The Darkroom v. Ilford Lab USA

Does anyone know the difference between The Darkroom and Ilford Lab US? Although the addressees have different p.o. boxes, it appears The Darkroom does Ilford's developing and printing, but there is a disparity in price. The prepaid "Ilford" mailers are $16·95 each (from BH). If you add the $2 Web upload and 4" gelatin silver prints of $10, the total is $28·95, now add the $3·75 on postage to Ilford, and your grand total is $32·70. (If you want larger scans, that will cost you more.)

Now if you order from The Darkroom, it's $11 for standard scans, $8 for 4" gelatin silver prints and $5·95 for return first-class mail postage—the mailers to The Darkroom are free—totalling $24·95.

Is the extra $7·75 worth it for "Ilford" processing, or are you getting just the same product but at an inflated price because it's called "Ilford"?

Is the extra $7·75 worth it for "Ilford" processing, or are you getting just the same product but at an inflated price because it's called "Ilford"?

I'm completely guessing at this, but I'd suspect that Ilford places some additional QC demands on their labs - certification of sorts, if you will. So perhaps the higher cost helps to cover this. It might also be a higher quality standard.

If I were Ilford, putting my name on some lab's product, I could see requiring that the lab hand inspect each print, and reprint each one outside of some arbitrary spec. So perhaps overall quality is not higher on average, but the worst images are improved, or perhaps not charged for. So the lab may be building this into the fee ahead of time.

As Chuck suggests, it's probably easier to just ask them.