you buy cheap, you get cheap

English

Proverb

you buy cheap, you get cheap

1. Inexpensive goods and services tend to be inferior to more expensive ones.

   Synonym: buy cheap, buy twice

   • 1990, Stephen King, The Moving Finger:

     No more of that stuff, please and thank you. American Grain, my rosy red ass. Someone should have told those babies you put the fertilizer on the hops before you grow em, not after. A headache on three lousy beers! Gosh! Well—you buy cheap, you get cheap.

Translations

inexpensive things tend to be inferior

• Finnish: halvalla ei saa hyvää

See also

• if you pay bananas, you get monkeys; if you pay peanuts, you get monkeys
• you get what you pay for