Plasmidsaurus launched a low‑cost, fast turnaround transcriptome service offering shallow‑depth RNA‑seq for $50 per academic sample and a promised 2–3 day turnaround, drawing strong demand and concern from academic core facilities. The company sequences 3' end polyadenylated transcripts, delivers 10 million deduplicated reads per sample, and provides an interactive analysis interface; samples ship at room temperature to U.S. labs. The service challenges existing core economics and may pressure academic facilities to innovate pricing and services. Lab directors and core managers will need to weigh throughput, depth requirements, and QC expectations against cost advantages; sponsors and small labs may adopt the service for routine expression profiling while larger discovery programs keep deeper sequencing in-house.