My current record is $19 (including shipping!) for two assembled boards of https://github.com/xobs/soundoff which is a little device that shuts off 5V power to a USB-A port when it detects the PC it's connected to goes to sleep.
I was actually pleased with how cheap it ended up: less than $20 USD for the board + assembly + every component.
I set ESPHome to use IDF under the hood, you can check out my full ESPHome config for this: https://git.ellis.codes/e/esphome-configs/src/branch/main/vo...
interesting! i tried to order some assembled boards and was told $200+ (US) for only ~20 smd parts.
I've noticed that some things can make the price suddenly skyrocket. Certain PCB specifications for one (though couldn't name anything in particular off hand). The one thing that caught me by surprise was that if I wanted to have JLCPCB solder the ESP32 for me the cost would jump by more than double, and the PCB would have to be physically larger. Something about their "Economic" vs. "Standard" PCB assembly where, for reasons I'm not clear on, the ESP32 could only be done under the latter. I opted to solder that component myself, of course.
very expensive, you are committed! :)
you should have gone Full Giertz and added a badd little robot arm that turn the pot.
esp32 are really nice: hundreds of code examples that do what you want without having to read too many pages. did you use ARDUINO IDE or idf.py SDK?