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About a year ago, I tried the free 300 search trial. I liked it, but wasn't ready to commit to the expense. This year, they offered me a free 30 day unlimited

• jrmg 1y ago
  Watch out - I got the email offering a new 30 day free trial, and at the end of the month they did nothing to inform me and started charging the credit card they apparently still had on file from when I subscribed for a month or two a few years ago. I guess with other companies I would’ve expected something like that and monitored the time more closely, but with Kagi I expected better - especially since the email offering the new free trial promised “A month on us”, and said “Click here to activate your trial, no strings attached”.
  • neogodless 1y ago
    I will keep an eye on it, but I am 99.9% sure I've never paid them anything or given them any payment information! (I don't trust my brain as much as I did when I was younger, so perhaps I'm forgetting something. But I don't think so!)
  • packetlost 1y ago
    That's weird because Kagi is one of the few subscriptions that gives me an email heads up days before they charge me during the normal monthly cycle.
    • kristofferR 1y ago
      I'm not sure if it's a Norwegian law or an EU law, but companies here are forced to regularly send reminders that you are subscribed to them, I've gotten them from all the major streaming services I've subscribed to.
      • amelius 1y ago
        Huh, Norway is not in the EU.
        • joseda-hg 1y ago
          They are part of the European Economic Area, which means they belong to the EU market and their regulations (without voting rights), but they get to keep controlling their fisheries So, in this context, they might as well be
          • timc3 1y ago
            They have access to the EU market through the EEA but do not abide to 100% of the EU rules, regulations or laws. And they can have their own rules/regulations/laws.
      • packetlost 1y ago
        We lack such strong consumer protection laws in the US, so I'm pleasantly surprised when something so basic like this happens.
  • Terretta 1y ago
    On the contrary, they are the rare SaaS that proactively avoids charging you any period you don't use it.
  • deng 1y ago
    Interesting, because I brought this exact thing up last time Kagi was mentioned here, and the founder and billing engineer assured me that it does NOT convert to a subscription: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43308930 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43308930
    • seth_at_kagi 1y ago
      Hey, As I mentioned in my previous comment, it does not convert IF you do not have a payment method set. In this instance they already had one set which Stripe takes as 'this user wants to renew' and instead decides to not cancel it. I did mention a workaround we could do, and that's something that we will ensure gets done asap.
      • nottorp 1y ago
        > In this instance they already had one set which Stripe takes as 'this user wants to renew' and instead decides to not cancel it. Is this even legal? Ok, maybe in the US...
  • seth_at_kagi 1y ago
    Hey, Engineer from Kagi here. This is not something we intentionally do here, and is a feature of Stripe to automatically renew at the end of a trial if there is a payment method present. It should have also sent you an email about 7 days before it was going to renew. With that said, I do understand how this may be unexpected. I will look into adding a workaround for this auto-renewal so that we can prevent that in the future for other users. Either way, if you contact support@kagi.com we can give you a full refund.
    • realo 1y ago
      That comment from an actual human being, sir, more than anything else, would be by itself a reason for me to switch to Kagi everywhere. Fortunately I already switched to Kagi everywhere...
      • bmacho 1y ago
        Huh? They are scamming someone, > I do understand how this may be unexpected. is the answer, they claim that it is a bug at their partner, and they offer opt-in (not automatic) refund. That's straight up illegal. Also controversial, like, if it's a bug, why isn't the refund automatic in the first place. How does this make you want to be their user?
        • freedomben 1y ago
          Have you ever written software? Especially to manage payments? This is a very plausible bug around a corner case. Maybe they're secretly twirling their evil mustaches figuring out how to scam their previous customers that they're also trying to win back, or maybe sometimes bugs happen.
          • bmacho 1y ago
            Having bugs is okay. That particular reply however is gross and controversial on so many levels. If you have a bug at a partner, you don't claim that it is intended and "I do understand how this may be unexpected". If it affects multiple users, you don't do opt-in refunds (which is again, illegal, and is a scam if intentional). > Maybe they're secretly twirling their evil mustaches figuring out how to scam their previous customers They've just admitted it?
• HanClinto 1y ago
  YMMV, but because search is my gateway to the web, I think of my Kagi subscription less like a charge for an optional service (like Netflix / Hulu), and more like paying an ISP to be my access to the web.
• Liquix 1y ago
  FWIW it's possible to replace the streaming services with something like Jellyfin+Radarr+Sonarr or Kodi+RealDebrid to cut the bill down to <$50/yr, and you also get access to media on all streaming services. leaves plenty of room in the budget for things that can't be self-hosted (like a proper search engine). some may cite ethical concerns but i don't think HBO execs making money hand over fist are concerned about ethics at all
  • mac-attack 1y ago
    Why not just avoid their services instead of pirating their content and matching the ethics of their execs?
    • NetOpWibby 1y ago
      Why not just do something else than watch shows your friends and family are watching? Clearly, they enjoy the content. You don't just stop enjoying things like that.
      • afavour 1y ago
        I think the point the OP is making is that just because you can doesn't mean you should. And I agree. If you feel streamers are offering a bad deal, don't take them up on the deal and find something else to do. If you want to watch shows your friends and family are watching, take the deal.
        • NetOpWibby 1y ago
          Ah, I thought they were just confused.
      • rad_gruchalski 1y ago
        Hey, what do you do for living? Can I have some of that for free?
        • 1y ago
• Derbasti 1y ago
  I finished my 30 day trial the other week, and went back to DDG. After a few days, I realized I didn't miss anything, so I'll happily stay with DDG. Perhaps I'm not a very discerning searcher. Most of my searches are bang-searches of Wikipedia or CPP or Python anyway. Still, I'd be fine with supporting a sustainable search engine. $10/more is a bit too steep for my liking, though, measured against the utility I get from it.
  • idiotsecant 1y ago
    10 dollars is like, a sandwich. Access to your search engine for a month is less useful than a sandwich?
    • freedomben 1y ago
      Did you miss the part about them using DDG? They do have access to their search engine. If the choice were between no search engine or paid search engine, then your point is a good one, but that's not the choice here. I'm a very happy Kagi subscriber btw. I think it's worth the money. I love the personal uprank/downrank feature and Quick Answers personally and get a lot of value from them. But if I didn't use those it might not be worth it to me either.
    • nottorp 1y ago
      > 10 dollars is like, a sandwich In Silicon Valley? Does Kagi only want to sell to techbros?
      • mulmen 1y ago
        How much can a bana- er, sandwich cost? I just checked McDonalds in my hometown in Idaho. A Big Mac is $5.99 for just the sandwich and $10.68 for a meal. A Double Quarter Pounder is $8.29 for just a sandwich. McDonalds is definitely on the cheap side so $10.00 seems like a reasonable estimate of “sandwich money”. No need to invoke tech bros or silicon valley. Certainly no need to invent a motive.
        • 1y ago
• BeetleB 1y ago
  Just FYI, if you run out of your 300, you can simply renew on that date. So if 300 searches lasts you 21 days, you're effectively paying between $5 and $10 per month. If you run out halfway, though, it's cheaper to pay for unlimited.
• mossTechnician 1y ago
  That's interesting. It makes you think about searching. It makes you think about the limits, it makes you think about the fact you already paying them for the privilege, it occupies just a little bit of your mind. It's a clever trick, kind of like how Amazon knows that if you subscribe to their Prime service, you might think about Amazon when you're about to buy something online.
• Zambyte 1y ago
  > But I have not objectively done comparisons to try to figure out if it's better or not. The default search results are nice quality, comparable to Google (they use Google as one of their sources for results). The customization is what makes it head and shoulders better than the rest. I usually don't even see Kagi. In my workflow. Combining snaps, ! (I'm feeling lucky bang), and account level raising and lowering, I can pretty much get exactly where I want on the web just from a query in my URL bar that navigates straight there.
• tombert 1y ago
  A friend of mine and I split the cost of a family plan ($20/month) and that way we have four extra accounts to use for our family and the like. The amortized cost is pretty reasonable then. I'm ok paying a few bucks simply because it gives the site a means of making money that isn't selling my data or tunneling me into some kind of marketing ML model. And the results really do feel better. I almost never do the !g like I did with DuckDuckGo, and being able to set my own weights for sites is genuinely great. Instead of some arbitrary machine learning model, I have my actual intelligence to assist with the rankings.
• SllX 1y ago
  I justify it by having less Disney/Hulu/Max and I’ve just cut down on entertainment related subscriptions in general, although you can pry YouTube Premium from my cold dead hands.
• guywithahat 1y ago
  I think part of what's tough is I use two search engines + 2 LLM's, depending on what I'm trying to do. It's easy when most of them are free, but if I'm going to pay money it needs to be much better than the rest, and I don't think Kagi is.
• II2II 1y ago
  > I don't like the 300 search limit, because it scratches my brain - "do I need to search for this? can I find it some other way? should I just use duckduckgo for this search?" I have been using the free 300 search trial for several months now, and have not found it limiting. In a way, it highlights the strength of the search engine since I devote more time to reading the sites it directs me to than sifting through search results or refining my query. In other words, I am spending less time searching and more time pursuing the fruits of those searches. I am also okay with the idea of using different search engines for different purposes. I have a general idea of which queries will produce good results on DDG or Google, and use those search engines in those cases. I also have a general idea of which queries will generate terrible results on DDG or Google, and reach for Kagi in those cases. > I'm largely allergic to subscriptions. Still, if I can spend $360/year on Disney/Hulu/Max, I should be able to upgrade my search experience. I am allergic to subscriptions, which is likely why I am working within the bounds of Kagi's free trial for as long as I can. Once I have used up those queries, there will be a decision to make. Thankfully they are advertising $5/month for 300 queries. It's something that I can live with, even if I do go hog-wild with queries using the model that I have settled upon. Still, I have to get over that allergy first.
• DougN7 1y ago
  Kagi is one of the few subscriptions I think is 100% worth the price. In fact, I’d pay double. Very happy user for almost two years.