Algolia Pricing: Is it Worth The Money? [2024]

What's Algolias's real pricing model? Is it worth the money in 2024?

This guide reviews Algolia's pricing model, pricing tiers, add-ons, and specialized services.

TL;DR

• Algolia has a freemium model that lets you to test the platform and some AI features for up to 10,000 search requests/month.
• The software has 2 pricing models: a pay-as-you-go (PAYG) model, where you pay $0.50 for each 1,000 search requests after the free 10,000, and 2 annual committed plans.
• Pricing increases the more search demand there is on your website and the more AI features you require.
• There are additional add-ons, such as extended analytics retention, uptime guarantee, and dedicated infrastructure.
• You can top up your plans with AI Recommendations and Algolia's professional services.

At the end of this guide, we’ll introduce a new AI-powered solution that can be an alternative to Algolia or complementary to it.

Algolia Pricing Plans

Algolia is an AI-powered search-as-a-service tool that focuses on providing a great search experience for your users.

The tool has a generous freemium plan as well as 3 paid plans.

Algolia has 2 pricing models:

• Pay-as-you-go (PAYG), where you pay $0.50 per additional 1,000 search requests and $0.40 per additional 1,000 records/month.
• Annual Plan, where you are put on a committed annual plan, which also includes more AI features.

Here's a little sneak-a-peek into Algolia's Pricing:

You can start for free with the tool and then update to the tool's pay-as-you-go or annual plans.

Does Algolia Have a Free Version? Algolia's Build Plan

Yes, Algolia offers a free version of their site search called Build.

You can set up the tool for free and then use it for up to 10,000 monthly search requests with 1 million records (historical data) included.

1 search request = a group of one or more search operations sent in a single exchange.

That means you can accommodate up to 10,000 search journeys on your website for free.

In the free plan, you can also test some of their AI features, such as AI synonyms, AI Browse, and Natural Language Processing.

You'll get access to all the essential tools to set up a site search on your website:

• AI-powered search that includes query categorization, dynamic re-ranking, and personalization.
• A/B testing, where you can experiment with your site search and evaluate the results.
• AI Browse functionality that ranks the results on category, collection, and other pages.
• Search analytics that understands search patterns, click and conversion data, and revenue analytics at up to 7 days of data retention.
• Hosting locations in the US, UK, and EU West.

In Algolia's free plan, you will also get full support from them with in-depth developer documentation, API status updates, and access to Algolia Academy.

Drawback - You will have to invest in developers to set it up

Even though Algolia's Build Plan is free, you must invest in development support to install the site search on your website.

Algolia may be easier to set up than alternatives like Elasticsearch, but it is not plug-and-play.

Algolia's Grow Plan

Algolia's Grow Plan operates on a Pay-as-you-go (PAYG) basis, where you pay $0.50 per 1,000 search requests and $0.40 per 1,000 records/month.

This is after you reach the free allowance of 10,000 search requests and 100,000 records.

You'll also get 10,000 Recommend Requests for free per month.

That means this tier can be free for you, given that your website is getting little search demand.

In this plan, you would not get access to all of Algolia's AI-powered features.

You will have to upgrade to the tool's Premium and Elevate plans to use them.

You'll get access to everything else in the Build plan, plus:

• Up to 10,000/index manual synonyms, which can understand closely related user product searches and non-product searches.
• More rules with Algolia's Visual Editor (10/index) that allow you to enhance your default ranking to better match user intent with custom parameters.
• Data retention of up to 30 days, and not 7.
• Up to 100GB of index size limit and maximum application size, not 1 GB.

Apart from Algolia's documentation and academy, you'll also get email and website support.

You can access Algolia's AI Recommendations, which start from $0.60/1,000 requests/mo, with all plans.

Merchants can use Algolia's API to refine user needs, maximize average order value, and improve product recommendations from the search engine.

Drawback - The costing structure can increase the cost rapidly

Users of Algolia mention that the costing structure is good at first, but gets progressively more expensive as more people use the site search.

One customer notes that the tool makes it hard to understand, predict, and manage the use of the site search by users.

Algolia's Premium Plan

Algolia's Premium plan allows you to get access to the tool's advanced AI features and access to the tool's Merchandising Studio.

The tool requires an annual commitment to use, and there is no free allowance.

With the Premium plan, you'll get access to everything in the Grow and Build plans, plus:

• Merchandising Studio was built for e-commerce websites to help improve conversion rates by controlling the search experience.
• Data retention of up to 90 days, and not 30.
• Analytics & Monitoring APIs that let you to tap into actionable insights on how your users are searching.
• Up to 10 site search applications, and not just 1.
• Up to 1,000 maximum indices per application, and not just 50.

In this tier, you'll get access to the tool's premium customer support.

You can also leverage Algolia's Professional Services that allow you to get blueprints, guided onboarding, and account management.

Drawbacks - The tool is getting expensive

Customers of Algolia note that the platform is built to get you to pay more.

This is why users are being upsold on more and more features, with the tool costing +$1,500 a month on the enterprise plans.

Algolia's Elevate Plan

With Algolia's Elevate plan, you'll get access to the tool's full AI functionality.

Enterprise clients will get the full AI offering, including NeuralSearch and volume discounts.

With the Elevate plan, you'll get access to everything in the Premium annual plan, plus:

• Semantic search with NeuralSearch.
• In-depth Revenue Analytics.
• Global hosting locations.

Interesting: Algolia is the only search engine in the world that processes both vector and keyword results in parallel and at scale in a single API using the same index.

Drawbacks - Limited Customization

Despite Algolia's advanced site search functionality, users note that deeper customizations of the search ranking algorithm are impossible.

Algolia's Paid Add-Ons For Annual Plans

Algolia also offers additional add-ons for its annual plans, such as:

• Extended analytics retention of up to 365 days.
• Platform availability with up to 99.999% uptime guarantee.
• Dedicated infrastructure and vault to protect your data.
• Search network that works in up to 17 regions worldwide.
• Crawler that can automatically extract and enrich your website's content.
• Highly responsive customer support.

How Much Algolia's Enterprise Plan (Elevate) Actually Cost?

According to Vendr, Algolia can cost up to $23,000,000 with the average cost of Algolia's enterprise plans being about $350,000 annually.

Disclaimer: The sources are anonymous, and we could not verify these numbers.

Any Reported Surprises at Renewal?

We could not find any customers complaining of a price increase they did not expect from Algolia.

In fact, there are some stories of positive surprises when renewing the contracts.

A source from Vendr claimed that their brand was offered a 4% discount for switching from monthly to quarterly payments.

Looking for an Alternative to Algolia in E-Commerce?

If you are an e-commerce store looking for an Algolia alternative that has a better pricing model for product discovery, look no further than Big Sur AI.

Or, you're looking for more AI-powered features for your website's product discovery experience that help you drive more sales with personalized product recommendations.

As site search statistics show, 66% of online retailers are failing to personalize the on-site site search experience.

New AI solutions like Big Sur AI (our tool) offer 24/7 assistance and personalized product recommendations while users browse your website.

AI Sales Agent

Big Sur's AI Sales Agent is like having a dedicated sales assistant for every shopper.
Shoppers can ask Big Sur’s AI Agent contextual questions about your products from anywhere on your site.
Here’s an example from Rad Power Bikes ⤵️

The agent is trained to provide personalized answers based on the information about your products, site content, and each shopper’s engagement with your store.

E-commerce brands adopt BigSur because of:

• 24/7 Assistance: BigSur’s AI agent can help shoppers find the right product at any time of the day, without relying on human agents to be online.
• Tailored to your store: You control the AI experience, and the software has been fed and trained with your store’s information.
• Optimized for conversions: Our AI Sales Agents' advice (such as product recommendations) has been designed to provide relevant recommendations and propose follow-up questions on a data-driven basis (more on this below).
• Conversational experience: Shoppers can talk to BigSur’s agent as if they were messaging a human.

Conversion Optimized AI Prompts

This unique feature prompts more conversations, leading to more purchases and basket sizes.

BigSur analyzes how each shopper engages with your store. It will predict which questions they will likely ask and suggest them throughout the experience.

Here’s an example ⤵️

As you can see on the Wyze store, BigSur helps shoppers alleviate hesitations before purchasing. Shoppers who interact Big Sur AI tend to convert at four times the rate as the average store user.

These suggested questions are embedded on your product and collections pages and are personalized for every shopper.

💡This means that different users would see different questions crafted to maximize the likelihood of making a purchase.

AI Product Recommendations

When shoppers go to conventional stores, product recommendations are generic. They’re the same for all shoppers and consist of:

• Most purchased products overall
• Frequently bought together

BigSur makes contextual product recommendations based on:

• Shoppers’ engagement with your store (product views, buttons clicked, etc.)
• Information gathered through the conversational experience
• Questions asked
• Etc.

BigSur’s product recommendations are broken into three modules and are shown to users according to the page they’re on and how they got there:

Picked just for you: This module displays a selection of products that a user is most likely to buy based on what we know about them.

Frequently bought together: These recommendations appear once a user adds a product to their cart. They feature other products that customers typically buy based on their previous site activity.

Top sellers: Here, we show bestsellers in the same product category as the product a user is considering but show items based on the shopper’s gathered information.

Shoppers can receive these product suggestions on your product pages or during a conversation with the AI Sales Agent, drastically increasing basket sizes.

Merchant Insights

The nature of BigSur’s offering helps the tool gather unique insights that allow store owners to make better strategic decisions.

First, Big Sur helps you uncover what shoppers want to know when browsing your products and how questions correlate to purchasing behavior.

You can also get insights on what questions lead to conversions vs. abandonment. ⤵️

You also get detailed analytics into what products are frequently bought together to help you improve your store’s user experience.

E-commerce owners appreciate the ability to understand correlations between past purchases, shopper profiles, and shoppers' interactions with their stores.

Merchants can use the insights to improve the site experience, including merchandising and product descriptions, and build a marketing strategy based on what shoppers truly want.

Lastly, you can see where shoppers churn and where the AI Sales Agent helped drive spikes in both sales volume and conversion rate:

Algolia vs. Big Sur AI Side-by-Side Comparison

The difference between Algolia and Big Sur AI is that Algolia drives search usage and revenue via its hybrid search engine, while Big Sur AI is focused on boosting sales or AOV for e-commerce merchants.

Big Sur AI is easier to set up and has a simple user interface.

Algolia can be complex and overwhelming but can work across many industries.

How Big Sur AI's Pricing is Different From Algolia

Big Sur AI has 2 pricing models:

• Commission-Based Model - you only pay when you get conversions attributed to the AI Sales Agent.

This is a pay-for-performance model, where you only pay a commission for the sale of your products.

The conversion window is negotiated, but it’s typically 30 days.

• Tiered Pricing Model - recurring monthly payment based on the average volume of unique visitors per month.

Think of these pricing models as if you’re hiring a salesman.

You choose between paying per unique visitor to your website or a commission on each sale attributed to the software.

💡This approach is different from Algolia, which bases its pricing on either a pay-as-you-go basis with search demand or an annual subscription with pricing based on the number of features.

Big Sur AI’s pricing can be results-based and connected to your bottom line, while Algolia's pricing is based on how much your customers use the site search and the quality of results.

Get Started with Big Sur AI Today

Set up Big Sur AI in your store to help your customers find the products they are looking for through a conversation to increase your store's conversion rate.

Our AI-powered assistant can guide your customers through their shopping journey with product recommendations and question prompts.

Big Sur AI can be an alternative to traditional site search software like Algolia, or it can complement them.

You can set up a site-wide search engine with Algolia and complement it with Big Sur AI's Sales Agent to help your customers ask more complex questions.

Get in touch with us to learn more about Big Sur AI and how it can help your brand increase conversions while providing a better experience to customers throughout their shopping journey.

‘’Adding Big Sur AI's Sales Agent provides immediate and accurate assistance, offering relevant information paired with the perfect product recommendation. This partnership has immediately enhanced our customer experience, which in turn has significantly increased our conversion rate.’’