> Do they get special rates? I'd suspect so, the sticker price is for the little guy who cannot guarantee them a large volume of organic search queries. With a

> Do they get special rates? I'd suspect so, the sticker price is for the little guy who cannot guarantee them a large volume of organic search queries. With a large volume of course you negotiate. The most interesting thing here is Startpage. Apparently Google doesn't give access to general Search API (as opposed to custom search limited to some sites) for over a decade now. I idly wonder if folks at Startpage have to maintain an extremely plain and not terribly well marketed site lest they be evicted from their deal, presumably a very very old one. According to Wikipedia they probably use Google since the early 2000s at least.