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I will give you some very ballpark figures based on set-up:

• CDJs and Mixer w/ case: ~$1000-3000
  
• Turntables and mixer w/ case and Serato: ~$1000-1500
  
• Midi controller and Ableton: ~$600
  
• Midi controller and traktor: ~$500
  
• Midi controller and DJay: ~$100
  
  Now, keep in mind these really are very ballpark figures as pricing will be highly dependent on where you buy stuff and what model you buy exactly. Keep in mind, you get what you pay for with regards to the hardware, so dropping $200 on a bottom of the line CDJ from numark or something will give you a bottom of the line CDJ that will probably be a piece of shit. Dropping $1100 on a brand new CDJ900 will get you a professional grade piece of equipment.
  
  Also, these prices take into account you actually buying Ableton or Traktor instead of pirating them. Additionally, if you go the Ableton or Traktor route you will need to get an external soundcard which can run you anywhere from $80 to $250 (I tried to include that in my ballpark estimates).
  
  My advice is, if you wanna try it out and get your feet wet, get a cheap midi controller like the korg nanokontrol, a cheap soundcard interface like this one, and download djay.
  
  This is by far the cheapest option as the whole setup will run you about $130, and you'll be able to DJ any party. Best of all, the way djay works you will actually learn to beatmatch by ear rather than relying on a computer to do all the beatmatching for you, which in my opinion is a great skill to learn when first starting DJing. From there if you want to expand your functionality you could upgrade from djay to Traktor and keep your same midi controller and soundcard and you'd still be good to go.
  
  Hope that helps, and good luck, DJing is a blast!

I, too, am just starting out but I'm not sure of getting into turntables quite yet. I've been mixing for a few months with just my laptop but I wanna get a controller (looking very much at the M Audio X Session Pro ) and the Numark DJ I/O for an external soundcard on my laptop. I'm looking primarily to do college parties when I go back to school in the fall. Any advice you can offer, whether on equipment or the business in general?

For 150-200 dollars, I highly suggest the numark mixtrack + an audio interface such as the umix44 or audio 2 dj.