I am sure that many other more experienced and qualified modellers are going to respond, but as for my level of skill, I can definitely say that you pay for what you get in a program, although Blender is pretty darn good. I use several functions from different modelling and editing software because some have better sub-routines than others, even those you pay for. The axes for various formats may or may not be so easily changed when moving across software, such as FBX z-y axis orientation in and out of Blender. Collada format tends to corrupt upon import to Poser. Shade3D polygon reduction algorithm appears to have linear scaling, so is not good when polygon count is already pretty low. Those are examples of what I can say, with respect to paid and free software experience and usage. In general, I would expect that model quality should be retained across software platforms, because it depends on conventions in the file formats.

For reference, I use Shade3D mostly these days. I do use also: Sketchup, and MeshLab, and sometimes Sculptris, (and in the past, earlier versions of Marvelous Designer, Houdini, Metasequoia; and other 3D modelling software which are no longer actively supported much, such as Hexagon, Bryce Pro, Anim8tor, Art of Illusion, Carrara, TrueSpace.)

Eternal Hobbyist