Yeah, it's worth spending decent coin on a wah, more than other pedals, imo. They take a lot of wear and tear, and the cheaper ones tend to use less durable parts. A case of "buy once cry once. "

I would say the number one determining factor is your own ears. Make a trip to the shop and if you can get a great sound out of a cheaper pedal, than by all means go for it. There absolutely is a lot of cork sniffing and/or snake oil salesmanship in guitar pedal markets, and you'd be shocked at what some of the cheaper pedals are able to achieve through a good amp.

High price? Not sure qhere you are, but you can usually pick up a used one for like $40-$50 if you keep your eye out on facebook marketplace/kijiji/craigslist/etc.

I usually recommend that people buy a used gcb95 (standard issue dunlop crybaby), and then just mod it to your specs. Google "stinkfoot wah mods" and go from there.

My $40 wah that I've been using for like 15 years now kicks the pants out of all the high end, boutique wahs I've played.

I'm a big fan of Morley wahs. They're spring-loaded and turn on automatically when you move them from their rest position, then turn off automatically when you take your foot off. Best feature ever, imo, and I'm never going back. Ymmv.

I don’t really know about the sound, but I’d go for something metal, just for durability..

Whatever you go for, it’s worth having a look at the mods you can do to wahs to change the sound, if it’s not quite what you need. Even if you don’t want to do anything electrical you can change the sound by removing the toothed rack and turning the pot dial a little.

FWIW I’m pretty happy with my Vox v847.

So they all do essentially the same thing in principle, which is turning the bass/treble up and down with a filter. Imagine playing a note and then rolling your pickup tone up and down, it's essentially the same thing.

The differences between pedals are basically what filter is being used, what frequency range it has, build quality etc.

So yes, you can get a similar effect with a cheaper pedal but no they do not all sound the same.

Personally I think the Crybaby is fantastic and absolutely worth the money, but I bought mine when I was 14 (which was a loooong time ago now) because I wanted to be Jimi Hendrix, I didn't consider any alternatives because... I was 14 and 14 year olds are frivolous.

Don't spend your money just yet, I would say you need to go to a guitar shop (if you can) and try 3 or 4 wah pedals and see what you like, and if you can find something that sounds great for less money then go for it!

But equally, if you can afford the crybaby and that's what you want then it is an excellent choice.