Warm tone paper

I am uneducated in this but why is warmtone paper so much more expensive than neutral tone paper?

at first blush, volume of sales. Plus smaller sales means smaller batches of chemistry, which likely takes the same amount of labour to mix. coat, package, etc.

I also suspect to get the warm tone there imay be a side effect of more silver in the product.

I think the price difference is mainly due to the lower sales volume of warm tone papers. The manufacturer can't exploit economies of scale as much for this product. The overhead of making, distributing, and selling the product has fixed costs which are spread out over a smaller number of units.

As for the amount of silver in the product, well, maybe, maybe not.I don't think that there are many of us here with resources to determine that. I'm fairly sure that the differences are slight and don't come anywhere near the cost differential you see on the shelf. The main difference, I believe, is in the ratio of silver chloride to silver bromide in the emulsion and, in some brands, the off-white color of the paper base.

As others have said, volume. But I suspect that there are two other considerations

First, warm tone papers carry a sense of greater value and therefore can demand a higher place in the market. Think of it this way - you expect to pay a higher price for a Volvo than for its American Ford cousin because the Volvo has a market image of higher quality. The same consideration applies to photographic paper - if there is a market perception of higher value, then the manufacturer can command a higher price. Perception becomes its own reality, regardless of whether it is actually true.

Second, competition. How many papers are out there competing for a share of the warm tone paper market? If there are fewer competitors in a market space, the prices in that market will be higher. Conversely, if there are more competitors, prices will be lower.