This is one of the things I never understood. "Cheap drones" is a code word for Chinese made quadrocopter toys. Military drones will be fixed wing and have combustion engines. Suddenly things start getting expensive and you can no longer have a million plastic toys for the price of one F35, you'll get 3 reapers or maybe a dozen "Wingmen".

The closest analog would be converting cessnas. Half a million dollars plus drone kit = 1 million dollar bomber => 75 bombers or one F-35.

At that price point one might start thinking about sending the bombers first (to deplete air defenses), then the F-35s...