Algolia Pricing 2026: Free, Grow and Grow Plus Costs

Algolia has no monthly fee on its self-serve plans. Free covers 10,000 search requests and 50,000 records a month, Grow includes 10,000 requests and 100,000 records and then bills $0.50 per extra 1,000 requests and $0.40 per extra 1,000 records, and Grow Plus charges $1.75 per extra 1,000 requests for its AI ranking features. The enterprise plan, with NeuralSearch, is a custom annual contract.

Every price below was read on Algolia's pricing page on October 19, 2026, in USD, along with its pricing FAQ and the replicas documentation. The dollar totals in the scenarios are our arithmetic on those printed rates; the traffic shapes behind them are assumptions we state for each one.

Toolradar data: among the 483 API tools on Toolradar, the software directory we run, Algolia ranks #46 (joint) for how often other tools list it as an alternative, and visitors compared it with Meilisearch more than with anything else in the last 30 days, as of October 2026 (Algolia on Toolradar). That cross-shopping is why this page prices Algolia on its own meters first and keeps the comparison with rivals to one short section.

Algolia plans at a glance

Prices as of Oct 2026. On Grow and Grow Plus, recommendation requests past the included 10,000 cost $0.60 per 1,000 and crawls past 10,000 cost $0.80 per 1,000. Both paid self-serve plans also include one free Guide.

What each Algolia plan includes

Free

Free is a real production tier for small projects, not a trial. It includes the core keyword search engine and 10 rules per index, and it needs no credit card. The limits are what push you off it: one application, 20 indices, a 1 GB index and 10 KB per record. A documentation site or a small catalog fits; anything with search-as-you-type traffic usually outgrows the request limit first.

Grow

Grow is the keyword-search plan for production apps. It doubles the record allowance of Free to 100,000, raises the index size limit to 100 GB, allows 50 indices and records that average 10 KB with a 100 KB maximum, and includes 30 days of analytics retention, data transformation and third-party connectors. You pay only for usage above the included amounts, so a quiet month can still cost nothing.

Grow Plus

Grow Plus keeps every Grow meter except the search rate, which is 3.5 times higher. In exchange you get AI Ranking, AI Synonyms, advanced personalization, query categorization, collections, 10,000 rules per index instead of 10, and 90 days of analytics. The question is whether those features move conversion enough to pay for a search line that grows 3.5 times faster than Grow's.

Enterprise plan

Algolia's enterprise plan is its full AI search tier: NeuralSearch, which combines semantic and keyword retrieval, plus AI Collections, Smart Groups, real-time personalization, 99.99% availability, SSO and an enhanced SLA. It has no public price and requires an annual contract. Volume discounts also come only with an annual contract, so a team at high volume on Grow should ask sales before the bill compounds.

How Algolia counts search requests and records

A search request is one exchange with the API, even if it queries several indices at once. That is good news for federated search: a query sent to three indices counts once, where older Algolia plans counted three operations. The catch is in the same FAQ: with autocomplete or search-as-you-type, every keystroke is a new request, so a user typing "running shoes" can generate a dozen requests for one completed search.

A record is one searchable object, and your bill uses the total across all indices. Records are billed on the highest count reached in the month, after Algolia ignores the three days with the most records, so a one-off bulk import does not set your bill on its own. Standard replicas, the copies you create to sort by price or date, are full copies and count as records. Virtual replicas are views of the primary index and add none, but the replicas documentation says they are not on every plan, so check the feature grid for yours.

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What Algolia costs for four real app sizes

Each scenario uses Grow unless noted, with the included 10,000 requests and 100,000 records subtracted before billing. Traffic shapes are our assumptions; rates are Algolia's.

The docs site, the kind a static site generator produces, stays under Free's record limit but not its request limit, so it lands on Grow: 30 billable blocks of 1,000 requests come to $15 a month.

The SaaS app has 30,000 completed searches a month, but with search-as-you-type and about six keystrokes per query that is 180,000 requests. On Grow that is $85 a month. Debouncing the input so each search sends about two requests cuts it to 60,000 requests and $25. The front-end setting moves the bill more than the plan choice does.

The store keeps 60,000 products but sorts by price low to high, price high to low and newest, using three standard replicas. That quadruples the records to 240,000, so 140 billable blocks at the record rate add $56 to $70 of search overage, for $126 on Grow. If your plan includes virtual replicas, the same sorts add no records and the bill drops to the $70 search line alone.

Grow Plus doubles or triples every row because only the request rate changes. For the store, the AI features cost $175 a month more than Grow at this volume.

Free vs Grow vs Grow Plus: when each one makes sense

• Stay on Free while you are under 10,000 requests and 50,000 records and can live with one application and a 1 GB index. Turning on autocomplete is usually what ends this.
• Move to Grow when you pass either limit or need more than 50,000 records. A small app on Grow often costs under $30 a month, and nothing is billed until usage passes the included amounts.
• Pick Grow Plus only when AI Ranking, personalization or more than 10 rules per index will measurably lift revenue. At 100,000 requests a month, Grow Plus costs $157.50 against $45 on Grow, so the AI layer has to earn about $112 a month.
• Talk to sales about the enterprise plan when you need NeuralSearch, SSO, an enhanced SLA or volume discounts. Its price is not published, so model the Grow bill first to know what a quote should beat.

Hidden costs and limits to check

• Keystrokes: every character typed in an autocomplete box is billed as a request. Debounce the input and set a minimum query length before launch.
• Sort replicas: each standard replica copies the whole index. Three sort orders on a 60,000-item catalog bill like 240,000 records.
• Recommendations and crawls: the Recommend API and the Crawler have their own meters, at $0.60 per 1,000 requests and $0.80 per 1,000 crawls after the included 10,000 each.
• Record size: Free caps records at 10 KB, and Grow expects an average of 10 KB. Large product descriptions or embedded HTML may need trimming before indexing.
• Enterprise commitment: AI features beyond Grow Plus come with an annual contract, which turns a monthly meter into a yearly commitment.

Algolia vs Meilisearch and Typesense on price

Algolia charges by request; its open-source rivals sell capacity. Meilisearch Cloud starts at $20 a month, and its estimator shows a usage-based base plan at $30 a month for 100,000 documents and 50,000 searches, read on Meilisearch's pricing page on October 19, 2026. At high request volume, capacity pricing usually wins; at low volume, Algolia's zero monthly fee usually does.

Our Algolia alternatives breakdown prices Meilisearch, Typesense and both Algolia plans at the same traffic. Teams weighing a self-hosted engine can compare servers in VPS hosting for developers, and semantic search on your own stack starts with the free vector databases list. If search sits inside a content site, the headless CMS comparison covers which CMSs ship search integrations, and the developer tools for startups list puts the search bill next to the rest of an early stack. The Toolradar API tools ranking covers the category beyond search, and Meilisearch on Toolradar and Typesense on Toolradar hold each rival's directory record.

Methodology

Plan limits, rates and contract terms were read on Algolia's pricing page and its pricing FAQ on October 19, 2026, and replica behavior on Algolia's documentation. Scenario totals multiply the printed overage rates by usage above each plan's included amounts. Traffic shapes, such as six keystrokes per query, are our assumptions and are labeled where used. We do not run Algolia in production, so nothing here is a measured latency or relevance result. Related cost pages on this site: object storage pricing compared and cloud free tiers compared.

FAQ

How much does Algolia cost per month?

Algolia's self-serve plans have no monthly fee. Grow includes 10,000 search requests and 100,000 records a month, then bills $0.50 per extra 1,000 requests and $0.40 per extra 1,000 records, so a small app often pays under $30 a month. Grow Plus uses the same meters with a higher request rate, and the enterprise plan is quoted on an annual contract. Prices as of October 2026.

Is Algolia free?

Yes, up to a point. The Free plan includes 10,000 search requests, 50,000 records, 5,000 recommendation requests and 5,000 crawls a month, with no credit card. It is limited to one application, 20 indices and a 1 GB index, and you upgrade to Grow when you pass those limits.

What is the difference between Algolia Grow and Grow Plus?

Both include the same allowances and the same record rate. Grow Plus adds AI Ranking, AI Synonyms, advanced personalization, query categorization, collections and 10,000 rules per index, and charges 3.5 times Grow's rate per extra 1,000 search requests. At 100,000 requests a month that is $157.50 against $45.

Does autocomplete increase Algolia costs?

Yes. Algolia's FAQ says search-as-you-type sends a new search request on every keystroke. In our example, 30,000 searches with about six keystrokes each become 180,000 requests and $85 a month on Grow. Debouncing to about two requests per search cuts that to $25.

Do Algolia replicas count as records?

Standard replicas do, because each one is a full copy of the primary index; three sort replicas on 60,000 products bill as 240,000 records. Virtual replicas are views and add no records, but they are not available on every plan, so check Algolia's feature grid for yours.

Does Algolia require an annual contract?

No for Grow and Grow Plus, which are billed monthly with no contract. The enterprise plan requires an annual contract, and volume discounts are only offered with one.

Cite this: Devshot, "Algolia Pricing 2026: Free, Grow and Grow Plus Costs", November 2026.

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