IT Blog

Neeva, an ad-free Google search alternative that launched last June, will finally make good on plans to charge a subscription fee for its service.

But instead of immediately throwing a paywall in front of prospective users, the startup is launching a free tier. Neeva’s free version will also be ad-free, but it’ll come with monthly usage limits and restrictions on certain features, such as Slack integration. Those who pay $5 per month for a Neeva Premium subscription will get extra perks to be determined later. (VPN service and a password manager are likely candidates.)

Cofounder Sridhar Ramaswamy, who ran Google’s entire ad business until 2018, says that the freemium approach stands a better chance of getting people out of their Google habit. He notes that users who perform at least 10 queries in Neeva and install the company’s browser extension are three times more likely to stick with the search engine indefinitely. When users perform most of their searches in Neeva, their…