Cost doesn’t mean quality, but at the same time be sure you pick the right item. I have a subscription to America’s Test Kitchen, which has for the most part served me well. For more expensive items, they will often pick a favored item and a less expensive “best buy”. I honestly use them more for their equipment reviews than for their recipes at this point.

There is one thing I would point to for needing to go for the expensive option. If you want a high quality stainless steel skillet, you want it to be fully clad, aka triple ply. There are cheap skillets with an aluminum disc on the bottom, sometimes deceptively marketed as “fully clad base” or “tri ply bottom”. They perform poorly, scorching food and sometimes allowing the disc to detach. I have an All Clad skillet, but I hear Made In is also good.