Implement regional pricing

carl

Income and wealth inequality is extremely high in Brazil, so the Brazilian getting your suggested discount might be the owner of several condos and business rentals, having servants and maids. Or a cushy public sector jobs with a fat salary. So why should other Kagi users pay for the Kagi subscription to a Brazilian who might be very comfortably rich?

alexgieg

carl I'm at the 98 percentile in terms of Brazilian salaries, only 2% of Brazilians earn more than I do. That puts me in the very middle of our (tiny) middle class. My annual salary before taxes is USD 23.500. It took me 30 years to reach this level.

Kaguy

This topic seems to be all over the place and I'm quite frankly a bit appalled from some of the posts here that stop just shy of claiming something that's really not appropriate. With all due respect, theorizing on the kind of person that would be a Kagi customer and assuming their wealth or lackthereof as if that's an important factor in making these decisions is useless to this discussion.

In any case, as a Brazilian and recent Kagi client, I just want to ask for clarification on a few things just to know if the suggestion is even viable. I understand regional pricing (as in, charging potentially less than the cost in the company's original currency, which is USD, in order to charge the aproximate value in the original currency to another) is not possible, at least not as things stand with Kagi as a small-scale company. That's fine and dandy and understood.

However:
a. I think this should be a long term goal no matter what, if Kagi's mission statement is to be believed and has any chance of ever breaking away from strictly niche use. If it ever grows to a certain point, it should then be worried about how to make it as accessible and simple to pay for as possible for every country in the world. I'm not sure if the very idea was shot down or if this has been communicated and I've missed it, but I genuinely believe it should be a clear part in a roadmap, even if only for the far-future and in the best of scenarios. It puts people at ease and makes customers feel like their needs are being listened to and that you want their business. That's probably of particular importance when you run a premium search engine and are trying to convince people to pay for something that has been historically "free".

b. Is it possible to at least allow for other countries to pay on their own currency, even if the price is basically a direct conversion from USD? The simple fact you'd not need an international credit card or not have to worry about paying conversion fees and taxes over international processing that can vary from month to month makes A LOT of difference. I'm not sure how viable this is, because certainly there are costs associated with setting up a branch in different countries and complying with whatever financial regulations are necessary in order to charge the local currency, but it is possible and some companies do it in the case of Brazil. Perhaps this could be a gradual rollout where you prioritize regions outside the USA/Europe that have more customers or that you believe have potential to attract more customers with such a move.

I am absolutely sure that the simple fact that people can pay for a subscription in their own currency, even if the price is steeper due to the current economic climate, makes customers much more likely to dip their toes.

Gredharm

Kaguy Chances are that charging in the local currency is an inevitability if Kagi get big enough. But it's not an easy thing to do at all, and someone ultimately pays the conversion fees, either the company, or the user. If a company has an actual local presence, then they can use the foreign currency income locally without conversion. But if not, they still have to convert it to the currency they do use.

Ultimately, except when a company has actual local presence in the relevant countries, regional pricing falls under the category of charity. Nothing wrong with charity, but it should be clear that's what is being asked for.

Kaguy

Gredharm I'm not sure I'd call it charity, because the idea is eating whatever loss you may have in hopes of building a userbase on a given region. That's just an investment. Calling it charity might also give the optics that you don't value the potential business to be had in there, which doesn't exactly inspire confidence in customers. After all, I'm not asking to be given something, I want to pay for a product/service.
I don't know Kagi's internal finances nor do I know how much it would effectively cost them to have an office in Brazil (they don't need an actual office, just a financial entity under someone's name to pay local taxes, provide documentation, legal representation and whatnot), so if it's an impossibility right now, than that's that, but I do think this should be in the cards and not be immediatelly shot down when people bring it up, because humanizing the web does imply something at a global scale, like it or not, and that should be reflected in the company's priorities when it comes investing choices. Kagi is developing a bunch of other products besides the search engine and leaning in a lot on AI features (more so than I'm personally comfortable with, but that's neither here nor there), so it's not unreasonable to assume there may be some leeway on their resources. People are just pointing out a demand they could consider for allocation, if not now, in the future.

I can afford Kagi for now, but that's paying 2 starter plans for me and my wife, because the added 4 dollars for duo make a considerable difference, especially after the fees. If that was solved, I can tell you I'd be one hell of a satisfied and loyal customer. It's cool to hear they'd rather just decrease the price for everyone if they could lower the cost of searching and all, but that's not what's being discussed here. It's not about "discriminating who deserves a discount", it's about the fact the internet is comprised of regions whose value relative to the dollar puts them at a big disadvantage that affects their ability to purchase your product. Whether or not you can (or care to) level out this disadvantage has nothing to do with charity.

Vlad

One thing to really get across here is that no matter where the search is performed, it costs us the same to provide it (and we pay our costs in USD to provide it). So the only way for Kagi search to cost less in some region, is for it to be subsidized (meaning costing more) for users in other regions, unless the entity subsidizing is eg government entity in that region, which we would love to happen. Proton can get away with this as they have huge margins, we don't. Each search costs us about 1 cent and for users who search a lot Kagi is actually already losing money.

Emu7037

I was baffled reading this thread, as there seems to be a gross misunderstanding regarding what so-called "regional pricing" actually is.

It is employed by companies that price based on their perception of what the market will bear, an inherently predatory model, their prices having no correlation with the actual cost of providing the service.

When they offer lower prices in some regions, they do so because their huge profit margins allow for it while still making money from those costumers paying the lower price. They don't have wealthier costumers subsidizing less wealthy ones, which seems to be a widespread misconception here. They're just choosing to make a bit less money from poorer regions rather than no money from them.

It follows that when a company prices its product based on the cost they have to provide it, there is no margin to accommodate such regional pricing. Their price is already what the lowest regionalized pricing they could offer would be. To do it any other way they would need to increase prices on some costumers to lower it on others. That is inherently unfair and is not what Spotify, Google and other companies do.

I say this as a resident in Portugal, where gigabit fiber internet costs about the same as a "professional" kagi subscription, where you can have that same internet and three phone numbers with unlimited data for the same amount as the "ultimate" plan. In short, it is not a trivial expense

ForceKnight

Just wanna leave my thoughts here after deciding that for now i would not be signing up for Kagi, as a resident of third-world country.

I do like what i see on my Trial Plan and want to support your ventures. But the 5 USD price tag on just the Starter subscription is prohibitively expensive for what i am willing to spend. For comparison, the Starter price is equal to my regionally-priced Youtube Premium Family subscription.

So what i was hoping for to be implemented soon would be regional pricing, or a pay-per-use option. But after some lurking around this forum it is pretty clear that the team has decided against both of these solutions. And the reasons for that do not sit right with me.

For regional pricing, it is because the cost of searching is the same (in USD) to run anywhere, so lowering price in some place requires subsidization. But the fact remains that, without at least some slight regional pricing, we - the customers paying with weaker currencies - are forking out a way larger portion of our paycheck on the same service. Fixed pricing may be fair on the provider side, but definitely not on the customer side. But fine, i understand how margins work.

However, the reason for the lack of a pay-per-use option is for light users - which probably includes me - to 'subsidize' power users, and that it "disincentivize spending". I hope you can see how counter-intuitive the standard of fair is being applied here. Again, on its own this argument has merits which i understand, but this combines with the lack of regional pricing make me feel like i get the short end of the stick by signing up, so i won't.

All in all, what i am trying to say is that the current payment options are really unwelcoming to potential customers like me, who are new to paid search engine and not geographically advantageous. You guys are leaving out a huge source of growth on the table.

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