I'd look at everything in that price range and see what has the most reviews to reference - not product-page reviews but blogs or youtube.
There's a truckload of cheap monolight strobes that take the Bowens mount out there, and maybe going up a few bucks would get you more solid gear? There's often Calumet monolights on eBay at $90 for instance, I recall those being well-reviewed. And check Adorama, they have a "house brand" (can't recall, likely rebranded something) with decent warranties and Adorama's a legit resource. If you're not lugging stuff out to locations 4 days a week, maybe the ultra-cheap stuff would hold up long enough to pay off? I'd just make sure it has a common accessory mount (seems these days everything's Bowens in that range, so plenty of affordable reflectors, grids, softboxes). One big problem with cheap monolights though - a large softbox or 6' striplight may just tear the thing apart. I remember just trying to keep a medium softbox on a Novatron head as being a real fate-tempter...
Or... shoot a little higher and look into used Speedotron Brown and Black line. As far as reliability, hard to beat, and they were designed for pros. All my blackline gear has excellent color balance and reliable exposure. Accessory mount is (I believe) the same between brown and black, but the systems aren't interchangeable. Brown line was more portrait shooters, black products/studios. But pretty robust gear. Biggest problem with the cheapest blackline packs is they tend to be the massive ones, but if you're shooting wet plate at ISO 6, well - there ya go!
