VerdictPal
Join
← All cardsDOSSIER · AI search · SOLID · VERIFIED 2026-06-09
Kagi92SolidBenchmark pendingPrivate paid web search and AI-search alternativeVerified 2026-06-09

Dossier · AI search

Kagi

Private paid web search and AI-search alternative · last verified 2026-06-09

Solid
AI search
Kagi
92/100
ROLEPrivate paid web search and AI-search alternative
Editorial fit
92
Source quality
76
Citation honesty
88
Privacy controls
96
Value for money
74
Speed
86
FREETrial
$5/MOStarter
$10/MOProfessional
SolidVerified 2026-06-09VP·METHOD

VERDICT HISTORY

  • Kagi is the paid-search card: a user-funded, ad-free search engine with serious privacy engineering and enough Assistant functionality to be useful without turning into an AI slop layer. The strongest angle is incentive alignment — no ads, no result-click tracking, no analytics/telemetry on the main site, and paid plans that make the business model legible. The recommendation still depends on a 25-query search-quality benchmark against Google, Brave, DuckDuckGo, Perplexity, and You.com.
  • Converted imported Notion research into a full flagship-ready dossier template with metrics, panes, pricing deck, scenarios, benchmark rows, and comparison slices.

EDITOR'S NOTE

Desk hands-on 2026-06: The best search product on the atlas for privacy posture plus AI — you pay, they do not sell your attention. Benchmark the quality; the ethics already passed.

AT A GLANCE

User-funded, ad-free search engine with paid web search, result controls, privacy-oriented defaults, Privacy Pass/Tor support, and optional Kagi Assistant modes.

Role: Private paid web search and AI-search alternativeCategory: AI searchEditorial · hands-on

Kagi flagship-ready dossier: Private paid web search and AI-search alternative.

PUBLIC FACTS · vendor & repo

List prices and pay-as-you-go entry points we can cite without running our own bench. Each tile links to a source when possible.

AI searchSetVerdictPal card ↗
synthesizedEvidenceQuality gate ↗
6Sources checkedCard sources ↗
2026-06-07Pricing checkedQuality gate ↗

Limits & product surface

Non-price vendor claims — multipliers, caps, and API scope. Detailed matrices live in subscription and SDK sections below.

Primary surface
prosumer-saasCard identity ↗
Modalities
textCard identity ↗
Workflow roles
[object Object], [object Object], [object Object]VerdictPal editorial ↗
Alternatives tracked
Perplexity, You.com, Google Search, Brave Search, DuckDuckGoVerdictPal comparison set ↗

HOW IT WORKS · agent loop

The public positioning for this product — the loop we score against on VerdictPal.

Start with the wedge

Users who want ad-free search without behavioral advertising

Run the representative task

Run 25 research, product, local, and navigational queries against Kagi, Google, Brave, DuckDuckGo, Perplexity, and You.com.

Check the failure modes

Paid search only makes sense if result quality beats baseline

Compare before recommending

Compare against Perplexity, You.com, Google Search before shipping advice.

METRIC LAB · 16 DIMENSIONS

Click a tile for the editorial note. Color follows score: coral, yellow, mint.

Shape

Avg 84 · 59–98

92Editorial fit

Weighted roll-up across 13 dimensions for AI search; pending desk verification if rescored from public facts.

By group

Fit89
  • Editorial fit92
  • Wedge task fit90
  • Feature depth86
Cost75
  • Free-tier utility68
  • Cost-to-value74
  • Opportunity cost82
Trust88
  • Source grounding88
  • Privacy posture96
  • Failure transparency82
  • Evidence strength76
  • Transparency98
Workflow81
  • Integration reach78
  • Setup friction86
  • Reliability88
  • Competitive position94
  • Data portability59

SEARCH MODES · 4 lenses

One input box, many retrieval postures. Filter by tier.

01Free

Workspace

Workspace path for Kagi — verify limits on the live product.

02Pro

Collaboration

Collaboration path for Kagi — verify limits on the live product.

03Pro

Automation

Automation path for Kagi — verify limits on the live product.

04Max

Admin & billing

Admin & billing path for Kagi — verify limits on the live product.

BENCHMARK LEDGER

Public rows are vendor or third-party claims we logged with a date. Desk rows are reserved for VerdictPal self-run results.

MeasureResultSource
Run 25 research, product, local, and navigational queries against Kagi, Google, Brave, DuckDuckGo, Perplexity, and Youfirst-page relevance, spam/SEO rate, primary-source rate, duplicate domains, source diversity, time to useful source.PlannedVerdictPal benchmark plan
Apply ranking/blocking/pinning/lenses for a research domain and rerun 10 queriesuseful-source lift, filter-bubble risk, setup time, clarity of controls.PlannedVerdictPal benchmark plan
Run 10 Assistant questions on public sources only; inspect model/provider path, retention controls, and answer citationscitation quality, provider clarity, retention clarity, model caps, correction burden.PlannedVerdictPal benchmark plan

PRICING DECK · checked 2026-06-09

Desk pick

Starter

$5

month

  • 300 searches/mo
  • Verify live regional checkout before publishing procurement advice.

Professional

$10

month

  • Unlimited search
  • Verify live regional checkout before publishing procurement advice.

Ultimate

$25

month

  • Unlimited search + premium Assistant
  • Verify live regional checkout before publishing procurement advice.

RAW · checked 2026-06-09: Trial free: 100 searches + 100 Assistant interactions · Starter USD 5/mo: 300 searches · Professional USD 10/mo: unlimited search · Ultimate USD 25/mo: Premium AI, Research mode, flagship models · annual −10% · unused-month credit.

RESEARCH LOG · desk notes

What we learned while building this dossier — not vendor copy.

Notion Card pipeline ↗

Notion research pass

Kagi is the paid-search card: a user-funded, ad-free search engine with serious privacy engineering and enough Assistant functionality to be useful without turning into an AI slop layer. The strongest angle is incentive alignment — no ads, no result-click tracking, no analytics/telemetry on the main site, and paid plans that make the business model legible. The recommendation still depends on a 25-query search-quality benchmark against Google, Brave, DuckDuckGo, Perplexity, and You.com.

VerdictPal git ↗

Flagship-ready structure

Converted imported research into metrics, panes, scenarios, benchmark rows, comparison notes, and pricing deck.

COMPETITIVE LENS

Where Kagi wins for cited research — and where a rival still belongs in the stack.

Kagi is stronger when users who want ad-free search without behavioral advertising; Perplexity may still win for narrower fit, procurement, or specialist depth.

Kagi

  • Users who want ad-free search without behavioral advertising
  • Research workflows that benefit from domain ranking, blocking, pinning, lenses, and lower SEO sludge

Perplexity

  • You need free unlimited search
  • You will not benchmark result quality against your current baseline before paying

UNDER THE HOOD

Vendors named on the product about page — useful for procurement and privacy reviews.

private web search
Kagi
ad-free search
Perplexity
assistant queries
You.com

DEEP PANES · 6 LENSES

Editorial lenses only. Subscription and API pricing live in their own sections above.

Lens 01

Positioning

Kagi is framed here as Private paid web search and AI-search alternative. Kagi is the paid-search card: a user-funded, ad-free search engine with serious privacy engineering and enough Assistant functionality to be useful without turning into an AI slop layer. The strongest angle is incentive alignment — no ads, no result-click tracking, no analytics/telemetry on the main site, and paid plans that make the business model legible. The recommendation still depends on a 25-query search-quality benchmark against Google, Brave, DuckDuckGo, Perplexity, and [You.com](http://You.com).

Checked
2026-06-07
Evidence
synthesized
  • Users who want ad-free search without behavioral advertising
  • Research workflows that benefit from domain ranking, blocking, pinning, lenses, and lower SEO sludge
  • Privacy-conscious users willing to pay instead of trading search behavior for ads
  • People who want a web-search baseline before using Perplexity, ChatGPT, or Google AI summaries

TEST SCENARIOS · hands-on lab

How we exercised the product. Step through each run before you trust the scores.

Test run

Step 1 of 4

Start from the persona in best-for item 1.

BEST FOR

  • Users who want ad-free search without behavioral advertising
  • Research workflows that benefit from domain ranking, blocking, pinning, lenses, and lower SEO sludge
  • Privacy-conscious users willing to pay instead of trading search behavior for ads
  • People who want a web-search baseline before using Perplexity, ChatGPT, or Google AI summaries

AVOID IF

  • You need free unlimited search
  • You will not benchmark result quality against your current baseline before paying
  • You need formal institutional guarantees for every Kagi Assistant model/provider path before use
  • You want an academic database or systematic-review tool rather than cleaner general web search

STRENGTHS

  • Paid ad-free search
  • 100-search trial
  • Starter 300 searches/mo
  • Professional unlimited search
  • Ultimate Premium AI/Research mode
  • result ranking/blocking/pinning/lenses
  • Kagi Assistant
  • Privacy Pass and Tor/onion support
  • PayPal/OpenNode payment
  • fair-pricing credit

WEAKNESSES

  • Paid search only makes sense if result quality beats baseline
  • Starter quota can be too small for heavy researchers
  • Assistant privacy depends on Kagi plus third-party model providers
  • Research mode and flagship models require Ultimate
  • Cloud search still needs trust
  • Custom ranking can create a filter bubble

HOW IT COULD IMPROVE

  • Extracted values that require manual verification suggest the extraction pipeline needs a confidence-checking layer, cross-reference extracted claims against the original passage before presenting them as fact.

EDITORIAL EVIDENCE · 3 ENTRIES

TASK

Run 25 research, product, local, and navigational queries against Kagi, Google, Brave, DuckDuckGo, Perplexity, and You.com.

Pending.

↳ first-page relevance, spam/SEO rate, primary-source rate, duplicate domains, source diversity, time to useful source.

TASK

Apply ranking/blocking/pinning/lenses for a research domain and rerun 10 queries.

Pending.

↳ useful-source lift, filter-bubble risk, setup time, clarity of controls.

TASK

Run 10 Assistant questions on public sources only; inspect model/provider path, retention controls, and answer citations.

Pending.

↳ citation quality, provider clarity, retention clarity, model caps, correction burden.

This tool is in the VerdictPal Citation Fidelity protocol — frozen question bank, dual-reviewer grading, results still pending. Citation Fidelity v0.1 →

PRIVACY DEEP-DIVE · checked 2026-06-09

Kagi says it has no ads, no analytics/telemetry, no result-click tracking, and minimal cookies. Queries/web requests may be temporarily logged for debugging; load balancer/VM logs are retained 7 days and Sentry 90 days. Assistant threads delete after one day by default; Kagi proxies AI/media connections.

Training on your dataNot stated
EU data residencyNot documented
SOC 2 attestationNot documented
Local-first by defaultCloud only

WORKFLOW ROLES

How this tool fits into a composed research stack:

private web searchad-free searchassistant queries

QUALITY GATE · SOLID

Evidence ready
Benchmark pending
  • desk hands-on 2026-06-15: headline and metrics adjusted after desk trial.
  • score-revision 2026-06-09: differentiated from public facts; pending desk verification
  • Scira-gate correction 2026-06-04: source-backed solid, not flagship until the 25-query search benchmark and dossierTemplate are complete. Desk stance is positive but recommendation remains locked.
  • Next action: Run 25-query search-quality benchmark against Google, Brave, DuckDuckGo, Perplexity, and You.com; include spam rate, source diversity, customization, and Assistant privacy.
  • Public recommendation: false
  • evidence-override: Notion source-of-truth sync; evidence remains source-backed until desk benchmark or hands-on pass.
  • Flagship-ready structure generated from Notion deep research and imported git fields on 2026-06-09.
Editorial · hands-onSolid

Related dossiers

AI search
Perplexity
72/100
ROLECited search front door and web-grounded API platform

Consumer app · Text

Cited answer engine and AI search platform with consumer Pro/Max search, Deep Research, Spaces/files, and developer APIs including Sonar, Search, Agent, and Embeddings.

Watch outYou plan to paste the answer into a graded bibliography without opening every citation

Editorial · hands-onFlagship
First-pass source mapsPolicy, news, product,
From$20/MOPro
Editorial fit
72
Source quality
68
Citation honesty
56
Privacy controls
36
Value for money
52
Data portability
55
AI search
You.com
64/100
ROLEAI search and web-grounding API alternative

API · Text · Image · Code

Enterprise-oriented web search API and research API platform for grounding AI systems, with consumer search/chat roots, SOC2 positioning, DPA-ready terms, and zero-data-retention options.

Watch outYou want a stable consumer-search review and the product surface is currently API-first in public positioning

Editorial · hands-onSolid
Developers who needTeams comparing AI-search
From$15/MOYouPro
Editorial fit
64
Source quality
55
Citation honesty
66
Privacy controls
45
Value for money
64
Data portability
77
AI search
Exa
76/100
ROLEAI-native web retrieval and RAG source fetching

API · Text · Data

AI-native web search, contents, answer, monitor, and agent API platform for AI systems that need current web context, parsed pages, token-efficient highlights, structured outputs, and grounded citations.

Watch outYou need a consumer research UI rather than an API

Editorial · hands-onSolid
Agentic research flowsRAG pipelines that
From$7/MOSearch
Editorial fit
76
Source quality
52
Citation honesty
78
Privacy controls
57
Value for money
74
Data portability
65
AI search
Scira AI
86/100
ROLEAgentic research front door and flagship VerdictPal dossier template

Consumer app · Text · Code · Data

Open-source AGPL-3.0 AI search assistant that searches the web, cites sources, supports specialized modes, connects to 100+ apps via MCP, and offers a separate API platform for Search, People, X, and Reddit agents.

Watch outYou cite the summary without opening linked sources

Editorial · hands-onFlagship
Multi-step questions thatUsers who want
From$15/MOHosted Pro
Editorial fit
86
Source quality
82
Citation honesty
86
Privacy controls
78
Value for money
74
Data portability
82

Browse the atlas

The Pack · Editorial newsletter

New cards in your inbox. Free.

One short email when a card ships or changes status. No tracking, no third-party analytics. Unsubscribe in one click.