Just checked on what I bought. $400 for the Vitamix 5200 brand new... I'd say it is easily approaching commercial grade. Paid $280 out the door on Amazon on Black Friday/Cyber Monday. Having two young kids that like smoothies and milkshakes, and using it for a lot of chopping and blending for cooking, I'd say we're at the point of getting our money out of it (I'm cheap as hell - that's why I bought a $99 Ninja first go around that never really did what it was supposed to do.) With Vitamix's reputation, I expect the thing will be working for a long, long time.

They also sell refurbs on their website. Look into their warranty...might be a decent deal: https://www.vitamix.com/us/en_us/shop/certified-reconditioned-standard

FYI - best feature is that it's easy as hell to clean.