Only way I know to get $/port much cheaper than $50-75 is to pick up a used Arista on eBay, there are typically 48-port 10GE models going for ~$400-500. That's

Only way I know to get $/port much cheaper than $50-75 is to pick up a used Arista on eBay, there are typically 48-port 10GE models going for ~$400-500. That's what I use to drive 10GE ports where I don't need 802.3bt. There are significant tradeoffs that you may not tolerate: (1) They are very noisy (vs. the Flex XG which is fanless) so if your "Tech" is anywhere near your living space, this may be unworkable; (2) They consume lots of power and also don't do 802.3{af,at,bt} for PoE either, you can solve PoE using an injector (for a few ports), a midspan (for more ports) but note that injectors/midspans usually don't support NBase-T and if you want the combination of 2.5/5/10GE and PoE you might be back to buying a specific switch which can do that; (3) Learning curve is steeper than unmanaged or most semi-managed switches and you likely need to be comfortable with serial consoles to get them configured. With all those and likely more tradeoffs considered, they are ~$10/port!