he wanted me to lose the drop shadows
There's a reason for this (other than drop shadows being straight outta 1990). Drop shadows are usually a quick and dirty fix for poor composition. Your cover has no poor composition, so doesn't need the fix
You can pay anywhere between $5 on fiverr to upwards of $1,000 for a cover designer. I would say you don't really need to go any further than the $150-$250 range inclusive of full print wraparound. Be aware that a lot of fiverr sellers have stolen covers off Amazon or off other fiverr sellers to put in their portfolio, then when you order from them what you get is total dross. Check their reviews to make sure customers are genuinely happy if you really want to go the fiverr route (which I advise against, because fiverr take 20% of
all transactions. Pay an artist directly wherever possible).
A good designer will have access to premium stock photography or images which will beyond the budget of the one-off designer or author-artist, because they'll have subscriptions to sites like Adobe Stock or Getty Images so can get hold of images which might otherwise cost upward of $200 on their own.
A good designer will also have access to premium fonts, rather than whatever FontSquirrel lists as free and having a commercial license. Premium fonts usually have better features (alternates, properly calculated kerning, and so on) which free fonts lack, but also because they cost money they'll be less commonplace and provide you with better branding.
Just remember that, as much as we as authors hate facing this fact, covers
do sell books. If you slap a bit of MS Paint art on your book, it flat-out will not sell.
There's also a line to be drawn underneath
quality. You can be crazy as all get-out if you want, but still provide
quality. For instance, the great and wonderful Chuck Tingle:
Yes, silly subjects, but the photoshop work is actually very skilled, and the design and branding are crisp and clear. And not a drop shadow in sight
