I went with the $5 plan, but I get your point. It's definitely the choice for hackers given its self-hosting capabilities, and customizations. I've just been blown away by Kagi's search results, integrated AI, and extensive shortcut bangs. And honestly, I'm happy to pay the $5/mo. My opinion may be different if I had to spend more than that, but $5/mo is a value sweet-spot from my perspective. I still love SearXNG due to the reasons I listed above, but day-to-day, Kagi has won me over.
Discussion
I think that I'm "search-obsessive". Kagi claims that only top 1% of users exceed 300 searches a month. I can easily exaust it in a couple of weeks. But I agree with you, even $10 is a good value for what you get when you have the means to fund it 🤣.
I was ititiall) initially worried about the 300 queries thing, but I'm going on month 3 and I haven't exceeded it yet. And I haven't altered my search behavior either.