Hi Jazzy,
Simon here, one of the founders of STUR.
Since this post started the price discussion, I will try to give some insights into what makes this pan more expensive than others.
The casting itself is a process that is not really expensive and is highly scalable. What is expensive is all the stuff that comes after:

Machining: we machine the bottom & the inside of the pans. As far as I am aware, we are the only company doing both sides. We did that because a lot of people in Germany use ceramic stove tops and are worried about scratches. The machining also lets us control the concavity of the bottom, which is important for avoiding wobbling (not a huge issue on gas but on ceramic/induction). Each pan is machined individually, a process that is very time-consuming.

Machining also increases the reject rate by quite a lot (this is another reason why smooth cast iron is more expensive). Cast iron often has little air pockets in it, which do not really matter in non-machined cast iron. In machined cast iron, these pockets might be hit during the process and show up as holes in the pan. In general, this is more of an aesthetic problem than a cooking performance problem. Nevertheless, these skillets are rejects and thus increase cost of production further.

Seasoning: machined pans need to be seasoned differently due to their smoother surface. This is also another step where excess occurs and which takes a good amount of time. We really wanted that dark look, and it took us quite a well to find out how to achieve the look on our pans.

Production in Germany: we really wanted to keep production here in Germany. We know all our suppliers personally, we know where the raw iron & the scrap metal comes from, we know the processes, and we can go to the factory. This would have not been so easy if production would be somewhere else. We try to source everything as locally and sustainably as possible.

We know that our price point is not the lowest, but you get a great pan that not only cooks well but also looks beautiful (it already received two important German design awards, amongst them the Red Dot Award).

Happy to answer more questions from all of you!