It's morning and don't have a lot of time but this is an interesting question I wanted to answer while it was relevant.

A lot of people have touched on the basics which kinda follow along any industry. Price gouging, variety is more expensive than just making one repetitive design, etc. Few things I wanted to touch on,

1. You shouldn't really be replacing faucets that much. They design them to have internal structures which can be replaced. Even the crappiest low cost items can be fixed with a few bucks (they call these mobile home models, what gets put into all the mass manufactured items and are usually in a different section all to themselves). Pick a design you want and look into it's replacement parts to save some money (if you're worried about the part being reliably available, just get like 3 kits and you'll be set for life).

2. Supply chain cost. Manufacturers make a product for 30, they sell it to distributors who mark it up to 50, they sell it to a store who then marks it up to 80. Home Renovision DIY has a great video detailing the process, compares online vs boxstore vs plumbing store. Also cuts them open and shows you the internals which is all great with a 13min video.

At one point in my life I designed bathrooms and kitchens. I've sold thousands of faucets. Here's a few points on regular retail faucets in the US.

Expensive faucets, you are paying for the design (Grohe), or for quality parts (Kohler).

Cheap faucets are made with cheap parts and are often old designs from major brands. These knock-offs are sold under store brand names usually (Aquasource/Lowes, Glacier Bay/Home Depot) and are made of cheap plastic. Avoid these unless you plan on replacing (rentals).

If you buy Grohe, don't buy a US made model. Another company paid to use the name and 'style' in the US but the interior parts are cheap plastic bits and some things are modified to reduce the cost of manufacturing. Not worth the extra money they charge.

For most people I recommend sticking to the big names. Moen, Delta, Kohler, etc. They come with good warranties and parts are available everywhere.

You can still find really neat old faucets and repair them. Chicago, Price Pfister, Eljer had some good stuff back in the day and you can get new parts from Danco.

Guess how much a kitchen cabinet door costs. £10-15 per door. A kitchen with more than ten 40cm cabinets is going to cost you a bomb.

if that seems excessive, you're right. A few years ago, those same doors were less than half the price.

What happened then, did the doors change? Is the flimsy wood composite they're made of go extinct?

You know the answer.

It's the R&D cost, surely. Faucet tech has come so far in the last couple of years

A couple of reasons:

First of all what one wants in terms of faucet designs is very personal. As such there are many many models to choose from. This makes each model in be produced in relatively low quantities, and be more expensive. If everyone would use the exact same faucet, they would be basically free. And you do see some models being used in new construction that are very cheap indeed, just because of the higher volumes.

Second of all, the tolerances and finishing involved. It's relatively easy to make a faucet that works, the designs have been perfected long ago and modern manufacturing can easily produce a working model. However to create a faucet that feels nice, that doesn't make weird noises, opens and closes smoothly etc. is a lot harder. I've had cheap faucets before, one of those single handle deals. It would take more force that I would like to open the tap, at which point it shoots open so water sprays out. The range in temperature is insanely hot to insanely cold with only a tiny single spot of normal temperature in between.

Third reason is they are made from a lot of parts and with materials that need to be handled really delicately. Chrome finishes that scratch easily when handled in properly, leading to the whole thing becoming instant scrap. This leads to hand assembly being the only option. And often it involves a lot of small parts that need to be placed just so. This adds a lot of cost.

Fourth reason is the materials themselves, often quite expensive to start with. Large parts being machined out of a single piece. By definition everything needs to be corrosion resistant. And it's one of the products where we still expect them to last 15-20 years easily. Not like the consumerism that's forced a 5 year lifespan to be called long in the modern world. The finishing coatings are often chemically applied with expensive materials and taking a long time. And a fully polished finish also takes time and is often done by hand and takes some skill.

Fifth reason is brand names. Just like with any designer thing, brand names and designers are a large part of the costs. You can often find designer faucets for outrageous prices and cheap knock offs that can be trash or sometimes even better than the original for half the price.

Honestly, what's not expensive these days? I did some remodeling in my home, and boy oh boy did we go over the budget with things I considered cheap. I looked into different manufacturers and they all claim the same thing I found here, the materials, prices going up, and labor shortage... Not really sure what's the difference, but one thing is for sure - I'm not rich enough to buy cheap things (and replace them all the time).

Agree with most of the other posts here. Some of the cheaper faucets I've come across have these miserable plastic valves that set you back $15 a pop and last only a year until they break. Then it either jams or water starts dripping.

That said, an Ikea faucet I got on sale for $20 five years ago still works like it did on day one. In fact, I got two more while it was still on sale, fearing it would break like the other cheap ones, but they're still sitting in their boxes under the sink.

I dont know anything about faucets other than using them. But not all faucets are the same. The mechanism, the design tolerances, the materials, the granularity, smoothness and its longevity can vary by a lot.

Grohe used to be amazing, i am not so sure how things are nowadays. I've heard enshitification has hit them. If you own a house, a faucet is something that you will use for decades, even centuries(your descendants). Something that you will interact with many times a day. It is worth spending a bit more money to get something good.

The brand name is the only difference. Much like slapping nike and gucci 10xes the price of clothes.

Capitalism

Fashion. Same reason we don't have standardized flashlights, knives, shoes, toilets, etc.

Because that is what people are willing to pay for them.

A lot of those types of goods are priced extremely high compared to the actual cost to manufacture. Lighting is another example of this. You are paying for the design and brand in many cases even though they aren't built better or with better materials compared to a more moderately priced faucet. High end faucets do have some more expensive components in them than cheaper ones. For example, orings are replaced by ceramic cartridges that feel better. Those changes maybe account for a couple dollars of manufacturing cost though.

It can be frustrating knowing how much stuff costs to manufacture, so often I look at items like this and get frustrated because I know the manufacturer is selling for >10x what it cost to make.

Cause what are you going to do; not have a faucet?

As with most of these things it is pricing based on value.

• Contractor is often fixing or building and cares a lot about the price.
• Most other purchases are during renovations so a luxury expense and relatively speaking the faucet will be a small part of that, so it is easy to milk these people for money.

domestic water pressure varies around 30-80 PSI. Faucet has to deal with smoothly managing that pressure at all times (on 2 lines) while allowing selective amounts out daily for years.

The $12 ones on Ali Express will leak and break within a year. That $60 Kohler faucet may go 10 years before you need to replace a washer and 20 years with no issues before it gets replaced. Kohler faucets also have a limited lifetime warranty against leaks. I assume other higher end manufacturers offer something similar.

When measured against the expected use it's a pretty good bargain unless you get one that's super fancy with unnecessary add ons.

The industry is highly monopolized. The cheap stuff is accordingly worse and the okay stuff can set high prices.

Very very little. Some will have vaguely nice functional upgrades, like the spray hose being integrated into the faucet opening, a button to temporarily change the flow limiter for more power, integrated soap dispenser or things like that, but you're almost always paying mostly for particular aesthetics.

Oh, and some come with under sink hardware. A normal faucet that comes with a nice water filter or a near-boiling water dispenser can reasonably cost a fair bit more, assuming you want those things.

"Good enough", Demand, and Scale.

The contractor grade stuff is designed to be durable and good enough. Most people will find it attractive and suitable for their esthetic. Seasonal re-designs are safe by following design trends established at trade shows. Contractors can rely on the product not failing so they continue to buy it for all their projects.

The fancy stuff is often made for different countries and can have different parts and specifications. If more (assuming we're talking about America here) people wanted this stuff, the manufacturing would increase and the costs would come down. However, a lot of times the reason people buy the expensive stuff is specifically because it's bespoke and "hand crafted". If a Gucci bag cost $50, it wouldn't be worth the name.

You need demand to bring down costs. This increases the scale required and ability to afford better technology to make more.

The tools needed to manufacturer something at large scale are expensive. If you house your own tools, how are you going to buy those tools if you don't have money to buy them? If you're going to contract manufacturing, why would a manufacturer make you something for little money when they can use their facility to make exponentially more widgets for another company? Just swapping out a die on a machine costs money. They're not going to disrupt existing manufacturing for a few hundred widgets.

If I ever have to buy a faucet, I'll probably just 3D print one with a hole in it for a tube. Just use a tube and a 3D printed faucet. Easy.