While shopping for a basic SSL cert for my blog, I found that many of the more well-known Certificate Authorities have an entry-level certificate (with less stringent validation of the purchaser's identity) for approximately $120 and up. But then I found that Network Solutions offers one of these lower-end certs for $29.99 (12 hours ago it was $12.95) with a 4-year contract.

Is there any technical security reason that I should be aware of that could make me regret buying the lowest-end certificate? They all promise things like 99% browser recognition, etc. I'm not asking this question on SE for comparison of things like the CA's quality of support (or lack thereof) or anything like that. I want to know if there is any cryptographic or PKI reason so avoid a cert which costs so little. It, like others, says that it offers "up to 256 bit encryption".

For the purposes of this discussion there are only a couple differences between web signing certificates:


Extended vs standard validation (green bar). 
Number of bits in a certificate request (1024/2048/4096). 
Certificate chain. 


It is easier to set up certificates with a shorter trust chain but there are inexpensive certs out there with a direct or only one level deep chain. You can also get the larger 2048 and 4096 bit certs inexpensively. 

As long as you don't need the extended validation there is really no reason to go with the more expensive certificates. 

There is one specific benefit that going with a larger vendor provides - the more mainline the vendor, the less likely they are to have their trust revoked in the event of a breach.
For example, DigiNotar is a smaller vendor that was unfortunate enough to have their trust revoked in September 2011.
