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Update to Kagi Search Pricing

blog.kagi.com

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Re: Update to Kagi Search Pricing

#151

Post by nifoc »

edeion wrote: post #127
10729287 wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It seems to be the case, though: "Every account with an active subscription at the moment of the pricing change on March 15 will get the “Early adopter” status. This will make the special “Early Adopter Professional” plan available to them instead of the regular Professional plan, with the main difference being 1,000 free included searches monthly, instead of 700." Ref. https://blog.kagi.com/update-kagi-search-pricin…

Back in September they promised this[1]:

> If such change to Individual plans is to occur, we plan to grandfather-in all early adopters (meaning all current and future paid customers, up until this change) allowing them to keep their existing subscription price as long as they don’t cancel it.

My guess is that they will focus on the "subscription _price_" wording. Technically the price didn't change, since you can still pay them $10. They "just" changed the terms.

[1] https://blog.kagi.com/status-update-first-three-months#futur...

Re: Update to Kagi Search Pricing

#152

Post by gaws »

mbwgh wrote: post #32
moltar wrote: post #20

What a bait and switch. Didn’t see that one coming.

It was hinted at for a few months on the kagi discord. People could even vote for different pricing models.

> It was hinted at for a few months on the kagi discord. People could even vote for different pricing models.

The Discord doomers are the ones pushing for AI in search to compete and price match ChatGPT. Kagi making critical business decisions (and in the process breaking a promise for early adopters) based on feedback from a gaming chat app is another reason to stop giving them money.

Re: Update to Kagi Search Pricing

#153

Post by _aavaa_ »

nifoc wrote: post #151
edeion wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems to be the case, though: "Every account with an active subscription at the moment of the pricing change on March 15 will get the “Early adopter” status. This will make the special “Early Adopter Professional” plan available to them instead of the regular Professional plan, with the main difference being 1,000 free included searches monthly, instead of 700." Ref. https://blog.kagi.com/update-kagi-search-pricin…

Back in September they promised this[1]: > If such change to Individual plans is to occur, we plan to grandfather-in all early adopters (meaning all current and future paid customers, up until this change) allowing them to keep their existing subscription price as long as they don’t cancel it. My guess is that they will focus on the "subscription _price_" wording. Technically the price didn't change, since you can st…

It's unfortunate since this is not what I (most people?) think when we hear "grandfathering".

Also, why do we find this out over a blogpost. Where's the email saying "oh by the way the your subscription is changing in a drastic way"?

Re: Update to Kagi Search Pricing

#154

Post by gaws »

D13Fd wrote: post #149
thrdbndndn wrote: post #28

I thought people hate subscription model, yet there are enough people willing to pay a monthly fee for search that is only marginally better than free product? I'm really confused. At least Adobe products etc. are actually miles ahead of alternatives.

Even if it weren't marginally better, I'm paying to preserve my privacy and keep Google from monetizing my personal information.

You have a unique Kagi ID tied to your payment information. That’s not private.

Re: Update to Kagi Search Pricing

#155

Post by version_five »

_aavaa_ wrote: post #153
nifoc wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Back in September they promised this[1]: > If such change to Individual plans is to occur, we plan to grandfather-in all early adopters (meaning all current and future paid customers, up until this change) allowing them to keep their existing subscription price as long as they don’t cancel it. My guess is that they will focus on the "subscription _price_" wording. Technically the price didn't change, since you can st…

It's unfortunate since this is not what I (most people?) think when we hear "grandfathering". Also, why do we find this out over a blogpost. Where's the email saying "oh by the way the your subscription is changing in a drastic way"?

They sent out an email last night, to me at least

Re: Update to Kagi Search Pricing

#156

Post by [deleted] »

SirensOfTitan wrote: post #126

The pricing changes are unfortunate, yes, since they encourage me to think about querying, which ought to not be the case. The more worrying update here is that Kagi is not grandfathering in legacy plans beyond the next billing cycle, which is a departure from a promise: > If such change to Individual plans is to occur, we plan to grandfather-in all early adopters (meaning all current and future paid customers, up un…

[deleted]

Re: Update to Kagi Search Pricing

#157

Post by pwpw »

A few things rub me the wrong way about this article:

- I didn’t receive an email clearly indicating the pricing changes and pointing to this article. Instead, I found it on hacker news.

- Every paid tier refers to the number of searches it allows as “free” despite requiring payment.

- The wording around existing customers led to me believing that the pricing won’t change until cancelling the current plan (grandfathering). However, once I came to these comments I learned that pricing goes away at the end of the billing cycle and will be switched to a new plan.

- Their words about average internet users’ number of searches feel so disconnected from who their actual users are and is incorrectly framing the conversation. If their goal is to truly expand to being the search that everyone uses, requiring payment will never allow that to happen.

I wish they had invested in building their own crawlers rather than AI and their Kagi browser.

Re: Update to Kagi Search Pricing

#158

Post by _aavaa_ »

version_five wrote: post #155
_aavaa_ wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's unfortunate since this is not what I (most people?) think when we hear "grandfathering". Also, why do we find this out over a blogpost. Where's the email saying "oh by the way the your subscription is changing in a drastic way"?

They sent out an email last night, to me at least

Huh, must be just me. Mine doesn't seem to be anywhere, I have the product email setting turned on, and I get their billing emails. Strange.

Re: Update to Kagi Search Pricing

#159

Post by _frkl »

poszlem wrote: post #130
_frkl wrote: post #79

I have to admit, I'm a bit disappointed by the mostly negative responses here, I wouldn't have thought this would be received as badly as it apparently is, by this here crowd. I haven't followed along that closely, but I dropped by their discord every once in a while, and from the discussions I saw I felt Kagi was as open as they could be, trying to communicate the upcoming change(s), why they are necessary, getting…

I pay $20 for ChatGPT which is WAY more useful to me than Kagi. Hell, I pay half of that for Office subscription which I use even more. There is no way I can justify paying $25 for a search engine. And I am a professional too, just one who cares about money. If you're a Kagi fan, the use of Discord by the search engine may seem impressive, but as a regular user looking for an affordable and trustworthy search engine,…

I don't consider myself a kagi fan, nor do I think their use of discord is 'impressive'. That would be quite silly. So you are wrong if you assume that is where my positive judgement comes from. I just make different value judgements than you -- ones I feel align well with my own, personal priorities and specific context. That doesn't mean I don't care about money, I hope you can see and accept that.

I just stumbled upon their discussion about pricing, and found it interesting how such a problem could be approached, and seeing their point of view and reasonings, and pros and cons for several options, and how its a really difficult problem for a young company like them. Compared to that, the discussion here feels a bit one-dimensional and flat, tbh. Anyway, just wanted to give a different, bit more emphathetic perspective to most of the sentiments in the rest of the comments.

Basically, I can understand why they felt the need to make the decisions they made, but I acknowledge that I'm in the minority with this. Doesn't mean I don't think I'm right and you're all wrong :)

Re: Update to Kagi Search Pricing

#160

Post by dividuum »

dingleberry wrote: post #41

let's mapreduce search map search-term to several search engine (using curl, headless browser and whatnot) then reduce / filter the results, removing ads etc, weighing duplicates more and punish irrelevants the search-result is then piped to your favorite browser

That exists since 1996 :-)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MetaGer

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