[sonick]

The thing is, if you've only got $500 to spend, quality is going to be suspect either way. So instead of putting that towards a poor-fitting OTR suit, might as well go MTM and have it fit at least decently. Visually, how well or poorly a suit fits is more apparent than how fine the fabric quality is.

To get decent build and material worth a damn you'd have to spend at least $2000 OTR for an actual suiting brand (Canali, Zegna) or more for true MTM/bespoke. The $1000-$2000 'fashion brand' suits such as Hugo Boss, Armani, D&G etc. from Harry Rosen are made in the same/similar factories as the $500 with the same (mostly) fused construction, albiet MAYBE better materials. Even if I had the money I would spend $500 on four online MTM suits over a $2000 D&G from Harry Rosen hands down.

Also, it's not like you are going to be doing anything heavy-duty in a suit. The difference day-to-day with a $500 vs $1000 suit is not four times the difference (i.e. a $500 suit isn't going to fall apart in 2 years vs a $1000 suit will last 4 years).