If you want something bigger and you will use an inverter for quite a lot of things then to be perfectly honest 12v becomes a liability. If you are looking st something at 1kw or over then starting with 12v will cramp your style and cause endless frustration if you want to expand.

If this is serious power use for off grid living then virtually everything points to 48v . The snag is that it brings you up into the professional equipment range and cost is high. Even switches and breakers need to be considered carefully.

If you want a modest system using an inverter but you are not a real serious off grid user dependent on wind power then 24v is far better than 12v but you still can get cheap inverters and the problems of switches is far less. Common ac switches and breakers usually handle 24v.

I wouldn't consider anything over 500W for 12v. Up to about 3kW 24v can be quite effective and probably still reasonably cheap. If you are going with the big boys then 48v is the way to go but it becomes expensive, fine if you are totally dependent on it, but if it is part energy saving or part hobby or just a small set up then 24 may suit your needs.

If you get into serious power then even 48v is too low but at higher voltages you have many issues to cope with.

Probably the most significant single factor causing these to fail is temperature, caused by the  environment and current they handle. Therefore for large loads higher voltages have less current and hopefully longer inverter life.

Someone has already stated "you get what you pay for", if it's your only power supply there is no substitute for quality therefore nickle and dime stuff from the local hardware is unlikely to be successful long term.