SearchbugReviews of searchbug.com

Response from Searchbug· Jun 6, 2023

Hi Johathan, Thank you for your feedback. We actually pride ourselves on the fact that we are one of the few data providers that allows users to pay as you go. Most of our competitors force users into a subscription. They can do this since they own the data however, it can also get stale which is the part we don't like. Imagine trying to update hundreds of millions or billions of records. It can take a year or longer; by the time you finish updating, you have to start over. Searchbug uses a waterfall of data providers to search and obtain the most recent information on behalf of our customers without forcing them into an expensive monthly subscription. Since we use a variety of data providers, we pay for every search done by a customer. We also have many other costs like most businesses which include administrative, overhead, salaries, benefits, and then our largest expense, buying the data and creating all the algorithms to be able to display it in a nice report for our customers. Believe it or not, the subscription business model is more profitable but we've never liked forcing users into a subscription. We're sorry you don't appreciate our cost effective business model. We do this to help control data costs since our data is sourced from multiple providers to ensure you get the most up-to-date information, so we have to charge for each lookup. Buying Search Tokens ($T) can simplify your charges. You can purchase a a level of $T to include bonus tokens for a discounted rate. Then, when you conduct a lookup you pay with the previously purchased $T and we dedcut them from your balance when information found. If no info is found, there are no charges. Thereby saving money on unnecessary subscriptions and not having to pay for nothing. Since Search Tokens ($T) never expire you won't be charged a monthly subscription fee if you're not using the website, but you can come back whenever you do need information and you can use your previously purchased $T without additional monthly charges. I hope that helps explain why we charge per search and in the end, it saves you money and you get better data.