I am retired but work in a small city bike shop in NC. I charge $40 minimum labor plus parts to rebuild a wheel. Spokes are usually $30 for 36) Sapim 2.0mm stainless spokes with nipples. Customer gets a free tension/wheel true if they bring it back to me within 60 days.
If you don't want or need a hand built wheel, generic alloy wheels in our shop are about $50+.
The custom rebuilds I do are usually for vintage Raleighs, Schwinns, with an occasional newer mountain or road bike in the mix.
Although I can do the work and I bought a number of specialized tools early on, I rarely perform esoteric wheel work involving straight pull aero spokes, alloy nipples, splined nipples and other weird configurations. I did several rebuilds repairs of these type wheels (Mavic Kyseriums, etc.) but the time, tools, and materials are not worth the hassle. Generally the fussier the bike the fussier the customer ("Oh, I can mail order the spokes a lot cheaper online and bring them to you") so I just send them to big city shops in the region.
I have worked in bike shops since 1972, and after my first year or so I learned the basic principles of relacing and tensioning wheels from a retired engineer who said he would teach me as long as our shop would keep sending him our wheel rebuild work (nobody at the small shop knew how). I kept my word and he kept his.
Although his method was a good start, he could not figure out how to make the cross come out correctly at the valve stem hole every time - he got lucky or had to keep rebuilding it or just give up. He also did not know how to fill the hub so the builder could have inside spokes pulling in symmetry (an esoteric desire of wheel builders back in the day).
So, after a coupe of months of tearing wheels down and looking at hub spoke holes, right and left handed rims, cross 3, cross 4 patterns, until I was cross-eyed...I figured it out. When I showed him my method it was one of those moments of the student teaching the master and it felt so good. He still got wheels to rebuild until I left that shop and I perfected my art building wheels for my riding buddies.
I can lace a wheel in about 20 minutes and if the rim is quality can have it built in about 45 minutes.
There are several tips that are crucial for an efficient and quality build such as spoke and nipple thread prep, proper spoke head seating in the hub shell and pre-bending the spoke angle leading to the rim if necessary. Of course, quality spoke wrenches, a dishing tool, and decent truing stand are the best route unless you only plan on building one wheel or doing a repair every year or so. Cheap tools are extravagance. I have used a fork (or bike frame) in place of a truing stand and I can dish rear wheels by sight and get pretty close but it takes a lot longer.
If proper spoke lube is used, straining the wheel after tensioning is probably not necessary but I always check.
I am not a wheel snob, or tool snob - of course, given time and experience, one can adequately build or repair wheels with just a spoke wrench and a bicycle frame. But if there was not a determinable and appreciable difference in efficiency and quality, then the tools and techniques would not stand the test of time, and I think they have.
I never used a tensionmeter until about three years ago when I bought a Park TM-1. I only use it for building in the final stage but it's best value is in assisting with diagnosis and repair. If I can immediately show a customer why his wheel is out of whack it saves a lot of speculation and discussion. I can also be more definitive in knowing when the rim is actually cooked or if it is just spoke tension (without dropping the tension on all the spokes). I can also show them when they pick up the repair how it is now in spec and it gives new customers immediate confidence in my work.
So, to me it is an indispensable shop tool for quickly diagnosing spoke issues and for replacing a few spokes to perform a quality repair. There is no way you can readily feel the difference of a spoke loaded at 70 kgf vs one tensioned at 90kgf, either by plucking spokes of squeezing them (or by how hard you have to turn the wrench). Many wheels use interlaced spokes and plucking them is pretty much useless due to spokes touching at the pattern cross. 2.0mm stainless spokes ate very difficult to hand gauge due to the material and thickness as opposed to butted galvanized spokes. Force to turn the wrench becomes less and less a reliable method of adequate tension once the wheel gets close to optimal tension due to many factors over which you little to no control.
Any methods that do not use filling the hub with spokes completely and then lacing them to the rim seems to be inefficient. If the proper technique is used you will never bend a spoke or scratch a mirror finished rim and build that wheel a lot quicker.
I am tempted to share what I have learned in a YT video but have never taken the time. I have taught several other mechanics over the years and as far as I know the method is still the best and easiest once mastered.