I'm looking into teaching English and it seems the Celta cert. is highly regarded yet the price is more than I hoped. Suggestions?

first of all where do you live?
if you live or want to live in the united states look into the University of Northern Iowa http://www.uni.edu and other schools in the midwest

if you live somewhere else ask ppl that you know

With disregard to the cost, you should go for any ESL certificate, as long as they are more than 100 hrs. Anything less than a 100 hr. certificate will not be accepted by some countries such as S. Korea. TESOL is North American, and CELTA is British. Some former British colonies such as Malaysia, Hong Kong, etc, are very particular and only prefer you to have a CELTA rather than a TESOL. It's your choice of which countries you would to teach in for the future.