There's a NASA study that says that SpaceX has lower development cost. SpaceX has a volume advantage for manufacturing. SpaceX makes a lot of usually-contracted

There's a NASA study that says that SpaceX has lower development cost. SpaceX has a volume advantage for manufacturing. SpaceX makes a lot of usually-contracted-out stuff in-house and at high volume, for example they are the #1 maker of composite rocket fairings. Horizontal assembly and payload integration is much cheaper than the way ULA/Arianespace assemble and launch rockets. The most recent announced number for F9 cost was $50mm for a reused+landed GTO launch -- see the FH press conference. And so on. There are a lot of details flying around, some more solid than others, and you're probably not going to learn much in a discussion about them here.