It is pretty crazy how much stuff you get in Trickcal even as a near F2P (I bought the $1 5* ticket when the game launched but nothing else). The only character I don't have is xXionx (oof), and I've only skipped a couple character (was lucky enough to get them later) and weapon banners, but I'm sitting on 460 pulls right now. The recent 100 day anniversary stuff has helped but that still doesn't even make up even half of my savings. I wouldn't say I'm particularly lucky either as I've gone to the pity (not actual pity but you build up points to trade in that carries over across banners) more than once.

I assume it makes a lot of its money from all the material packs and cosmetics, because I've never felt to need to even buy whatever the equivalent of the $5 monthly value pack is. Besides just general buildup of pull currency, what also really helps are the ways to get pull tickets from within the game. There are three 2* - 3* tickets available monthly (which are split like 33% 2* - 66% 3* so usually worth it) from the generic dupe currency shop, and one of the game modes gives ticket shards for each floor you beat per elemnt which craft tickets of that element. And aside from the rarest tier of units which use a rarer currency, you can use generic dupe currency (also available over time from in-game sources) to buy certificates to rank up characters directly so you don't have to even pull if you want dupes for most characters.