North Carolina Vital Records has recently announced a fee increase for vital records.   Effective August 24th, it will now cost $24 to order a birth, death, marriage or divorce certificate.  The fee also applies to searches, so is kept even if no record is found.  Additional copies of the same record from the same search will cost $15.  Visit their website for more details.

Ordering vital records at the state level is usually an expensive route.  For less expensive options, try contacing the county in which the event happened (or was likely to happen) to find out their policies on ordering uncertified/genealogical copies of records.  Some counties also provide indices of their records to help you locate those you need.  Check the North Carolina page at Online Death Indexes for places to search around the state.