The raw material:

It might take experienced hunters several months to obtain these genuine raw agarwood logs as they are quite difficult to obtain

Inexperienced hunters usually get  "look-alike" agarwood logs which in most of the time they are not. The tricky part is, sometimes, buyers can even identify and try to make beads out of these logs.  For examples

(not agarwood)

(beautiful pattern but unfortunately NOT agarwood)

Image what if you bought beads made from the above wood logs which are claimed as genuine agarwood? How do you feel? The bad news is there are many sellers out there selling mala and bracelet made from "un-agarwood" material. The good news is there are also plenty of genuine sellers out there. So please have a quick read and educate yourself a little before committing to purchase one

Agarwood Beads Making

The video below shows partially how a mala bead was made.

It takes patience and time to produce each bead because this process will be repeated 108 times. As agarwood (Aquilaria) is very soft and non-timber wood, quite often, get damaged (cracked) during bead spinning process. In short, it requires intensive and skilful labour.

From the material, agarwood logs are cut into small square shape object per below.

Again, similar to 108 mala, each bead (usually 16mm to 18mm)  is individually spun with care.

Re-Stringing beads together

Cultivated agarwood beads (bi-polar), the darker part is agarwood, and the lighter part is young white wood when you see the pattern, it is usually made from cultivated or farmed agarwood. 

Below is the image showing the above explanation

It takes considerable effort and an enormous amount of time to verify original agarwood material, to complete each set of agarwood beads either 108 mala or bracelet.  So please, before you asked "please cheaper brother" or "too expensive", consider the process of bringing everything together as a complete product. It would be expensive, after all.