My mom said looking at my figure skating costs, she'd have been more willing to pay for figure skating for me as a kid/teenager. For hockey, too, yeah, gear is like 200-300 NEW, but used you can get a whole set of stuff for like $100. The advantage of figure skating is it's more pay as you go compared to hockey. For me and hockey, for LTS hockey, I had about half the equipment and it still ran my parents like $200ish because they didn't buy used, then the LTS session wasn't too bad, maybe 200-300? I don't know, figure and hockey LTS I think would be equivalent costs. The problem was, right, after LTS, a youth league my mom said was like $1000+ to play (probably insurance, adult leagues are like 300-400,) then there's travelling and all that, too. So after my time in LTS hockey league, I never skated again until now.
Figure would have been easier for costs, because it'd have been $100 for boots, and that's it. Maybe some workout pants or something perhaps, too. So cheaper equipment, yeah. Moreso, I'd have not had to jump from LTS to league, I'd have probably just stayed in the LTS classes for a few years. Then if I wanted ice time, it'd either be free/$5 public sessions if I was out of school, or if I was in school, $10-15 freestyle sessions, whereas hockey my mother would have had my mom dropping a grand or two all at once, and it'd be a terrible investment if I didn't like it, which is what happened with so many other sports I tried. One advantage of hockey, though, at least in my area, we had a high school hockey team, and they'd give you an equipment/league cost voucher. I did consider playing hockey in high school a fair amount more seriously than I considered any other sport, but I had lots of problems in high school, was way out of shape, and just didn't think I could do it. So figure, I wouldn't have had the school/state sponsoring me to participate, so that's one thing different.
I think both sports are pretty expensive, just figure has the advantage of "pay as you go" that hockey doesn't at younger ages. At older ages, it loses this advantage, as 300-400 for the adult leagues is pretty petty money (considering a USFSA membership is $200 and all...) and there's open hockey and stick time sessions for 16-18+, but kids don't have the opportunity of open hockey/stick time at their ages. The open hockey and stick time sessions run the same price as freestyle basically, $10-20, I know here open hockey is $20 but it's 2 hours, and freestyle is 10-15 depending on time, but is only 50 minutes, so same cost really.
However, the amount spent on coaching is less I think in hockey, just because there's less pressure on individual players to be elite level, you grow with your team generally, being a team sport and all. I've heard of parents paying figure skating coaches basically a stipend, ie, $20K a year for unlimited coaching/time spent, I've never heard of that going on in hockey. So to be "elite" in figure skating I would say would cost more money easily than hockey. I mean one could drop the cash in hockey, I'm sure, but nobody really does I think. The other thing in hockey is, nobody thinks about being WORLD class in hockey, either, it's just about beating local/national teams. At my rink, there's ISU Champions walking amongst you, so your aspirations you aim at are higher. The other thing too with hockey is, it's a more social sport being a team sport, and many people are simply playing for a sense of belonging, not because they wanna be really good at hockey for no reason besides being really good at hockey.
I think THIS is what scares parents off about figure skating. Seeing the girls that are homeschooled, skate like 4 hours a day, spend the whole day with their coach, etc. I know some girls whose coaching and ice costs exceed 100K a year easily. Whereas one can be at a high level in hockey simply by maybe taking a few private lessons/classes every month, and playing hockey. The amount of commitment required for hockey is very little compared to figure, I think.