Need educated opinions on project direction

Ive been preparing over the last little while to build a robotic arm (research, pricing). I found this board and thought it would be a great place to get opinions. Im currently planning a 5 axis arm driven by servo motors. Im planning on making a robot about a foot high with not too much emphasis on torque or speed (lifting lighter objects). I want to use PLC as the logic controller.
Initially I was going to use stepper motors but the lack of feedback is making me unsure. I want to spend as little as possible as this is an introductory project. Can anyone pass along any lessons they learned or opinions whether to use servo/stepper etc. Which drivers? I wanted to use a pulse counter to remember the position of the stepper motors if i decide to use them. Ive found servos are much more expensive than Id hoped and steppers are much easier to obtain.
What would be the best direction for my project??
Thanks for any help

Using Steppers with a shaft encoder would be a good sollution. You can't rely on a pulse counter for determining the stepper motor position. If it's over torqued a stepper will slip and you'll have no idea it happend. There are many different methods for encoding shaft direction and speed, look up as many as you can.