Price tells you something at the bottom of the backpack market, little in the middle, and at the top only what you check for yourself.
You paid $380 for the bag. Its product page lists Cordura 500D, YKK zippers and a double-layer base. A $120 bag from another maker lists the same three lines. Nothing on either page tells you what the extra $260 bought.
Below a certain floor, cheap is cheap for concrete reasons. Above a certain ceiling, you're paying for a costly material, a repair record or the brand, and only the first two change the bag. Between those numbers, where you are most likely shopping, the price tag stops being a useful signal, and "is this bag worth it?" stops having a clean answer.
Below roughly $80, something has to give, and materials are the first cut. A 300D polyester base stretches and pills under load. A 70D nylon tears at the corners. No-name zippers are often where a budget bag fails first: teeth split and sliders wear loose, and a quality zipper is easy to spot once you know where to look. Stitching at the stress points is thinner than it needs to be and pulls before the rest of the bag wears out: the base of the shoulder strap and the handle. How to read a bag's stitching shows what to pull and what should hold.
None of this is about brand prestige. Making a bag that lasts ten years costs more than making one that lasts two, and below $80 the money isn't there.
Good reviews don't close that gap. A $60 bag and a $150 bag differ in the fabric and the stitching, and a review written in the first month can't see either fail.
Between roughly $80 and $250 is where most good bags live, and where price stops predicting quality. You can find 500D Cordura, YKK zippers, a double-layer base and bar-tacked attachment points at $110. You can find the same spec sheet at $230. The gap between them is usually finishing details, colorways, interior layout and brand overhead.
Some of those details matter. A cleaner interior liner doesn't change how the bag carries, but it tells you how the maker treats the parts you don't see. A better hip belt doesn't matter if you never load the bag past about 7 kg (15 lb), as a rough guide, but it matters if you do.
Most of those details don't matter. To sort them, ask of each one whether it changes how the bag carries or how long it lasts with what you put in it. If it doesn't, it's finish, and finish is what the extra $120 bought.
At $300 and above, the price buys one of three things.
Materials can justify the price. Dyneema Composite Fabric, X-Pac laminates and sealed, airtight builds cost much more to make. They give lower weight for the same strength and better weather resistance, though laminates can still delaminate at the folds over the years. If the bag uses these materials and you need what they do, the price is justified.
A repair record can justify the price. A few makers have a long record of honoring warranties and repairing bags over years of use. You are buying that record. It has value, though usually less than it costs.
Brand margin is often the rest of the price: the lifestyle image, the marketing, the retail presence and the logo on the sternum strap. The bag at $380 with a known logo and the bag at $150 with the same build are different decisions, even when they are close to the same bag.
The upgrade worth buying is the one that solves a problem you have already had. The upgrade not worth buying is the one that sounds like it solves problems you haven't had yet.
"Is this bag worth it?" is the wrong question. The right question is: what am I buying?
Knowing what you're buying closes the question faster than any price tag, and faster than any review that spent 500 words on zippers without asking what you carry.
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