Do you do this for cosmetic or structural reasons?
I've always felt it was like lipstick on a pig. :D

^^^
I have a real problem here with ants. If I don't fill the cracks and seal it, they form the round brown sandhills wherever they can get below the asphalt and haul the sand up. I spray the ground at the edge with ant killer, but they still get through.

I also like the looks of a nice black driveway, instead of a gray sun-bleached one.

Yes prices have gone up for petroleum products.
But the asphalt seal guys can be very shady.
Last time I paid around $1000 including crack fill.
But we had shady bids of $4k up to $9k too.
The big rip off are the guys that use water based black dye so it looks like new sealer.

This stuff looks interesting for fixing before seal coating.

https://leggari.com/product/asphalt-coating-kit/

2 years ago I bought some crack fill off of Amazon.
Stuff came in 1 gallon bottles and when dry it turned white.
Stuff looked terrible and did not expand as they should when wet to help fill the crack.

Last seal job I got a 5 gallon bucket of crack fill from the sealer guys for touch up, worked great and dried black and matched the new sealer.

You are trying to do it in the wrong part of the country, that is the problem.

Sealed will withstand the weather much better than not sealed

Especially in this area.
Every trip in the winter tracks in sand and salt from the roads. It melts the ice on the driveway and then re-freezes and cracks the asphalt.