> 80% of users search less than that monthly, even average HN users (who are majority of our beta users).
I suspect 80% of your users also are not daily-driving though, are also using other search engines at the same time, and have not set Kagi as a default on all their computers and their mobile devices (which I did!). In order to do that I had to change my mobile browser from Safari to Firefox, which is part of the reason I suspect most people have not done this.
1000 sounds like a lot more than 33 a day - particularly when if it is a search with a lens applied that drops to c16 per day, or a search that then clicks through to images.
I also think that the people that are willing to pay for search are likely to be the 'power users' which use search more. If your target market is 'people who are willing to pay for search, but don't use search that much' I suspect you will be limiting the market that find the subscription valuable.
> I would argue that our monetization strategy is valid as it is the only one that at least has a chance of making the business sustainable. Whether enough people would pay (which is what I think you were getting at) is another matter.
I think the problem is a monetization strategy is only valid if people are willing to pay for it. Anyone can create a monetization strategy that is designed to cover costs, but it's not going to lead to a sustainable business unless it generates more value for customers than the fee provides.
I don't know how the paid search API of Google and Bing work, but I will say one thing here. When I'm searching for technical data, I often search, and click through to more than one thing. I also tend to modify search terms, too, trying to winnow the results a bit.
My point being, there is a lot of potential for "show the same search results again, because the user re-searched 5 minutes later" and "show the same search results, but filter locally on an additional word" too.
If Google/Bing give "1000 results per search", then there is also value in storing that single search too. I guess:
- I'm not sure how the API works, so I can't add much value here
- But, even though it adds local cost for storage and DB, caching searches per user could reduce costs in some scenarios
Because, while I love the idea of paid search... I think I do 100s of searches per day, so if you pay for each page of search results, and winnowing down results with additional terms....
Completely agree with almost everything you have said, but to clarify on your caching point:
> But, even though it adds local cost for storage and DB, caching searches per user could reduce costs in some scenarios
There may be some opportunity to do this, and caching results would be a good idea, but most forms of caching are explicitly banned from the Google and Bing API T&Cs. Some caching is allowed in some circumstances, but this will limit the usefulness of caching to reduce costs.
> Because, while I love the idea of paid search... I think I do 100s of searches per day, so if you pay for each page of search results, and winnowing down results with additional terms....
Agree with this - and at your usage levels plus $1 per 80 searches plus the $10 fee for 30 / day, you will be talking about $40+ per month, or $480 per year - enough to buy a new Macbook every 2.5 years :)
But IMO having been on the discord group the founders have got themselves into a trap of thinking "Charging per query is the only way we can make the sums financially work because we use both the Bing and Google APIs, thus we will need to get users to accept to paying per query".
> Agree with this - and at your usage levels plus $1 per 80 searches plus the $10 fee for 30 / day, you will be talking about $40+ per month, or $480 per year - enough to buy a new Macbook every 2.5 years :)
The proposed pay per use is an independent tier, not on top of any other.
> The proposed pay per use is an independent tier, not on top of any other.
Pay per use is on all tiers if you go above the quota, the quota just changes based on tier. It’s been made pretty clear on discord that none of the tiers will be ‘all you can eat’.
A bottom PAYG tier is different to what I last heard although it doesn’t actually change the monthly cost of $40 for OP though.
> I think the problem is a monetization strategy is only valid if people are willing to pay for it.
There are people willing to pay for it, the question is will there be enough. A doomed monetization strategy would be one where people are willing to pay for it, but you lose money on every transaction.
> 1000 sounds like a lot more than 33 a day - particularly when if it is a search with a lens applied that drops to c16 per day, or a search that then clicks through to images.
Not sure where you got this from. Search via lens does not cost as 2 searches. It is costing 1 search and we are making changes in the future where it will count as less than 1 search.
I suspect 80% of your users also are not daily-driving though, are also using other search engines at the same time, and have not set Kagi as a default on all their computers and their mobile devices (which I did!). In order to do that I had to change my mobile browser from Safari to Firefox, which is part of the reason I suspect most people have not done this.
1000 sounds like a lot more than 33 a day - particularly when if it is a search with a lens applied that drops to c16 per day, or a search that then clicks through to images.
I also think that the people that are willing to pay for search are likely to be the 'power users' which use search more. If your target market is 'people who are willing to pay for search, but don't use search that much' I suspect you will be limiting the market that find the subscription valuable.
> I would argue that our monetization strategy is valid as it is the only one that at least has a chance of making the business sustainable. Whether enough people would pay (which is what I think you were getting at) is another matter.
I think the problem is a monetization strategy is only valid if people are willing to pay for it. Anyone can create a monetization strategy that is designed to cover costs, but it's not going to lead to a sustainable business unless it generates more value for customers than the fee provides.