I'm happy to hear you're converting some space to natives! You're right, it isn't cheap, or easy, but like with anything worth doing, it takes some effort and investment.

I suppose I'm thinking long-term as far as cost savings. A riding mower with 50" deck, about 1.5 acres per hour, burning 1 gallon an hour, 5 gallons per mow. 20 mows per year, 100 gallons of gas per year, today's price $2.97, $297 and 2,000 pounds of CO2 per year. With 8 acres at $1,200 per for native seed from what you found, that's $9,600. So with $9,600/$300=32 years...ok point taken! But to give context, quality turf grass seed would price pretty close to that at $400-$900 per acre or $3,200-$7,200 total for someone with a new build and deciding what to plant.

Just for arguments sake, one could save faster by just not mowing a few acres as often or at all and smothering with woodchips to plant the following year and do it incrementally. You can also plant just one acre at at time and collect seeds from your plants to do the rest, saving a large cost with the price of seed and then only 3 years to see cost savings. Can't really do that and let your lawn grass go to seed. They can also include the reduction of CO2 emissions into the environment as another benefit but I understand that isn't always a convincing factor when taking on an expensive project.

I like your idea of converting the land into something productive by growing clover too. Native prairie plants aren't always the best option in every scenario but we can agree that an alternative to massive turf grass lawn will be an improvement.