Hello!
I am currently testing various search engines like Mojeek, Andi Search, Brave Search, DDG and my default at the moment is Neeva (not using paid subscription atm). I am interested in switching to Kagi due to better privacy and no ads (similar to Neeva) but I am facing some hurdles that continue to discourage me regarding the free subscription. While I am not ruling out on potentially getting a Premium subscription in either Neeva or even Kagi, I would like to first really really see how the experience is for a few months before committing, I was an early adopter for Kagi, been giving feedback and participated in the community earlier on before public launch (got invited), but then I left since at the time, I was told the search engine will only be payed, but I was interested back again due to the free plan which means I have less pressure of subscribing to premium plan ASAP (especially with things going on here on Florida with the Ian Hurricane), but I then realized the limits users have with free plan.
At Neeva, I have been facing a 50 search limit per week, but here at Kagi, it seems like you folks only allow 50 searches per month which is too low for me and doesn't make sense for me to commit to Kagi, despite having huge interest in this product. Having said that, I would like to really have that 50 searchers per month bumped up to at least 100 or close to that (minimum 80?), because I do way too many searches in a month, I get that free plan is often used to encourage users or atleast hope they subscribe to the premium plan if they liked their experience with the base free plan, but for me to even use Kagi for testing purposes (When I test, I literally use the tested search engine as default across all my devices and make it my temporary daily driver), having that 50 searchers per month limit is too less, especially considering what other ad-free alternatives like Neeva offer (50 per week is more than plenty). I know we are not backed by "ex-googlers" like Neeva and have as much investments as they do, which is something I do like about Kagi (and Kagi seems to be actually a lot more private), but I really hope you folks can do better than 50 searches per month.
Also making free plan a little more lenient would mean people can easily jump between plans (I originally planned on getting the monthly subscription when I can afford it within my budget, so some months I will get the premium sub, while for the rest of the time in the year, I will alternatively just use a free plan, maybe even using free plan one month, premium plan the other and so on like that alternatively the rest of the year, but the fact that the free plan is so restrictive puts me in a hard position).
I should also mention, Neeva's price for premium sub is $4 dollar and a few cents a month, compared to Kagi which is $10 dollars a month = which means you are basically paying $120 dollars a year for a search engine compared to approximately $45 a year for Neeva
This is how I would price and manage these plans, in comparison to the current plan for Kagi.
Paid plan:
Not only can we make it unlimited searchers, we can do things like making "discussions" feature premium plan exclusive and make the Premium Plan atleast 5-6 dollars, this will mean, more people will likely look into subscribing because 10 dollars a month means basically paying 120 dollars a year in that aspect, it's quiet expensive for a world where people (even pro-privacy heads) have been using search engines for free (I get the arguement that ads mean less organic results and all that, I get how ad-free experience is better, but my point is make it more accessible).
Free plan:
This is the gateway to potentially getting people to subscribe to the premium plan, and again, people may not have to get the premium every single month in a year if the paid plan is cheeper and the free plan has a more lenient limit compared to just 50 searchers a month. Now while it's natural to be concerned this may lead to less people getting premium and just sticking with free plan instead, I have a different take. I honestly think it will lead to making the premium plan more sensible financially and more accessible, so in users mind, cheap and accessible plans mean we can change between plans as needed In a year and you have more chance of getting people to subscribe to unlimited premium subscription. Putting 50 searchers a month would push away brand new users, just like it did to me and many will end up not even giving Kagi a try due to this barrier (sure, your data might say there is still solid growth for premium subs, but that does not mean it's still ain't a barrier, reducing and making the plans cheeper and lenient would mean Kagi can see a faster/more adoption rate). This is what Neeva has followed and it's pretty successful, I can say that just being in their slack community that there are growing number of users equally, that either use free or premium.
So for me, unless restrictions are re-evaluated for the free plan, I simply don't see myself as a Kagi user in the future (and possibly reduce 10 dollars a month for premium later on). But I am here posting this on my time because I really like the product, but the free plan is just TOO pushy for the premium plan (so please balance it), and I am sure you folks know even average users search way more than 50 times a month across all devices daily.
EDIT: Forgot to also inquire, there seem to be no rewards or benefits to early adopters who used Kagi through invite only? Atleast we could have offered an unlimited or atleast a lot more lenient free subscription for those who joined and supported Kagi though invite only in the early closed beta days?
@Vlad
