Algolia vs Meilisearch Pricing (2026)
How do these two stack up on price? Here's what each one costs, what you get, and where the value sits.
| Algolia | Meilisearch | |
|---|---|---|
| Starts at | Custom | $20/mo |
| Number of plans | 4 | 2 |
| Free plan | — | |
| Free trial | — | |
| Pricing model | usage-based | usage-based |
Build
- 10K search requests/month
- 50K records included
- 5K AI Recommendation requests/month
- 5K crawls/month
- 1 Generative Experience Guide included
Grow
- Keyword Search + Browse
- Query suggestions
- Rules: 10/index
- Manual synonyms
- Data transformation
- 30 days analytics retention
- Third party integrations + connectors
- US, UK, EU hosting locations
Grow Plus
- Rules: 10,000/index
- AI Synonyms
- AI Ranking
- Advanced Personalization
- Query Categorization
- Collections
- 90 days analytics retention
Elevate
- NeuralSearch
- AI Collections
- Smart Groups
- Real-time personalization
- 99.99% availability
- Access to SSO and enhanced SLA
- Access to enterprise-level Support plans
- Professional services available
Cloud
- 14-day free trial, no credit card required
- Usage-based or resource-based billing
- Fully managed Cloud infrastructure
- Scale seamlessly from prototype to production
- Email support included
Enterprise
- Custom infra and dedicated resources
- Up to 99.999% uptime SLA
- Dedicated Slack support channel
- SSO SAML and SOC 2 compliance
- Enterprise-grade compliance
- Analytics, Merchandizing, Personalisation, Chat
Algolia vs Meilisearch FAQ
- Which one is cheaper?
- One or both use custom pricing, so it depends on your specific needs.
- Can I use either one for free?
- Algolia has a free plan. Meilisearch doesn't — though they do offer a free trial.
- How do they charge?
- Both use a usage-based model, so the comparison is straightforward — it comes down to features and limits at each price point.
- Which one is a better deal?
- Depends on what you need. Algolia: Algolia sits at the premium end of the search-as-a-service market — they're not trying to win on price against open-source alternatives like Meilisearch or Typesense. The custom pricing across three paid tiers signals they're targeting mid-market and enterprise teams where search is a core product feature, not an afterthought. Meilisearch: They're positioned as the developer-friendly, open-source-backed alternative to Algolia — meaningfully cheaper at the low end, with a self-hostable option that gives budget-conscious teams an escape valve. They're not chasing Elasticsearch's enterprise complexity; they're going after teams who want fast, clean search without the Algolia sticker shock.
Keep tabs on both.
We'll monitor pricing changes for Algolia and Meilisearch and let you know when something moves.