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A CO2 laser will not cut stainless - it won't even mark steel unless you coat it with a special ceramic.

You're looking at a very very large fiber / YAG laser to cut it. A low power YAG laser can engrave steel - commercially these start at about $30k

Technically, the statement "CO2 laser will not cut stainless steel" is not accurate. Stainless steel is commonly cut by 500W-5kW CO2 lasers, see:

But it's true that sub-100W CO2 lasers are not even remotely capable of cutting steel.