As a general rule, you can find a lot of good, clean compressors out there in that price bracket -- notably the RNC, which has already been mentioned.
But as far as limiters go, it's highly unlikely you'll find anything out there outboard that's even close to transparent untill you get in to something like the Safe Sound Audio, which is supposedly
very transparent -- but it comes in at around 500 bucks and includes a really good, clean comp and mic pre, though, to boot.
You could look around on ebay for a used
Aphex dominator, but that would probably set you back $200 or so all by itself. Right now, your best bet is to be sure to track at 24 bit, use an RNC and just leave enough room for possible overs -- then do any limiting you might want to do with software.