Update to Kagi Search Pricing

I wish there was a cheaper option without the AI feature (that is probably what costs them the most).

For the past 4-5 months I've kept three browser profiles, which I use simultaneously to compartmentalize things across work/personal/hobbies and to try out different browsers and search engines. I use Kagi on two of them and Brave Search on the other (I gave up on DDG as it disappointed me too often; Brave seems slightly better than vanilla Bing as they combine it with their own index).

The difference in results quality is stark. On Kagi I have to !g maybe once every few days, and usually I don't find what I'm looking for on Google either, but on Brave it feels like I do it for a third of my searches, often for ones where I actually know exactly which result I want and am using the search engine as a shortcut. So whatever Kagi is doing, it's definitely not "Just Bing".

From their Discord, it is apparently some combination of Bing+Google+their own small index, which makes sense because for niche searches where Bing and Brave completely fail, Kagi's results seem to closely mirror Google's, with the benefit of its result boosting and filtering features. For more common searches it seems to match or surpass Google regularly.

I've just switched to the annual plan to lock in my current $10 unlimited searches rate, and will re-evaluate after a year. I can't justify $25 a month, but looking at my history (and guessing how much I'd need if I moved all of my Brave searches to Kagi) I may not actually need more than 1000 included + 200-500 pay-as-you-go searches per month, which is juuuust on the boundary of what I'd be willing to pay.

Never heard of this & I'm never going to pay for search for sure either

> I'm sure Kagi's paying customers are paying for a reason

No ads, blazing fast, and the search results are more than adequate for me (I don't find myself ever reaching for Google as I did with DDG). I'm not too bothered where the results come from when those three things come together. It's just the premium search experience I want.

> all my searches are necessarily tied to a user id

I know that theoretically Kagi could sell me up a river at some point in the future. However, they have every incentive not to - they'll see a huge exodus of users if they ever do that - so the alignment of incentives feels right here.

For the moment I feel reasonably confident that my search preferences aren't being sold to the highest bidder (or every goddamn bidder). If that ever changes, I'll reconsider.

Overall I feel more comfortable paying for my search, and I want to support this business model.

> the metered usage feels far too much like an ancient cell phone plan

I'm going to wait and see how this works out for me. If I find I'm exceeding the $10/mo plan by a lot I'll also have to reconsider. But because I'm partly here to support the business model of paid search, I'm willing to give Kagi some leeway to find a sustainable setup.

I am a Kagi subscriber and I like it a lot, but I will probably cancel after the current month. 1000 searches per month is probably enough for me, but I hate services that change the model and pricing all the time. It's just not for me. Also, I don't really care for the AI integration. I wish they'd just have kept the unlimited searches for 10 per month plan (which I don't use up anyway, so they'd make a nice profit on me) without the AI stuff.

These changes also make Kagi a touch sell for friends and family. Most of them would probably do such a small number of searches that they'd be a large net profit, but the idea of having only a limited number of searches would be too off-putting for most.