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There have been a couple of discussions on HN lately [0][1] about the current state of search engine results, be it served by Google, Bing, DDG or other. Also,

by gkasev 5y ago

There have been a couple of discussions on HN lately [0][1] about the current state of search engine results, be it served by Google, Bing, DDG or other. Also, it seems like there is a lot of work on search engine alternatives as in the case of Kagi and also here [2] to name but a few. Of all alternatives, Kagi seems to be off to a very good start and I personally am a very happy beta user. What I have not seen so far being discussed anywhere, though, is the Willingness to Pay [3] for a search engine alternative, say like Kagi. What do you think is an acceptable monthly subscription price? What do you think is an expensive price? What do you think is a prohibitively expensive price? Here is my take on those questions: 5$, 10$, 20$. UPDATE: I'll summarize all answers and post the results here for reference. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29782186 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29782186 [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29772136 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29772136 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29690877 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29690877 [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willingness_to_pay https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willingness_to_pay

machiaweliczny 5y ago
I could imagine paying even up to $100+ but only for niche use-cases (finance data, fiding experts/employees). I would like ability to create plugins for search usecases and for example take 20% cut, basically allow for search app store. I wonder if it would work.
- azeirah 5y ago
  The idea of search plugins for specific use-cases sounds incredibly incredibly interesting!
leiferksn 5y ago
I would say for general purposes (casual everyday searches) - anything between 5$ and 10$ / month would be a good price for me. This is of course dependent on the quality of the results - it has to be a real service and not a marketing platform. Most of the single user licenses for web services like github, dropbox are between 5-10$, so the search engine had better deliver quality results, if it requires payments.
Nextgrid 5y ago
For purely search, 10$ is about the max I would pay. For a full equivalent to Google's services including Maps, Docs, Drive, etc, I'd be happy to go much higher up to 50$.
- texasbigdata 5y ago
  Superhuman is $30. So upper end might be higher for an "apple like" slice of the user base.
skinkestek 5y ago
After testing it for a month I say $10 is a steal for me. $20 I'll probably pay. Above that it depends very much. Although I hate dumb subscriptions for stuff that should be paid once and for all I have a history of not only saying I would pay for certain thing but also doing it. And with Kagi, if they keep respecting my queries and have a sane price: it is a no brainer.
_under_scores_ 5y ago
Honestly, I'd say around $2-5. It's not that I wouldn't value better quality search but in a world where search feels like an almost 'invisible' part of browsing the web I'd struggle to pay that much. I guess it's comparable to what I feel is a price I'd be willing to pay for a VPN say compared to a coffee subscription. This also isn't a reflection of what I percieve the work in building a search engine to be but more my subconcious perception of what I'm getting.
Jansen312 5y ago
Around 100 usd on annual subscription basis.
doomrobo 5y ago
I think $120/yr is good. I pay $120/yr for Dropbox, which is also a service I use multiple times a day and I think it's fair.
- martin_a 5y ago
  Same for me, although I thought about Spotify who get 10 Euro/month from me.
Suchos 5y ago
I already pay over 100$ a month for subscriptions I rarely use. If we get alternative to Google that is simply on par or slightly better, 10$ is nobrainer just for the de-googlification. For something significantly better - like option of paying some extra cash for more processing power - 20$.
mmoskal 5y ago
Interestingly, people are apparently willing to pay $1500 per month to forgo using search engines [0], implying this is what the service is worth to them. I guess here you're asking for price on privacy, as Google is already free to use. edit: I guess even the range of answers here, compared to implied value of the service, is an indication how much people (me included) value their data. [0] https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2018/04/25/how-much-would-you-pay-to-keep-using-google https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2018/04/25/how-much...
- Closi 5y ago
  I think the wording in your post is wrong - That economist article says people would want to be paid $1,500 if they had to sacrifice access to a search engine (not that people would pay to sacrifice access).
Panzer04 5y ago
There’s a huge difference between what I’d be willing to pay for a good search engine and how much I feel should be charged amid competition (and cost to provide). Existing search engines are good enough for most purposes, but if there was a good enough alternative I’d be willing to pay a pretty substantial markup (and if google continues getting worse or the search engine gets better…) 10-20$ a month for a meaningfully better search engine is pennies compared to the possible value it could provide (if it provides search results of sufficient quality). Every search I have to spend a couple minutes refining saved would make it worth it.
gkasev 5y ago
Not enough answers to be representative, but here is what we have so far: % Customers who find the price acceptable ^ | 100% |------| | |------| 80% | | | |------| 60% | | | | 40% | | | |-------------| 20% | | | | -------|------|------|------|------|--> 0$ 5$ 8$ 10$ 12$ 20$ Price per month UPDATE: Upvoting another person's answer is something that I cannot differentiate, so I cannot include it in the summary above.

by gkasev 5y ago

machiaweliczny 5y ago

I could imagine paying even up to $100+ but only for niche use-cases (finance data, fiding experts/employees). I would like ability to create plugins for search usecases and for example take 20% cut, basically allow for search app store. I wonder if it would work.

azeirah 5y ago
The idea of search plugins for specific use-cases sounds incredibly incredibly interesting!

leiferksn 5y ago

I would say for general purposes (casual everyday searches) - anything between 5$ and 10$ / month would be a good price for me. This is of course dependent on the quality of the results - it has to be a real service and not a marketing platform. Most of the single user licenses for web services like github, dropbox are between 5-10$, so the search engine had better deliver quality results, if it requires payments.

Nextgrid 5y ago

For purely search, 10$ is about the max I would pay. For a full equivalent to Google's services including Maps, Docs, Drive, etc, I'd be happy to go much higher up to 50$.

texasbigdata 5y ago
Superhuman is $30. So upper end might be higher for an "apple like" slice of the user base.

skinkestek 5y ago

After testing it for a month I say $10 is a steal for me. $20 I'll probably pay. Above that it depends very much. Although I hate dumb subscriptions for stuff that should be paid once and for all I have a history of not only saying I would pay for certain thing but also doing it. And with Kagi, if they keep respecting my queries and have a sane price: it is a no brainer.

_under_scores_ 5y ago

Honestly, I'd say around $2-5. It's not that I wouldn't value better quality search but in a world where search feels like an almost 'invisible' part of browsing the web I'd struggle to pay that much. I guess it's comparable to what I feel is a price I'd be willing to pay for a VPN say compared to a coffee subscription. This also isn't a reflection of what I percieve the work in building a search engine to be but more my subconcious perception of what I'm getting.

Jansen312 5y ago

Around 100 usd on annual subscription basis.

doomrobo 5y ago

I think $120/yr is good. I pay $120/yr for Dropbox, which is also a service I use multiple times a day and I think it's fair.

martin_a 5y ago
Same for me, although I thought about Spotify who get 10 Euro/month from me.

Suchos 5y ago

I already pay over 100$ a month for subscriptions I rarely use. If we get alternative to Google that is simply on par or slightly better, 10$ is nobrainer just for the de-googlification. For something significantly better - like option of paying some extra cash for more processing power - 20$.

mmoskal 5y ago

Interestingly, people are apparently willing to pay $1500 per month to forgo using search engines [0], implying this is what the service is worth to them. I guess here you're asking for price on privacy, as Google is already free to use. edit: I guess even the range of answers here, compared to implied value of the service, is an indication how much people (me included) value their data. [0] https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2018/04/25/how-much-would-you-pay-to-keep-using-google https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2018/04/25/how-much...

Closi 5y ago
I think the wording in your post is wrong - That economist article says people would want to be paid $1,500 if they had to sacrifice access to a search engine (not that people would pay to sacrifice access).

Panzer04 5y ago

There’s a huge difference between what I’d be willing to pay for a good search engine and how much I feel should be charged amid competition (and cost to provide). Existing search engines are good enough for most purposes, but if there was a good enough alternative I’d be willing to pay a pretty substantial markup (and if google continues getting worse or the search engine gets better…) 10-20$ a month for a meaningfully better search engine is pennies compared to the possible value it could provide (if it provides search results of sufficient quality). Every search I have to spend a couple minutes refining saved would make it worth it.

gkasev 5y ago

Not enough answers to be representative, but here is what we have so far: % Customers who find the price acceptable ^ | 100% |------| | |------| 80% | | | |------| 60% | | | | 40% | | | |-------------| 20% | | | | -------|------|------|------|------|--> 0$ 5$ 8$ 10$ 12$ 20$ Price per month UPDATE: Upvoting another person's answer is something that I cannot differentiate, so I cannot include it in the summary above.