Wall Check
Algolia
Developer-friendly search API; free up to 10k requests/mo, then strictly metered per 1k requests and records.
Gates 3/5 3 of the five walls fired — the score is a count, not a verdict.
Checked 2026-10-26 · re-check due 2026-12-25.
The five walls
! Price wall
The free tier ends. The limit you hit while everything still looks free.
Free tier covers 10,000 search requests/month; pay-as-you-go starts at $0.50 per 1,000 extra requests.
source · checked 2026-10-26
! Permission wall
You can see the setting but not touch it. Licenses and admin roles decide what you control.
Personalization, AI re-ranking, and enterprise SLA guarantees locked behind custom plans.
source · checked 2026-10-26
✓ Gate wall
A human at the vendor decides your timeline — approvals, reviews, onboarding queues.
Immediate self-serve account setup and API key issuance.
source · checked 2026-10-26
! Meter wall
Cost scales with your success. Per-unit, per-seat, per-message pricing that grows as you do.
Metered per search query and per unit of index storage (records).
source · checked 2026-10-26
✓ Exit wall
Getting out costs more than getting in. Your data, your domain, your number — who keeps them.
Indices are populated from primary database; switching to self-hosted alternatives requires re-pointing indexing pipelines.
source · checked 2026-10-26
The twelve questions
- What is the hard number where the free tier ends?
- 10,000 search requests per month on the free tier.
- What does a busy month actually cost at per-unit pricing?
- Search traffic spikes directly bill at $0.50/1k requests.
- Can one real record be exported on day one — and does it open?
- Record data retrievable via API; index configuration exportable as JSON.
Documents read for this check: pricing page, API documentation, changelog.
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