The most common advice among professionals is do NOT pay them. You're not only funding cyberterrorism when you do, you're also confirming that that their ransomware works, and there is no guarantee that your files will be decrypted by them. Once they have your money, there is no reason for them to continue helping you.
Personally, I would get another hard drive and offline copy the encrypted files to it. No OS files. Make sure to note what cryptoware you got hit with, then put that new drive into cold storage indefinitely and hope that a decryptor for that particular cryptoware becomes available some day. Which does happen pretty regularly.
Most major Antivirus companies provide all known decryptors for free, even to non-customers. It's a pretty incredible collaboration among competitors coming together for the common good. Just google 'ransomware decryptor' for a list of them.
This is the official host of the collaboration efforts.
https://www.nomoreransom.org/