Auto-tip to zero-out costs at the end of period

mphi

I would love to see an "auto-tip the difference" feature.

For me, it is basically guaranteed that I exceed the default $10. Up until now I just "prepay"/tip to go way above what I use, and then it will slowly zero-out, but it requires manual effort the check if I'm already overspending.

So I would love to either be able to set a custom monthly amount or just automatically tip the difference if I go to negative credits (perhaps in combo with a small reminder mail: "Hey, we automatically tipped the difference of xx.x USD").

Vlad

mphi Thanks for the suggestion. Where you think would be the best place for this feature?

mphi

Vlad Probably right in Settings — Billing — Below the "Premium membership" header as a "zero-out balance on overspending" checkbox.

Another fancy possibility would be to have it as a separate Payment Plan. Instead of "Kagi Premium — $10 per month" you could choose something like "Kagi Flex — minimum $10, automatically pay up on overspending" and "Kagi Custom — Custom payment per month (>$10)".

I probably like the latter better, but it will complicate the whole pricing/payment structure. So I would probably keep "Kagi Premium" as default and offer the other plans only if the user explicitly clicks on "Manage Billing".

Vlad

mphi Kagi Flex sounds greatr, I wonder how many users would actually opt for it (pain/gain to develop this).

seventhwave

Vlad , I really admire the @mphi behavior and proposal.
However, I really don't think that people will use that. At least, thinking about me, if I'll choose to pay on overspending, I think that I'll check my spending at least every 2 days, because I don't have a feel about the number of queries I do, and I'll have a remote thinking like "oh my god, maybe this month I'm spending 200$ and I'm not aware of this". Or maybe I don't have a sense for my daily usage. Or my little search variations (typos, the same search tried with lots of lenses, etc).
I think that the user feeling will be "I'm often anxious about that", and this gives a bad product relationship.

But the @mphi proposal is good for us all, so what could be an alternate proposal? we can think about an approach like "hi, if you'd like to help funding our development and you're an heavy user, you may like to add something to your fee. Last 3 months you've spent an average of YY$/month in searches; how about to add a recurrent tip of Z$/month? Or something else, if you prefer".

In this way, if a loyal user will pay 10$/month, and realize that in the last 3 months he has consumed 18$/month, he could start a recurrent tip of....maybe 3/5 $/ month?
In this way, he'll have a good feeling about kagi transparency, about kagi fairness, about his own generosity, and a correct cost understanding. Kagi, on the other side, will earn less money from the single "exact overspending" user...but I think that more users will tip kagi in this way, so the total gain will be positive for us all.

What do you think @Vlad ?

Vlad

seventhwave Whatever we end up with it has to be super simple and intuitive. The best would be to actually increase the price of the product (but include a cheap starter tier for $5 for example for casual users) so we do not have to think about this.