or write business plans, communicate with accountants, CFO's, etc.
"costs" are what companies pay for supplies/inputs that the company purchases.
"prices" are what those same companies offer to charge buyers for the products the company sells.
companies want to keep costs down, and companies benefit from high prices. (when you said "crank the costs", it thunks)
since people don't generally operate their lives as companies, it tends to seem like "costs" and "prices" are the same thing, but in addition to the above, "costs" to a company reflect actual expenditures in total, and "prices" represent an advertisement for each of something pending that has not transacted yet.
"cost" is an accounting term, total revenues - total costs = total profits
"price" is a marketing term, $1 each, $10 for a dozen!
(of course this could be quibbled into incomprehensively, which is another thing you should not do in "business communication", always streamline communication to get to the takeaway as quickly as possible)