Some are indeed pricey. If you are in North America the Zooz switches work with traditional switches in multiple location scenarios. I have one with 2 locations and it works well. Their customer support is awesome too.
Check out the Shelly devices, they can use WiFi or you can flash the firmware to use something like Tasmota. They are small so you can place them behind the existing wall switch and use it manually or via WiFi. https://shelly.cloud/