Why does data recovery cost so much?

So recently my school hdd decided to go kayak and started clicking. I looked for data recovery place right away and the first once I found quoted me $1500 or higher. I thought maybe they are just trying to milk me for $$ so I tried another place and another, and all of them were quoting me the same thing or higher. Does it actually cost as much? What am I missing here? I can buy 10 new drives for that price, literally. WordPress ...