Exactly what I was getting at. ( I'm the one that called it an illusion of being cheaper)

This feels like a shitty strategy from the era when mercs first started and no one wanted to make buying them official.

I'm not sure what flight you're in, but mine handles buying mercs, providing fodder at prices so that I don't have to eat losses to fodder floor, and lots of other things. And they keep logs of all of the fund usage. When you're used to those logs, you see it as a part of the whole cost.

This may come out cheaper than Water vs. Earth, but it's only by hiding merc costs by burdening individuals with them.