It's quite reasonable pricing. It's less than most CAs does for a one year certificate, and revoking it is more work than issuing it in the first place.
They are not without fault, but they've much good for open source project and the like, and don't deserve the bad rap thrown at them in every thread that mentions SSL.
There was no bad rap in the thread until btreecat decided to be an ass. The only other subthread mentioning startssl is https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8904105 which only notes that as far as he can see letsencrypt is similar to startssl's delivery/validation process and seems to be vulnerable to mitm.
They are not without fault, but they've much good for open source project and the like, and don't deserve the bad rap thrown at them in every thread that mentions SSL.