Kagi search engine won’t bill you next month if you forget to use it

Kagi, a paid alternative to Google Search, now says it will credit your account if you subscribe and forget to use it. The company introduced what it calls “Fair Pricing” in a blog post yesterday, writing that any time you don’t use any of your searches during a full billing cycle, it will apply a credit for that month to your next one, effectively giving you that month for free. “We have implemented this for the simple reason of being kind to our users,” Kagi writes, “We understand some months you may forget to use Kagi or do not need it, so when you do, you can rest assured that we haven’t charged you for that.” [Media: https://bsky.app/profile/kagi.com/post/3lhfcnszvzs2y] Where many Google Search alternatives, like Perplexity or OpenAI’s SearchGPT, are turning to AI to compete with Google, Kagi takes the company on directly, showing a simple list of links based on search queries. Like fellow Google competitor DuckDuckGo, Kagi says it doesn’t track its users’ activity or sell their data — it calls personal information an “unwelcome liability.” One thing Kagi does differently is offer “lenses” that search specific parts of the web, like forums or academic sites, with the option to create your own custom lenses that only search certain sites. But Kagi isn’t free once you’ve used up a trial of 100 searches. After that, you have to sign up for one of its monthly plans, which go from $5 per month for its “Starter” plan with a 300-search limit up to a $25-a-month “Ultimate” plan with no search limit and that includes an AI assistant.