I have no significant data to back this up. Just a lot of thought, wasted time and money, and my own experience:
You're going to spend a minimum of about 10,000.00 to kill your first elk. Minimum.
You have many different ways to write the check, but you're writing the check.
You can spend hundreds of hours trying to analyze the problem from your couch on the internet. Time you could be spending working earning money, spending time with family, chores, etc. Or you can spend dozens of hours, plus travel costs, to go any place you might hunt to scout, build a network, plan logistics, etc. No matter how you cut it, you will spend thousands of dollars in time or actual dollars doing this.
You can spend hundreds of hours getting in good enough shape to be terrible at elk hunting. Or you can spend hundreds of hours on the mountain being out of shape while being terrible at elk hunting. If you're going to do it on your own, these are the only two options. Either way, you'll be spending thousands of dollars in time or actual dollars doing this.
I could go on and on about all the gear, time, effort, thought, etc. that pile up to go kill an elk. But just those two examples above are going to be at least several thousands dollars in real costs to you. Then tack on the others.
You can of course ignore these realities and convince yourself that the only real costs are the tags, new sitka suit, light tent, and dehydrated meals. The rest is "fun" and nowhere near as consuming as I've described.
Or, You might be in the very small percentage of folks who are really smart, focused, physically fit, and capable of going execute an extremely dynamic mission with zero knowledge of the topic, in 10% of the time it takes everyone else.
Or, You could admit to yourself you really don't want to kill an elk as bad as you think you do, or for the reasons you tell yourself. And if you're honest with yourself, you can talk yourself into paying a guide roughly the same amount of money to short circuit all that comes with a DIY hunt.
That's really the options:
Be brilliant (you ain't asking interweb strangers how to elk hunt.)
Lie to yourself.
Be honest about your actual desires, and pay a guide.
Or, go in eyes wide open. Think about how much time and effort it takes you to earn 10,000.00 doing your day job. Then recognize that you're going to be way, way, way less efficient at earning 10,000.00 of "elk hunting". Then make a decision if that time/money investment is going to be worth it to you tomorrow. Then ask if it will still be worth it in a month from now. 6month from now. A year from now. Ten years from now. When you retire. When you die.
I can honestly say, after devoting thousands of dollars, hundreds of hours, and significant mental and emotional investment, and bearing significant opportunity costs giving up other options, and killing an elk - I like elk hunting about 3/4 as much as I thought I would before I took the first major steps towards doing it. Enough to make it worth it. Enough to look at that investment, which is now a sunk cost, and decide to continue devoting more resources to killing a second elk.
And I can look back and say that if I didn't want to kill another one after all of this, the better choice would have been to pay a guide from go.
So if you view it as a bucket list item, pay a guide. If you're right, you will have saved a ridiculous amount of time and effort to check the box. If you're wrong, you will start your DIY elk hunting journey on much firmer footing, and save a bunch of time and money in the process.
If you're sure you want to go elk hunting, but aren't sure if it would be a one time thing, or something you'll want to continue doing, then consider all I've said above.