Actually, no it's not really that expensive. I just looked up pumps similar to the mist kings, and you'll see prices around 50-90$ just for the dang pump itself.
Mistking is a pretty great deal if you want a no-failure attempt at a misting system. Either that or botch one out of DIY stuff, but I have only seen a FEW posts that have DIY because everyone loves reliability and cost of the mist king. They last for years and the customer service is awesome.
just my thoughts. sometimes diy can fail and be expensive
I can't say anything bad about the MistKing systems, and they are as cheap as building your own (I have a fantastic DIY misting system on my Chams). The only reasons I chose to go DIY is because I already had a pump laying around and the shipping on the MistKing system is STUPID expensive. To get a good pump you would be looking at about $100. Everything else you need costs about $50. So a DIY system would cost $150 or so, I only paid about $50 because I already had the pump. For $150 you can get the MistKing starter setup shipped.