PCBs On The Cheap

http://www.alibaba.com is a good place to start, use "pcb" as the search parameter. You can narrow the search to mainland china, but a general search will bring up mostly mainland china companies. Forget mexico, they can't compete with mainland china. Email them your specs and they will email you a estimate, they can only give you an exact quote if you email them a gerber file. Some do prototypes, some don't. Stick with the basics, standard FR-4, double sided, .062 inch material, they order it by the truckload from the local manufacturers (worlds largest manufacturers too) its the same price for that as it is for single sided phenolics "paper" pc boards. Gold immersion plating is sometimes a free option, take it, but usually tin plating is standard.

Shipping is about half of the total price (they love FEDEX=expensive but very convenient), you can save even more if you are willing to pick up the order at the airport, but you have to live close to a major airport for this to be practical. Another option is by sea, this is dirt cheap, but its a 6 to 8 week wait, and again you have to live near a port to be practical. I always used the FEDEX route, hate to spend half my money on shipping, but its most practical for me. Send them gerbers on Monday, a funny looking box with crazy lettering on it appears a week later with a pile of exceptional looking boards inside.

And obviously they can assemble the whole thing for you very cheaply too, but this is more involved, you have to ship them the parts, or have them buy it, the assembled product is usually much more costly to ship so you almost have to ship by sea and any mistakes can be costly. If you do this always ship them a fully assembled board to use as a guide.

Gold Phoenix PCB -- A good place to start