Manual assembly is indeed a common practice. But it's skilled work, so it'll be paying skilled wages. And you need an inspection step - especially if you're wo

Manual assembly is indeed a common practice. But it's skilled work, so it'll be paying skilled wages. And you need an inspection step - especially if you're working with BGAs and other difficult components. Presumably for $30 they're shipping out boards without doing a power-on test - which makes visual/x-ray inspection even more important. And even when the assembly is manual, you've still got to get the right parts to the right assembly station at the right time. Can't be putting in a 5% 10k 0805 resistor if the design calls for 1%. Even with manual assembly, if they're making a profit at the prices they're charging they must be running a very efficient operation indeed.