Now you're redefining elite. It has nothing to do with price or value.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/elitehttp://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/american-english/elite
It's true that a clan with few members that's hard to get into could be elite, but it could also be the complete opposite. For instance, a clan that only consists of the 5 players with the worst win rates.
If you want to define which clans are elite or not, competition is the only way to do it. The top winners are elite, the bottom losers are trash, and everybody else is just varying degrees of ordinary.