How ugly is acceptable? .... you tell me.
Your PCBs are going to be juuuust fine.
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I can relate, my last JLCPCB order was over $8K.... they do tend to expedite things a bit at that rate though.
I've never used JLCPCB for assembly, they only recently started offering external part sourcing and never seemed to have what I needed in their component library. I might have to give them a shot next time around, I like their PCBs better than most of the other guys. Slightly more expensive, but significantly better quality.
I used to break orders up into smaller batches to avoid ridiculous customs fees, but that has become far too time consuming so I just take the hit and move on.
You want to
really be in for a shock? Get a quote from a USA based manufacturer.