After years of trying Duckduckgo and then always going back to Google, it was this 2022 interview with the Kagi founder https://dkb.blog/p/kagi-interview that I read a few months ago that got me to try Kagi. I was shocked that they thought people would pay $10/month for a search engine. Then I thought, "if Google lets us search for free, how much must it be worth for them?" Over the last few years I've started trying to pay for things that I use, and financially supporting developers working on products I like. That's when I decided to try Kagi.

And yes, I have used Google only a dozen or so times in the last few months since I went all-in on Kagi on all my devices. The search results are very good.

The thing that has held me back from Kagi (I've had the pricing tab open for the past month, just staring at it), is the usage limits. I have no idea how many searches I make in a month. I don't know if I'm looking at a $5/month situation or a $20/month situation, and my inability to predict that makes it hard for me to commit. From a single device, my firefox history says that in May I had 750 different variants of duckduckgo.com/?q=X. And thats not counting my phone, or work device. Will the $10/1000 queries be enough for me? (This isn't necessarily for you to answer, but just restating my anxiety around the product.)

I too love to pay for things, and thus use a product, rather than be the product.

I just got the cheapest plan, and configured my devices to use Kagi when I prepend a search by "k ".

This way I use whatever free search engine for most searches (like when you type "steam" because you don't remember the url), and Kagi when I actually want more than the simplest first result.

Interesting. I do that a lot, which is partially why I'm concerned about count.

However, if I'm paying for Kagi, it would be because I want to cut off using other search engines. Either I trust DDG and it's privacy and don't think theyre selling my data, and I continue using it, or I don't trust them quite enough (not accusing them of anything, I just don't know where they get their money from, and I know its not me paying them, so naturally just a bit worried), and I pay for Kagi instead, then I trust Kagi with all my data because I'm paying them to not share it. And in that scenario I've deemed DDG "not private enough", which would mean I dont want to keep giving them more info about me.

So in the end, I either keep not using it, or I want to make sure I have enough to cover everything. Which is probably just my own issue.

Looking at my account usage summary, I've been averaging about 550 searches a month on Kagi. I'm grandfathered into the "Early Adopter Professional" plan so I get 1500 searches for $10, though clearly I need to try harder. ;)

I recommend starting with a $10/mo plan and treating as if it was unlimited. This is where Kagi is heading anyways. To control cost, Kagi allows you to set soft limit and hard limit so the cost can never spiral out of control.

Hey Vlad, I share the same sentiment as the person you replied to - I keep checking my Billings page wondering if the 1000 searches are going to be enough, but decided to just give it a month with the hard limit set to $25 which would be the point at which I should have just paid for unlimited and see how I do. I love what Kagi is standing for and, while I really understand that the business has to be kept afloat, $25 feels like a lot to get better search results.

What did you mean with that that is where Kagi is headed anyways? Will you offer the unlimited package for a price which is a bit lighter on the wallet?

Correct, unlimited for $10/mo is what we are trying to get to.

I too worried that my cost would balloon but I find that I actually search less as the results, for me, are better quality.

If you use Google, and you have not disabled it, you can visit your search history to get an idea.

Not the person you are replying to but DDG is just as bad as Google at returning and prioritizing blogspam results. “Recipe for oatmilk” returns a slew of 2500 word articles that start with “What is Oatmilk” and “How is Oatmilk Different from Milk”. I just want to know the ratios. A search engine they can do that for me would be great.

Another example “XYZ-brand motorcycle boots after crash”. I want to know how well they survive an actual crash and the brand is popular enough that I bet there are plenty of images out there. Yet all I get is a bunch of promo images of brand new boots.

Give me a search engine that’ll actually return results I want!

I've been using DDG as my exclusive search engine for longer than I can remember now, possibly since they were first mentioned on HN, I can't remember though. Unfortunately, it was much better than it is today. Not only can I no longer refine results in a meaningful way by negative searches, but the results themselves are also worse even in cases where that does not come into play...

Not op but also a very happy kagi customer. This is usually hard to answer because search results is very dependent on what is searched. For me the quality of results instead of a bunch “top 10 libraries to use with react in 2023” kind of results is what sets it apart for me. I can prioritize what kind of results or sites I want stuff from, I’ve been surprised multiple times by finding a random blog post from somebody working with some tool/library that I’ve search for.

I’d suggest to give it a try, it took less than then 50 search a month limit for me to jump onboard

What about privacy? Why would I tight my search queries to credit card?

They don't keep search histories, supposedly.

Is there any proof?

Proof would be hard to produce, but instead you can try to answer the question what would be the motivation?

Why any other company track and sell users data?

My apologies if I missed your point, but don't other free search tools do that?

Or maybe it is because I haven't used high-quality search, and I am blinded by it's true greatness.