The price was reasonable (for what it is), the main contact was great, they were very fast and super flexible with our delays.
I know they offer CE, but we just went for FCC on unintentional emitters. It wasn't nearly as challenging as we thought it would be.
Expect to pay something around $2,500 to $5,000 depending on how labor intensive your tests are, or become.
Yeah, that's what's discouraging. For something that is effectively a hobby project, spending many thousands of dollars is too much of a risk, when you're not even sure people will buy the thing you created.
FWIW, I've done some digging and at least it's not just a mafia shakedown (like the USB-IF charging thousands for an artificially scarce numeral).
The equipment and expertise are both expensive and time consuming. DIY is possible, but would cost considerably more.
I'm a little surprised I haven't heard about a single start-up accelerator that has cert gear available...
I can recommend Sunfire Testing for certification. They are used to working with hackers.
If you want you can email me and I can maybe help with you with some advice.