Honestly, where I am from people are charging $600 per template (plus 4 billable hours at $60 each template) and this seems ridiculous. I would be willing to pay almost anything lower than the 4 quotes I received locally.
You get what you pay for. I have taught myself HTML, CSS, photo editing and animation over the past 3 years. I made my template and storefront, as well as a few others for people who have asked. I don't go into the business on a large scale because of the attitude that you can get quality work for peanuts.
Most of the templates sold by "designers" on ebay are very simply tables within tables with different backgrounds inserted. Once they take the 15 minutes to produce the tables, they can pop in different backgrounds and come up with multiple "custom designs" in minutes. You can teach yourself the required HTML within hours, do a search for free backgrounds on Google and pop out a bunch yourself.
A true custom template will take much, much more time and care to produce and perfect. $600 may seem like a lot of money to you...but it wouldn't seem so much if you were the one spending 40 - 60 hours producing a true custom design.
Monique

Himalayan Salt Lamps - A Guide to Purchasing
Monique
