The natural stevia sweetener may be much cheaper but it tastes awful. That's why no one used it much even though it's a great sweetener. It has a strong licorice taste. The Truvia has that strong taste removed. When you can't have real sugar a bad tasting substitute just makes it harder to deal with the life change.
I've tried most of the recipes :
http://truvia.com/recipes-baked-goods.html
I've taken several of the pecan pies to potlucks and made a label saying sugar free- made with Truvia and the pies were gone before the main courses.
Real sugar has almost tripled in price in this area since Christmas!