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Genuinely interested. So I went to their site and I have to say it's quite refreshing. But then - a few bucks a month turns out to be $5/month, and that comes

by wrasee 2y ago

Genuinely interested. So I went to their site and I have to say it's quite refreshing. But then - a few bucks a month turns out to be $5/month, and that comes with a limit of 300 searches/month. That's an average of just 10 a day and while in practice I probably wouldn't actually hit that limit it's uncomfortably low enough that the added fiction of each search having a tangible cost is just a non-starter. I can't help feel that when the competition is free - and on precisely the recognition that people don't pay for search - that a more aggressive $2 tier for personal customers could get a much wider penumbra of folk such as myself over the line, rather than be yet another $5 service that when applied consistently actually start to add up.

masa331 2y ago
I also pay for Kagi and i'v never been happier with my searches. It's so nice not to have to slog through Google bullshit results. Kagi results are great and you can tweak the behaviour deeply to your liking. I'm also proud to support an alternative from a smaller company with same beliefs instead of Google who does a lot of damage to the medium i love be it ads or Chrome. So the few bucks are a no brainer. It's the same as paying for any other monthly subscription
xigoi 2y ago
According to Kagi, they can’t make the price much lower and still be profitable.
- wrasee 2y ago
  If they get 100x the customers on a $2 tier than a $5 tier then yes, they can be profitable. The question is, could they get 100x? Or even 10x? I don’t know, and I assume they’ve done their homework and believe that they can’t. I just wonder, what if they’re wrong?
  - TylerE 2y ago
    It if supporting each customer costs them, say, $2.50
  - currymj 2y ago
    for each Kagi search they hit APIs of other search providers etc., so they need to cover that cost.
    - wrasee 2y ago
      Except for these types of services scale is in your favour. A bakery has a high cost of goods sold, whereas services like this tend to have high fixed costs but relatively light costs per customer. So scale is very much to your advantage (within reason).
      - currymj 2y ago
        because they have to pay for queries to other APIs for each search, COGS is relatively high I think, which is counterintuitive for a web product like this. my sense is their fixed costs are relatively low.
j1elo 2y ago
Correction: $6.05 (in my case) A while ago they sent me an email saying "we grew enough that now we are obliged to collect VAT from you", so the actual final price grew a bit.
stavros 2y ago
I run out of the 300 searches/mo in around ten days. Everyone raves about Kagi but I've paid for it around three times now, and it's never been better enough than DDG to justify the $10/mo for me...
- dewey 2y ago
  Very different experience for me, I’ve tried to switch to DDG many times and always switched back to Google after being disappointed. Using Kagi for a year now and only a handful of times I’ve checked if Google would give better results.
  - re5i5tor 2y ago
    Same for me. Also like and regularly use Quick Answer feature (similar to Perplexity).
Aeolun 2y ago
$5 is practically nothing. $2 is just not worth the cost of the CC charge. I think it’s really convenient that you can pay for extra searches, as you never have to worry about actually running out. They also need to be able to pay for the servers that run searches.
- wrasee 2y ago
  > $5 is practically nothing That’s quite a privileged thing to say. This forum is read by folk all across the world and I would say that it’s up to each individual to say how much $5 means to them.
  - rrr_oh_man 2y ago
    Don’t get offended on behalf of other people
    - wrasee 2y ago
      I’m not. I’m pushing back against folk that forget not everyone thinks the same as them. That “$5 is practically nothing” reads like a statement of fact, which is obviously ridiculous depending on where you’re from. And yes, it definitely has a “let them eat cake” vibe which is absolutely worth a push back.
  - Aeolun 2y ago
    $5 was barely anything even when I was a student. Sure, there’s places in the world where it’s still a lot of money, but (good) search is a valuable service. Google proves that. If someone does not want to pay $5 then they’re perfectly within their rights to do so, but saying it’s “a lot of money” feels like pinching pennies. By comparison to any other plan that’s practically the lowest you’ll ever see.
- wkat4242 2y ago
  $5 is nothing for Americans. Here in Spain with much lower purchasing power it's considerable and there's VAT added too.
i_am_proteus 2y ago
The "right way"[0] to use Kagi is the unlimited search tier ($10/mo) and then aggressively rank domains in searches. Within a few weeks, the search quality improves tremendously, because I have filtered out the domains responsible for low-quality results, and up-ranked the domains I find to be most useful. [0]My opinion. Probably true.
- jjtheblunt 2y ago
  My opinion too.
- nickpsecurity 2y ago
  There’s also the idea of vote with your wallet. What we spend can be a tool to change the landscape. Enough people paying $10/mo. for Kagi might keep a good, ad-free option in business. Similar to why many people pay for OpenOffice and Ubuntu. They want them to keep existing.
  - hoppyhoppy2 2y ago
    FYI OpenOffice is pretty much a dead project; nearly all development effort shifted years ago to LibreOffice.
    - nickpsecurity 2y ago
      That’s the one I was talking about. Thanks for the correction. :)
- wrasee 2y ago
  I suppose my argument was essentially that $5/month felt on the high side, so I love that the answer is actually to pay $10/month. This is the way. In all seriousness, I am sure you are right and don’t deny the promise on offer. I’d also be willing to pay for search much more so than many other online services of more questionable value. But I just don’t think they’re going to get cut-through at $5, not least $10, in the way they might exponentially do so if they could stretch to an entry tier that really starts to feel accessible to a much, much wider set of people. WhatsApp took over the world at $1/year.
nine_k 2y ago
But search is not just another service, a hardly noticeable addition to the daily internet experience. Much like a browser is not just another app you barely use. Search is central to my internet experience. If there is one service worth paying for, it should be search. But for that it should be better enough than ad-supported options to be worth the subscription. I think Kagi has got so close that I should start shelling $10/mo for it. (Another service I think is a no-brainer to pay for is YouTube, mostly because ad-ridden YouTube is insufferable.)

by wrasee 2y ago

masa331 2y ago

I also pay for Kagi and i'v never been happier with my searches. It's so nice not to have to slog through Google bullshit results. Kagi results are great and you can tweak the behaviour deeply to your liking. I'm also proud to support an alternative from a smaller company with same beliefs instead of Google who does a lot of damage to the medium i love be it ads or Chrome. So the few bucks are a no brainer. It's the same as paying for any other monthly subscription

xigoi 2y ago

According to Kagi, they can’t make the price much lower and still be profitable.

wrasee 2y ago
If they get 100x the customers on a $2 tier than a $5 tier then yes, they can be profitable. The question is, could they get 100x? Or even 10x? I don’t know, and I assume they’ve done their homework and believe that they can’t. I just wonder, what if they’re wrong?
- TylerE 2y ago
  It if supporting each customer costs them, say, $2.50
- currymj 2y ago
  for each Kagi search they hit APIs of other search providers etc., so they need to cover that cost.
  - wrasee 2y ago
    Except for these types of services scale is in your favour. A bakery has a high cost of goods sold, whereas services like this tend to have high fixed costs but relatively light costs per customer. So scale is very much to your advantage (within reason).
    - currymj 2y ago
      because they have to pay for queries to other APIs for each search, COGS is relatively high I think, which is counterintuitive for a web product like this. my sense is their fixed costs are relatively low.

j1elo 2y ago

Correction: $6.05 (in my case) A while ago they sent me an email saying "we grew enough that now we are obliged to collect VAT from you", so the actual final price grew a bit.

stavros 2y ago

I run out of the 300 searches/mo in around ten days. Everyone raves about Kagi but I've paid for it around three times now, and it's never been better enough than DDG to justify the $10/mo for me...

dewey 2y ago
Very different experience for me, I’ve tried to switch to DDG many times and always switched back to Google after being disappointed. Using Kagi for a year now and only a handful of times I’ve checked if Google would give better results.
- re5i5tor 2y ago
  Same for me. Also like and regularly use Quick Answer feature (similar to Perplexity).

Aeolun 2y ago

$5 is practically nothing. $2 is just not worth the cost of the CC charge. I think it’s really convenient that you can pay for extra searches, as you never have to worry about actually running out. They also need to be able to pay for the servers that run searches.

wrasee 2y ago
> $5 is practically nothing That’s quite a privileged thing to say. This forum is read by folk all across the world and I would say that it’s up to each individual to say how much $5 means to them.
- rrr_oh_man 2y ago
  Don’t get offended on behalf of other people
  - wrasee 2y ago
    I’m not. I’m pushing back against folk that forget not everyone thinks the same as them. That “$5 is practically nothing” reads like a statement of fact, which is obviously ridiculous depending on where you’re from. And yes, it definitely has a “let them eat cake” vibe which is absolutely worth a push back.
- Aeolun 2y ago
  $5 was barely anything even when I was a student. Sure, there’s places in the world where it’s still a lot of money, but (good) search is a valuable service. Google proves that. If someone does not want to pay $5 then they’re perfectly within their rights to do so, but saying it’s “a lot of money” feels like pinching pennies. By comparison to any other plan that’s practically the lowest you’ll ever see.
wkat4242 2y ago
$5 is nothing for Americans. Here in Spain with much lower purchasing power it's considerable and there's VAT added too.

i_am_proteus 2y ago

The "right way"[0] to use Kagi is the unlimited search tier ($10/mo) and then aggressively rank domains in searches. Within a few weeks, the search quality improves tremendously, because I have filtered out the domains responsible for low-quality results, and up-ranked the domains I find to be most useful. [0]My opinion. Probably true.

jjtheblunt 2y ago
My opinion too.
nickpsecurity 2y ago
There’s also the idea of vote with your wallet. What we spend can be a tool to change the landscape. Enough people paying $10/mo. for Kagi might keep a good, ad-free option in business. Similar to why many people pay for OpenOffice and Ubuntu. They want them to keep existing.
- hoppyhoppy2 2y ago
  FYI OpenOffice is pretty much a dead project; nearly all development effort shifted years ago to LibreOffice.
  - nickpsecurity 2y ago
    That’s the one I was talking about. Thanks for the correction. :)
wrasee 2y ago
I suppose my argument was essentially that $5/month felt on the high side, so I love that the answer is actually to pay $10/month. This is the way. In all seriousness, I am sure you are right and don’t deny the promise on offer. I’d also be willing to pay for search much more so than many other online services of more questionable value. But I just don’t think they’re going to get cut-through at $5, not least $10, in the way they might exponentially do so if they could stretch to an entry tier that really starts to feel accessible to a much, much wider set of people. WhatsApp took over the world at $1/year.

nine_k 2y ago

But search is not just another service, a hardly noticeable addition to the daily internet experience. Much like a browser is not just another app you barely use. Search is central to my internet experience. If there is one service worth paying for, it should be search. But for that it should be better enough than ad-supported options to be worth the subscription. I think Kagi has got so close that I should start shelling $10/mo for it. (Another service I think is a no-brainer to pay for is YouTube, mostly because ad-ridden YouTube is insufferable.)