It's definitely more involved, and more expensive, with drop bars, yes. Even basic drop bar brifters (brake levers with integrated shifters) are well into the hundreds of dollars new, and I think that cost goes up when hydraulics are involved. The master cylinder is up in the brifter itself and it makes it larger and more complex.

There is another option, though, and that's a cable/hydraulic hybrid system. Tektro/TRP makes one called HyRd. It uses a regular brifter with brake cable and housing down to the caliber, but the caliper has the hydraulics contained within. It's a physically larger caliper unit, but it basically acts as a brake lever and caliper combined, with the cable from your brake lever pulling the "brake lever" at the caliper. That makes conversion to hydraulic easy, though it's still not inexpensive.