$50 to move past your bottleneck? I’d say that’s worth a fortune in ROI if you had:
a) poor design sense;
b) poor design engineering (you have good design sense but can’t figure out how to build it);
c) taken more than your hourly salary to learn a + b.
Agree with understanding if you could do it cheaper and faster next time, but the rule of 3 usually applies: “good, fast and cheap, pick 2”
It looks like you’re on the right track; pragmatism about specific tools, and their use cases.
Hopefully your friend sees the value in the tool and a big ROI too!