Yearly billing should be cheaper than monthly billing

Imperator_of_all

When choosing to pay yearly people give you money, as because of inflation 10$ paid next year will be worth less than the same ammount paid now.
When people are choosing to pay yearly you save money because transaction fees only occur once.
When choosing to pay yearly, people show trust that your company will exist in a year and support it at this task.

This is why yearly billing should be cheaper than montly.

Vlad

Imperator_of_all This would assume that we have wiggle room in the price, which we don't (we don't even know if we are going to be sustainble at $10/yet)

It can also be that due same inflation Kagi is $11/month in one year?

We have annual billing option mainly because users requested it (they don't want to deal with payment notifications.

GravityMan

I was going to start a topic with the same statement. It's better to lock in customers and increase cash flow vs monthly users that could be indecisive and sadly end up cancelling.

gesumin

On the other hand it's exactly what Mullvad does. 1 price. No discounts, no hidden fees.

Admittedly, it looks better with Mullvad's presentation.

GravityMan

I don’t know the books of the operation, but giving a slight discount on yearly vs monthly would give you a much needed boost vs the same price across the board. If users are dissatisfied with the service; I’d rather have them locked for a year vs 3 months and canceling the service. This would give you more financial ability to pivot if need be (which almost certain) vs bringing in external financing.

Mullvad is not a startup, and already has established, somewhat loyal user base. Magi is just (potentially) getting off the ground and it’ll need every PR and cash infusion it can take.

pacifik

If the cost for one search is so expensive : why go with unmetered plans ?

What is boring me is that small users will pay for big users. Not fair. I read in other threads that you think account sharing could be a problem. If there is a problem : remove the problem ! So for me, the only way to go is metered plan : you pay for what you use.

Because I can't afford to pay $40 for four accounts, even $10 for one account in order to allow big users to query as they want because I care of my privacy.

Vlad

pacifik I agree it is not ideal, but 90% of users told us they prefer fixed fee vs a pay per use. So we are dealing with a lot of difficulties navigating pricing for Kagi.

If we go with pay per use it would probably need to be around 40 searches for $1 (to include other costs). Would this still feel more comfortable to you?

pacifik

Vlad perhaps you can give the choice for the metered plan at 0.025$ / search (1$ / 40 search) and the unlimited plan at 10$ / month / user

Because since I set Kagi as my default search engine on my desktop browser, and as I'm on the free plan, I met the limit usage quickly and now I understand that I often made queries that are useless, because I'm lazy. So yes, give a price to each search is a good way to educate ourselves.

I'm ok to subscribe for 1$ / 40 search metered plan.

GravityMan

Looking at my useage for June so far, I would definitely prefer the flat fee vs pay-per-use.

Perhaps linking on "how to search for different content" article or drafting a quick cheat sheet might be of use to users. My thought process would be,

It gives users a better understanding of how to find the information they desire, by use of bangs, what API Kagi uses, etc
(Potentially) eliminates unnecessary searches which cost Kagi money

I find myself using bangs far more often for example.

Vlad

One more thing to figure out is how to present this to the user to avoid confusion.

seventhwave

Vlad , I think that give a metered plan will be attractive for lot of casual users.
I mean, IT/professional users could have heavy loads, but how about privacy-conscious non-professional users? Maybe they would comfortably stay below 2 search/day
The presentation could have simply two boxes:

"Pay as you go": 0.0XX$ per search (and below you can say "this plan fits well for casual users who make less than 50 query/month"
"Unlimited": flat rate of XX$/month (below: "this plan fits for heavy users that perform more than 50 query/month)

About annual subscription: maybe now it's too early, but I think we have to think about it again in the next months.
Once you'll find out the right economics, having funds for 12/24 months in advance could be useful (I'm a Proton user, and Proton has also 24 months)

For users on free tier, you've already a page with "remaining free query"; for metered users, this page can host the "already done query" with ongoing costs (for practicality reasons). In this page you can also suggest the user to switch to unlimited plan, in case his costs are rising or are already become more than the unlimited rate....and this suggestion will be seen as valuable for the user (and it will be a value for you too).

Vlad

seventhwave Perhaps "Kagi Mini" plan for $5/mo (including up to 200 searches for casual users ) would make sense?

seventhwave

yes, $5/mo (with about 200 searches) would be a great middle ground for users who are thinking to switch but aren't so sure now. this number could make a person try Kagi as a primary search engine for at least few days; it's difficult to appreciate the difference using Kagi only sometimes.
So if you'd see this option feasible, in my opinion this will be useful for us all, starting from now.

The only remark: I'd avoid "Mini" word; maybe would be better "Kagi Starter" and "Kagi Unlimited" (starter convoys the idea to "you may start from here then go unlimited", but "mini" says "like the other but less capable"..but you've only less queries)

Vlad

seventhwave Good feedback, thanks!