If you think that is a reasonable "convenience fee" then all right by me. If you're comfortable with that, do it.
Just for reference, a plastic developing tank costs approx. $25.00.
Developer, stop, fixer, hypo clearing agent and Phot-Flo will cost about $6.00 per. Each package makes up to a gallon of stock solution. (Sometimes more.) You should be able to do 10 or 20 rolls of film with this much chemistry.
You will need beakers or measuring cups. You can get these at WalMart for cheaps. Get a large plastic cat box while you are there.
Collect up some plastic milk jugs with screw-on tops. (Snap-ons are all right but screw-ons are more secure.)
You'll need a thermometer accurate to ±1 deg. Celsius. You will need a stopwatch or electronic kitchen timer that can count seconds. You might already have these things.
You will need a completely dark closet to unroll your film and to put it into your tank. You'll need a bathroom with running water. You'll need a cupboard to store your junk in when you're not using it. (That's one reason for suggesting the cat box. It makes a good storage tray.)
With these things and some other incidentals, you might have spent $75.00 so far. (A little more or less, depending on how shrewd a shopper or scavenger you are.)
If you already have a scanner for your computer, you can use that to scan your film and manipulate it on-screen. If you don't have one, it is possible to buy one for $150.00 or less which will do what you want. (I assume you already have Photoshop or something similar.)
If you process 10 rolls of film in your own bathroom, you have already cut your film developing costs down to $7.50 per roll. Every roll of film you develop above that is gravy. (Assuming you don't have to spend $150 for a scanner.)
Let's say you spend $100 on everything you need to get started. If you can develop 20 rolls of film that comes out to $5.00 per roll for processing.
Once you use up all your chemistry you don't have to spend the full $100 to restock your supplies. You can probably get it for $40.
This time your processing goes down to $2.00 per roll. Your overall, lifetime film developing costs will have been $140. You would have developed 40 rolls of film. That's $3.50 per roll.
If you sent it in to ABC Photo Lab, those 40 rolls would have cost you $318.00
You could have cut your overall film developing costs down to about $150. You could have bought a new scanner for another $150.
I'm not trying to steer you into developing your own film if you don't want to. I'm just showing you the cost break-out as I see it. Either way you do it, you would spend about the same amount of money. The difference is that you do it yourself or you pay somebody else to do it for you.
If you do it yourself, you end up with a cool scanner for your computer and you have the pride of doing everything yourself.
Once you get past this point, you only ever need to buy chemistry and consumables. Your long-term film developing costs will be somewhere in the $2.00 to $3.00 range.
There's no reason you can't send your film in to the lab then decide whether you want to do it yourself later on.
It would be a good way to "dip your toe into the waters" before you make your final decision.
