I'd never heard of a break-up fee before. It makes sense, but it's a gesture of good faith that I honestly never would have expected to see in the business world. (This also makes sense in the context of a close-knit and trust-based community; I had just underestimated these properties of the startup world.)

Does anyone have experience with a break up fee situation? And if it's not private, what were the amounts involved? It'd be nice to have a sense of scale.

I read that 200k was the cost that bnter had incurred because of the deal. I don't know what else there could be other than legal fees. Maybe a lease for a much bigger space that they had needed.

Wasn't there the salary of a new employee who would not have been hired at that stage?

There's also opportunity costs for having to try to make the deal work. They had to spend time on the deal as opposed to something else the company needed.