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Update to Kagi Search Pricing

blog.kagi.com

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Re: Update to Kagi Search Pricing

#31

Post by hojinkoh »

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…

Paying customer since last year. Kagi's results are okay or really good depending on what I'm searching. After around 1 month of experimenting, I blacklisted/boosted several domains on Kagi. After that, I never had the need to go to DDG or bing anymore.

That being said, I think Kagi being a search engine itself AND basing their statistics for pricing on Google and DDG is a horrible move...

Re: Update to Kagi Search Pricing

#33

Post by 7vaS7SXdKF »

If the subscription price is not zero, the included searches are not free. In this regard, the wording of the pricing page mockup and this blog post is dishonest - or at the very least inaccurate.

Not a fan of the changes otherwise. I average around 1200 searches per month which would require me to get the unlimited plan. $120/year was already a steep price compared to my other yearly subscription costs:

- VPN: §50

- Broadband internet: $230

- Mobile subscription: $290

Not willing to pay more to Kagi than to my ISP and not willing to use more than one search engine.

Re: Update to Kagi Search Pricing

#34

Post by voytec »

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…

Those are my exact feelings since testing Kagi. I did not found it appealing as a plain search engine, nor private.

But they have recently shown a tech preview of an "Universal Summarizer"[1] which I have found far superior to ChatGPT (cGPT is worse than some freely available pre-trained models in this regard).

I have asked Kagi and cGPT to summarize my own post[2] which Kagi did rather well (I don't have a screenshot), while cGPT spilled utter nonsense[3], mentioning hardware and software that isn't mentioned in the post and which - in some cases - I have never used.

While Kagi is unappealing to me at the moment, I will happily try it out the future again.

tl;dr: I wrote about using: FreeBSD, Linux, Fail2ban, blacklistd, Terraform, Ansible, Postfix, Dovecot, Kubernetes, Jenkins, ArgoCD, Git and nginx.

ChatGPT stated that I wrote about MacBook Pro, iPhone, AirPods, Kindle, Chrome, iTerm2, VSCode, Vimium, Adblock Plus, Dropbox, 1Password, Trello and Slack.

[1] https://labs.kagi.com/ai/sum

[2] https://wojteksychut.com/posts/work-tech-i-use-privately/

[3] https://wojteksychut.com/pic/chatgpt_post_summarization.png

Re: Update to Kagi Search Pricing

#35

Post by kelnos »

xnorswap wrote: post #17

Their $5 plan makes no sense. They're charging 0.015 per search when you're "over limit" but 200 searches would be $3 on "pay as you go" after your plan runs out, which is better than the bundled 200 for $5. The $10 plan is only marginally better, 700 searches (cost $10.50 PAYG) for $10.

Right, and there's a big middle ground where it doesn't make sense to upgrade to the $10 plan, even if you go over the limit of the $5 plan. I checked my usage, and it looks like at most I do around 350 searches a month. That would cost me $7.25 ($5 + 150*$0.015).

It's not surprising to me that the more expensive plan is a "better deal" than the cheaper plan. But it's just weird to me that you'd have to get to 534 searches before the $10 plan makes sense, and the $10 plan only gives you another 166 searches to work with.

Re: Update to Kagi Search Pricing

#36

Post by microtonal »

7vaS7SXdKF wrote: post #33

If the subscription price is not zero, the included searches are not free. In this regard, the wording of the pricing page mockup and this blog post is dishonest - or at the very least inaccurate. Not a fan of the changes otherwise. I average around 1200 searches per month which would require me to get the unlimited plan. $120/year was already a steep price compared to my other yearly subscription costs: - VPN: §50 -…

Not a fan of the changes otherwise. I average around 1100 searches per month which would require me to get the unlimited plan.

I don't like the changes either, but I don't think this is true. You could get the 1000 searches plan for $10 and then pay-per-search the additional 100 searches.

Re: Update to Kagi Search Pricing

#37

Post by threatofrain »

widdershins wrote: post #27
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'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 c…

The alignment of incentives is not as tightly aligned as I'd like. Because Kagi has this data, they could be bought out by another company and release blog posts about how this merger is actually a harmonious union of privacy. A sinking ship with the livelihoods of many families on the line can easily convince leadership to sell. Having a distressed company bought out is not some special story, and things like this easily go on without many customers knowing. How many Tom Bihn customers know that the company has been bought by a VC?

On a mildly tangential note, the way their marketing language describes their new plans leaves a poor impression with me, saying that I get something for free if I pay for it. Did you know? If you buy a Twix for $2, the first bar is free.

Re: Update to Kagi Search Pricing

#38

Post by pprotas »

widdershins wrote: post #27
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'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 c…

On your last point, you can check the usage statistics in your Kagi settings for the previous months. That way you can see if you would exceed the limits.

Apparently I search around 1k times per month, which means the new Professional plan wouldn’t fit my needs.

I decided to cancel my subscription, Kagi didn’t provide that much benefit over Google to me. I just needed this last push! I do think it’s a good idea, we definitely need more competition in this market.

Re: Update to Kagi Search Pricing

#39

Post by kelnos »

microtonal wrote: post #29

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…

> I hate services that change the model and pricing all the time

It's hardly "all the time"; this is their first pricing change, no? I was a part of the free private beta, and then started paying when they started charging, and I don't recall any changes until now.

It seems unsurprising that a paid search company (something that is pretty new, business-model-wise), might not get their pricing correct the first time.

Re: Update to Kagi Search Pricing

#40

Post by knighthack »

I've been quite happy with Kagi, but I do a lot of searches throughout the day, far more than the "700 free searches per month" they offer. (Usage tells me I'm using around 1500-2000+ searches per month.)

I've been on the USD10 pricing for a long time. Now it's soon to be USD25 per month for my kind of tier - which seems crazy steep, and more profiteering than an attempt to bring search to everyone.

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