What a search engine really costs, and why it's billed by catalogue

Every SaaS search engine costs roughly the same to operate. What differs, a lot, is the unit they charge you in. And that decision, which looks like an accounting detail, is what determines whether you can predict next year's bill or not.

This post explains the two real costs behind a search engine, why we bill on the size of your catalogue, and what to look at when you compare prices with anyone — us included.

The two costs, plainly

Running a search engine costs money in two separate places, and they behave in opposite ways.

Indexing your catalogue is the cost that scales with the number of products and languages. Every product page has to be processed, stored, kept up to date every time you change a price or something sells out, and — with semantic AI — have its representation computed and stored. It's a cost that exists even if nobody searches in your store at all. It's predictable: you know how many products you have, and you know August will look a lot like July.

Answering searches is the cost that scales with your traffic. Each query consumes something, but very little next to the above. And it's unpredictable: a traffic spike, a campaign that works, or a badly behaved crawler multiplies your searches without warning.

That's the whole picture. The big cost is stable and the small cost is volatile.

Why we bill on catalogue

Because if we charge you for the stable part, your bill is stable. You know today what you'll pay in December, and if you have an extraordinary Black Friday, the good news doesn't arrive with an invoice behind it.

Charging per search has impeccable internal logic — you pay for what you use — and an ugly side effect: it penalises you exactly when things are going well. And a worse, subtler one: it pushes you not to put search where it ought to be, for fear of consumption running away.

A search engine you're afraid to use is a search engine you haven't bought.

And now the part almost nobody writes

That we bill on catalogue does not mean searches are unlimited. Those would be two different statements and only the first is true.

Every paid plan comes with a monthly number of searches; Free, which is a free 1-month trial, comes with 1,000 in total:

Plan	Per month	Products	Searches/month
Free	€0	200	1,000 in total (1-month trial)
Starter	€15	1,000	25,000
Pro	€49	6,000	100,000
Business	€149	12,000	500,000
Custom	€499	50,000	5,000,000

The headroom is generous on purpose: a store that runs short of searches on its plan is, nearly always, a store that's doing well and should already be on the next step up.

If you do go over, there are two ways out and neither is a surprise on the invoice: move up a plan, or add search packs — 10,000 more for €6 a month, or 100,000 more for €39, stackable. You add them yourself from the dashboard and remove them the same way.

Same with products, with one difference: if you go over the limit, we don't cut off your sync. It gets recorded and we talk about it. We prefer that to you finding your store without search on a Saturday because you imported more than you meant to.

The annual price

Paying yearly applies a 17% discount on the sum of the twelve monthly payments. Pro comes to €488 a year instead of €588. There's no minimum term on monthly, and annual is the same service paid up front.

We state it as a percentage rather than as a number of months waived because the percentage is exact and the other is a rounding that hardly ever matches what ends up on the invoice.

What to look at when you compare

No names, because they aren't needed. Five questions you can put to any provider, us included:

1. What happens if I double my traffic next month? If the answer involves a multiplication, your bill is a variable, not a cost.
2. What happens if I double my catalogue? The same question from the other side. Someone has to charge you for growing; what matters is knowing which of the two.
3. What's included and what's an extra? Semantic AI, recommendations, the assistant, languages, the second domain. This is where the headline price and the invoice part ways.
4. How much does the second language cost me? If you sell in several, this question alone can reorder your comparison.
5. What happens if I want to leave? Minimum term, notice period, and whether you take anything with you or walk away empty-handed.

So the fifth doesn't hang in the air: we have no minimum term, you cancel from the dashboard, and price changes are announced 30 days ahead.

When it doesn't add up

The honest sum is short. A paid search engine is justified if the money it moves exceeds what it costs, and that depends on three things: how many people use your search, how much it's worth to you that they buy, and how much you're losing now.

With low traffic, none of the three gives a number that compensates. With fewer than two hundred products, likewise: your customers know them. And if your product pages are undescribed, what you have is a catalogue problem that no search engine fixes.

If you're in any of those three cases, don't buy from us yet. We're telling you here so we don't have to tell you on a call in two weeks' time.

And if you want the number for your store

There's a calculator that tells you which plan fits based on products, languages and visits. And if you'd rather see it with your catalogue before deciding, there's a free 1-month trial.

If your case doesn't fit the table — many stores, an enormous catalogue, a brutal seasonal peak — write to us and we'll look at it. That isn't something a pricing page solves.