[gexla]

Eh, all is fair in war and business. They didn't break any laws, so let's throw fair and ethical out the window.

First off, who is to say this site is a 25K site? Web developer rates are all over the map, you can pretty much pull any number out of your ass in declaring how much your site could have cost to build. I bet I could have found someone who would have charged 50K. ;)

This site was done in only three weeks. That includes the time taken to figure out all this stuff and gather submissions. They also essentially took the design and coded the site themselves, that's going to take a chunk out of the cost. This site wasn't very complex to take that long.

So, you did a lot of the work yourself. That's going to take a big chunk out of the cost. A lot of people aren't willing to do this. Some people just want to deal with one person who is a professional in this industry. People doing work for free aren't industry professionals, they are doing this on the side (or they are bored.)

So... why did it cost you so much then? I bet I could have done it for $1500, but not for someone else. ;)