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Update to Kagi Search Pricing

blog.kagi.com

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Re: Update to Kagi Search Pricing

#111

Post by jsnell »

islon wrote: post #90
newaccount74 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think what becomes clear from this price increase is how expensive search is. Google seems to be free, but they are making a profit by gatekeeping the internet. If you offer a product or service, and you want people to find your restaurant, your hotel, your guided tour, your private tutoring lessons, or anything else, you pretty much have to pay Google. It's kinda like the Yellow Pages, except 100x more expensive.…

I'm paying ~10 bucks for spotify to stream music non stop. I'm also paying netflix some ~16 bucks for 4K movies/series. There's no way a text search is more expensive than a 4k, 5.1 channels movie. I'm using Kagi since they were in beta, but as soon as my subscription expires, I'm done...

Arbitrary and quite possibly unique searches over substantially all knowledge ever produced by humanity seem a lot harder than sending an unchanging large file over a network.

Re: Update to Kagi Search Pricing

#112

Post by akvadrako »

palata wrote: post #82
ksec wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry I don’t understand this POV. We know Kagi is losing money on that pricing. ( They have stated it multiple times ). They offer options to donate for those willing to help and chip in. They now updated the pricing model. They gave you extra 300 on top of their current pricing. The extra 600 search will only cost you $9 more, slightly more than what you tipped them. So what is wrong ? And you are supporting their…

How do you see they give extra? With the old pricing, it's unlimited searches for 10$ a month. With the new pricing, you're now limited to 1000 for this price.

They are giving extra when you factor in the donations. The old pricing was losing money.

The top poster doesn't seem to think the price should even cover kagi's costs, which is absurd.

Re: Update to Kagi Search Pricing

#113

Post by gilrain »

shepherdjerred wrote: post #48

I cancelled by Kagi subscription because of this. I don't want to have to pause before I search and think "do I need to search for this? should I look through my bookmarks, notes, etc? is this worth one of the 7 searches my $5 plan will cover for the day?". I've been a frequent user of Kagi for the past ~9 months. Last month I made 1600 searches. I've even 'tipped the difference' (~$70) in the past to support Kagi. I…

Yep. I canceled the two accounts I’m responsible for.

I thought Kagi was going to be search for adults, but they have a serious problem with chasing the latest shiny API.

They keep jacking up their cost per search for features I actively dislike. I hope another paid search engine arises.

Re: Update to Kagi Search Pricing

#114

Post by thallium205 »

shepherdjerred wrote: post #48

I cancelled by Kagi subscription because of this. I don't want to have to pause before I search and think "do I need to search for this? should I look through my bookmarks, notes, etc? is this worth one of the 7 searches my $5 plan will cover for the day?". I've been a frequent user of Kagi for the past ~9 months. Last month I made 1600 searches. I've even 'tipped the difference' (~$70) in the past to support Kagi. I…

Bing increased their search API from 1.25 cents to 2.8 cents. As they are a wrapper around Bing it makes sense they have to increase their prices quite a bit.

Re: Update to Kagi Search Pricing

#115

Post by Fidelix »

Simple math. It's worth it for me. I realise it's possible not many others feel the same, but even if Kagi quintupled their current prices I would still pay for it without batting an eye.

Why? Because of the time and effort it saves me.

I make around 1500 searches per month. If it saves me 3s per search (I'm 100% convinced it's actually way more), that's saving me 75min in a month. I'm paid more than the unlimited plan per hour.

But it's hard to put a number on how much it's worth having a search tool that is algorithmically unbiased (except against ads), that actually works, and that denies big tech my data.

It is true, though, that they went back on their promise to grandfather current customers. That will stay in my memory.

Re: Update to Kagi Search Pricing

#116

Post by gilrain »

Fidelix wrote: post #115

Simple math. It's worth it for me. I realise it's possible not many others feel the same, but even if Kagi quintupled their current prices I would still pay for it without batting an eye. Why? Because of the time and effort it saves me. I make around 1500 searches per month. If it saves me 3s per search (I'm 100% convinced it's actually way more), that's saving me 75min in a month. I'm paid more than the unlimited pl…

> algorithmically unbiased

They’re adding AI, where the human biases come baked in, and charging us extra for the insult.

Re: Update to Kagi Search Pricing

#117

Post by version_five »

version_five wrote: post #96
shepherdjerred wrote: post #48

I cancelled by Kagi subscription because of this. I don't want to have to pause before I search and think "do I need to search for this? should I look through my bookmarks, notes, etc? is this worth one of the 7 searches my $5 plan will cover for the day?". I've been a frequent user of Kagi for the past ~9 months. Last month I made 1600 searches. I've even 'tipped the difference' (~$70) in the past to support Kagi. I…

I find the pricing more annoying than anything. I'm a paid user and I've never come close to using more searches than their claimed cost (which admittedly I don't understand fully, is it just the marginal cost?) So I could probably pick a lower usage plan, it's just one more thing to think about, like back in the days of having to decide which phone minutes plan is better. It sows confusion and doesn't benefit the cu…

Replying to myself re the "AI"

The Kagi announcement says this is what it will cost

  Summarize results: 0-1 searches

  Summarize document: 0-20 searches (depending on length of the document, this can process 100 page research papers or even books)

  Ask questions about document: 0-20 searches (depending on the length of the document and the length of interaction)
So it's optional, however they also say this:

  However, incorporating generative AI into search can be expensive, so we had to consider this in our pricing model.
Which implies that it's making everything more expensive.

I was thinking about the decision to add this AI stuff - I guess I see why they did it, they say it's always been part of the vision and pressure (even internal) to add such features and not feel like they're falling behind other offerings must be intense.

Personally I think it's a mistake. "Generative AI" has instantly become dime-a-dozen and everybody and his dog has a startup competing in this space. Another me-too offering doesn't add to this. Good paid search was an almost open playing field, which is what made kagi so special in the first place. I think they could have focused on doing this well (and reducing costs).

Re: Update to Kagi Search Pricing

#118

Post by sshine »

rippercushions wrote: post #15
jszymborski wrote: post #6

Kagi is a bit of a HN darling so I know I'm putting my neck out here, but even after trying the trial, I'm not sure what the value prop is. I would happily pay for a search engine that provided good results, but seeing as it's ostensibly Just Bing under the hood, I'm not sure what I get that I'm not getting from DDG or MetaGer + an ad blocker. Kagi doesn't strike me as a privacy alternative given that all my searches…

I used to use DDG, but the search results were so bad that I had to !g all the time. With Kagi, the results (which are mixed from various services, not just Bing) are actively superior to Google (so much less spam!) almost all the time, and the only Google search service I still use regularly is Maps. That said, while I've been happily paying $10/mo for the pro plan for a while, I'm not convinced the 1000 searches/mo…

Thanks for providing the link.

I used 517 searches in February.

For March I look to be using 700 searches.

Seems like the pro plan will be sufficient for me.

Re: Update to Kagi Search Pricing

#119

Post by neysofu »

infinityio wrote: post #102

(subscriber for the past 8 months, planning to convert to annual to lock in $10/mo for the next year and reassess then) The AI tools they have been releasing are interesting, but Kagi desperately needs to decrease their average cost-per-search so that they can offer more realistic numbers of queries per month at a $10 price point. I'm not sure what the solution is - maybe generating smaller indices for particular ver…

I'll also convert to annual to get unlimited searches for a year. The search engine market is moving so fast now anyway that things may be well different a year from now.

Re: Update to Kagi Search Pricing

#120

Post by 10729287 »

shepherdjerred wrote: post #48

I cancelled by Kagi subscription because of this. I don't want to have to pause before I search and think "do I need to search for this? should I look through my bookmarks, notes, etc? is this worth one of the 7 searches my $5 plan will cover for the day?". I've been a frequent user of Kagi for the past ~9 months. Last month I made 1600 searches. I've even 'tipped the difference' (~$70) in the past to support Kagi. I…

Same here. I Would have appreciate them to keep price for early adopters. It would have been a smart move towards dedicated users/believers and prevent them from the unavoidable bleeding to come... that will lead to more money issues. Too bad, I absolutely loved it.
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