They've also increased prices now that they're proven.

https://www.engadget.com/2018/04/27/spacex-price-hikes-iss-r...

Add to that ULA was forced to drop their prices, so Space-X doesn't really have much room to increase more. And they obviously can't increase on existing contracts.

I'm always shocked when a keyboard warrior on ycombinator thinks a company that size doesn't have a considerable workforce dedicated to figuring out what they can charge for their product... I doubt they just picked a number out of thin air. It was likely a combination of estimating how low they think their competitors go as well as where they need to be to win new business.

Plus, if you are going to bring the BFR online with much lower launch costs, you want people to start thinking about that reality sooner rather that later. SpaceX will have lots of their own satellites to launch, but if they are hoping to do a launch or more a day they will need to have a lot more people putting things into space. A lower price now can jumpstart lots of money into building businesses that with need those lower prices.

Atlas V prices are listed at $109 million.

https://www.ulalaunch.com/rockets/atlas-v

Falcon 9 is $62 million (and I believe that’s the expendable version, you get a discount if the mission allows for booster recovery).

https://www.spacex.com/about/capabilities

The fact that these prices are publically available on their websites tells you something about the state of competition in the launch industry.

But the price of satellites is also much higher. A GEO commset made to common specs is going to be costing something north of $100 million. A custom DoD spysat might be in the billions. SpaceX is making very good inroads in the former but not the later.

What's the comparison on insurance rates between the two?