post image (what you have and what you want to get). There is nothing that states it should look like a toy my images certainly don't. As there's millions of ways to convey things its impossible to say. You might have bad lightning, bad/no environment, bad camera settings, bad shaders etc. Bad colorspace bad depth of field or any combination of theese.Even bad geometry.
$2000
you can often substitute skill for money. after all skill is money. However when you lack skill you can either buy it for money or buy someone else to do it for you. Even forums are not free they require you money in form of time and required knowledge, 2000 sounds like a bargain if you really have no skills to begin with.
after all mastering it all is a lifetime of work. But yes slapping some library material hitting render and hoping the best is a sure way to get bad results.
Anyway i see no reason to get same results as in the keyshot demos, and gallery images. And truly some of them look like toys too.