I agree with Michelle S. I, too have a bunch of Wusthof knives, they're forty years old and are beautiful to work with. If you search long and hard and don't care, you can always find cheaper knives, but you'll not find anything better than the Kamikoto knives that I'm now using.

Kai is decent at a much lower retail price, though the sale price of Kamikoto is okay, the company is not divulging the actual type of steel. Difficult to guarantee it is what they say it is.
Custom knives are expensive because each knife is hand made. The Kamikoto knives are not hand made. You can see the machining lines on it probably from a CNC machine

There are literally thousands of knives that are both less expensive, and better.