this post was submitted on 25 Jul 2023
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kagi seems very enticing to me, but man thats expensive... anyone here use it?
I'm still on my trial period but I think I'm going to pay when it runs out, I've been really happy with it so far. I think it's saved me a good chunk of time at work I would have wasted digging through Google SEO crap so it feels like it's worth spending a few bucks on.
I got work to pay for it. It is pretty good, and I like the lenses function (focus on just forums or other ways to sort). I can't say that it's necessarily better in general than startpage.com, which is anonomized google (gets you out of the filter bubble though). I feel like Kagi is very slightly better, maybe 10 percent at most.
I also don't love the hard ID they have on you for payment. They claim not to track you but they certainly can, and I'd argue better than Google can if you use startpage.com or whatever anonomized version.
What's the hard ID? You can use a burner email and a pre-paid/anonymous Visa card without any issues.
Here's some prepaid Visa cards you can buy with bitcoin (I have successfully used this site): https://www.coinsbee.com/en/payment-cards-bitcoin
Interesting - I never thought of that, mostly because the overhead is kind of insane (and I don't actually think bitcoin is anonymous, but in this case good enough). I was thinking for your average person, they're going to pull out a credit card or debit card which is a hard ID. Certainly more than if they browse to startpage.com for instance.
You can pay with XMR:
I definitely agree with you though, it is a negative for Kagi. It would be nice if they let you pay direct via crypto or other methods.
I have the $10/mo account but I'll disagree with @[email protected] that it's worth the money.
Don't get me wrong I wouldn't go back to Google/DDG, but while I can afford Kagi's monthly cost I don't believe that everyone can, nor do I think it's an appropriate cost for a search engine.
I feel like I am an average search user, and I easily burn through 1000 searches a month. I'll possibly be upgrading to the $25/mo unlimited account.
If you're used to doing conversion searches like "100 USD in EUR", or "2.5g in oz", or even "20 * 12%" - you get charged for each of those. That doesn't seem so reasonable to me.
I also considered Kagi a bit and I think it might work if I start to change my search behavior. I got too used to abusing search engines as a quicker way to open websites (I could use bookmarks for that) or for bangs (I could use the browser itself for that).
If I managed to untrain myself from this and start using tools for their core-purpose, the limits of Kagi might indeed be more than enough. But currently I am too lazy for such a deep change in my daily workflows.
Exactly - exactly my problem. And why I'm probably going to reluctantly upgrade to the $25/mo unlimited. It just irks me that I feel like I'm getting ripped off :P
Imagine installing and opening a separate units conversions app just to find something that used to be an instant search away.
Well for unit conversion I have a plugin for ulauncher. That is even quicker than having to alt+tab into the browser. So THAT particular problem isn't one of mine :-)
I understand if you can't afford it. Money doesn't grow on trees in this world. But Kagi has been very transparent about the reason for the costs - it's what they need to charge to not lose money, since they don't sell your user data or track you.
It's unrealistic to think that having a search engine is free, and the reason Google is free is because it tracks you and sells your data to advertisers, and probably also makes sure you get search results that benefit those advertisers. It's quite simply a bad choice to use an ad company to search the web.
Kagi also had a blog post about search usage, where they used googles search statistics to determine that the average person searches 3 or 4 times per day (90 to 120 times per month). This amount (100 searches) is free on Kagi.
300 searches costs 5 dollars.
If you are doing 1000 searches per month, that's as much as myself and I work as a programmer / devops guy. We search a lot. That's much more than the average person. We are in the top 1% actually. Nice to be there for something right? :) Cost for us is 10 dollars.
I couldn't find anything about your claim that conversion would cost extra, not on the pricing page and not in the FAQ section. I also did a few conversation searches and there was no info about additional price. Can you link to where it says that?
Just look at your billing page and do a few of those searches. You will see they count as a paid search - nothing special you need to look for.
I'm not saying they charge extra for them, just that they charge for them like other searches. Doing math in the address bar is so second-nature to me now, and it seems a bit silly for Kagi to charge me for working out what 2 * 8 is.
I've seen their posts on this, but the question is how accurate that data is. 80 searches costing Kagi $1 doesn't intuitively feel reasonable, but perhaps it is the truth. Google's search API is $1 per 200 queries, and you would assume they make a profit at that pricing: https://developers.google.com/custom-search/v1/overview#pricing
Of all the subscriptions I have, this one seems like the least value for money for me personally, when I can get for example 5TB of cloud storage for less cost.
It's not that I'm comparing no-search to search, it's that I'm comparing the incremental improvement from DDG to Kagi, and considering whether that improvement is worth $10 or $25 a month.
Ah sorry, I misunderstood you. Yes they count as a search.
I don't think you can compare pricing to Google. They make profits by combining any payment with selling your data for profit. There is no way Kagi can compete with that since they don't sell your data.
To me, search is the most important thing I use the internet for. I just think it's reasonable to pay a good competitor that doesn't sell your data and provides excellent search. But if you can't pay them, of course that's fine. Maybe you need 10 dollars for something else. But for me, Im not in the financial zone where I even miss 10 dollars or notice it's gone.
I like this framing. That might help me come to terms with their cost 👍
It's honestly why I'm paying for it.
I also pay for email for the same reason. :)
For email, Fastmail is just excellent. I use their email aliases function a lot. So you can one-click generate an email to use when you sign up on a service and when you don't use that service anymore, delete the email address.
Makes it impossible for them to sign you up on advertising lists since you can just delete that email address if they annoy you.
Me too. That's probably the easiest comparison and one of the reasons I struggle with Kagi's pricing. I get Proton's highest paid plan for less cost... and that includes all their products, mail, VPN, 3TB cloud storage, and clearly doesn't sell any of my data since they don't have any access to it. Not to mention that my paid plan subsidises free users. (Assuming I upgrade to Kagi Unlimited which it definitely looks like I will be.)
I do the same thing, but with a catch-all email. Only started doing that this year and it makes such a huge difference when signing up for services!
(I know that Proton has a similar one-click service, but I worry about some scenario 10 years in the future where they decide to shut it down and I have to migrate all my logins.)
That's an apples to oranges comparison. Proton is not a web search engine.
Edit: But for email, sure. :)
Sure, but the perceived value for my money. Hence why I appreciated the "search is the most important thing I use the internet for" comment.
Ah yes.
I also worry a bit about all these email aliases I use now. They do tie me to fastmail for the future. And if they would disappear, it would be a pain to replace. But that's life. Have to take some risks. :)
I do. Any questions?
Worth every dollar. The quality is so good that you will switch and forget Google exists. I haven't used Google search in 6 months even once.