[schindyguy]

Simple answer is that it depends

Depends on if you care about the scalability, optimization, and speed of the site. If you do then you will pay a lot for US dev

The alternative is to outsource and get all those features for 2k. Go to elance, guru, odesk, or getafreelancer.

The latter I would suggest for proof of concept of prototyping an idea. Once you get a whole bunch of traffic and users you can rebuild it correctly when it's worth it to do so.

Launch fast with the least investment.